Waiting for Fireworks.
There are certain things in this life that are most sure to choke me with heartfelt, joyful tears. One is to listen to a choir of little children singing. Another is when I’m in the midst of some heartache so I’d really be listening to the priest’s sermon and then hear God himself speaking directly to me, easing my burning heart and its worries. Another is separation. But don’t get me started on that. The only other thing is when I am standing beneath a blanket of night sky, watching fireworks light up and drizzle down. I don’t know what it is about the fireworks that move me to such a high place… somewhere I likewise cannot explain.
A larger part of my life are moments when I would feel enclosed in some kind of a trap. Imposed or perceived, I really cannot tell. And that’s maybe why I love sitting by windows and staring out into nothing and everything all at once. I would appear to be watching something when I really don’t know what it is exactly that I am looking at. I would look as if I am deep in thought when, in truth, there is nothing to think about. I like looking out into the widest distance I could, imagining if I’ve ever been there before or if I will, one day, get there.
I work at nights and I work on the 30th floor of the building. Right beside me are ceiling-to-floor glass windows that offer me a view to the East side of the metro. In between Excel worksheets and in the biting chill of the unforgiving centralized A/C, I would often take my indulging glances to my left, as if to check if my city is out there and has not left me. The million lights offer much solace… and still more questions for my soul. I know what it looks like at nights, during the break of dawn, and in the mornings… but do I really know what’s out there? I behold a familiar, yet strange, land, but is it beholding me? I know it’s out there but does it know about me?
Sitting all the way up here five nights a week, I somehow feel that I do not belong to this city below me, though I come back down to it every morning after my shift. The mere size of what my eyes can take in sort of reminds me of my own smallness. I wonder, how integral am I, after all, to this patch of dry land? Much less, how do I figure in this universe, if at all?
‘Twas somewhere in between the 22nd and 23rd floors yesterday when I got to thinking, what’s this life for, anyway? We all scramble about each and every day trying to lead “good lives”; Love and Live Life the Best I Know How has always been my personal dictum… and yet yesterday, I asked… WHY AGAIN? To die fulfilled; to go to heaven (or some other otherworldly form of spiritual or carnal existence); to reincarnate not as a dung beetle… depending on your religious affiliations, you can have one or all of such reasons. But then again, it all leads up to some kind of end so why bother? The “fulfillment” will last only as long as your final mortal breath (and how many milliseconds is that?); what is heaven, really (and are you even sure there is one?); even if you reincarnate as the Queen of Sheba or Madonna Ritchie, will you even have a slightest recollection of what you were and where you came from before you became queen of pop? And do you think these sorts of questions won’t be there when you return for your second, third, and fourth lives?