Emily's Space

A solemn thing within the Soul
To feel itself get ripe-
And golden hang - while farther up -
The Maker's Ladders stop
And in the Orchard far below -
You hear a Being - drop -

A Wonderful - to feel the Sun
Still toiling at the Cheek
You thought was finished -
Cool of eye, and critical of Work -
He shifts the stem - a little -
To give your Core - a look -

But solemnest - to know
Your chance in Harvest moves
A little nearer - Every sun
The single - to some lives.

Emily Dickinson

Dream (October 11, 2013)

It seemed like I was looking for an apartment to buy. I entered a big old and prestigious condominium, but the entrance and the lobby were not as I expected such a building would have. It was rather dim and seedy-looking with idle persons standing in the corners. I was told there was a vacant apartment in the eighth floor, and the moment I entered the elevator, someone warned me that the higher floors are not as well preserved as the lower ones. He added the walls up there were not made of marble.

As the old metal caged elevator was going up, I saw the gradual deterioration of the condition of each floor. When I got out in the eighth floor, it looked like a big dirty kitchen of a low-end restaurant. There were baked crusty pastes I could not recognize if they were for pizzas or bread. The kitchen staff was deep frying in a huge pan. I stopped and struck up a conversation with someone, when I saw a stray small cat jumping from the floor up into the frying pan. I was about to scream but the cat could get its head and body out of the oil and shook itself dry. It was not hurt and that left me very surprised. A young girl took it in her hands and kept patting on its back. I thought the girl's hands must have been all greasy and dirty.

Purple October

Even if I was not lost, I felt like one. The busy streets were roaring. Cars, lights, crowds and my foreign wandering self. Dozens of sweaty purple men raised their hands to carry God. Enthusiasm and devotion of believers, no matter what they believed in, never failed to amaze me. I saw it before in Jerusalem, Mecca Tokyo, Cairo and Rome, and I laughed at what I have always been told as a child, that signs of devotion of the believers were the best proof they were on the right path. And as usual there was only one right path.

The God's slow 19-hour-journey reached its final destination. The last few hundred meters consumed more than 3 hours. I placed myself in the middle of the yellow plaza, and did not forget to check if my wallet was still in the safer jeans front pocket after I removed it from the vulnerable back one. It was there.

I was not wearing my contact lenses, neither did I remember to bring the glasses. So, the image of the Lord was blurry, and the sword of sorrow that pierced in the soul was invisible. 

By then, the crowds were in their absolute zeal. Chants, ringing bells mingled with emotions on the sparkling path. Again as usual, the only sparkling path.

Sail

Amy Winehouse was on the radio complaining of the safe old bet when I started to unwrap the cartoon box. It was abandoned in the storeroom for almost one year, until I decided last week-end it was the time to open it and get out the pieces of the boat model.  Nails and screwdrivers were placed on the table calmly waiting to be used.

And as "the tiny penny rolling up the walls inside" was still struggling in its desperate endeavors, I sat down and found myself contemplating how a year has already flied by so fast in which the patient, who was repeatedly thought dead, would come out of coma, smile, and then sink deep and hit the borders between life and death.

A year passed fast, yet the few hours I spent trying to assemble the wooden boat model seemed endless. At the end, it was done and ready to sail. And it will sail.