Driving home from work today, I passed churches with lit stained glass windows and apartments with lights strung across tiny balconies and I knew I would fit in any of those scenarios. I could join that church or move into that apartment, try on that cloak and fit in. In that way we are all the same. The lifestyles we don’t choose or discard, are forever waiting, a suit of clothes we choose not to select from the closet. We are all different, but we are all the same.
As I type this, miles away in New Zealand, Daryl is sleeping. I have my sound turned up and his snoring, even and repetitive, brings me a certain comfort. With a 21 hour time difference between us, we are within the three hours where we actually are on the same day. In three short hours he will head into his Christmas Eve, while I have just touched into the day he is leaving. It is hard not to picture us always being that far apart, always being just beyond each other’s reach. Yet we both trust we will touch each other, we will be together.
There is something within us as human beings where, at our best, absolutely isolated and alone, we know each other. We touch each other with empathic senses and know. We are the same. But at our worst, we are in a crowd and know our isolation, our separateness from each other.
On my television, Showtime’s Dexter dumps a body into Biscayne Bay and looks up at the moon. Having silenced his dark passenger for the moment, he wonders if his wife Rita is watching that same moon. It is a romantic notion that has always appealed to me as well. The idea that someone, on my side, part of my team, who loves me, is out there somewhere. The idea, even in the absence of proof, we could simultaneously be united in the same thought or experience. It has always been an indicator of the wrongness of my current circumstance. I’ve never actively looked for anyone, but I have passively waited to be found.
I have my computer sound turned up. Neither Peabody nor myself make a sound, so Daryl’s snore is the only thing peppering the room, as if he were here in person. I wonder if I shut my eyes, could I trick myself into believing it. But no one hugs and kisses a pillow and truly mistakes it for another person. I think of writers and serial killers and the moon. A television writer put my thoughts as words in the mouth of his character. Unity. Connection. Something larger than just me. A part of me knows it is a single voice united out of loneliness. We all long to be found.
But does that truth negate the possibility?
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Christmas. Driving home from my father’s, after an awkward day where he pretends to be himself, but isn’t quite, I spot a flock of starlings twisting over the vineyards just out of Calistoga. It is a miracle I have wanted to witness since the moment I was aware such a thing was possible. Starlings fly in a mass of swirling, morphing shapes, more like a smoke cloud than a congregation of creatures. We pull over, I get out of the car and I experience at least five minutes of exquisite sound and beauty that is almost indescribable. I thought I touched the record sensor squarely and soundly enough to start the iPad recording, but I find out, as I notice the starlings beginning to drift further and further from me, I didn’t. Instead I record the moments in between the moments I actually wanted and record several yards of asphalt road. The day has been awkward, sad, a sad chick flick’s movie of the week rather than the delightful children’s story that would be the ideal. The starlings have been the only moment full of surprise and joy.
A gift forever locked in my head, not on digital or analog medium.
Distantly I think of my photography teacher telling me “fortune favors the prepared mind.” Perhaps my mind just wasn’t prepared enough? One of the most beautiful moments of my life and yet I score near complete FAIL on recording a picture. But somehow I can’t be upset. It was a moment so pure and so beautiful, if there were a moment to convince me of the existence of a God, it would one such as this. Not only that, but in a reality where God = Santa, it is a moment I have asked for many, many times.
I flash on an fleeting awareness that a lot of things I have asked for many, many times are starting to happen. The starlings, Daryl and so many things about him, his appearance in my life, how perfectly he fits aspects of my heart I’m not even aware are there until Daryl touches them and my soul tingles with response, even the $200 cash my father gave me for Christmas, sneakily, awkwardly, in denial of what he was doing right up to the moment he thrust the hundred dollar bills into my hand. Even those, could seem to respond to a recent thought I had regarding how few jobs or opportunities I have to receive cash.
Temporarily the joke “be careful what you wish for” skips through my mind until one of the most positive thoughts I have ever had takes residence. Ask and you will receive, if those are the rules now, why am I limiting myself? Fairly early in talking with Daryl he told me he always got what he wanted. When I questioned him about it, he chalked it up to age and experience, but now I wonder. For someone who doesn’t believe in God, I have the most spiritual moment I have ever had, express my gratitude for the good things that have come my way, and know unlimited wonderful things are possible in my future.
I read back again, over the words I wrote three days ago. I think of that unified flock of people, wanting, longing to be found. I know suddenly with absolute certainty the infinite possibilities. We can be seen. We can be found. Every gift that will make us whole, that is ours alone, pieces that fit our individual empty spaces, exist and are ours for the finding. It is simply that we do not believe. We get caught up in God and Santa rationalizations or the fears and expectations of our parents and the world slowly beats the confidence out of us. As a baby or child, we see the world’s delights and know them. No innocent child’s questioning “Why is the sky blue?” brought about the sorrows of the world. Those came from questions of inadequacy, lack and uncertainty taught by those who have already been taught their lessons. A seemingly unending chain of people hobbled by the fears of other people. I know I have spent years trapped by fear. I have emerged so recently, I know they still stain the bottoms of my feet and threaten to suck me back into their depths. Distantly I can remember my childhood enthusiasm and confidence. I wonder when I learned to determine who I am and my worth by looking outside of me?
I am a special and unique individual, perfect in my imperfections. I love and have love. As long as I believe, my future rolls out like a plush red carpet in front of me, simply waiting to be lived like a really good book.
Rationalizations, explanations and justifications flick at my mind like tendrils of fire. I turn from them. I need no gods, false or otherwise, to entitle me to all the good things that can come my way. They are mine for no other reason than they were mine in the first place.
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