Paradise
I have always been restless. When I am Here, There looks better. When I am There, Somewhere Else calls my name. When I have This, I want That. When I look in the mirror or at photographs of myself, I am always disappointed. I remember the past and dream of the world and love and life as I wish they could be. I am a romantic and a spiritual sojourner, the lonely one in the corner in a crowded room. It is my great failing: I am a wanderer traveling west against the spin of a world that rotates east.
Note to self:
She lived in Paradise, where the streets and stores and neighborhoods all looked the same.
To a little girl with dark curly hair and crooked teeth, beauty was another girl, another place. She dreamed about the other side of childhood and pretended to be there. On the playground and in the classroom the kids teased her because they were not able to understand, because they couldn’t see beyond the day around them. Some of them sat with her at lunch and shared their jokes, or talked about the boys they liked, but none of them asked her who she liked, or laughed at her jokes. Like every other girl her age, she wanted to fit in, but few were willing to move over, and there seemed to be no room. She was smarter than the others, and in a place like Paradise that does not sit well. She kept a smile and played along, and found a place to hide.
In downtown Paradise there was a movie theater, a shopping mall, and a city park. There were gas stations and a hardware store, a railroad crossing and places to eat. The fire station was made of brick, and the schools were old. The steeples on the churches all pointed toward heaven, though no one in town could say where heaven was. Everyone was going to heaven anyway, though, because they all knew Jesus personally. Each house in town had a fence and an SUV, a satellite dish and kids. The dogs barked into the night, and she slept in her plush queen size bed.
When she graduated high school she was beautiful; her hair was perfect, her teeth were straight, and she was grown. She was ready to do most anything, to set out on her own. The valedictorian spoke about the future and how their generation would right the wrongs of the nation and the world, about all the things they had learned and about the promises of tomorrow. When he finished they crossed the stage one by one and received their diplomas, proof they had paid their dues and had a right to live long, prosperous, happy lives. They tossed their mortar boards in the air and hugged their mothers, went to parties and promised to keep in touch.
But few of them did.
Instead, they went their separate ways. They went to college and to work and joined organizations. They went to war, and they went to heaven; they stayed behind and lost themselves. But she had never been like most of them. So, while others planned marriages she knew would fail, she dreamed of going places she had never been and climbing mountains because they were there to be climbed. She packed her hopes and dreams and hit the road, looking for her life.
She travelled east and travelled west, met a man and fell in love. She wanted him to marry her and pushed too hard, so she was left alone. The chilly winds of life pushed back and made her settle down in a two-room home and start a career she thought she’d love. She had heard about places where the action was, where the young all played, but she had no time. She had a career, she had responsibilities, she had bills to pay. The little girl inside had long since left, and she was on her way to finding her life- the place so different from Paradise, the people so different from those she had known.
Then, one day, she met a man- not the kind she’d known before, not what she expected. Rode a bike and had a beard, living his life in a lonely, untamed way. She said she’d come from Paradise and didn’t like it there, and he said, “Come with me, then, and I’ll show you where I’ve been.” He was free and wild and had seen things she wanted to see. She unpacked her hopes and dreams- he did, too -and they saw some things and settled in. Married each other and had some kids.
What is yours and what is mine gave way to these are ours, and for years they lived that way: went places together and built a life, gave things away and put dreams on hold. But like refugees who leave it all behind, they remembered the past and secretly yearned for lives they thought they’d never lived. When strangers came and made them deals, they found new friends and lost each other. On the edge of the promontory, they scanned the far-flung horizon for things they thought they didn’t have that would satisfy their needs.
