Dreams, Desires, and Discoveries

There is Something About Bridges

2012-01-01T20:05:00.000-08:00

When I was young, images of the Golden Gate Bridge represented America in my mind. America was not symbolized in the all-welcoming draped woman holding an inviting message standing in the New York Harbor. Nor was America represented in the hat-wearing, finger-pointing image of a man soliciting help from his citizen nephews (and nieces). In fact, I think there were pictures of various family members posing near the Golden Gate Bridge that drew me to the land of the free. It has been many years since then, but my love for that bridge still stands. During my daily commute to Novato (from San Francisco), I happily drive on one of the two north-bound lanes across the bridge, and sometimes it dawns on me that the dreams of that young, bridge-admiring girl have come true.

Though that partly describes and validates my love for this great landmark, lately, I have been thinking about bridges in general. They are of everywhere and of no where, at once. Every morning, as I begin my drive on the GG bridge, I leave San Francisco County and embark towards Marin County, yet during the time that I am on the bridge, I am in neither county and yet in both --liminality explained in the most physical sense. Though I have clearly left the 7 mile by 7 mile squared piece of land, I am merely on the threshold of the next series of cities and towns that make up Marin County (and counties beyond that). Bridges defy boundaries in this way by refusing to succumb to our modern (and perhaps ever-present) desire to categorize and classify everything and everyone. They are long stretches of man-made connectors that translocate people from place to place over various bodies of water, but they, themselves, are of no location.

There is, moreover, a third reason why I so love bridges. What they have come to represent for me is human beings' desire to connect to one another, even when nature dictates a degree of separation. Bridges were our first attempts at social networking sites. Perhaps the very first bridge-builders would be surprised and proud or dubiously afraid of modern cyber affairs of that sort. Either way, bridges, I would argue, is where it all began. Where water stood uncompromingly between two masses of land, there was a person (or people) who dreamt of means to override nature's unyielding, inexorable demands, thus conceiving elongated structures of iron works that would raise a crude gesturing finger to oceans everywhere. "We will prevail," they seem to say. If we stand together and deeply desire to connect to each other in physical ways, without desperately seeking to segregate and isolate ourselves from other human beings, I wonder how else we can stand up to nature, even when circumstances seem, somehow, inauspicious.

I look forward to my mornings on the GG bridge, and this most famous SF landmark eases my commute to work. Though I have always admired this vermilioned piece of work, I think I have new reasons to appreciate it, along with its other sister-bridges, forevermore.

The Breach

2011-05-22T09:34:00.000-07:00

Breach

Water mixed with Wine –to cheapen the taste.

Sorrow mixed with Joy –to depose pure bliss.

A piercing bitter taste is left in my mouth;

I have no affinity for things of the past,

Nostalgia does not suit me

And yet the crimson in everything reminds me of bygone days

It calls my name

--beckoning me to the joy of ecstasy--

--pointing back to the days of opaque dreams, when happiness was promised to never cease--

Then,

Oaths were for forgotten

Glasses were broken

Whites were bloodied and stained.

The fragile gate to happiness was shattered.

Strangers breached and changed the meaning of

Joy

Bliss

And Dreams

They R

away with mirth –ever so quickly– and replaced it with an indescribable sense of melancholy.

We no longer know what happy really means or

What CRIMSON verily looks like.

Changing

2010-10-11T17:56:00.000-07:00

Shifting the color of my body,

I concentrate on achieving

perfect unison

with the surrounding scenery.

My complexion alters to a vibrant yellow to blend with the daffodils.

The rest of my body intensifies –it becomes a rich green– as burly as the stems.

It is impossible to distinguish between myself and the daffodils.

I am content,

until

the Eastern Wind blows with all his might –as if to extract every being that is

D eep within the earth.

At first, I manage to keep up with the sudden shifts

Yellow, green, blue –my face changes– as it sees fit.

I fixate all my energy on ensuring unification with my surrounding,

(forgetting that unlike the daffodils, I am not rooted)

And as the wind’s wafts strengthen

I am elevated and separated from the garden.

Fear runs through my veins.

Insecurity encumbers me.

I am no longer one with the fair paradise.

How will survival play its part?

Then,

I see the sun.

It shines on me too –even when it has forsaken the golden daffodils.

I the Desert; He the Rain

2010-08-31T22:27:00.000-07:00

He is the Rain; giving, fostering, and generous. I am the Desert; waiting, wanting, and yearning. I wait for him to plant a kiss upon my dry lips and foster jungles within me. I yearn for his touch, for his fingertips to tap my bare shoulders and wake me from my nightmare. I want his generosity to shower mercy on my grounds. How I wait for a sign in the clouds that announces his arrival. How I want to be ravished by his love. How I yearn for him to bring me back to Life.

The sun scorches my skin, and it continues to create more cracks on my body. The sinister sun grins at the thought of my captivity. You are my captive, she thinks. Oh how I pray that she’s wrong. If I be a captive, let me be the slave of his droplets. Let me surrender myself to the damp embraces of his cooling touch. Some days those fantasies take away from the hurt.

The moon also takes away from the blazes that pain my soul; I feel a bit more at ease when he comes around. At night the moon and I reminisce my lost joy; the joy that came along with the love-like bond the rain and I made many years ago; a bond that heat destroyed. I became weak, and could no longer afford to cultivate and nourish my greens. My weakness left no room for his existence. I was a fallen land, fallen from glory. Distance took the place of our union, and I haven’t felt him since that day. Not since the day I gave up on him ever returning to me. Impatience took over me, and I was unable to reassure my heart that he would come. I knew he existed, I had felt him touch me. His touch had renewed in me a lost element long ago. He did exist. It had just been extremely difficult to remember how his touch had made me feel. This lack of tenderness molded itself into doubt. Had I imagined him quenching my thirst? Had I imagined him giving up his life for me? I doubt that. Yet, forgetfulness has taken over, and I cannot remember anything from the times he and I shared something extraordinary. If I weren’t rooted, I would run and search the streets of heaven for him. “Where is he?” I’d ask. Where is my rescue and deliverance?

His presence is no longer a desire deep in my heart; it is a matter of necessity; of Life or Death. If I don’t feel him again, I will slowly perish.

Everywhere

2010-04-09T18:28:00.001-07:00

In the running water of the shower
Along the lines of the Penne
Between the sheets
On the brown futon
In the flickering images on the television
Along the handle of the blue mug
Between the pages of the red book
On the kitchen counter
In the empty wine bottles
Along the edges of the puzzle pieces
Between my fingers
On my mind

You are everywhere.