A recent, wonderful and quick trip to a major city to visit family, made me aware of many things as I looked and pondered over apparently obvious things. Although my heart was inflamed with the joy of seeing my oldest daughter and my grandson again after several years, the thorns of the inconveniences troubled me. There was the 2 a. m. alarm wake up to be able to drive for 2 hours from my residence to the airport. There was the inability to move my bowels at that early hour (you try it to see if you can). There was the actual driving in the dark and what I finally accepted were my outdated prescription glasses, which turn lamppost lights and headlights into carnival sparklers. There was the cramped airplane seat next to a big man who kept falling asleep over me, and with whom I was too compassionate to push over to the opposite side. In the city, there were the slow moving buses, the packed-like-sardines subway rides, the robotic crowds walking with me shoulder to shoulder on the sidewalks in the middle of city noise and ambulances and police patrol’s sirens all over the place. There were the long walks of long blocks (20 to a mile), and of hundreds, if not thousands of stair-steps into and out of the bowels of the city (while my own bowels were still full and my butt yearning for my own toilet at home). There were my unfulfilled attempts (because of distance and lack of time) to buy some food that would bring back comfort and memories I had once enjoyed, like bagels from a certain famous shop, and cold noodles from one of my old hangout restaurants.
But it was when I stopped complaining in my mind and really took stock of what I was doing, what this experience was all about, that things began to look brighter. I had returned, after many years, to the city that gave me refuge in my teen years as a parent-less young political refugee and immigrant. This is where I had begun to work, to relate to other people outside of my own circle of family members and a few friends; where I had earned my first income, eaten other food that was not of my own ethnic group, started speaking another language, met girls I could have a “more mature” relationship with (!!!). This was the city where I went to college and where I taught school for the first time, the city where my first and oldest daughter was born, where I found my first pet, my tabby named Puti. This was the city where I met my lovely and wonderful (if you don’t mind me using the word again) present wife and companion for life and where our first son was conceived. This was a great city, full of allure and distraction, full of great human beings who strive to live and work and study and commute and go home safely after a long day, and who read the headlines and listen to their music and drink their coffee and buy from their street vendors and read their magazines on lawns surrounded by spires reaching the skies, and who find solace, like I did, in old, quiet and musty churches in Midtown.
On my flight home, sitting by myself on a half empty airplane, I looked out of the window and kept taking pictures. And then the realization and the decision came in a flash. There was nothing to complaint about, there was nothing wrong with anything, just appearances that were so, just because that is the way things are, and they are all perfect. We always have the choice and the final say as to what life and our experiences are all about.
If you look again at my opening photograph, you may have the same realization I had: THERE ARE NO CLOUDS ABOVE THE CLOUDS!
That skyscape brought it home for me: beyond every problem and every situation that may be giving you stress or a headache, or maybe even a heartache, there is nothing bad, but a canvas where you can paint the best of the best. There are no clouds above the clouds of your life, of your history, of your family and of your apparent misfortunes.
I had kissed and embraced my daughter, my grandson and my son-in-law. I chatted with them and heard about their life. I saw they were good parents, doing an awesome job with what they had and with what they knew. All of that was good. This was their time. This was their labor of love and of life.
By the way, I got my bagels.
There are no clouds above the clouds.
Copyright 2017, J. G. Herrera
WONDERFUL SIMPLICITIES By Author J. G. Herrera 