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Dear Us,

Água

 

     You wanted to go somewhere you could marvel at something. Another quarrel with vacillation done, you made up your mind. Without reluctance you grabbed the green one. And then as people who forget they are enough often do, you put it back. If I had asked you in that moment why you decided to return it to the dark hole that occupied too much space in your closet and life, you would have stated that a suitcase so large would only weigh you down. A lie. You would travel to Lisbon heavy no matter what. What weighed you down was not green, but a being of sorrow suffused with all the colors of the earth. Soon, you would be somewhere you could marvel at something, you thought. Let you tell it, your eyes were finally about to prove their worth, and Portuguese architects theirs. Another lie. As you waited in Barajas’ T4 with Butterfly on repeat, you were unaware that in just a few days the world would demonstrate its consistency and let you down.

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     You could barely hear the woman’s faint voice. The wind was behaving like that soprano who did not blend well but swore she held her section down. Between flat and sharp notes and failed runs you heard the woman say, “this is the edge of the earth. Look out there. That beyond the water, that’s the beginning. '' With lifeless blonde hair and dangerous naïveté, she was so foolish. Gullible. For once, her ordinary blue eyes had not served her. And they would not seduce you into ignoring the truth. You knew that following the woman’s pointed finger would not lead anyone to the edge of the earth, the beginning. You were disappointed. There was nothing marvelous about mediocrity. This pale woman and her white lie were both basic at best.

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     There was more than this. This could not be the edge. The edge, you had always felt, was the genesis of the water. That from which all life flows. That which we might not recognize now because of its temporary state of aridness, but there once was water there. Here. The one true beginning. You were present enough to sense that the wind began to sing softer, quieter. no longer entertained, whiteness retreated. And left alone, you reflected on the pain you carried; it was more vast and more complexly deep than this so called edge of the earth. The pain became too much, and you finally surrendered. The heaviness won. The emotional levees your ego created broke. However, you did not break down... but vulnerably you teared up. It was truly something to see, even better to feel. Water everywhere. You had been in a desert state for so long, you had believed it was who you were. You had forgotten that you, yes You were an oasis rich with water, longing to be released in small drops that could lead you back to yourself. Mini cascades that would make the desert no longer a desert. Returning you to an oasis. And on that tearful day the world witnessed the most marvelous thing it had ever seen: Healing.

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We're gonna heal.

I love us for real,

Shamari

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Tears are often enough. Follow them to healing. To wholeness. As Toni said, water always has a way of finding its way back to itself. If only our memory could be so perfect.

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