Sunday, July 16, 2006

A sudden serious case of wanderlust

There must be something in my life story that tells me a tale like Chocolat. That says, wherever I go, I will always be dissatisfied with the Here and the Now, and be searching for something, longing and thirsty for something else that isn't to be found here, of where and what, I do not know.

Is there an imaginary Promised Land I am trying to get to? Or is it truly that with each new place I go to, with new faces, new relationships and new friends, I leave a little part of me behind and become more and more fragmented, not knowing a place that I can call home?

It's where the heart is. I try to believe that, when I'm lying in bed wondering where my heart is. I cannot truly believe that all of this life is about searching for something you cannot find. It is like being in a dream and trying to find an elusive door, waking up just before you place your fingertips on the handle. And trying to fall asleep again just to get back to that door, to try and not wake up before opening the door.

But I feel just that. Is this human nature or the way of the world? Do dogs press on faster on a leash because they think they'll get to their final destiny quicker? Curiosity killed the cat. So what drives the dog forward?

I am pretty sure how I feel is not just in the mythology of my mind. The lores and histories of ancient civilizations speak of a Promised Land, a case of Heaven, of an Eden, Shangri-La and of a perfect paradise. Is that too much to ask not to need a utopia, only a place to call home?

If you can take this wandering, wandering lost baby in the woods and cradle her in your arms, suddenly all the world melts away and it ceases to matter where I am. Only the sound of your heartbeat and the sudden, salient reality of your shoulders exist. Home is the warmth in the flesh of your arms, a cathedral in the architecture of your bones. Where the heart is. But not mine. Yours.

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