About A Boy

He sat there like a tethered hummingbird, perched silently on the shoulder of imagination, struggling to sing its lovely song. The soothing lullabies he desired to loudly expel into the recesses of the world were muted by the lack of light and air – but not of audience. He was weighted, bound by the shackles of earthly responsibilities, and a societal pressure to not only consume the bread and butter, but to be consumed by all of the temporary fulfillments it promised to deliver.

He sought spiritual contentment, if only by the means of intellectual dialogue, penned contemplations that guaranteed a peacefully orgasmic release of the pressure and stress that came with earthly riches – material possessions he knew he could do without.

The glass which sat on the sill of his window fell abruptly onto the ground. That damn cat he nurtured playfully - toyed with the concept of gravity – and with one swing of his paw, a majestic array of glass reflected a dozen images of himself and the world around him. With a loud thud and gasp of air, he suddenly felt free. The delightful patterns of a shattered glass reflected the rising sun, and like geneses, the darkness slowly faded, and there were no longer shades of gray to confuse his colorful spirit. Like geneses, there was light. Like geneses, there was a new becoming.

The world was his. He knew it. All things lovely, all things kind, and all things unknown would be his catalyst. He sat there, perched silently on the shoulder of imagination… and began to write again.

If You Could Relive One Hour of Your Past

VERSION 1

Message: What time are you going to be there?
Reply: I’m here now.

Less than 10 minutes later, she saw him walk in. She noticed immediately that he had changed out of the shirt and jeans of earlier that evening, and into the gray blazer she often preferred him in. “Something more appropriate for the night,” she thought. He looked amazing. He held up his hand to signal “one minute” into her direction, as he was obligated to pause and converse with some acquaintances who had stopped him on the way in.

She wasn’t very fond of those acquaintances. Actually, she wasn’t very fond of one woman in particular, who had been vying for his attention during the past few days. She saw him pointing in her direction and was immediately perplexed, “Why are they all looking over here?” she mumbled under her breath. Her friends had been sitting beside her, trying to decipher body language and lip movement. And in an attempt to stop herself from watching him.. staring at him.. she got up gracefully and walked over to the bar.

“One Guinness please.”

“Hey Ro, what are you getting?” It was him.

He stood so close to her that she could feel her hair rise, as each individual goose bump began to form on her arm. He mimicked her posture as he folded his hands together and placed his elbows firmly onto the bar. So close that their shoulders touched, and by turning her head slightly to the right, their eyes tunnel visioned at point blank range.

“A Guinness,” she said with a smile.

As he told her how hungry he was, the bartender handed her a pint ~ to which she mentally chanted “Do not spill do not spill,” over and over again in her head.

"I'll see you back at the table," she whispered, as she took her hand and made a conscious maneuver to brush it down his arm. She could tell by his smile, that he had been charmed.

Her friends were eager for her return, as they sat dying to tell her that the woman at the other table stormed out of the bar after watching him stand beside her. Her friends learned that the reason for the “pointing” and “looking” that took place just ten minutes before, was because he was telling the woman, “I’m having dinner at that table with her tonight.”

He returned.

He took off his blazer… and she couldn’t help but stare at his arms, hands, face. “You looked like a lovesick puppy,” her friend told her later that night, “you both just kept staring into one another’s eyes, and the rest of us wanted to leave.”

She had to go now.

“I’ll call you when I’m done here,” he said with a look of anxiety on his face. He had to stay. He had to entertain new friends that just walked in. He did not want to.

“Okay,” she said, as she turned to walk away. She turned to catch one last glance at him and was shocked to find him already looking into her direction. “Nice,” she softly whispered, “nice.”

Later that night: She checked her phone… one missed call?

“I wish I could’ve gone with you tonight,” she listened as she stood outside the double doors of her place. She was biting her bottom lip, but her mind was doing cartwheels.

Lola

I tried my very best to tip-toe down the long hallway in an effort to minimize the amount of noise projected by the clash of tile flooring and my high-heeled sling backs. It was only 4:00pm but I knew that by then, she’d already be in bed. It smelled like old people. I hated that smell. Not because it smelled bad, per say, but because it reminded me that Lola was old.

She had been “old” all of my life; old but strong. It wasn’t until her mind was claimed by Alzheimer’s disease when her body began to slowly shut down. I embrace fond memories of her walking up a one mile hill to drop off and pick up my brother and I from elementary school ~ umbrella and water bottle in hand. I remember the rice crispy treats that she used to make every so often, and the home-made ice pops from kool-aid mixes and orange juice awaiting my arrival after school.

Lying in her bed, I caressed her forehead and kissed her over and over again. I reminded her who I was, what my name was, and how my father was her son, Leo. I told her about my new job and how I’m all grown up now ~ and that it was all because of her help during my childhood. I thanked her. Instead of replying “You’re welcome,” she would shout “Thank you!” right back to me. I told her I loved her and told her to rest her eyes so that her headache would go away. “I love you too,” came leaping off of her tongue until she finally rested her head down to rest. Then I left so that she could sleep. Like countless times before, I couldn’t help but to succumb to tears when walking out of her room.

It’s painful to see the cycle of life taking its toll on my Lola… because I have so much love for her ~ even if I fail to visit her often, the love is there.

I can almost guarantee that she won’t remember I went to visit her, or that I’ve been there many times before. But if I could make her happy for the few moments I get to spend with her during my visits, that time I spend beside her is worth every second. I’ll admit, however, that my visits are mostly selfish. I do it mostly for me… so that I can spend as much time with her as possible. I want to tell her that I love her, and thank her over and over and over for being such a driving force in my life… before God decides it’s time to make room for another blessed Angel.

Some Things

RIP my Averatec laptop which wasn't even 2 years old. You saw the world with me...

There's a scene in the movie Closer where Jude Law tells Natalie Portman of his love affair with Julia Roberts. As Natalie begins to leave the flat in which they shared, he desperately tries to stop her and asks, "what about your things?" She replies...

"I don't need things"

How bold. How profound that statement is.

I have a HUGE tupperware bin in the garage, safeguarding all of the tangible, sentimental goods I have accumulated during my mere twenty two years on earth (or at least the first 18). I still have the clacker (??) toy that Michael Wiley gave me in the fourth grade. Remember those clacker toys ~ cheap little toys ~ where you spun it round and round in one hand letting one ball hit the other ball over and over in the most perpetual of motions? The oranges and greens of that toy scream joyous of times at the tender age of nine. Where is Michael Wiley now? I hope he's had a good life. The clay figurine I made in Ms. Vaughn's 7th grade English class also sits in that bin ~ and I DO mean sit because I couldn't get the man-mold to stand upright, so I had to bend his legs just before the clay dried. Almost every single handwritten letter ever given to me too lies in that bin ~ with the M&M wrappers I collected in the 10th grade, dried rose petals my brother once placed in my room (no, they weren't dry then!), and even the momentos given to me by my first real love. This bin basically encapsulates who I was... am.

So they may be just "THINGS"... but they're my things. And with all of the goodbyes I will be forced to experience in life, it feels so soothing to know that there are just some things I will never have to let go of.

Picture

Reality, like the lurking serpent, had bitten back hard.

She sat there with a smug look on her face, trying to conceal the cold and epistemological truth that these pictures had taken all of her crimson-tinted illusions and thrown them away like ashes in the wind.

Funny how she discovers a final candid snapshot. One she herself had never seen before until now. Scanning the crowd in the photo, she saw herself, and the smile ~ so genuine, pure, impromptu ~ perched, not on her face, but his. And oh how every delicious emotion began to come back to her. He looked happy. She looked happy.

But she knew, that this photo, while true to time, was very outdated. She knew it was time to turn the page. That regardless of the passion backed by each savory bite, to continue to lust for him was tantamount to a delicious morsel of forbidden fruit.

And so, to rebel from committing a sin served only to betray herself, she began to dilute her thoughts with other things: career, material things. This is the start, she thought, of letting him go.

Old Friends

She was tempted to saturate her thoughts with pointless truisms and clichés lest she become unable to justify the underlying current and motif behind her current mood. A mood seeming all too consubstantial with the gray clouds lingering outside her bedroom window. As a result of back/forth messaging and e-mails, she took a moment to browse through the perused pages of her outdated photo albums, and immediately felt a profound sense of loss while staring at the faces of these people who, at one point, she thought she could never live without.

Looking out into the distance, she softly whispered, “Where had our friendship gone? It simply couldn’t have evaporated into insignificance, could it?”

These faces were that of friends with whom she enveloped a full-on drowning commitment. Faces that were there in moments where she chose to abandon rationale and live strictly on her adolescent 14-15-16-17 year old impulse. Faces that smiled at her when she fell unsteady and played on a deadly edge of heightened emotion. Her best friends saw all of her faces; all of her idiosyncrasies, insecurities, daydreams, and inconsistencies.

Richard, Justin, IJ, Diana, Araceli, Wanda (Big Girl): Even if today we roam streets with new best friends, there will always be space for all of you in my heart. So please mind that while our friendships often dwell in limbo for far too long before we all find time in our schedules to reunite, real friendships outlive all clocks. We were closest when material things meant little to us. We were just glad to be alive, healthy, and popular.

Moved

I am moved by many things. At the risk of sounding corny (and psychotic), I find it almost soothing to admit that I often catch myself in tears. Not the kind of cry that leaves you breathless and dehydrated, but the cry that induces blurry vision for a few seconds ~ before you tilt your head back and blink away any proof of being moved. Sometimes I am moved in a good way, but not always.

Helen once told me how strong she thought I was. How I am able to put into words exactly how I feel (and sometimes how she feels), accept it, and move on. Such strength has come with growth. With maturation, I have allowed myself to shed insecurities inherited from a youthful version of myself. I have imbibed a loving gaze upon the scars of my mistakes, and have allowed myself to turn the page. I am always eager to give myself peace of mind lest I be one to hurt.

But I cannot always be so strong (though I dared not remind her of this, and all of the times she has seen me in tears, face buried in pillow, body covered by sheets). Sometimes I cannot put into words what I feel, sometimes I am speechless, and sometimes I refuse to accept what is real. I am fragile, impatient, stubborn, and vulnerable (not only to my own passing whims, but those of others as well), characteristics inherent to my own individual composition.

And during these moments when I do not consider myself to be as strong as I can be, I am moved. My body physically refuses to hold back, and becomes willing to divulge the blended emotions that run through my mind in the form of translucent liquid ~ seeping through the corners of my eyes. You’d never know it. I hide it well.