The Dance

So where does this leave me? I don’t know. I may come back to Alabama, I may stay here, or I may go somewhere else completely. Whatever job I take and whatever journey my life is about to begin, I am going to carry with me the lessons from this job. I am going to find something that I am passionate about and pursue it with all the fervor and gusto that my head never knew my heart craved. I’ll pick up my pen and see where it leads me, knowing that my passion for expressing my ideas has never abated. For I know where my talents reside, and I know the man I am about to become. “Follow your heart,” they say…only this time, I am actually going to do it.

Surely an idealist must have written these words. A man burdened by neither fear nor trepidation and whose reluctance to end such a seminal chapter in his life was tempered with the expectation of better days to come. The man who wrote these words must have expected a bright future, one in which the trappings of success would finally yield to that higher calling which only a willed countenance and driven passion can preserve. What becomes of men like this, men who hold such lofty ideals that alight passions of both the heart and mind? Do they realize their dreams or do they fall into disillusionment, drowning in the waters of mediocrity that wash over the world.

I wrote those italicized words four years ago...to the day. You can look through my archived posts and see for yourself. At the time I had just been laid off from Diamond Properties, a budding career cut short by the indiscretions of a boss whose treacherous schemes rivaled that of any Bond villain. Although I was disappointed to have lost my first job, I was also inspired by a sense of the limitless world of possibilities that lay before me. No longer was I tied to a desk job that I loathed. No longer must I drag myself to an office only to watch the slow hand of the clock tick drudgingly forward. No longer would I also collect a paycheck, but at last I digress. A real opportunity was before me, an opportunity that I am ashamed to admit I wasted. No great risks were taken. No great passions indulged. Instead I let countless months pass before I even found another job and then fell back into the same routine I had strived so desperately to escape from. The trappings of success had bound me once again and yet I had nothing to show for it.

Fast forward four years. I got laid off...again...today. This one I have known about for some time and have had ample time to prepare for, a luxury I was not afforded when first I walked down this road. When I arrived home today after my final day of work, I revisited my old post and ruminated over those words I had written all those years ago. The man who wrote them was certainly an optimist, a great voyager unafraid to raise his sails so that the winds of change might cast him mightily forward. He was an adventurer in search of faraway lands, an artist with an empty canvas before him and a brush in his hand. Now, as I sit here four years later without any great adventures to recount or masterpieces to behold, I wonder...has he disappeared?

He has not. Instead, he has merely gotten four years older, but in some ways hopefully wiser.  My passion is still there, a love for the written word and the spectacular worlds it can create. But there is something more now. A specific outflow of this passion into a tangible project which has a real chance of changing my life for the better. It is a project I have been working on for a year now and is finally coming together in the way I always hoped it would. If you'll forgive the ambiguity, it is something that I have only shared with a select few, one of whom dances with me in the ballroom I am creating and doesn't even know it.

Though uncertainties still abound with the loss of my job, a few things remain certain. I will never work in an office again. I will finish this project before taking another job, devoting myself fully to its completion lest it forever becomes my white whale. And one more thing, I am moving back to Washington DC, a city I never should have left but which fate deemed necessary for reasons I am only now beginning to fully understand. I have some unfinished business to take care of in that city, business that may yet lead me back out onto the ballroom floor. I do so hope she will accept my invitation when I ask her to dance.

 

There and Back Again

"What's your decision?" a female voice from the telephone asks, its expectant tone just enough to make me pause.

I sit in my office, phone clenched tightly to my ear as I vacillate between two answers. I've gone over the decision a dozen times by now, weighed the benefits and pitfalls of both...even took a three hour walk to let my mind wander to places my feet had yet to go. Each time the decision was the same. Each time I knew what answer I would give.

I start to speak.

"I..." Something stops me. Am I making the right choice? Do I really want to go down this road again?

"Bobby, we really need your decision. What are you going to do?" she asks again, this time less patiently.

I lean back in my chair, the receiver never leaving my ear. My feet are up on my desk now as I count the number of loops my laces travel through to reach their destination. Fourteen...I never noticed that before.

"Bobby," she begins again before I interrupt her.

"I've made my decision," I say. "I resign."

One year, eight months, and twenty three days. That's how long I've been at this job. Longer than any job I've ever had, though barely an instant in comparison to most other men. My intention was not to resign, once again casting myself into the perils of an all too perilous labor market. The memories of my previous sojourn to the unemployment line left a sting upon my pride that has not soon been forgotten. Countless applications for menial work coupled with an extended period of living back home is, I dare say, a burden that renders any task more enviable. But with the shuttering of our office here in Birmingham, I was given the choice of either continuing my employment for another year in Atlanta or resigning outright and accepting a severance package. My options were clear; my decision was not. I ultimately choice the latter option, deciding to close this chapter of my life to once again start anew. It is a familiar routine by now, but one whose further acclimation only serves to facilitate impermanence. I'll pack up again, fitting my world into an old Chevrolet Impala to cruise down life's highways. But where will I go? And who will I see when I get there?

I thought of you when I made my decision. I wondered what you would say, how you would feel if I told you I was coming back. Coming back to the fields of Columbia to tarry across open plains amidst those mountains of history. Coming back to walk through halls of freedom beneath the shadow of that sacred dome. Would you believe me? Would you even care? Most of all, would you wonder if a man would come halfway across the country just to see you?

I am. For the reasons enumerated and many more. For the impossible desires that only a fool would carry in his heart for so long, refusing to abandon this one dream in the hope that it might one day be fulfilled.

I am returning to Washington DC, to a place that I thought was my past, but which I now realize was always my future. And with my arrival I will cast my eyes high over the future's horizon, only looking back to rediscover all the wondrous treasures that I left behind.

Stream of Consciousness

Perhaps my days here are numbered. Perhaps the heavy curtain is closing on my time here in Birmingham, its ruffled edges hanging lifeless on the stage that once paid tribute to this listless routine. It's not that I planned to end my sojourn early; far from it. I intended to settle here for three years, three swift years that would carry me into my early thirties and finally usher in the hallmarks of adulthood that forever elude me. But this was but an idle dream. A single note from my employer saw to that. 

"Not meeting expectations," it said.

Three words to remove any doubt of what I inwardly knew to be true. Three words to lay bare the apprehension of a man already racked with fear. In an instant I realized that the charade was over; I had been found out. My desperate attempts at professionalism could no longer conceal the plain truth of my predicament. I simply don't know what I'm doing. I'm not qualified. I have always known that, and what's worse, they knew it too.

And yet there is something fundamentally liberating about the prospect of losing one's job. It signals an old chapter's end to be sure, but does it not also open a new one? Does it not remind us that life is more than a paycheck, more than a daily routine interrupted only by the occasional gnawing of hunger both biological and existential? Losing one's job is indeed a loss of livelihood, but it is not the loss of life itself. It is not the loss of identity. And that is what I must continually remind myself of. This job is not my life, my purpose, or even my passion. It is a paycheck...all it ever should be.

After receiving the news I called my father. His wise counsel is never far from me and its endowment is a gift I readily accept. I told him I was frustrated, frustrated at myself for giving so many of the best years of my life over to the pursuit of fulfilling only my basest needs. I need to eat, I need clothes and a roof over my head. But at times I feel that I sacrifice my soul to attain such things. I crunch numbers into a spreadsheet while my quill remains dry. My father reminded me that my responsibilities at this point in life are only to myself. I have no wife. I have no children...I suppose I can take some solace in that. Should I choose, I could pack my world into my car and set out for new adventures and a new place to call home. I have done this before, many times in fact. There is something alluring in such freedom, a rush I have felt in nothing else. But this routine grows old and I do long to settle down sometimes. 

Next week I may be fired. Most likely, the hammer will fall three months from now. Then where shall I go? In my free time, I find myself daydreaming of returning to DC. The memories I have of my time there tarry through my mind like glimpses of some distant Xanadu with all the promises its myth entails. I fantasize of slowly strolling the weathered trails of the National Mall and ascending the steps of the Lincoln Memorial to watch the westward sunset. I long for the thrill of DuPont and the unforeseen revelry a night spent in its unique corridors entails. More than anything, I need to be at the crossroads of the world, a place where our fathers' footsteps never stray too far from my own. I need to feel the rush of history sweep me into another time where for a moment my path intertwines with an eternal grace. It is a strange thing to say, perhaps even a distinction that has seized me within its own peculiarity, but I fell in love with that city and my longing to return has never been far from my waking mind. 

A stream of consciousness is all this post is. The idle ramblings of a man once again about to lose his job and facing a most unsure future. But I have a plan this time. My business is going well and I know what sort of job to steer clear of going forward. Most importantly, I found my passion. It is a passion given meaning by a goal, a goal that moves nearer to completion every day. I will not speak of it here, but if it fulfills my expectations then there will be no need to keep this true passion of mine hidden any longer. It has provided an insulation against the professional turmoil that my floundering career seems inexorably tied to. And if I lose my job, if boulders from the Rock of Gibraltar come crashing down upon me, I will simply step aside and seek refuge behind this sculpture I am creating. Each word hews David from the rock. Each pen stroke brings me closer to freedom.

A Midsummer Night's Dream

You visited me last night. Alone and unadorned, you waited for me til slumber brought me back into your arms. We met in the shadow of that famed Memorial, no longer strangers but as the lovers we once were. The sky was dark, so dark that your face was hidden behind a veil of evening fog that obscured all but the outlines of your approaching silhouette. I took a step towards you, unsure of your motivations and equally ignorant of my own. When finally our paths converged I looked upon your face to see a familiar smile that these five months could not erase from my memory. Whatever words you intended to utter were already conveyed in the radiance of your upturned lips and those glistening eyes softly glowing in the dull moonlight. And my tongue fell silent too, tamed behind the quivering lips that a single teardrop had managed to seal.

You’re here at my request. The hour of tourists has passed and the clamor of children and cameras no longer echoes through this open corridor. I lead you up the steps overlooking that shallow pool whose still waters have become a terrestrial sky. Its surface is a pane of glass that only betrays its mimicry when startled by the usual breezes that run through this place. Winds dash unimpeded over eternity’s mirror, kissing the water’s edge and leaving rippling footsteps in their path. From there they dash themselves against the sturdy trunks of the surrounding willows and scatter into a thousand hands that shake those sturdy branches, causing rustling leaves to whisper into the cool night air. Those same hands reach out for you, whipping your hair into a trove of raven’s fur that obscures your face behind a mane of shaded tresses. Yet still your smile remains, more radiant than ever and unhindered by a moment’s distraction. You know what expectations time has yet to bear, expectations that your eyes beckon me to fulfill.

Only hands of gentle breezes have you known this night, but no longer it seems. Looking down, you see my hands take your own. You see a man dropping to one knee and reaching into his pocket. A moment later a promise is revealed, a promise wound in bands of white gold and christened with a chiseled stone of beauty wrapped in light. It scatters the moonlight. A prism of beauty made wondrous by the delicate hand of the angel it adorns.

“Will you…” I say before a kiss provides an answer surer than any poet’s graces.

We descend those steps with our eyes towards the future, the first of many we will take over a lifetime together. This moment was only for us to share, witnessed simply by two adjoining souls and the venerable Lincoln who watched stoically from above. He watches us leave his noble chamber to embark on paths not yet clear, but full of wonder all the same. Just as we pass beyond his permanent stare the curtain closes and I awake.

I have had many such dreams as these. Always they come to me on nights when their presence is least expected and my conscience ill-prepared. Though the players are forever the same, the stage upon which we play is not. Sometimes I see you at the end of that sacred aisle, adorned in white with your father by your side. Your face mocks the goddesses’ envy with a beauty no veil could ever hope to conceal. Other times the nurses approach, cradling a child we welcome to your bosom. A happier moment I dare not ask for, a nobler wife I cannot conceive. Occasionally I see two figures whose bodies have succumbed to their years, hair white as morning frost with heavy lines running across deeply furrowed brows. The many creases betray the hardship of age, yet pass unnoticed between the two souls whose love for each other blinds them to imperfections. In their eyes there are no imperfections, only reflections of eternity into which they continually gaze.

The hour is late and my weariness shall soon overtake me. If I should stumble onto another stage tonight and find myself alone in the spotlight, I hope it will not be for too long. I hope you will join me for another evening that I may for a moment call you my own. It does so help with the loneliness, a momentary reprieve to let me forget how much I miss you.

Cheers

Here's to Boston. City of our fathers, bounded by the regular tides that heralded their arrival and the endless expanses that lie westward still. It defies its borders, jutting out precipitously into a speckled harbor and reaching higher still into the frigid skies so often plagued by swirling winds cast callously inland by the Atlantic. The rooftops bear witness to nature's resentment. Shingled houses abandon their perennial black and grey veneer to adopt the familiar whitewashed facade that always accompanies yet another nor'easter. The snow paints the whole city white. It paints in broad brushstrokes and does more than simply muffle colors under its uniform surface...it erases the clamor of the city as well. It silences everything beneath a blanket of tranquility and transforms a bustling city into a range of snow capped mountains. And for a moment all is quiet. No sounds of cars barreling down narrow streets, no screeching of subway wheels as they round an iron track before disappearing underground. Not even the occasional sullen voice of another pedestrian can be heard within the stillness of the cold night air. Just you and your thoughts alone in the city, a queer companion that serves only to momentarily stave off the loneliness, though never the cold. For that greater adversary something more is needed. A warm body, a warmer smile. Such company is a rare find on frozen Boston nights like the one I find myself in this evening, a treasure that once collected should never be relinquished. Too many solitary figures scuttle around me in the frigid air, hands in pockets, shoulders hunched over with heads wrapped in scarves. Their eyes occasionally glance up from the snow covered sidewalks and meet my gaze. They look so cold out here, so alone with no one to warm them from the falling snowflakes that slowly fill in the footsteps they leave behind.

My body shivers almost uncontrollably from the cold. My lips are nearly frozen and sensation has long since abandoned my extremities. An unexpected icy gust races through a corridor between two buildings and hits my face, singeing exposed skin with the ferocity of any lapping flame. The shock causes me to gasp, exposing my lungs to still greater perils and sending my body into even colder realms, inviting pain on any skin not enveloped under layers of clothing. My ears hurt. My nose stings, and my left hand is nearly immovable in its submission to the cold. But my right hand...my right hand is warm. Blood pumps ferociously through it and each sensation is easily perceived with unchanged tactility. Indeed, had a delicate feather run the ridges of my palm such nuances would not have passed notice. I look down to see the source of my right hand's warmth and find my palm clasped around another hand, smaller than my own and decidedly less abrasive. It's wrapped in a red woolen mitten and gives my hand a gentle squeeze as if to reassure me that simply being held is just enough. My eyes dart from the hand within my own to the awaiting gaze of the woman who possesses both. She smiles. I smile. Warmth returns to my lips. We kiss.

A week later I am back in Birmingham. My flight home was delayed by storms but I make it back to my apartment after catching a ride from an airport taxi. I pay the driver and begin the march upward to my apartment, but for some reason the stairs seem less welcoming than they did as I descended them some nine days before. Maybe I was just excited to get up to Boston. No, that's not it...I was excited about seeing her.

A quick shower and shave before heading to bed. The linens seem cold, an unwelcome departure from the routine I have grown accustomed to over the preceding days. And I'm here alone now, staring up at the ceiling, the overhead fan slowly churning the still air as I absentmindedly reach over to curl my arm around a figure who is no longer there. Only the memories remain now. The memories of soft melodies intermingled with alcohol as our modesty disappeared beneath a canopy of blankets. 

So here's to Boston. A city like no other where for nine days I cast aside my southern roots and became a true Yankee. It truly is an amazing city, one where my proclivity for both intellectual and emotional indulgence found no greater harbor. Yet for all its history, for all its culture, its atmosphere and its people, it wasn't the city that drew me here...it was her. A girl whose hand reached out to warm my own, and whose abundance of generosity is tragically matched only by my vanity.