Today I am working at the Sourire de Montmartre, a small bed and breakfast owned by some friends in the heart of the 18th in Paris. They ask me to fill in from time to time when they are on vacation, and I usually love every second of it. Today I am asking questions like always—“How did you sleep?” “Do you have plans for New Year’s Eve?” I make conversation, but I don’t dare ask any of the questions I’m really wondering about, like, “What will you do with your life to reconcile the loneliness of humanity?” or “How does one deal with the itch of loving something or someone that s/he cannot possess?”. I suppose I won’t ever share my perspective, either, or the knowledge that I crave their conversations not because of their unique experience of the world, but because I am lonely for the presence of God. Because I am seemingly incomplete—however illusory the sentiment—and the space it would fill makes way for wanting, burning. So much wanting. At least I can say that I’ve moved past most physical wants. Most. I confess that I am not without fault… There are days when I feel the wanting acutely—when I believe that I cannot find what I am seeking within myself or anything I have already. It’s a strange phenomenon that overtakes me and inspires my mind to run away to the far ends of the universe, scheming up daydreams of the flightiest nature and sometimes … sometimes I am tempted to run and seize them up in my arms. It’s on these days that I walk the sidewalks vulnerable, waiting to be saved by some awakened soul armed for the challenge. Coffee, cigarettes—I can think of a dozen ways to feed my beast, but make no mistake. It needs feeding. One of my fears is that one day it will (with no qualms whatsoever) eat up one of the wonderful things in life, one of the pillars I’ve built over time with patience and care. Strangely, I cannot tell if these yearnings are genuine anymore, or if they have merely become symbolic of what I lack—the seeds of some ideology I’ve burrowed into my mind that is now bearing fruit. All I know anymore is that the slightest reminder is liable to set my thoughts ablaze.
I am reminded often.
Most of the time I wouldn’t be inclined to upset the beautiful balance, but every now again, like a dame forced to sit up straight at some stuffy tea party, I’d like to upheave all of that fine China and make it all come crashing down to the sweet sound of chaos—of glass breaking all around in a colorful mosaic of ‘fuck it’.
I suppose the hardest thing to do in life is to know what to do with your impulses. Then again, what if waiting for just the wisdom you need to compartmentalize the urge, to put it in a neat and tidy box and decide definitively, becomes intolerable?
If nothing else, I am certain of a few things: there is no one you should rather be than you, no time more interesting than now, and no place better than here. Always.
