A Life of Wonder

Rushdie puts forward a beautiful notion that universal beauty is delivered through creating something specific…

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old man and his pint, originally uploaded by gagilas.

An older man complained to me about reporting to a younger man. “How, after 30 years of working, should I report to some iPhone-loving kid half my age,” he asked me.

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Hovercraft, originally uploaded by Minette Layne.

I met a woman who compared herself to a hummingbird. I thought about the way the bird hovers in mid-air and its tiny, heroic wings. As I learned more about the bird, it saddens me how frantic it seems and how distrustfully it drinks the sugar water from the red feeder, as if each sip might be its last.

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One day there were flowers and toys tapped to the middle of the bridge by my house. No explanation, none needed really. Every time I pass I think about the child who must have passed away there, the child without a name.

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It wasn’t that you are unable to imagine the moon, larger than I have ever known it to be, red, full and rising outside my window; it is rather that I am unable to bring to you. I tried. I took a photo with my iPhone, the one you see here. I even went outside to be closer to the moon. No matter where I went, it appeared in my screen as a tiny red dot.

It is important for me to bring the moon to you. And I know you wanted to see it but you couldn’t see beyond the clouds that covered the sky, the clouds on which the lights of the city reflect.

When a moon like this appears, I think of all those I want to share it with, and I think of you.

I don’t think you’d sit there and stare at it for more than a minute or two. I think you would let it fill you with life, with a joy that comes only from nature. And watching that would awaken me, watching how close you travel to the moon and how no photo can ever capture the expression of it filling you with radiance.

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Beauty isn’t a posed photo, red roses, the blond haired blue eyed prom queen. It’s the color of light that day you walk out of a restaurant, the color of light that makes the entire street sing.

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I believe in that saying about art that you should only buy it when it moves you. This piece moved me. I bought it in Harvard Square from a local artist. He displayed his work near the subway station. I saw I this painting and simply starred at it for a good minute. Then I walked away. Three minutes later I turned and literally ran back. I bought it instantly, cancelled my afternoon plans and went home to hang it on my wall. I didn’t love it because I understood it. I loved it because of the way it made me feel before I understood it.

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Prayer is the language, originally uploaded by Lel4nd.

I went to the front of the coffee shop to post this blog entry. Not this one, see, but the one I lost. It was a beautiful story, which I may write again one day. Right as I was about to post it, I shut my computer down abruptly. I saw this girl I hadn’t seen for nine years. And the first words out of my mouth, right after, “I remember you!” were “I just lost my story.” To which she said, “you’re pretty peaceful for a guy who just lost his story.”

And then she informed me that her boyfriend was coming soon. In the last nine years, she said, she had worked with clinically studies and teaching autistic kids how to dance. I told her I run a company, write a little and love to introduce good people to each other. Then the boyfriend came and we parted ways. Nine years of catching up in about :60 seconds. In that time I was about to see that nothing, really, had changed. I wonder if she saw the same?

This story I lost was a damn good story. And I wrote it to share it with you. Maybe in a month or two, I’ll try rewrite it. But you can’t write the same story twice, can you? If I were to write it, I’d simply write a different story perhaps inspired by the first yet different from it. The story would have a life of its own: not the younger brother growing up in his older brother’s shadow, but rather the young brother becoming his own man.

How do deal when you lost something you created? When is the last time you’ve summarized your life for someone you haven’t seen in 9 years? Did it work out well for you? I lost this story, this story I wanted to share with you.

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Did you ever look up to someone and think, “I want to be like that person when I grow up?” I never did. Clearly, there were the usually heroes and celebrities which inspired me, but there was not one person, or one professional who I aspired to be.

The closest of them was Edmond Dantes, a fictional character in the Count of Monte Cristo, who avenges those who wronged his family and protects those who treated them well. What moved me most about Edmond was his ability to completely reinvent himself as the Count of Monte Cristo, and throughout his life live beautifully and fully in the characters he created.

Today someone gave me the advice to think about who I wanted to become. That got me thinking about Edmond Dantes, and it’s why I am sharing this with you. Do you think about who you want to become 5 years from now, or 10? Are you the person you imagined you would be 5 years ago?

This makes me remember that John Milton poem, “When I consider how my light is spent,”

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