Don’t We All

There was a time when I felt like I understood myself, that I was sure of what I had to do in life.  When my worries were eased, my thoughts light-hearted.

In this world of 4.5 billion people, I always wonder if others strive to understand, too.  Even now, I find myself wandering, still.  Searching for meaning, trying to find the Truth.  And sometimes, it’s a daily struggle that I consciously choose to numb out through both my action or inaction.

Sometimes I wonder what exactly I’m searching for.  No…  It’s this clarity of soul.  It’s this ubiquity of desire.  It’s this essence of thought.  Beyond the rag-tag rabble of my daily life, that sometimes makes me forget what I’m looking for, in the quiet moments, I remember exactly.

Thing is, it feels so unbelievably hard to even connect with someone nowadays.  People live their lives, disembodied from their true selves, just drifting around in the uncaring void of consciousness.  It’s excruciating, but somehow we still stay alive, even if just on life-support.

But why…?

It’s like eating fine Mediterranean cuisine without tasting the crisp coarseness of the salt, the tangy olives, or the tart sun-dried tomatoes.  Like kissing a lover deeply, without smelling the subtle hint of her light perfume or the way her dress flows around her slender legs.  Or trying to understand someone, without first, listening.

Maybe I’m just the kind of guy who either puts it all in, or nothing at all.  Maybe that’s the wrong way to do it.  Maybe it’s right.  I don’t know myself.  All I can share is what’s my own, what I’ve seen, touched, smelt, tasted, experienced with my own senses.

And tomorrow’s always another day.  I still swear to myself that it gets better.

But for tonight, I still wander, not out of want, but out of necessity.

Within These Memories

And within these memories, you still inhabit so many of my dreams.  I suppose life has pushed us this way and that way, forced to take parallel, yet different paths.  It’s this intense connection that we probably will always have, for better or for worse, but still there is no congruency.  We’re consistently inconsistent, and I guess that was always our greatest pull towards each other.

You were so captivating.  I remember the first time we met; I was 15 and you were 14.  Already beautiful, but I was chasing other girls and gave you the cold shoulder.  But in the back of my mind I always thought about you.  Maybe I thought you were out of my league and I didn’t pursue you.  Funny how things turned out.

You were such a great dancer.  And then the first time we danced.  I’m not the greatest dancer, but I’m rather okay in my own right.  Your sisters pressured you to dance with me.  We both had that “whatever” attitude towards the other sex that for some reason attracts people, anyway.  And damn, were you a great dancer.  That night, we danced for hours, hiding away from the world at large.  We were in our own world, and it was nice.

You were so exquisite.  You always had this charm about you that drove me crazy.  Sensual, crazy sexy, yet so damn classy.  You were that girl that no man could have, and when I swept you off your feet, I really valued every moment.  The flowing dresses, that accentuated your lithe curves.  The trends that you set, one of the first girls to start the whole retro-scene again.  How your short bob fell around your neckline.

You understood my soul.  The quiet nights by the harbor still burn in my memories.  You understood my appreciation for the simple moments.  And in return, I always encouraged you to meet your goals.  I guess I’m a facilitator.  Beyond my outside outrageousness, I’m content with being the secret protector, nurturing possibility with quiet hope.

I don’t think anyone expected this.  Too bad no one will ever know, we two included.

So it’s a shame.

Nearly a year later, it’s still a shame.

On Goodbyes

The stars trace an inexplicable web across the night sky, like the milky dew drops resting on intricately spun silk early in the morning.  M. lays with her back to the bed of grass, and her chest heaves, taking in the brisk air.  My eyes are closed, absorbing the variable sounds and smells around me, slowly sighing one of those slightly happy sighs that almost whistle through my teeth.

She props herself up on one elbow, her hair cascading down, flowing like the river, in the valley between her breath.  Her face seems to shine with the intensity of Suns, the dimples bracketing her smile, her brows relaxed in thought.  My fingers lace into her hair, behind her ears, and I could feel the warmth radiating from her body into the cold night.

It’s this green meadow up high in the Hayward hills, across from CSU East Bay that we used to come out to, where you could see from San Francisco to Oakland, from bridge to bridge.  Here, the heavens seemed just that bit closer to our outstretched hands that reach out in earnest yearning.

I slowly roll the butt of my Dunhill between my fingertips, the smoke swirling upward like an opium-induced dream.  Within the thick clouds, the future seems to be well-defined, ethereal as it may seem.  Here, it was just us, and the worries of that time period were far away.  And I wondered, if the troubles made things worth it to work for.  It’s those split second decisions that really define our character, and who we are.

The moon wanes as the night creeps onward, as we too, waned.  Sometimes it gets past a certain point where even the light gets sucked into a black hole.  The last goodbyes are always the most bittersweet.

Beauty

I think back on my years.  To be completely honest, I’m not physically too old, but mentally I feel the strain of the years, forced to become old before my time.

Since my childhood in the 1980′s, I’ve traveled much, seen much, experienced even more at each momentary stop along my life.  The sands of time keep sifting through the hourglass, grain by grain, but to me it feels more like a single fluid strand, as oxymoronic as that may seem.  I see my life experience as a continual connected string of events, memories, occasions for laughter, moments for sadness, all coalescing together, unified despite all their imperfections.

And this world, even with all its flaws, is really a beautiful place.  Even though I’ve seen insurmountable happiness, cherished a love that was irreplaceable, and predicted my own downfalls, I still feel optimistic for the tomorrow.  The world keeps spinning, and each revolution seems to sling me higher into orbit, and it’ll be soon that I can escape this gravity.

I can almost taste the sweet elixir of bliss.  And though it feels that each time I get closer it pulls away from me like the sultry tease of the the burlesque dancer with her beads swaying, I know I’m near.  I see it like through the eyes of a child, wide and filled with wonder, sitting at the edge of my seat anticipating the next moment to come.  It’s things like this that force me to live.

It’s almost like standing on the pure white sands of Oʻahu, before plunging down into the warm amethyst waters of the reef.  Like gazing down from a 747 above the stratosphere on the thick hills of Andalusia, splashed deep with the vermilion and Indian yellow of the Fall.  How the long streamers sway-sway in the breeze around the streets of Rio, as the happy shouts and laughter fill every possible crevice during Carnival.  Two people distant in life but close in possibility, tracing fingertips across the Sierra night sky, each star along the way brightening as the dots connect together while the musky freshness of pine envelopes.  Or the hauntingly sweet tones of a Montagnard shaman’s song, the wind rustling through the bamboos joining him in solemn unity high in the mountains of Ratanakiri.

I believe in love.  Maybe not how the regular societal view sees it, but as a connection between life forces that surround us.  Every and each creature, even the inanimate objects such as the trees or the wind contributing to the greater whole.  I believe in love, for the sake of love itself.  The intensity of its energy that flows within us, the belief that tomorrow holds endless possibility.  How we build paths, though imperfect and broken, are still bridges toward eventual destiny.

And despite all my apparent cynicism, somewhere underneath it all I’m optimistic.  And still, the years wander on like a meandering stream, carving out its own path, leading towards the ocean.

Inconsistencies

The ice in my glass of coffee melts slowly, watering down the bitterness.  I take another sip, letting the smooth elixir run over my taste buds before it dissipates.  My forehead is scrunched up in thought; there are just so many things on my mind tonight.  Things that are beyond my control, things that I cannot explain.

After last weekend, the surety that I slowly built up immolated itself on its own pyre, leaving only the bleached skeletons of the past behind.  Once again, I push myself towards my career.  My life, and my escape.  It feels strange sometimes being so young but handling multi-million dollar projects.  There is a team meeting tomorrow morning that can decisively make or break the next year of my life.  It’s funny how I can handle the stress of the career with relative ease, but my personal life with its swirling emotions that haunt my nights, I’m not even sure of when to begin.

It’s not that I don’t try.  I think I tend to approach my personal life with great caution, but optimism and wonder.  There’s this thing about the chase that invigorates me.  It breaks down the mundane days with spontaneous and new excitement.  I want these things; the magic ending, the defying the odds to obtain the impossible prize, running the system and winning.  But in the end, I just find myself being so very tired.

June 16th.  I turn 26.  And honestly, for the last 12 years, there seemed to follow me some unexplainable spectre that snatched away my hopes at the last minute.  I always thought that by my mid-20′s, I’d be in some sort of meaningful relationship and well on my way to marriage and settling.  I guess, if the last one worked out, I would still be thinking this way.  It’s these small things that cause me to become more and more jaded.

I had a talk with an older friend, and she told me that if two people didn’t live in constant fear of losing each other, nothing meaningful can ever come out of it.  But I don’t really want to live my life like that.  I guess I’m a settler, but I still refuse to settle just for anybody.  I just want a simple life, yet I live a crazy one.  I want a normal girl, but I continue to search for excitement subconsciously.  I’m such the definition of a hypocrite.

I think back on what happened on Sunday.  How for a day, things seemed simple again.  I yearn for that.  But I also know in my heart that it was a inconsistent solution for our underlying problems.

I dive myself into career again.  I continue to be the fast talking young businessman.  Quick and straight to the point, and people respect me for that.  But on my off-days and nights, I’m the proud wanderer.  The young man who is musing slightly at the club or bar, isolating the noise from the crowd and analyzing its meaning.  The moment sweeps me off my feet and carries me along in the wind, and I really do enjoy it.

But I think, though, that on my 26th year I had better double down on figuring myself out.  Maybe toning down the intensity on which I attack situations.  Because I should think that I’d like to know myself first before I attempt to share it with someone again.