Made In China

It was night outside the double wide glass doors of the discount store where it smelled faintly of chemicals and leather. Beyond the thick walls housing many items of desire, the moon shone down, bright and brilliant in its glorious fullness.
The taste of mint chocolate ice cream still lingered on the back of her tongue as she wandered the aisles, looking at the assortment of pants and shirts and boots with an apathetic gaze that sometimes crossed over into brief curiosity. She rode the escalator up to the second floor and caught a glimpse of herself in the mirrored pillars that stretched from the ceiling to the white tiled floor. 
Bright maroon lipstick over her lips, her wild mess of hair restrained by a furry white beret. Her oversized green pajama pants were tucked into the wide cuffs of suede boots. There she was, allowing the moon to travel above, for the night of blinking stars to pass unnoticed as she slowly walked through the two floors of metal racks and clear plastic hangers and more discounts than she could have ever wanted.
Every now and then she picked up something and held it for a while in her hands. These things were all cheap, her mind would immediately come up with several reasons to walk over to the registers, put them in a bag and take them home. There were lots of reasons: warmth, comfort, beauty, but the nagging thoughts kept coming in. 
She looked at the label of the sweater tights she had picked up off the back wall by the shoes: made in China.  She had heard a story on the radio seven hours before about the province of China where most of America’s cheap products came from. 
As she drove to the warehouse to drop off her leftover pastries and bread from the farmer’s market, she listened to the stories of young Chinese workers whose hands had became deformed after several years of repetitive movement. They made the clothes, the hangers, the phones, every item that surrounded her. They wore out the workers, till death or deformity set in, then got new younger ones to fill the positions. There were just that many people in China.
Hours later she wandered the store and felt the hands of the workers on every item. Her seven dollar tights were paid for by those distant unknown lives. She took the elevator up to the second floor where the household goods were waiting. She picked up a shoe organizer and looked on the bottom of the label: made in china.  She looked at a cutlery set that advertised itself as hand-crafted: made in china.
As she walked, looking at the brightly colored things, the shoes and jackets, the rugs and feather pillows, her face sunk more and more.  Her feet shuffled along the ground as she began to absorb the meaninglessness of almost every item. The manufactured need, the desire for more and more. 
She could feel it inside, she wanted that rug, those sweater tights. She could hear the voice in her head, she needed them to stay warm, some were even made of bamboo, was there really any harm?  Did her small almost meaningless purchase really make a difference when there were thousands of stores across America like this one? 
She could feel their hands, their eyes, their lost lives. 
She walked through the aisles, killing time until she could leave and drive to the house were her friend sat with sweet smelling long black hair and stories of explored language. She walked, sinking, changing as the story she had heard earlier moved through her. She could feel the pull of the American need, the hope that with this one new thing everything would be better and change, change forever, change until she needed one more thing- until she needed that other thing, until a new desire clung to reality just beyond her grasp.
Just as one orgasm was ending she would pause and think about the next time it might happen.  There was no rest for desire, for the want to fill it-  she could hear the stories of the people in her mind, the deformed hands, the jumpers off the factory roof, the utter desperation to end repetition.
All done so people like her could buy those cheap sweater socks and discounted shoes. It was for her and millions like her. She walked and walked, hurt by what she saw, but unable to leave.

Thoughts In The Labyrinth

They sit in a circle in a dimly lit room.  Candles flicker on the fireplace mantle and cast shadows from the wiry kiwi branches onto the ceiling.  The black curtains are drawn and they are all alone- three bodies who try for a moment to leave the labyrinth and cortex behind, to emerge new from the trappings of intelligence and talk without walls. 
She looks at the man in front of her.  In most societies he would be considered an adult, a man with graying hair, more than forty years of age.  He sits in front of her illuminated in the golden light, imitating her sounds and creating syllables without meaning.

“dooooahhh” she says.
“dooahhhhhhhhh” he repeats one octave below.
“ti ti ta ma to sooooo.”
“ta toooo ta ma to sooooo.”

They all smile.  Someone shifts slightly on the futon.  A part of her ego breaks off and wanders down the labyrinth alone.
She wonders just where she is and who she’s with.  Who is the man in front of her?  The man making sounds? 
The strangeness of the moment hits her, rustles up against old thought patterns and rubs at convention.  Do adults do this?  Do they sit in a circle, letting the stars and night turn to day? Do they make sounds and sing together, pushing their bodies beyond normal comfort to remain seated in a circle?  Do they breathe loudly, moving their hands wildly as though there were music, though none is playing?

“MUUahhhhh, sahhhh, tiiiii.”
“MUUahhhhh, sahhhh, tiiiiiaaaaaa.”

Her ego searches through the known, all those layers sitting, accumulating since birth, waiting for a moment in the light.  “Known” meaning words, thoughts, convention. 
She looks again at the man, long wisps of white hair shine in the candlelight. 
This is not what adults do, though they could all be considered adults with driver’s licenses, bills, kids, cars, jobs- and yet they are not.

In another space she watches two young boys, both just a few feet off the ground.  She is supposed to be the adult there.  She feeds them noodles and bananas and makes sure they are warm and dry.  She comforts them after a fall and tucks them into bed with a lullaby.
And yet, she does not only do what the other adults do. Before bed she sits them next to her by the computer, she practices her singing while they watch and sometimes follow along, clapping as they sing along.  She imitates them in the hallway with her body, stomping her foot when they do, she jumps when they do, yells into the air when they do- they notice what she does and laugh- delighting in the exchange.
But that is not what adults do.  Not the adults they know.  She is their Other. She is like the graying man, a living signifier for another path. 

Detectives

We search, picking through the clues left behind- piles of letters in the mailbox and a fuzzy videotape that leaves more questions than answers. 
They have combed their mind for answers- praying, hoping for a final answer to the questions that keep them awake night after night.  It has been years now- years, and the nights when they should be sleeping drag out forever as they adjust themselves over and over on their pillows and twist their sheets and get up for another glass of water or a trip to the bathroom.  The nights last forever and the mind races, jumping, searching the corners for clues- something, maybe that one thing they forgot to tell the police.  One tiny little detail that will solve it all. 
Just what happened to them?  They disappeared like shadows. 
We saw them leave in the middle of the night and then their car turned up a few days later in a Wal-Mart parking lot.  Where did they go? 
The night is long and tedious as the questions rise up, over and over. There is no resolution.  The wonderful resolution that might be- the death to the constant struggle against wonder.  If only the night would end and the day would come and with it, god willing, an answer. 
We sit now, around a circular table, we draw out what we know, what we don’t.  We search and the more we talk, the less the lines connect.  A disjointed mandala appears before us on the tiled table and we tend to grasp at the edges, trying to bring it all around. 
Just where did they go in the middle of the night? 
My heart starts to beat, not pounding really, but with a slightly sick feeling as it interacts with my chest.  This body wants answers, how I want to be that lady who sees the rise of the sun at dawn, light bringing with it the death I seek- those eternal questions that the religions of the world attempt to answer. 
All the self help gurus and the multi-billion dollar industry cluttered with sticky-sweet titles like “Being Happy in the Digital Age.’  They want it, we want it- an end to the struggle. 
And then I look at my detective. A sly smile on his face.  How he skips, delights in the unknown. I follow him down the twisting path searching for clues. He walks slow, taking his time, enjoying the night.  The day might never come and he would still walk, soaking in the damp air, tasting it on his tongue, listening to the sounds of a sleeping world. 
My beautiful detective.  He looks into a hole and sees the endless possibilities, seeing not darkness, but a galaxy of stars.  Each one shines from another world, another story ringing behind it. 
We walk in the night, picking up clues and storing them in our pockets for safekeeping. And we walk, taking the turns in the path with as much delight as the little things we find under the misplaced stones in a driveway covered with tiny pebbles. 

Black

We are dressed in black today, matching the night.  Black holding all our purpose.  Every color and shape, each breath taken and lost.  For all that were and all that could be. 
The clouds have parted, granting my midnight wish and I stare at a dozen silver moons, a collection of aged children of rock and light.
There are a trail of silver dollars illuminating the path from bed to window, from window to door.  Each step is first memorized and then taken with care. 
There were maps and drawings and we practiced one tiny moment among moments.  Bursting, we feed it and the circle grows, a wide band of black holding each moment. We take it in, drinking, lapping up the dribbles along the edges. 
It is all here, not one thing forgotten.  We cannot list them all and yet their names are etched into the wrinkles and lines, the scars over her breasts and the wisps of hair misplaced. 
The boat sails and I remember, a thing in motion is excited, confused and ready for toppling.  Bubbling up and spinning, the lights direct my attention, moving from human to bird to car to cat. 
You cannot stop me as the colors come and STOP! You don’t witness, you mustn’t. 
The tale must be fulfilled as written and the pages are there, may I direct your attention to the dried up hands telling our story.  Look into the black eyes beside the window, nothing has been forgotten.  Transience, mortality, they are for others outside this space. With the candles lighting our chamber, we sit as the circle.  Bodies are the wires for light, light is the shape of ecstatic motion. We are still, silent but for occasional gasps.

Possibilities

It used to be that freedom was showing up in an airport with a single red backpack covered in carefully sewn decorative patches and a one way plane ticket.
When Ethan wasn’t actually drinking coconut water in Mexico or picking olives in Italy or staring out the window of some meandering train, he would be dreaming of other lands.  The carpet beside his bed was cluttered with travel narratives and fiction set in other countries- he thought that every place was more exotic than the west coast and he wanted to see it all: the colors of India, the ocean waters in the South Pacific, the cobblestone and dreary clouds of Eastern Europe. 
Occasionally he did go to Latin America for a few months or Europe, but it was not the long term travel he had always dreamed of- the multi-year, multi-continental voyage. The trips were short, and kindled his wanderlust rather than satisfying it.  He slept with a map on the ceiling above his pillow and, right before falling asleep (and as he woke up), he would stare at the colored mountains and rivers and all the places he hoped to see.
He always thought back to a particular fall day in Italy. The sky outside the train window was bright blue.  There was a bite to the air and all the colors of the rural landscape were shades of brown and beige and fallen twigs. Bright orange persimmon fruits hung on the naked branches of massive trees and they punctuated the world outside the window with bursts of color.
He was alone on a train going south- not alone really, but surrounded by strangers.  Without the constant jabber of a companion, he focused on the details that surrounded him. The sounds of the train on the tracks, the deep voice of the man selling mozzarella and tomato sandwiches out of a wheeled wooden cart halfway down the train car.
Everything that day was so crystalline and bright. The miles went on and the train doors opened and closed at each station, offering him the brilliant beginning of a multitude of pathways to places he could not imagine.
He knew he could choose any one of them- perhaps getting out at Taormina or any of the little villages along the way to Palermo. Each one was an option, he could simply pick up his 30lb pack and be on his way.  No need for permission or second thoughts or even a look backwards.  It was movement without obstruction, as he stepped outside, he could breathe new air and discover the tiny details that only needed a second of attention; there, a delicate gray and white feather drifting over centuries-old streets.
By a series of curious incidents and split-second decisions, he arrived in San Francisco. Six years later, he called it home. His roaming feet had sunk in some roots- those roots had coiled around gray embedded stones in the salty soil. 
His heart still reached out- enjoying television shows that depicted the people of Romania and Africa, he enjoyed watching characters running from one part of town to another looking for clues to a puzzle, but he could not picture himself in another place anymore.  The desire to hit the road with a single backpack and a one way ticket had just melted away so slowly that he didn’t realize it until it was gone, like some of the baby fat that had once held on firmly to his cheeks.
In the past six years he had begun to paint and draw and make music, all things that he had wanted to do before but never could- or never knew how.
Last Saturday he read a piece of text that he wanted to draw for and turn into a short book.  Over the course of an afternoon he read the text repeatedly and each time he imagined a different style of art. He could reinforce the poetic imagery by echoing it with visual figurative images, or, he could do something far more abstract- possibly color fields, or, something neo-expressionistic and more aggressive with thick brush strokes and possibly dissonant images.
There were so many possible directions and each one could take the same text and alter it completely.  He imagined himself standing at the threshold of a doorway that led to not one path, but dozens, each one of them branching off into scores more. 
He sat at his desk, no plane ticket or packed bag by his feet. His pencils and paper rested in front of him, the light outside the window was changing.  It was different than he had once imagined, what he had once thought of as possibilities and freedom- what had once seemed capable only through steps and constant travel and movement now unraveled, revealing itself to be many places.
The possibilities were truly limitless, they were accessible without a step. His chest ached with that familiar stinging excitement as the doors opened towards endless pathways.  

Habits

I sat on the cold wooden seat of my high-backed stool, my back straining slightly to keep me sitting up after the many loads of bread I carried from the truck across the street to the table beneath the shade of a palm tree.  There were other vendors all around in the park, each hoping for sales and a few goodies to fill their belly at lunch.  On display were varieties of tofu, French savory pies, elegant chocolates filled with the best fruits and cremes. There were dozens of people walking by, some holding tighter to their purses than others. It was a park transformed into a marketplace with samples and delectables, all surrounded by the smell of fresh roasted coffee beans.
For a moment it all felt very cluttered to me- different fabrics, sounds, so much movement and thoughts- I took a long breath and focused my attention. And as that strong moment of attention filled me, I looked from person to person, giving each a few seconds of attention: the bleach-blond rockabilly laughing, the Afghan guy smiling as he took a five dollar bill, his associate smiling as well, bringing his hand to his chest while referring to himself in conversation. A potential customer looking at her cell phone, a small boy eating a pretzel. 
All sound seemed to cease.  I saw each gesture as a manifestation of a deep habit.  Every smile and laugh, every movement and step. It was all habitual and mechanical.   
Each one.
Every one.
And as I turned from one person to the other and saw each manifestation, I felt apart from them, blocked from them by a bit of gray air around me that separated us.
For a moment, I thought they could sense my difference. I didn’t feel the attention of one person, but I felt as if they knew I was different. 
Could they possibly know?  Detached perception turned slightly cold in me as I began to fear them slightly, as I worried they would perceive me as other, as strange. 

Center

The words came out of the girl.
Big pink lips and lusciousness that could only be described by words like liquid and voluptuous and moist.
We looked at her and flipped the pages, there were a thousand more with eyes like feathers.
The words came out of the girl and she knew- there actually could be no asking- it was the center and the center casts no shadows and there just must be a moment when she can let herself feel what it would be like without questions.  No answers either, just a place where the Real could come through the window like moonlight and stroke her with the softness of blue wings.

Center.
We try to maintain the center.
Center.
Center.

The windows were open and the bright daylight revealed all their flaws and they glazed over them like pink lip gloss or sticky donuts and their love coated them in candy without hard shells and turned everything pink and wet and ready for something more. 
More?  Yes, but not then. More?  YES.

They sat in the car, sunlight pouring in. She asking the question. The words again.
The center.
Snuggled against a wiry beard of black feathers, she breathed in the darkness of a scented garage and oils.
We find the center.  Look for it.  Walk towards it.

The sunlight came in and she closed her eyes, letting the struggle inside settle. The moon could be there with its jagged edges.  The silver light could be there with its calm.  It could all happen in that tiny space where his legs could barely fit and she rustled up against him like a pillow.  There were rooms with closed doors that she did not need to peer inside, places with more questions that spiraled like carousel wheels. 
She let the ruffling wings settle.
Those words, once spoken, fly from the open wind and beat out the story of a new memory.