in progress

It was a dark, winter night. The cold air felt like a contradiction to life, every breath freezing the lungs, suffocating the life out of me. No one should be alive in this kind of weather. The frozen space around me left an eerie stillness in its void. The stillness put me on edge, something was wrong, everything was wrong. Any second it seemed the earth would crumble from below my feet sending me tumbling into the depths of who knows what. Or a bolt of lightning would strike me down on the command of someone far above. My anxiousness continued to build until I broke into a full out run. This strange place, this town, these people, the air and darkness, it was all too much to handle anymore. A person can go crazy in this kind of environment. I didn’t want to go home to that tiny, rundown apartment. I needed to escape.

I had been living in a small town in Iowa for going on seven years. How I managed to last this long, is still a mystery to me. I came here as a result of a FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) request after a tornado in rural Iowa devastated many houses and businesses. Not many people want to volunteer to pick up and leave to come to a place like this, a Midwest wasteland. That’s all it is.

“I’ve got to get the hell out of here... for my own sanity,” I thought mumbling to myself through huffs and puffs of exasperated wheezing. I’m not in the greatest of shape, so the running was wearing on me, but it provided a release of energy and emotion that I desperately yearned for. I ran until I thought I was going to collapse, all the way to the bus station. Empty. Dead. Just like everything and everyone else here. I purchased my ticket to the coast, North Carolina I decided, what the heck. They always say that North Carolina is the place for calming oneself. I needed to recover from the emotional trauma I had suffered far too long. These past seven years seemed an eternity. I wanted to centralize, write, read and focus on myself for a while.

It’s best to not feel trapped by your situation, I thought in an attempt to justify and reassure myself. You can always leave and take care of bills, housing and a job a little later. I’ve learned from experience. With phones and internet readily available here in the United States, many arrangements can be made that couldn’t have been before. Other people don’t seem to realize this, I’ve found. Maybe they just prefer to stick with familiarity, which is true of many. We have a lot of freedom and maneuverability these days, which is good for me because I’ve always been a roamer.

The bus finally arrived and as I climbed aboard I experienced a mixture of extreme stimulation and exhaustion; wired with the strange ecstatic passion for change and exhausted from the energy I had lost amidst my excitement, anxiousness and running. I was really leaving. I was finally escaping this depressing, desolated, dilapidated town.

The original project which had brought me here, wasn’t what kept me here, although I suppose it was the same personality trait that inspired me to continue my stay- my compassion and empathy. Rebuilding the homes and buildings that had been destroyed in the tornado was a half-hearted community effort. I’d never seen tornado damage this bad, but I’d also never seen people this apathetic about life. It seemed like many of these people had no reason to live.

Many families moved into temporary trailer parks. A large building on the outskirts of town had been converted into a temporary living unit for desperate families. A little space was all anyone could ask for. Some people were literally living in tents on the side of the road. Conditions were bad and the rebuilding took more time than anticipated. We worked on the project for a solid year without finishing the repair of half the town. As I worked, I became more engrossed in the town, the people and their stories. I met children and families and developed close bonds with some of the townsfolk who were particularly receptive to my help and compassion.

Time familiarized me intimately with the needs of the town; education, health care, opportunities and activities for teens, sex education, to name a few. These issues are common across the country, in this type of small, rural, farm town. I had never experienced them first hand because I’ve always lived in the city, which contains a whole different set of issues and struggles. And even where the problems are the same, they take a different form in these polar opposite environments.

Becoming more bonded to the community opened up a slew of possibilities for me, since there were so many areas I saw needing help. I’ve always had a way with teens and connecting one on one, so I took up the position of activity coordinator/counselor at one of the schools left mostly intact after the tornado.

The school housed grades K-12 making the job a hefty load. On the plus side, it allowed me to fully acquaint myself with various families raising children at different age categories. While this allowed me to gain a more refined understanding of some individuals’ positions, it added to the emotional pain that results from getting close to families in bad situations. I met children who suffered abuse in every form and color, children of violent alcoholics or meth-heads, jobless, homeless, hungry families, sixteen year old mothers and even one who had been raped by her uncle... the list goes on and on and becomes ever more agonizing.

Reflections and memories of the past seven years fluttered through my head and began to rack my brain. Slowly the exhaustion subsumed the flood of emotions I was experiencing. The repetitive drone of the bus engine and the soothing forward movement with little vibrations and bumps eventually put me to sleep. And how grateful I was to sleep, on this bus, going somewhere new. Sleep is a treasure for me. Often it is the only way to escape the reality of sadness all around you. Although now that I think about it, more often than not, my dreams are filled with sadness and anxiety just as much as my daily life. Regardless, the sleep was of a particularly calming nature today, on this bus, going somewhere new. Before I knew it, seven hours had passed and I awoke mid-morning at a stop just in time to make it to the bathroom and avoid those nasty, tiny little bus toilets.

I started reflecting on that small passing thought about the toilet. We’re so obsessed with cleanliness and sanitation in the United States. It’s not healthy for us and I honestly think it makes us weaker in the end. Biologists agree as far as I know. Our obsession with cleanliness leads us to have develop costly trends like orthodontics and teeth whitening. Our mouths, an ideal candidate for the hosting of germs, bacteria and decay, have to not only be spotless and germ free, but perfect in every way.

I once ran into a wealthy girl I knew from high school, back when I was still in the city, at a small coffee shop. We talked for a while, but I couldn’t help noticing how strangely white her teeth were. They were so white, I found it to be ugly and jarring. I swear they would glow in the dark. If teeth were supposed to be that white, they would be. Why make them look so unnatural?

And speaking of unnatural what is it with boob jobs and face lifts? Boob jobs give women these strange grapefruit looking breasts. They look like they are about to pop like a balloon or like you could detach them with a few tools and couple twists and turns. Breasts come in all sorts of shapes and sizes, which is, I find, what makes them interesting, appealing and beautiful. If we had more of an appreciation for the human body in this culture, we wouldn’t have such a trend (and a growing trend at that) of plastic surgery and eating disorders.

Face lifts get rid of wrinkles, sure, but they are always obvious and unattractive to me. The older you become, the more your skin will lose its elasticity. Everyone knows this and to accept it and grow with it is to age with grace and wisdom. This culture values unnaturally large, round, perky breasts and tightened unnatural skin that suggest youth and symbolize sex, along with fake, blindingly white teeth, bleached blond hair, and nasty orange colored skin that results not from working in the sun, but from laying at the chemical filled pool-side or even worse in a tanning bed. What a superficial culture, I mused silently.

The superficiality applies more to the city and suburban culture, I’ve learned. In the country, it’s different. Looks simply aren’t as important, which isn’t to say they don’t matter, but the money doesn’t exist for them to matter the way they do in the city, so rarely do you see someone dressed to impress on a Friday night, because where are you going to go? Who are you going to impress? Everybody already knows you and there’s no where to go anyway.

My contemplations began to depress me, so I tried to get back to sleep and eventually succeeded. The lull of a moving vehicle has always worked its magic on me that way. I didn’t really want to be awake even though I had already slept for seven hours. I wasn’t tired, merely exhausted from life.

The rest of the trip I managed to dose off and on, eating, using the restroom and ruminating between dreams. I happily awoke to the sight of the ocean and I immediately felt relief from my melancholy mood as my spirits lifted. My first taste of freedom made me forget my bitter pessimism. I stepped off the bus with confidence. All of our feelings are temporary and I, too, change my mind and mood on a daily basis.

I find that experiencing natural beauty, such as forests, mountains, rivers, cliffs, oceans, etc., have an extraordinarily soothing effect on me. The calm silence found in these areas of natural beauty creates a sense of oneness with the earth. This sense of oneness is one of the many concepts I find intuitive in the Buddhist teachings. The oneness is a result of the reverence I feel every time I take a step out of the concrete city and into the trees or down to the depths of the ocean. It is an acknowledgment for the mutual need we have with one another and with nature; respect for the fragile balance of life. This awe of nature awakens the spirit more than any walled-in church or passionate gospel choir ever could for me. So I have, for as long as I can remember, followed my intuition and made nature my religion.

I walked along the beach, away from the crowd. I wanted to kindle my relationship with the earth and myself. This kind of silence, this awe-inspiring silence, is vastly different from the silence I had just left in that small town in Iowa, on that dark, winter night. My present silence was a peaceful, complete moment and the night before it had been an anxious, fearful, empty sensation. After absorbing myself in meditation with the trees, sand and ocean, I brought my thoughts back to my life and back to that town I had impulsively escaped the day before. I needed to redirect my life because I realized that all of the efforts I had been giving to this lonely town were only bringing me down, slowly but surely. I had lost the passion I felt in the beginning, probably the result of a pessimistic feeling of helplessness. Redirection would require me to develop a new purpose and I just wasn’t sure what that should be anymore. I was going to have to start from square one and rebuild my life, philosophy and purpose. The past seven years had, it seemed, shattered my life and brought me back here, back to square one. So, I considered the meaning of life.

It dawned on me sort of plainly, happiness is the ultimate objective for all people and the only justifiable purpose when you break it all down. Think about humanity, each individual with every spectrum of causes and beliefs to guide their lives. People devote their lives to Judaism, their country, PETA, the feminist movement, the army, science, sex, drugs, Obama’s campaign, art... as I said already, the range of goals a person can set his or her life to is infinite. And within this infinite spectrum of causes and devotions, there are boundless contradictions. Forces pulling us one direction and forces pulling us the opposite. No single cause is immune to this. Galileo and the Catholic Church, Obama and McCain, Atheists and Christians, animal research advocates and animal rights supporters, pro-life and pro-choice campaigners.

And then I began to wonder, as I always do, where is the common link, what is the underlying unifier between all these contradictions? I reflected. Every goal can be broken down to aiming at helping humans or continuing the species. Whether it’s the environmentalists or the drug addict. The environmentalist wants to save the earth and wildlife, so we can continue to appreciate the wildlife diversity and continue to procreate centuries longer than if we kill our planet earlier than the sun does. The drug addict only wants to help himself, or at least make himself feel better. Everything we do is either for ourself, a human, to help other humans (ex. an artist creating art to share with society, a wildlife fanatic preserving wildlife for our further appreciation, or a psychologist helping other humans to feel happy) or to encourage the continuation of our species (ex. a doctor developing a cure to AIDS, attempts to develop third world countries to reduce suffering and extend life span). Or we can look at those who are only concerned with their family line, the continuation of the species and the hope that our genes, since we have a tendency to think we have the right way of thinking and living in comparison to others, will better the species overall. I can’t say I am immune to this thought every now and then.

I wasn’t sure I could accept this, but what is the alternative? We have the choice of devoting our lives to a cause that is ultimately insignificant or deciding that nothing matters and becoming a nihilist. I say that it is ultimately insignificant, because in the grand scheme of things, when we think about the vastness of space and how in several billion years the sun will burn the Earth to a crisp, who can’t feel a sense of insignificance? A mere individual, living a mere 100 max years, on just a tiny little planet, what’s the point?

And with all of these considerations, I concluded that the goal of every human being is, recognized or not, happiness. Happiness is gained for many people through dedication to a cause, and there is no problem with this, it is simply a fact. Although I cannot theoretically justify why I feel it is wrong to own six several million dollar mansions or why it is wrong to be a drug addict, I’m not going to let go of everything I think and every intuition I have to help others and the environment. My motivations based upon these beliefs are what make me happy and this is the only way I feel justified in my opinions. I won’t stop feeling like I am right to feel this way and I won’t stop enjoying persuading, arguing or conversing with others about these issues. So, in conclusion, I choose to continue everything as I always have, continuing the pursuit of goals and objectives as I see fit, because it makes me happy.

My pondering paused here. All this thinking and no results. But I already knew the process of healing would take time and redirection would require much patience. I turned back to the city as the sun began to set. Time to find a place to sleep. It had been a long day full of everything that I needed. Little activity and a lot of reflection.

I found a cozy, little Bed and Breakfast on the edge of town run by an older couple. They must have been in their early 70’s. Something about them was a tad... quirky. The woman was old, but it was easy to imagine her as an attractive young woman. She had a certain grace and poise about her voice and movements. Her tiny satin purple slippers seemed to glide across the earth-green carpet. She wore a shirt of deep purple sagathy with black linen pants; comfortable, but classy, well-dressed and not out of date by any means. Hanging from her ears dangled heavy looking pieces of squared metal plated with twists of gold, accompanied by a matching piece around her neck and rings upon rings of bracelets strung upon her right wrist. The bracelets layered upon her right wrist were attention drawing due to the lopsidedness in comparison to her left side. Perhaps she was a lefty. That was the only explanation I could think of and it satisfied me well enough.

The man was quieter and continued to step in and out of the living room, where the three of us sat chatting, to attend to a large pot bubbling on the stove. The pot was releasing a strange aroma, a smell that was vaguely familiar, but too distant to place. Although it wasn’t overbearing, it had a particularly distinct character to it.

The other strangeness I became fascinated with was the old man’s eyes; his right eye, blue and his left, green, but both with a brightness comparable to none I’d ever seen. His eyes sparkled and glimmered in the light. Despite their asymmetry, they were a beautiful and magical sight to behold. I’ve always been a person to make eye contact and his eyes were irresistible, drawing my attention constantly, but it seemed to make him a bit uncomfortable and I felt bad, thinking he may be self-conscious of their different colors or that perhaps he was just a shy person.

The woman and I had begun the conversation formally, as is the case in most human interactions between two strangers of different generations and unfamiliar backgrounds. But as we sat and sipped on a tender and delicate Chinese tea called Jun Shan Yin Zhen White Tea, she began to tell me stories, which I soon found she was quite good at telling and had a collection of amazing stories to tell indeed.

As I expected from the looks of her house, filled with interesting artifacts and artistic masterpieces, the couple had traveled the world round more times that I can count. They must have more money than this house shows, I thought to myself. The house was finely decorated with exotic pieces from around the world, but humble still. The couple seemed to fit with their house in this way; elegant, but humble. And I decided this was a good way to describe them.

Her voice was soothing and in combination with her lovely stories and selective word choice, she soon had me mesmerized by her colorful descriptions of exotic places and discoveries. She told me of her travels in Burma and about the poppy fields and Buddhist monasteries and brightly colored clothing of reds and oranges. She recounted the magnificence of the reefs of Tuvalu and the old fisherman boats that line the horizon every morning. And we spoke also of the many tragedies of the world. She narrated the troubles of violence and poverty suffered in Somalia, of the Ogaden War and continued clash between tribes and government. I told her of the problems in Iowa, too, for I had also seen many tragedies and we became somber as a melancholy mood impressed upon us.

Meanwhile, the old man had been in the kitchen, preparing the brew with an obscure aroma. A crash sounding like a metal pan hitting the floor came from the kitchen, breaking the mood that had been creeping upon us in the living room. The woman stood up politely to check on the old man and I stood up to have a look around the neighboring rooms.