hearts and lungs

10:30 at night in the lobby of Duke University Medical Center, a security guard sat at a shiny, black piano and tickled the keys quietly to himself. hidden by the lit christmas tree beside him and the sterile odor of sickness, procedure, and loneliness, i believe i may have been the only one who even noticed his notes or the way he bowed his head to his chest slightly as he played. i stepped off the visitor's elevator on the 8th floor and headed to the wing where its' sickest patients lie fighting for their next seconds, some consciously but most of them not. she emerged from the heavy double doors with tired eyes, blue scrubs, and a mask draped loosely around her ears, for she is the one who fights with them and for them. she grinds through 12 blood and fluid-filled hours so that they may experience even just 12 more pain-free seconds in this world. and though i didnt know exactly how capable my heart was, in that moment it let go a tad bit more. if the sick can trust her with their weakened, diseased hearts, then i can open my slightly battered one.

back down in the lobby, the tired pianist gone, the silence gave way to the late night hours, the doors parted, and i greeted the cold air. i could see my own breath hanging in clouds against the chill and noted how very different the simple act of my own breathing was compared to the belabored, manufactured breaths of ventillators in the world i left her with upstairs. i knew that in a few hours she would be able to go home regardless of how many of the sick weren't saved, and we would would feel every bit of the weight that luck carries with it.

passenger seat

he's a pulpit preacher. he slaps bibles and reaches out to shake an entire congregation's hands every sunday morning and it is clear by that alone just how far apart our two worlds reside. most of our conversations could follow a checklist they are so surface level and predicted, for in our opposing worlds ignorance is more blissful than the collisions they could create. often when we visit one another he is so consumed with thoughts of his next sermon or church obligation that all other tangibles seem to whiz right by unnoticed.

sometimes though, on his way home alone in his car, he will call me because he says he was just thinking about me. he will ask me about my day and it is then that he isn't a preacher anymore, he's my daddy. in those moments he's the silly, affectionate man that i remember would play tricks on me while we were driving to the store, me his little co-pilot in the passenger seat. i would be looking out the window lost in my own thought and imagination and out of nowhere as an oncoming car began to pass by he would grab my hand, hold it up in the air, and shake it wildly as if i were waving to the car myself. i'd follow that up with a "daaaadddy!", crossing my arms in fake irriation, but i loved every second of it. even now at 29 years old, a slightly older co-pilot, i sit in anticipation waiting for him to grab my hand to wave it, and he will gladly oblige. we'll both chuckle emphatically as if i'm still six years old and falling for it for the first time, and as if it's still the best trick in the book.

this is how i know that regardless of the number of sermons he gives, or the number i don't attend, he'll always be my daddy and i'll always be the little girl in that passenger seat.

other side of the world

it's a tuesday night, not unlike any other. tonight, though, i delayed pressing the power button on the tv remote for a reason i wasn't quite sure of until i found myself sitting quietly on my front stoop in the dark. the lone street light in front of my house illuminated the two rows of neighboring lives, presiding over the routines and evening activities each house contained inside. tvs flickered inside shade-drawn windows, dogs barked in fenced-in backyards, and cars rushed by on their routes home from work. home to catch dinner before it got cold, or to embrace children and spouses at front doors. as i sat, i took note of how crisp and cool the air felt as faint chills crept slowly upon the skin on my arms and i warmed them back and forth with my palms. the electricity of a September evening such as this showed evidence of one season's quiet exiting and its' replacement having its own, different energy. at the train station several blocks away, the boxcars passing through sounded their whistle of hello, as if they also noticed the air's crispness and were calling out to it. i thought of places and far off lands and then remembered the times as a little girl when i would ride my bike all around what felt like the entire globe to such a tiny view-finder, yet was probably only 2 or 3 streets. after my explorations, i'd park my bike at the end of our cul-de-sac and sit on its' red rubber seat dreaming of the little girl on the other side of the world i was so sure was doing the exact same thing at that very moment. i would talk to her as if she were merely sitting across from me indian-style, not continents away. even then, i seemed to understand the idea that we are all so connected as humans that our individual moments could collectively collide at precisely the same time. at least i hoped they did from time to time. the truth in that thought less important, of course, than perhaps the necessary belief in connections outside ourselves. that is, afterall, what it means to believe in something, worldly or other-worldly, spiritual or non-spiritual. food for thought, as the night crickets chirped like the hands of a clock sounding down the day which was nearing closer to the next.

beauty in the equation

life is short. i hope i've just stated the obvious. a tad less obvious, however, is the divine chaos it all contains. chaos because alot of what life throws in our direction is uncontrollable by us, seeming random at best and largely frenetic at worst. divine, though, because there has to be some larger reason for it all that exists outside just what is visible. personally speaking, i'd much rather believe that busted moments and bruised spirits happen for a reason other than "just because." i'm able to wrap my mind around injustice and pain a little easier if it seems they are just tiny stops along a much more purposed journey. especially when unexplainable heartache finds its way to very good-hearted, beautiful people. otherwise, the only question that can ever be asked is "why?", with empty justifications to follow. and that, to me, is just not good enough.

life is indeed chaotic; it's unfair, confusing, and much of it is blind. but it is also the sum of all its parts and we live each day because of the simple, crucial hope that in the end there has been more beauty in the equation than anything else.

the silence after the song

there's that near-invisible moment when a song ends that i am absolutely convinced is time standing still, knee deep in the silence. not everyone can hear it, and not everyone who can does. if you have music flowing through your blood that moment is similar to that of a heartbeat, a delicate pulse between exiting and entering. it's where the translation occurs.

it's where i will look to find the recognition that you heard in it everything i wanted to say and didn't quite know how.

primary colors

in sixth grade, i lost my best friend. not to mortality, a new address, or anything else that comes to mind. i lost her to race. it hung frozen in the balance between fragile seconds and centuries worth of ideals, the moment batanya told me her parents no longer would allow her to be friends with me because i was white and she was black. apparently, despite it being the 20th century, little black girls weren't supposed to have sleepovers and form "secret" clubs with little white girls. and those little white girls weren't supposed to want them to. i felt as if someone had kicked me swiftly in the gut while i was standing blinded in a dark tunnel, her voice sounding distant and muffled to my confused ears as it tripped through some weak explanation she most certainly didn't even understand herself. carlotta poston would be her new best friend, she said. "oh, and by the way, i think she wants to beat you up." as if it were not enough to have lost in one single statement the blissful ignorance that i wasn't just like everyone else, i also had the threat of having my ass beaten for no other reason than because of it. the moment unveiled an ugly truth this world fights and ebbs against every waking minute it spins round on its' axis. love is love and, sure, it's both universal and free to behold - but why doesn't everyone see it? why does it have to wear different covers and faces? with batanya, i saw my first glimpse of what it would mean to walk the fine line of too many "not enough's" and not enough "too's" (as in too white, not black enough, too gay, not feminine enough, or not enough money at the end of the month). we can all see love when it's before our faces, and feel it from time to time, but aren't we missing some of the landscape of life if we don't ever wear the same pair of glasses long enough to get used to them? to have an open heart means more than just dolling out kindness and warmth when it's convenient or when we remember to. it means more than just a shift in consciousness or perspective; it means action. it means living consciously every moment what we believe in our hearts to be true and choosing that every single time without fail or option. it's not about potential, it's about what is. love isn't perfect, nor is it associated with such judgemental terms as right or wrong. but, as my 12 year old heart found out, love has to be the canvas or all the beautiful hues of grey will be lost among such a primary sea of black and white. i'm of the belief that since we discovered the world isn't flat, our vision of it shouldn't be either.

closer

emerson hart is trying to tell me something. "there's more to love than we'll ever know. sometimes you're closer when you're letting go," he croons to my hope-hungry ears. clearly, though, he does not know me well. if he did, he would know that i hold on to things as if i were grasping them with the strength of an iron claw. and while i get better with age at forgiveness, i never forget. you see, to me the act of letting go feels less like a release and more like i failed at keeping something precious in tact. there is no peace in letting something fall by the wayside where it may, regardless of the need to move in a forward direction. i get it, i do. letting go is less for the thing you are releasing than it is merely a way to cut the tie to what specifically keeps you in one place. the link to the past. the hope that it, whatever "it" may be, could ever be any different. (thank you, oprah.)

i know emerson is right, and that everyone else who continue to reinforce his idea to me are as well. but i dont want to let this go, god dammit. i am terrified that if i allow this to slip from my white-knuckled fingers the picture of what the rest of my life will look like may get blurry, shifting to appear more out of focus than it is in. like the withering and wearing of time, i can't let the picture fade. i'm sorry, but there is nothing "closer" in that.