Sun rays through the clouds
hit the ocean at an angle
creating an island of light
upon the vast horizon.
Ocean waves crash
and bring an icy breeze ashore
guiding the seagulls
and chilling me to the bone.
A stray dog waits in the sand
for a passerby to notice
and throw him a bone
before the night falls.
And I,
a most unnatural occurrence
perched here on a ledge,
watch as the world unfolds.
[8.20.07]
An over-saturated photo
depicts the definition
of my physical existence.
Although my face was rounder then.
Stamps
signify my passage
into foreign territories.
Visas
indicate a longer,
more deliberate stay.
Sometimes superfluous.
Sometimes absent altogether.
But it’s all symbolic anyway.
Crossing borders
through cities
of countries
and neighbors.
This little booklet is my proof,
my passport
to the world.
The pages of my life story.
As such,
it offends my orderly olfaction
when they carelessly stamp
out of sequence.
But I keep moving.
I keep moving because
if I stop
I start thinking.
Wondering.
How can lands belong to people?
How can people belong to lands?
And how come I don’t have
a passport to
my soul?
That moment was beautiful.
Take me back there.
Let me live in it forever.
Let me find sustenance in the sunshine
and the sand beneath my feet.
Put that moment on repeat
and let it comprise
an entire lifetime
that I may call my own.
What I like most about traveling is experiencing peacefulness and beauty in nature.
Having lived most of my life in the busy, artificially sprawling metropolis of Chicago, I feel like my soul has been lacking in the divinity that is Mother Nature. When you are standing at the Sun Gate looking down at Macchu Pichu or simply lying on the beach absorbing the sound of the waves crashing on the shore, there is a sense of connectedness to the Earth that engulfs you. For the first time, you can begin to appreciate the grandiosity that is our planet, our existence. And once you realize that life is so much more than meeting deadlines and accumulating material possessions, your soul is forever changed. Maybe you have read books that talk about this. Maybe you even know someone who traveled and came back a changed person. But you can never truly understand until you have breathed the air for yourself. And oh, what a refreshing breath it is.
How, then, are we supposed to return to “normalcy”? How, after touching the Earth at its core, can we be expected to return to a world where all we touch are keyboards and car keys? Some might lump this experience in with what they call “reverse culture shock.” I am telling you that it is much more. It is not even about cultures or languages or customs. Human beings are predictable enough. But the Earth—it silently holds all the history of this planet in its oceans and shores. Yet it does not speak in words. Only in spirit. And so when you are alone in nature, if your ears are so attuned, you can finally begin to hear the story that the land has to tell.
This is the story that truly brings me peace. Words are an imperfect creation of man which will never suffice to describe human experience. But the story of the Earth, the one that prickles your arm hairs and tightens in your chest, that is the ultimate guide to serenity.
Fresh starts
clean up messy endings
and fumigate
infested corners of the mind.
Not what you bargained for?
No worries.
Just leave it all behind.
Don’t pack a single bag.
The truth is
you don’t own
a single thing.
Just keep your wits about you
and you can face anything.
You are here.
At this bus stop
on this street
in this city
within the borders of a state
that belongs to a great nation
on a particular land mass
floating above the waters of this planet.
A planet that hangs precariously
in the still space of a galaxy
moving recklessly through a giant universe
beyond which you could not even begin to imagine.
But as your mind wanders
and zooms in
then pans out
and tries to picture life
at every possible angle,
do not lose sight of the simplest of truthes:
YOU
ARE
HERE.
Sometimes I think about all the time I’ve wasted
sleeping
daydreaming
moping
avoiding
LIFE.
And I realize that I’m not really living at all.
And I realize that my problems still follow me
no matter where I go.
Arizona.
Costa Rica.
Chile.
REM.
After days
or weeks
or months
or years
of spinning around in circles kicking up dust,
eventually I get tired and I have to stop.
Then the air clears
and I’m left standing in front of the same damn mirror
with the same sad girl staring back at me.
But each time she looks a little bit older
a little wiser
a little stronger
a little more beautiful.
Now if only I could stop focusing on the scars
across my face
across my hands
across my heart,
then maybe I could really move forward
and embrace this beautiful
LIFE
I was given.
You get to see my life
one picture at a time.
Where have I been?
What have I done?
How did I capture the moment?
But what’s in between
the picture and the person?
How many moments
passed by without a flash?
I try my best
to chronicle my life through this lens.
But at some point
you have to put down the camera
and live.
So what do you know of me, really?
You see the moments when
I was willing to stop living for an instant
and let you in.
But the rest is mine.
Only mine.
Only I know where I’ve been.
It’s happening.
The moments are becoming memories.
And as I look back,
they keep drifting farther away
from my view.
There’s nothing I can do.
Even as I stand still
the universe keeps marching
through this endless dimension
that we call time.
All I can do is watch in horror
as I gravitate away from the moments
I held so dearly, so tightly
to my heart.
I stayed with them
to the limits of space and time.
But they weren’t allowed
to cross that plane.
They are a part of time.
I am just an object moving through it.
And what was once a moment,
so palpable and true,
is now just a memory in my soul’s
rear-view.
[Calle Paraguay: Antofagasta, Chile] Photo by SocrateSoul © 2007
It seems like just yesterday
I was standing there
at the top of that hill
with the mountains at my back
and the ocean on my horizon.
The air was dusty
and pregnant with a small town’s stillness.
When I got there
I was out of my element.
Foreign words.
Foreign sights.
Foreign feelings.
But at some point it became my home.
Down the hill every morning.
Up the hill every breezy afternoon.
I came to know the man at the corner store,
the soccer player across the street,
the gang of stray dogs who ran my block.
And they came to know me as well.
“Hola, Miss!”
I was enthusiastically greeted
and eyes followed me every place I went.
Curious strangers.
Sympathetic neighbors.
Affectionate teenage pupils.
I was warmed from the inside out
as I sipped my tea
and conversed with my host-family
of all the day’s happenings.
What a strange and wonderful feeling
to be accepted by this other world.
I knew it would hurt to say goodbye.
That evening
I stood there again at the top of the hill
saying my farewell.
This time they were all around me,
the mountains
the ocean
the streets
the school.
They seemed to swarm me,
begging me not to go,
and I felt my heart ripping from my chest
as the bus drove off into the night.
Yes, a part of me will always be there.
Maybe even the best part of me.
For where I’m standing now,
with sky-scrapers at my back
and no view of the horizon,
it is now, more than ever,
that I am completely
out of my element.
[City Skyline: Chicago, IL U.S.A.] Photo by Phil Velasquez © Chicago Tribune
