Counterfeit Lofty Dreams
Tiny drops of dew linger in poised anticipation atop bowing blades of grass. They rest, these modest drops of this mornings condensation, waiting for the fiery rapture of sunlight to melt them back into their earth. Wind sweeps across this small plain of grass; it points the blades southward, turning and twisting them into a sea of waving green.
The promise of sunlight is steadily creeping towards this patch of earth. Spots of grass are being graced with pure, fulfilling light. And oh, how the dew sparkles! The sea of waving green is now a field of shining diamonds, reflecting the brilliant fire of the sun from their rounded perspective.
As the moments advance, as the day grows, as time completes her promise, the drops yet untouched by sunlight are getting smaller. Those hidden in the deepest part of the darkest shade will miss their opportunity to shine, to become something other than themselves, to have purpose outside of existence.
Since childhood I have been looking for my rightful place, somewhere to belong – like a drop of dew atop a blade of grass, but I consistently fail. And it is a failure; to be nowhere, to be nothing. Or rather, it is my failure.
* * *
A chill is beginning to set in the air; too cold for shorts, too warm for a jacket. My sister and I are standing at the end of our long concrete driveway, waiting for the bus. The horizon line is a profile of the rural, middle-class South I exist in; muted trees, brown grass, and dull houses. The sky is a mundane graying white; not dark, but not bright. Cutting through the horizon, over the top of the hill, bumbles the dirty yellow bus coming to sweep me off for mandatory education.
My sister and I pick up our discarded backpacks and lunchboxes and stand ready to board. My head follows the movement of the bus as it pulls to a stop in front of us. The brakes let out their high-pitch squeal as it comes to a complete halt.
I watch the bus driver swing the lever in one grand motion. His right hand grips the metal handle with the crocheted cozy, and he pulls back swinging the lever to the right; so far right he leans out of his seat to keep a grip on the handle. The doors split in the middle, opening before me, welcoming me aboard. Every day I wish I could open the door myself. My child mind cannot figure out the mechanics of the little lever opening the big door.
My dad has the same fascination with cement trucks. Ever since he was a boy he has wanted to experience driving a cement truck; operating the spinning drum, and then sending the churning, lumpy cement sliding down the half-tubes attached to the back of the truck. But saying I want to be a cement truck driver is too obvious; too much like my dad. Being a bus driver is different, but the same.
* * *
Lofty dreams have never been my forte. The bus driver occupation can only last so long. People are starting to ask, “No, what do you really want to be?” I realize I need to revise my future career. My new answer to that inescapable childhood question becomes, “I want to be an architect.”
To further concrete my new forged grand dream I spend hours drawing imaginary floor plans of houses I will one day design. Even more hours are spent building Lego houses in which the occupants will have to leap, crawl, and/or slide into various rooms. The smallness of these buildings, the plasticity of their materials, their flaccid integrity, are all synonymous of my childhood vision of the future.
I’m confident I am fooling everyone into thinking I really want to be an architect. But being an architect implies being a grown-up, and I am dead set against that. Sure, it has never been done before; adulthood is an inevitable part of existence, but every night, wish I may, wish I might, on every star I see in the night, that Pinocchio’s fairy godmother will come to me in my sleep, tap me with her magic wand, and I will stay a kid forever.
* * *
Downtown Chicago - three blocks off Michigan Avenue, one block off State Street, five blocks from Lake Michigan itself. This is where I find myself; a city of lofty skyscrapers and counterfeit dreams, hoping to find my place, my future, my purpose outside of existence.
The school, Columbia College Chicago, is a liberal arts institution whose only real requirement for admission is a pulse; not even a very strong pulse. I have pinned my hopes of changing my life on this proverbial move to the big city. Chicago will embrace me, and I will fall mercifully in love with her. I will become something here.
Classic rock is gently wooing me from a blissful state of slumber; "7:30 am" the clock reads. Every morning for the past two months I’ve been questioning why I ever took an 8 am class. Eyes half open, I gaze out the towering window above my bed; through the city dust covering the glass panes is a mocking gray sky. Another day looms out there. The hiss of Chicago’s notorious wind seeps in through the window. The sound rises and falls with the ferocity of the wind, but it never sinks to silence.
Forcing myself out of my snuggly bed and into the frigid air of this Chicago dorm room, I rise. Too early to shower, I throw on yesterday’s clothes, pack my backpack, and head out into the dreaded city I am still trying to love.
At the mere crack of the building’s front door a rush of stiff wind squeezes in, blowing up the sleeve of my coat to the very core of me. I grit my teeth and squint my eyes, pushing the door all the way open to force myself out. I am met with a wall of hard, striking air carrying tiny bits of the city into my eyes. After two months in this place this part of my day still discourages me.
On the walk to class I keep my head down, partly to protect my chapped cheeks and teary eyes, and partly to protect myself from intimately knowing this place. I want it to love me, but I do not want to love it. I ignore the architecture, the depth, the texture, the culture, of this city. I exist on its surface, waiting to get swept up in its romance.
The wind refuses to let up. Breath escaping my lungs in white clouds immediately trails off behind me as I walk, carried away by the breath of the city itself. This place I hoped would be my salvation is standing above me, waiting to embrace me, but I am failing it.
The appeal of this city was in the escape, not the destination. But even the escape has been carried away by the same force of wind that steals my breath; and I am stuck here to find a purpose that does not want to be found.
My step-dad’s black Cadillac, the same car that brought me into this city, is now overflowing with my accumulated belongings and taking me away from the place I failed to love. I refuse to let myself feel the absolute disappointment of this sad retreat. I’ve convinced myself that my future lies elsewhere in a desperate attempt to avoid the shame of failing. The pressure was on for me to succeed here, but I leave as nothing; nothing.
Sitting in the passenger seat, elbow resting on the car window sill, hand on my head, I watch Chicago’s landmarks fade into the atmosphere through the side-view mirror. I know I am supposed to have chosen a career here; a future, some resemblance of a damn life. But here I am, watching The Sears Tower, standing black against a sunlit blue sky, diminish as it becomes merely a dark blur behind me. Squeezing my eyes close to shut, it disappears.
* * *
Chicago is a year and a half behind me, and only in memory am I able to look upon that city with fondness. I hated being there, but now, I hate being home with the same intensity. Maybe it’s really me that I hate. My peers are moving forward, growing up, finding purpose; but I am stuck in my decrepit existence. The plan now must be to force myself into a future; and I will force myself to endure it, to be it.
This time, web design is my counterfeit future. It rolls off my tongue smooth and intellectual as I tell people this is what I will be. My parents are intrigued and encouraging; perhaps their excitement is in my motivation to be something other than a Dependent on their tax form.
Behind the wheel of a U-Haul brimming with all my belongings, I’m on my way to a small, private college in Evanston, IL, a city on the north border of my abandoned Chicago. I am once again out to find myself; hoping this time my purpose wants to be found.
It doesn’t.
A year has gone by and I’ve nothing to show for myself. I made the Dean’s List, but through no effort of my own. The web design classes I’m taking require no thought, little creativity, and a minimal understanding of basic computer operation. My great success is accomplished by merely showing up and turning on a computer.
I was hoping this web design ambition would be real; would propel me into adulthood, into independence. But I’ve known, somewhere in the sinister corners of my mind, that it’s all been for show; for my parents, my family, my friends, even for me.
Three to four inches of snow is already covering the ground as more steadily falls. Flakes, the size of quarters, are floating down from above. I remove my glove to let the fluffy flecks of ice come to rest in my hand. The heat radiating from my palm allows for only a momentary grasp of the falling sky. I can’t feel the snowflake melt against my skin, but its evaporation tells me it is gone. Its life was wasted on my flesh, on my curiosity; it will become nothing now.
I left my apartment twenty minutes ago with no destination in mind; the idea is to be lost. Streets I’ve never walked down before provide me the comfort of a stranger’s embrace. I am, again, failing to love a city I promised myself to.
I keep walking despite the numbness in my hands and feet. Snow is sticking to the concrete sidewalk, covering my footprints as quickly as I create them. I am leaving no impression on this place. I am ready to abandon it.
The drive back to Michigan takes me through Chicago. The familiar landmarks are, once more, fading into obscurity in the rearview mirror. I’m aware of their presence, but I cannot bear to look this time. I am humiliated and shamed in my failure to find a real future; in acknowledging no passion in my soul.
* * *
My backyard is on fire. The autumn sun ignites yellow, red, and orange leaves against a cloudless blue sky. The green grass melts into brown tree trunks, as the blaze grows up towards a calm sky. Sparks fall to the ground in a slow spinning frenzy, covering the green grass in their dead ash.
In the last three years in Michigan, writing has become a spark of potential passion; drifting to and from me like a falling leaf. I try to grab at it in its unpredictable freefall before it becomes another dead dream beneath my feet. But the closer I get to holding it in my hand, to believing I can do this, the closer I get to the fire; a fire that promises to burn me.
On the surface, I write for the glory, to impress my family and friends with my intellect and wit. But beneath that, below the selfish exploitation, is something. It wakes me in the middle of the night to write a sentence down, and has me writing on tiny scraps of paper while speeding down the freeway. But I have no delusions; this scarcely burning ember of passion for writing could wither and die before the end of the year.
* * *
As a child I was asked, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” As a teenager I was asked, “What do you want to study in college?” As a college freshman I was asked, “What’s your major?” Currently, when seemingly no progress is being made, I am asked “When will you be done and what will you do?”
I don’t know.
I do know that I’m tired of running off to pursue a counterfeit dream I have no passion for; of wondering when my life is going to start; of looking for a purpose outside of mere existence.
Perhaps my real failure is in the inability to comprehend that a snowflake melting into my hand has found its purpose; that a shaded drop of dew atop a blade of grass has also found its purpose; that my life, wherever I am, whatever I am doing, is my purpose.