Nowhere But Here

I was drowning.

It was a dream, but it was vivid.

I felt the water getting inside my lungs, for a second thought about crying, but there were no tears in my eyes, just around me, an ocean of sorrows and regrets, was being swallowed by it, suddenly I woke up.

An hour later, I was standing in the kitchen making coffee, out of the window I could see the first rays of morning illuminating the canopy of the old oak. It was majestic and powerless. Often, find myself wondering what it would be like if the oak were a person. Probably an old, wise man, I envied that imaginary wisdom.

Took a sip and looked at my reflection in the window.

Who am I now?

That question hung over me.

Is everyone feeling this hollow inside them?

Maybe it was always there, we were just pretending to be super busy to look at it. Stopped feeding this monster with fake care.

Should I post it in my Instagram?

I choked on the irony of it and spilled some of my coffee in my new favorite pandemic outfit: Pajamas.

After being dismissed from my perfect job, I went to the cabin. My family no longer used it as before, when I was a child we came here a lot, the memories of the summers at the cabin in Middle Lake are very happy, drawing pear trees in the sand, swimming and camping. While remembering that time, the colors are so vibrant, it almost blind me, even if replayed only in my mind I need to squint to avoid so much light. These memories warm my heart, they have been my emotional pillar lately. I can’t stop thinking that I should have lived more and better.

Thought I was living before, but now, have deep doubts about it. California was great, went there to smell Hollywood, had an incredible job and some of my best moments are recorded in the Cloud, but it all seems so fragile now that I am afraid to touch and lose it inside me forever.

I am a history fanatic, find it exciting to look through the cracks of the past and imagine great revolutions and events.

What will it be like to have lived in such a time?

Besides the writers and poets, who else spoke about the pain of change?

The feeling of helplessness.

Ironically now, don't find myself admiring any great author, but ordinary girls, ordinary people, ordinary families.

Did they feel as much insomnia as I?

Did they cry as the old lifestyle fall a part, and they were being inside the tsunami of emotions.

If I could go back in time would say ''Please, don't worry I shared these feeling with you''. Would be great to know that I am not dancing alone in this hall. Maybe everyone is there with a mask and two meters away.

My therapist says I am in mourning. He couldn't be more sure, the need to move on and stop raising the dead was growing. So, decided to come to the hut and have a funeral for my old self, my old world. This absurd need to close cycles is almost an obsession for me. Nothing is allowed to haunt me for a long time, say goodbye as many times as necessary, no doors ajar.

For that special moment my best black dress is prepared, the plan was to wear it in a date that never happened in person. I am so bad at dating apps, just wish to stand in the corner and stare a boy until he gets my mental message. A grown woman with dating abilities of a pre-teen, now the black dress has a new mission.

The shower was quick and my hair dried naturally this is something that I am doing during all this time of isolation, stopped demanding the beauty that think I need to have and live the beauty there is actually in me. Pretty without filter or fillers

Put on the black dress and stared at myself in the mirror for a few seconds, despite all the confusion inside me, I felt in the right path, as if this were a natural gift given by the universe. Took the small box bought for the occasion and put the letter inside. It was a letter of love, of farewell, of pain and hope. I went to the old oak tree and knelt before it, there was silent for a while from nature and from me. Forgot to bring a shovel, so dug a hole with my hands, and suddenly I was wildly dirty.

While digging felt the soil getting under my nails and the more I dug, the more it got wet, when finished the hole was big enough for the box, put it inside and before covering it again, decided to say a few words.

“A new time will blossom. I love you fearless”

It came from my mouth like a spell.

After that I threw the mire over the hole and pressed it well. It was a relief to finally say goodbye to me. The mud was all over me in the end, I got up and went to the edge of the lake, opened my arms, closed my eyes and took a deep breath. Suddenly, I remembered the nightmare of drowning, it was then that decided to rewrite while awake.

Took off my clothes and dived in the cold water that seemed to crack my bones, but soon after, the cold was not a problem, the pain was no longer noticeable. I laid on the water like a mattress, was floating and staring at the sky and thought about the universe, I am cosmic dust from the Big Bang, just a bunch of cells born from the first cell that ever existed, comfortably I did not feel alone anymore.

Raised my hand and remembered a phrase read years ago 'Wonderful structure created by the Supreme Creator and Divine Artist, Nature'. The hand, the opposing movement of the thumb, the pincer movement, the instrument of divine creation capable of sculpting, drawing reality with fine features, capable of handling a weapon, pointing at judgment, symbolizing surrender or going to war.

We are capable of so many grateful and horrifying things, who are we behind the narratives of enrichment we have created about ourselves, why we ignore the connection between all of mankind. Perhaps our best attribute is to question the existence and learn to live with uncertainties like the uncertainty that hangs in the now. Hope we can do it with no fear. Tears ran down my face and touched the water, in the dream I drowned in sorrows and regrets, in real life it felt like reborn and that water was there to transform me, washing away all my terrors.

Lost track of time and when I returned to the cabin the night started to rise. Took a shower and warmed up, after that went to the balcony drinking hot tea, looked at the night sky and in the background the song 'What a Wonderful World' was playing on repeat. My eyes closed instinctively, slowly my feet entered a dance rhythm, could see all the faces that I was missing, could see everybody that was gone, we were all together.

There was no time, no moral compass just existence connecting us, our personal journey was everyone's journey, we are the whole and we are the nothing, the alpha and ômega. A smile cracked on my face, an oak of wisdom sprouted in me and I calmly completed the verse:

'The bright blessed days, the dark and sacred night and I think to myself, what a wonderful world 'and then I comfortably realized there is nowhere but here.