To prepare: One who, or that which, prepares, fits, or makes ready. To make things or oneself ready.
A month and a half on the clock before our plane departs for Africa. Winter has moved in downstairs. Our jobs are drawing up the resignation paperwork. Our things have been bagged, escorted across the country and stuffed away at our parent's houses. Our hearts are heavy as we cut small everyday losses to make room for such an adventure - little goodbyes and big ones, the last rites of our routines, closing the shop doors on years of New York minutes. But we know that the adventure is waiting at the door.
In school when I didn’t know where to start or how to move forward with a paper, a story or a thesis, I was told to take out the dictionary. Start with a word that will define your paper and then define it. Seek and absorb its full definition, that which aims at its essence over the course of its life in the English language or the languages before that. Break up the fibers of a word into its syllables, class, conjugations and historical contexts and soon you will see the nuances of its nervous system – a network of meanings, multiples and interpretations. Once you have understood its energy – one that can never be fully captured due to the elusive and coy, shifting nature of language –you can use it to propel you forward into the pages that follow. Start with the definition of one word and the rest will fall into place. Like footfalls on a long journey after the first… purposeful… step.
Life is very much like language. Seeking to capture, understand and describe that which ultimately cannot be. But how very close we come. And before we can grasp the whole of it by the tail it slips from our fingers… but not before we’ve reveled in the richness of what we’ve learned so far.
And so I’ll start with the word I am seeking that defines this less-than-sacred space I have crossed into: prepare. This is a room of mirrors reflecting illusions that appear to be real and familiar but are already fading into fallen footsteps on a road already travelled. The carpeted rooms of my childhood home, my old bronze maxima in the driveway, the trappings of this comfortable Colorado life bumped up against the steel spires of downtown New York, the rumble of subway cars, the delirious delight of evening cocktails around a crowded bar.
To prepare: To make things or oneself ready. To make ready beforehand for a specific purpose. To put together or make by combining various elements or ingredients. To fit out; equip. To lead up to and soften.
To make things ready. Shots, clothes, passports, VISAs, medications, notifications, communications.
To make oneself ready. Expectations, goodbyes, hellos, compromises, doubts, hopes, I wonder ifs. Agreements with yourself you know you might not be able to keep. Balking at your own courage.
For a specific purpose. To find, understand and share meaning. Teach, learn. Learn, teach. ARRIVE. Arrive into my own life and into that of others. Start something. Anything. Become.
To equip. For a game I don’t yet know how to play. With things that will mean very little next to the new tools that the world is about to demand that I discover.
To soften. The threads of the heart on the alter of the unknown. To allow. To hunt for knowledge and then relinquish it. To negotiate for terms, guarantees and assurances only to end up signing it all away in exchange for adventure. To embrace the pieces of the journey that belong to you…and befriend the pieces that don’t.
To soften. The threads of the heart on the alter of the unknown. To allow. To hunt for knowledge and then relinquish it. To negotiate for terms, guarantees and assurances only to end up signing it all away in exchange for adventure. To embrace the pieces of the journey that belong to you…and befriend the pieces that don’t.
Its not much. But it’s a start.
