Connections

Written on December 8th, 2004. See Author's follow-up in comments.

Connections: Among many various things, connections are a literary device; an art form that helps a story, or a moment, emerge absolute and complete. Great writers will delay our minds, divert our attention and distract us. And when our questions become simply unbearable, they slake us with wondrous discoveries that simultaneously close gaps and open doors to the rest of the story, past and present and future.

It is a wonderful dichotomy of human emotions. We long for knowledge of the unknown: to read the last page first. We also yearn for ignorance of the familiar: to read the last page last, for the first time again. It is the wonder of discovery and a driving force in our culture, our minds, and our spirits. Reading for the first time is enthralling. Reading for the second time is enlightening.

Two images stood out in my mind tonight as I considered a great question. I pondered the half finished puzzle on the rickety old card table: the view of an image slowly revealing itself. I simultaneously contemplated the $90 wooden frame around the $100,000 piece of paper, hanging on my wall: shining proudly and proclaiming achievement in an old but continually growing tradition. The question looms in the background of the latter, translating itself into generic terms: What is next for me? Where will I go? What will I do? What is it all for?

I am considering the chance to fulfill one of my greatest dreams in a trip to Cambridge, England (the most prominent among several destinations I would be able to cross off on my “list”) as a member of a choir I hold in high esteem both musically and personally, and whose members are more than just colleagues and mentors. This possibility presents itself as one of those opportunities that might be “too perfect.” It is a near lifelong desire that has accosted me at a time when I am not ready to pursue my greatest ambitions. In a time of my life that is as unpredictable as any will ever be; I know that little is certain. My perpetual insistence that “everything will turn out fine in the end” is being tested to its extreme limits. My insecurity eats at my insides like a gnawing guilt, or a painful loss. Yet the converse question must be asked: What if this turns out to be my last chance to fulfill that dream, or perhaps, even more?

More than one person has confronted me with the proposition that my life needs a leap of faith. What if this is that leap? What if this is my chance to break open the next door, and to help me define who I really want to be? What if diving from this precipice leads me finally, to more answers than questions? What if this, is one of those moments that gives me my own discoveries and opens my own doors, to the past, and the present, and the future?

It seems cliché that a person with so many questions at this moment in life would look for answers in a trip to Europe. It may be even more desperate considering I returned from a trip to Germany and The Netherlands not even a year ago. It was a glorious fortnight’s voyage at breakneck speed through frigid cathedrals. The tour, while thoroughly enjoyable, did not seem to answer any questions. I submit that this next trip could be quite different. If it is, I believe it would force me to offer one question’s answer I have feared I knew over a year ago.

Staring at my degree, it glaring back at me, I turned and peered at the unfinished puzzle. The cheesy comparison brought a grin to my face: “the next piece.” I remembered I was the one who identified the location pictured on the puzzle. It was one of the many canals in Amsterdam. I do not know if I believe in “signs” but if I do, this was one of them. Pondering so many questions, questioning so many dreams, a connection, perhaps to show me that this is the next step.

I do not think that my heart is really in these places nor are they where it belongs or yearns to be; home is still my best home. They are simply experiences that my life craves, to create a more complete and diverse picture of myself. As this next chapter of my life begins, my own author ponders new ideas introduced in the closing sentences of the previous one.

Life would barely be worthwhile if the second read were not more revealing than the first. Perhaps that commonly accepted final moment of life flashing before our eyes is a final gift of our earth-bound journey: the chance to read our own story again.