By: Wendy E. Braun
I sit in deep and solemn reveries
contemplating the bowl,
bowel and womb,
sucker for the void.
How many marbles
will divine a universe –
unsteadying the table
until the fall occurs –
break and fracture –
is there more?
Staring at the glossed surface
the beauty of porcelain
white corse beneath the crust.
You wonder at my fixation
knees curled, elbows flat
while you wait with a dustpan
ready to destroy the cosmos
spread before me.
I tell you, “I am God.”
and seasons have come and gone,
like railway cars
whose late passenger stands
staring – wondering if it was in fact
a blown fuse that
stopped the clock and caused
the burnt toast –
he stands
on the same old porch,
surveying the need for yearly repairs,
while fingering a new cigarette
as the smoke swirls against his face
as his thoughts rise around
the what was,
the what never was,
the will she,
might she,
does she still, and
I think to myself
how thankful
I am that he
does not,
will not,
could not know
a damn thing –
something like smoke.
If there is one relatable experience that intertwines us, it is the familiar rocky cliff, where we stand in a smokey fog, haunted by the shadowy chasm existing between “the here and now” and the “what is to come.” Our gaze, the closer we are to the edge, falls steadily downward taking note of the jagged edges and the dense darkness that seems to rise up out of the distant ravine. Sometimes we lift our eyes and take note of a weather-worn bridge with greying and rotted wooden planks – held together by fraying horsehair ropes. In this stance, fear resides paralyzing movement, until the outside forces bare in as great gusts of wind pushing us onward – or at least on to our knees sending us crawling back and away to some sort of safety in what is known. Should we choose to stand, we are met with the risk of an unsteady bridge, and a need to be extremely sure-footed.
I think, sometimes, that as we age we become more afraid of the risks. Failure seems to have greater consequences, while comfort increasingly seems like “just trying to get by.”
My father always said that “you should live without regrets.” While I don’t believe that this is remotely possible, as I for one am entirely and happily flawed, I do think that there is a sense of knowing and discovery that comes about through this mindset. Somewhere along the line, regret and risk wove themselves together in my mind. On the whole, I would say that the risks I have taken have outweighed the regret (with the exception of love, but maybe I just “haven’t met the right one yet,” as my cousins would say). Still, the point remains that as life goes on the complications of saying “YES” compound.
When did it become so easy to say “no?” Who taught us to live inside ourselves? How is it that life experiences can hinder us from actually living?
Every day is in some way a risk. The unexpected will arise, and the risk will take shape in how we choose to respond the occurrence. And, while I know these things, I still find myself with a downward gaze, as the sounds of a strong north wind can be heard barreling towards me. The question is not whether I will cross, but rather will I make it to the other side? And, maybe the bridge is sturdy and strong, and I am fooled by the fog. But it can be so hard to shake this feeling when you cannot be sure of your own footing.
As a child, I remember looking up at those who towered over me, noticing clenched fits, hard voices, and faces shadowed with emotions. I stood somewhere around their knees, with a burning question that I could not ask this world of strangers, “do you remember when you were like me?” And then to myself, I would wonder what had happened to them?
While I have found the height, age and a number of personal experiences that would lead me towards the answer, I can not help but to continue to wonder what it is in the human condition that causes people to hang onto anger, to choose bitterness as an excuse for their outward representation of “self,” and then to see themselves as solitary entities whose natural tendencies lean towards selfish pursuits? Was it our parents or teachers, or lack thereof, that promoted an ego-centric mentality? Was it a lack of love or an inclination towards greed, that displaced the heart and fractured its connection to the brain, causing a misfiring of synapsis? What messages were we sent in our shared youth, that taught us to focus on the individual “I” and to forget that we are many sharing in this existence, in a history, in a science where the very air we breathe is coded by every inhalation and exhalation of every being that has ever lived. I wonder. I breathe in Gandhi, and out my mother, I breathe in the woman wrapped in blankets on the park bench, and breath out you.
We exist in a technological world where inventions, that could have only been imaged in the minds of those like Jules Verne, just over a century ago were seen as pure fantasy. And yet we still fail to find the solutions to meet the fundamental requirements of our own basic needs. What progress can we claim to have made when the same wars that were waged thousands of years ago – to divide and concur, to rape and pillage the body of a being and the body of the land – continue on with new weapons and empty solutions? Where is love?
Often, I find myself watching the faces I pass on the street. It can be dangerous to say hello, but I still try to smile. I listen too, to the conversations, the sighs, the faces that speak more clearly then the mouth would dare to. As an adult, I cannot help but to look at those around me and wonder, “what happened to you, lost lonely soul?” And I realize how desperate we are for love.
My favorite teacher told me, when I was 9 years old, to stop wearing my heart on my sleeve. Though I have worked to keep it close to my chest, the experiences I value the most are those where I left it out there so that when I’ve passed a stranger in need, they could find a piece of humanity within their reach. What has overwhelmed me has been my own acknowledgment that I am indeed that stranger in need. Each one of us, lost lonely souls, with hearts ready for and wanting to love.
Sometimes, I think I am pretty brave. I’ve said “yes” at least a million times more than I have said “no.” But as a writer, have lacked the courage to share my works of poetry, as well as my personal essays with others. So here I go.
Hello, world!
Wendy E. Braun - This Existence 