That’s what is all about. Antithesis. Dichotomy. Yin and yang. Antonyms. You and I.
That whole, that oneness – it’s not attainable here. Here, we are bound by the three dimensions of flesh, by desire and illusion, by our five senses and death. None can escape these. Numbers are everywhere, and they are cleanly aligned on the number line, from minus to plus with the zero in the middle.
That zero. The ancients didn’t even want to acknowledge that – with a good reason, you know. It complicates things. Infinitely small fractions tend to zero. When you try to divide by zero, you’ll get infinite in turn. For zero options, you’re stuck. Still, nothing ever amounts to zero.
Every life counts. Some people are light. Slim, or stupid, or funny, or compassionate. Light can mean a myriad. So can being a rock: hard core, stubborn, true, insensitive. How many times do we label people around us as opposed to labeling ourselves? How many times do we prefer instead of love? How many ways to be a feather or a rock… can one be both?
There is a need for feather-people as there is for rock-people. Yes, it’s hard to get along when there are hardly any commonalities. Tell me about it. But if you see it as an exercise, as a game, it can be bearable if not downright enjoyable at times – as long as you’re not mean. It’s equally hard to not be mean when you get hurt. Feathers can hurt as much as rocks – depends how they’re used. Torture or healing. Why are we so exposed?
I wonder if peace is that middle. The zero. Perfect equilibrium. Zero would be all alone without the other numbers, lost in the dark of nothingness. Is zero the essence then? And does it contain all dimensions? After all, it is a circle.
One recent piece of news (to call it euphemistically) said the Canadian Prime Minister announced that people entering Canada will have to take a covid test and wait for the – hopefully negative – results in a special facility (a.k.a. covid camp) where they will pay the accommodation costs – they, meaning the people in question. If they test positive, they will be required to isolate in a special hotel (read, another covid camp?) again at their cost. This fun activity could raise to some good thousand dollars.
Of course it’s abusive, in all respects. One would have to be crazy to go out of the country under these circumstances. I remember the days in my youth when the communist regime had banned any travel outside the borders unless one was a Communist Party member. Well, we’re back to ⬛ one. And yes, it’s very black.
I also remember one night when I asked my husband, who is a home buddy, but who I begged many times to accompany me in my travels, which place of those we’ve visited he liked most – and we had been to a few in Europe and North America. He said, “none.” I’ve never been quite sure if he had said that out of spite (we were debating something, can’t recall what, and he was losing the argument) or if he actually meant it. Now, if he did mean it, isn’t that rather sad.
I’m glad I traveled when I had the opportunity. The year after communism fell in Eastern Europe, I went to England for six weeks. It was just marvelous. I was to spend another year in Cambridge for my Masters seven years later. In the meanwhile, I went to Budapest and Vienna for New Year’s in two consecutive years during university. I saw Venice and Florence and Pisa and Milan and Ravenna one spring. We spent our honeymoon in Istanbul and visited Ephesus then, ate figs straight from a tree there. What days…
We went to Barcelona and Provence, to Amsterdam and Prague and Bratislava and the Dalmatian Coast. Dubrovnik was a dream, so was the island of Hvar. I was pregnant with my eldest child at the time. We toured a great many monasteries of Romania when I was pregnant with my second child.
We went camping at Tadoussac and saw the whales coming into the estuary of the great St Laurent river. We saw Quebec city, Montreal, Toronto and the Niagara Falls, New York, Philadelphia and Boston. My husband even came to Paris with me, reluctantly – that’s what a great husband he is.
I visited Washington D.C. during a conference when I was pregnant with my third child and had a tour of different styles of houses (my favorite type of touring) throughout that city for my very birthday that time, it so happened. A few years later, all five of us went there and I showed them those enchanting places. We had fun, I remember. We also went Chicago together, learned a lot during the unrivaled architectural tours of that city. Not to mention the rich Americans’ summer houses in Newport, Rhode Island. Oh man.
True, by the time my older kids and I decided to spend two weeks on the Western Coast of North America, my husband and I had already had that talk – so I left him behind. He went back “home” to see his folks in the mountain village they’re from. I guess that’s his best place. He took our youngest with him. Next year, it was my turn to take my youngest places: we went to California, and then the following year to Palm Beach and Disneyland in Florida. She absolutely loved every second of these voyages. She still speaks about them.
Of all the places I’ve been, its hard to pick a favorite one. I liked them all. I truly did. Each one has its own beautiful memory in my mind and heart. But if I were to pick one, just one, it would probably be the Great Canyon. It was there that I first recognized God in all His greatness. Nobody else could have made such a distinctive place. I met God for real there – alone and exhausted and sad as I was at time. And the thought of that, along with all the other places, makes me grateful beyond this world.
I’m glad I traveled. I have those places in me. They can’t take them away, ever – and I can go anywhere there, any time I want. They’ll never win.
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