| Anns
an adhar dhubh-ghorm ud,
airde na siorraidheachd os ar cionn, bha rionnag a' priobadh ruinn 's freagairt mireadh an teine ann an cabair tigh m' athar a' bhliadhna thugh sinn an tigh le bleideagan sneachda.* -from "Srath Nabhar, Derrick Thompson I
was standing at the bus stop the other night watching it snow. As the flakes
fell, slowly spinning down from some unknown origin in the clouds, I realized
that I had never really looked at them before. Sure, I had cut wintry shapes
out of folded construction paper back in the murky depths of elementary
school, but I never really thought about what I was creating. So I stood
there, feeling the wind and the cold and letting the snow collect on me.
I was surprised by the absolute symmetry and complexity of the crystals
that seemed to melt as soon as they landed. Each flake had six points;
no more, no less. They seemed to be comprised of two interlocking triangles
that were meshed so perfectly that they formed a single flawless and unique
snow crystal. It made me think. Why do snow flakes have six points? Why
not four, why not eight? Scientists can explain why the snowflakes form,
demystifying them and transmuting them into nothing more than dust and
water. But they can't say why. Why are they so perfect? Do they really
need to be? Why aren't they all the same? After all, wouldn't it be more
"efficient" for them all to be one uniformly aerodynamicshape? Textbooks
won't even address this. So there I was, standing there in the perfect
stillness, watching the flakes fall. Some fell on me and melted quickly,
leaving hardly a trace to mark their passing, while others would go on
to join great sparkling drifts, ensuring their survival far into the coming
Spring.
* In that blue-black sky, as high above us as eternity, a star was winking at us, answering the leaping flames of fire in the rafters of my father's house, that year we thatched the house with snowflakes. |
And then I began to black out. I remember falling on my back while
my body spasmed, my chest heaved off the ground fighting for air, the whole
time screaming NO!....NO!....NO!!!!" as if instinctively fighting off the
blackness that felt so terribly and mortally wrong. So frightening. So
lonely. Then it passed. But not without leaving a mark on me, somewhere
in the inside where only I could feel it. And I felt it with every breath
I drew.
I sometimes wonder if the snowflakes that fall once fell thousands of years ago on the same spot, or if at one time they were drops of rain falling into the middle of an ocean. It makes me wonder if there isn't something about water that I don't understand. After all, we're mostly water. All water eventually evaporates and goes back to the clouds, back to where it came from. I wonder if I'll be snow someday. I wonder where I'll fall. I wonder if I'll fall in the same ocean as my family. I hope so. I spent a long time taking life for granted. Some things, like running water, central heating, and food, are easy to take for granted; that is, if you have them. Right now you can flick a switch that will light a bulb in a matter of seconds, but two hundred years ago this would have been unthinkable. Electricity? Conductivity? Magic? Faith? Which concept was the most foreign? There were other things I took for granted though, things which I now realized are too precious to take for granted. My family, for one. I always assumed that they would be there. I never really looked too far into the future. As far as I knew, the future was something that happened to other people. College would never end, my parents would always be there for me, and every ending would be a happy one. I always thought "That will never be me." So I made promises that I never intended to keep. I told people what they wanted to hear. I pretended that I knew how others felt, but didn't dare "feel" those emotions for myself; it was much easier to analyze them from a dis tance and keep myself from getting too involved. It's easy to be selfish when you never have to work for anything, and those things that actually require effort you ignore (tests, papers, relationships, promises). I avoided life for a long time. Things seemed so far off in the future they didn't really exist for me. That can be a bad thing, because when the future became the present, I wasn't ready to deal with it. When it seemed like my future was over, it made me reassess my life. |
| For several months after my "Near
Death Experience" (which was more like a very convincing reminder from
the dentist reminding you of a checkup down the road) I was worried that
there was something wrong. I couldn't explain what it was. "It" took many
forms. At first I was worried"what if I really did die?" which opened up
several interesting (not to mention terrifying) possibilities: "Am I dead"
No - I can't walk through walls. "Am I in a coma but don't realize it?"
No - I'd have more interesting things to do in a comatose dream world.
"Brain damage?" Maybe, but it wasn't anything new. Then I worried that
the problem wasn't external, but internal. I would lie awake at night shaking
with the dread that something horrible was about to happen to me, and if
I went to sleep it would be over. I woke up from nightmares that were jumbles
of images of sound, convinced that I was crazy, that at any minute I would
become schizoid and be forced into a home, far from the people I love.
Words like "dementia", "psychosis" and (gasp) "Post-Adolescent Schizophrenia"
hovered around my psyche like angry hornets, threatening to set their stingers
at any sign of alarm.
|
So I began to hope that there was something
physically wrong. Maybe it was a chemical imbal ance, a blood clot, a tumor.
Anything but a mental problem. My logic was that a physical disorder was
tangible and therefore treatable. A mental disorder. ..well, that was another
story. Physical ailments are something that happened to you and were unavoidable,
but could be treated with scalpels or pills. Mental imbalance came from
some unknown place and very rarely went away, at least not without leaving
scars. It meant you were flawed. I was worried that I was broken and would
never get fixed.
It's been over a year now since I had my brush with mortality. I wish I could say that I've since found God, fed the homeless, clothed the needy, and healed the sick. But I haven't. It's not that I'm not going to try to do good things though. I'm just a slow starter. Now I try to be polite, avoid swearing in front of children, and decline narcotics when they're offered. I even do a little bit of volunteering when I have the time. Does this make me a good person? I don't know. Does it make me feel better? Yes. I've decided that I can't try to define my life, I just have to live it (pardon the Hallmark-esque sentiment). This winter I'll be playing in the snow instead of staring at it. |