I am sitting in the room where my grandparents died. Well, not at the same time. Two years apart, actually. My grandfather passed away here in 2005, and my grandmother in 2007.
My grandmother left this world on June 19, 2007. It was her wedding anniversary. I'd just returned from a music festival and my first experience with... an "elixir" that can truly work wonders with a curious mind. I remember that as the day I saw God. That is, I was seeing the same material world everyone sees, I just saw it as God when I heard the news about my grandma. Specifically, I was looking at green leaves on a tree when the feeling came.
I was aware this year that June 19th would be the 10th anniversary of that day. I'd already traversed some thunderstorm drama that evening, as I had gone to work without an umbrella and been rewarded with horizontal rain when I had to move my car immediately after work. In short, a lot of sprinting was involved. My sweat glands may have felt overworked, but my heart was appreciative.
While the rain poured, I wondered what I'd done to deserve such a storm. Then I remembered that the rain wasn't punishment for past actions, or merely necessary thirst-quenching of the Earth's present. It was also preparation for the next miracle.
Earlier in the day I'd silently berated myself for taking so long with my dreams, and started playing that game where you wonder what life would be like if you'd done some things differently. Surely I wouldn't be in such a cruddy apartment with oft-annoying roommates.
As those thoughts returned to me, I looked out the window to see the sun had begun to shine. Not only that, but it was only shining on one corner of the building across the street. It illuminated a smile. I was about to run outside to see if it was lighting up the river, but something else caught my attention and I decided to sit down.
A colossal double rainbow was decorating the sky directly outside my window. Nobody on the street could see it. I had to be in that room at that moment. I listened to the song "Spirit" and thought of my grandparents and how happy they'd been.
A week later I went for a walk after work because it was a very sunny day. I soon noticed that someone had placed a piano near the park, which they do sometimes. A man was playing something I didn't recognize, but it sounded good. He had a small group of friends around him, bobbing their heads along, smiling. I decided to walk past them but then stop so that I could still hear the music.
After a while the performer started playing a melody that was very familiar, but no matter how I tried, I couldn't quite place it. Something in my head told me to look up, and I saw the moon grinning up above. It had been gone for a few weeks.
When the player finished, I was tempted to just walk away, but then I remembered this picture I'd taken in Oakland. It was of a building with the reflection of a pyramid on it. I think it was for the website Ask.com, because it said, "Just ask!" So I walked back to the piano and asked what song he had been playing. He smiled and said, "New York!" I scanned my brain for New York songs, thinking of Sinatra, Joel, etc., and then one of his friends said, "Jay-Z." That's when I realized he meant "Empire State of Mind" with Alicia Keys. I thanked them and pointed out the moon above.
A day later I was doing a similar walk, but later in the evening, when I arrived at St. Nicholas Park. I thought I was just gonna walk through quickly, but then I noticed there were fireflies everywhere. It reminded me of some happy and some not so happy times. Of course, I noticed Grandmother Moon then, and she looked pretty pleased.
That was a few days ago. Now I'm sitting in this room, happy to have made it home safely. After all, I hadn't planned to be here tonight, but a week ago I was climbing a hill in Troy and noticed the check engine light was blinking with just 35 minutes to go in a 3.5 hour journey. It felt like it was struggling up the hill, kind of like it felt when my spark plug went while descending a hill in Troy the year before. I pulled into a gas station, checked all the gauges, oil and fluids carefully, called my dad to warn him and see if he could give any advice, read the manual, and discovered that it could be that my catalytic converter would catch on fire if I accelerated or decelerated too quickly. Later it turned out it was the spark plugs. Sometimes you gotta work a little harder to keep up the spark.
I'm feeling lucky to be here safely for more reasons than 1. 7 years ago I woke up in NYC after 1 day back in the US and got on a train up the picturesque Hudson River to Albany, where my friend met me at the train station and gave me a ride to Gannon Road, where he dropped me off to walk the final mile of the 7 month journey around the world on my own. When I got to the house, I walked around back to this room and waved through the window. My sister screamed because they hadn't been aware exactly when or how I would be arriving home.
Today I woke up in NYC after three and half years of residence there, talked about family, friends and independence with people from around the world, got on a bus up the not-so-picturesque I-87, met my father at the same train station I'd met my friend 7 years prior, picked up my car at the auto-repair shop, and drove the final few miles home.
When I got home, I took advantage of the free laundry machine, as I've been known to do. I washed all the clothes in my backpack. On top of that, I included the sweaty clothes I'd been wearing on the bus ride (I'd stubbornly run up the motionless escalator at Hudson Yards with a large backpack on), so I had to look in my old bureau to find some shorts or pants to wear. My eyes immediately locked onto my old brown Thai fishing pants, the same pants I'd found in Bangkok in 2010, and worn pretty much every day for 6 months after that, including the day I returned home. They've got a large patch and a large hole now, but they're doing the trick so far. Also, there were ten dollars in the pocket, which is nice.
I gotta say, I was happy to find that cash, because money can be exchanged for goods and services. That said, you can't purchase the magic of synchronicity.
Or a rainbow, for that matter.
The pot of gold is a bonus
My grandmother left this world on June 19, 2007. It was her wedding anniversary. I'd just returned from a music festival and my first experience with... an "elixir" that can truly work wonders with a curious mind. I remember that as the day I saw God. That is, I was seeing the same material world everyone sees, I just saw it as God when I heard the news about my grandma. Specifically, I was looking at green leaves on a tree when the feeling came.
I was aware this year that June 19th would be the 10th anniversary of that day. I'd already traversed some thunderstorm drama that evening, as I had gone to work without an umbrella and been rewarded with horizontal rain when I had to move my car immediately after work. In short, a lot of sprinting was involved. My sweat glands may have felt overworked, but my heart was appreciative.
While the rain poured, I wondered what I'd done to deserve such a storm. Then I remembered that the rain wasn't punishment for past actions, or merely necessary thirst-quenching of the Earth's present. It was also preparation for the next miracle.
Earlier in the day I'd silently berated myself for taking so long with my dreams, and started playing that game where you wonder what life would be like if you'd done some things differently. Surely I wouldn't be in such a cruddy apartment with oft-annoying roommates.
As those thoughts returned to me, I looked out the window to see the sun had begun to shine. Not only that, but it was only shining on one corner of the building across the street. It illuminated a smile. I was about to run outside to see if it was lighting up the river, but something else caught my attention and I decided to sit down.
A colossal double rainbow was decorating the sky directly outside my window. Nobody on the street could see it. I had to be in that room at that moment. I listened to the song "Spirit" and thought of my grandparents and how happy they'd been.
A week later I went for a walk after work because it was a very sunny day. I soon noticed that someone had placed a piano near the park, which they do sometimes. A man was playing something I didn't recognize, but it sounded good. He had a small group of friends around him, bobbing their heads along, smiling. I decided to walk past them but then stop so that I could still hear the music.
After a while the performer started playing a melody that was very familiar, but no matter how I tried, I couldn't quite place it. Something in my head told me to look up, and I saw the moon grinning up above. It had been gone for a few weeks.
When the player finished, I was tempted to just walk away, but then I remembered this picture I'd taken in Oakland. It was of a building with the reflection of a pyramid on it. I think it was for the website Ask.com, because it said, "Just ask!" So I walked back to the piano and asked what song he had been playing. He smiled and said, "New York!" I scanned my brain for New York songs, thinking of Sinatra, Joel, etc., and then one of his friends said, "Jay-Z." That's when I realized he meant "Empire State of Mind" with Alicia Keys. I thanked them and pointed out the moon above.
A day later I was doing a similar walk, but later in the evening, when I arrived at St. Nicholas Park. I thought I was just gonna walk through quickly, but then I noticed there were fireflies everywhere. It reminded me of some happy and some not so happy times. Of course, I noticed Grandmother Moon then, and she looked pretty pleased.
That was a few days ago. Now I'm sitting in this room, happy to have made it home safely. After all, I hadn't planned to be here tonight, but a week ago I was climbing a hill in Troy and noticed the check engine light was blinking with just 35 minutes to go in a 3.5 hour journey. It felt like it was struggling up the hill, kind of like it felt when my spark plug went while descending a hill in Troy the year before. I pulled into a gas station, checked all the gauges, oil and fluids carefully, called my dad to warn him and see if he could give any advice, read the manual, and discovered that it could be that my catalytic converter would catch on fire if I accelerated or decelerated too quickly. Later it turned out it was the spark plugs. Sometimes you gotta work a little harder to keep up the spark.
I'm feeling lucky to be here safely for more reasons than 1. 7 years ago I woke up in NYC after 1 day back in the US and got on a train up the picturesque Hudson River to Albany, where my friend met me at the train station and gave me a ride to Gannon Road, where he dropped me off to walk the final mile of the 7 month journey around the world on my own. When I got to the house, I walked around back to this room and waved through the window. My sister screamed because they hadn't been aware exactly when or how I would be arriving home.
Today I woke up in NYC after three and half years of residence there, talked about family, friends and independence with people from around the world, got on a bus up the not-so-picturesque I-87, met my father at the same train station I'd met my friend 7 years prior, picked up my car at the auto-repair shop, and drove the final few miles home.
When I got home, I took advantage of the free laundry machine, as I've been known to do. I washed all the clothes in my backpack. On top of that, I included the sweaty clothes I'd been wearing on the bus ride (I'd stubbornly run up the motionless escalator at Hudson Yards with a large backpack on), so I had to look in my old bureau to find some shorts or pants to wear. My eyes immediately locked onto my old brown Thai fishing pants, the same pants I'd found in Bangkok in 2010, and worn pretty much every day for 6 months after that, including the day I returned home. They've got a large patch and a large hole now, but they're doing the trick so far. Also, there were ten dollars in the pocket, which is nice.
I gotta say, I was happy to find that cash, because money can be exchanged for goods and services. That said, you can't purchase the magic of synchronicity.
Or a rainbow, for that matter.
The pot of gold is a bonus
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