Moonsand

     There was a moment where I knew I was safe. It was yesterday, and soft jazz was still playing from one room over. The light was dim and my new bedroom felt like a space I made sense in. Everything moves in nonstop, senseless motion nowadays. I am unsure if time has been going by faster, or if I’m just finally paying attention. Either way, I can’t seem to look directly at the people I love without getting dizzy. But this time, I was in my bed, sinking deep into a mattress topper that smelled of cotton and cellophane, looking even deeper into a pair of warm brown eyes. Everything turned to touch – hands on skin, day clothes in a pile beside us. Both of my wrists were pinned down to each corner of my bed, when I said, “You can do anything you want to me.” Anything you want to me – the words just rolled out. I don’t normally speak that way, but everything was hands and skin and play. He froze. I saw something soften inside. I still wondered what his next move would be. People let the people they love hurt them and bite them and yank them around. What made me any different? Seconds of nothingness drew themselves out, uncharted hesitancy, until he said, “Close your eyes.” I shut them so tight. But all he wanted to do was kiss my two closed eyelids, the tip of my nose, and each eyelash at once. Laughter bubbled up inside me, I’ve never known something so gentle. BDSM has turned to butterfly kisses.

-

     It is remarkable how a place itself can stay the same, while everyone in the place has undergone some absurd inner transformation. I never thought I would end up here of all places, in Syracuse, New York. I want to feel close to this place. I want to feel like it loves me, and I want so badly to love it. My best friend feels the same way. Her and I flee from campus often. We drive aimlessly, searching for something beautiful. The leaves are turning orange and the sun feels cold and kind. My best friend is behind the wheel and we enjoy all the same bands. It’s a ritual; our coffee drives, our songs, our grievances and gossip. But we could drive anywhere and not see it. We could drive to the edge of New York. We could drive to the edge of this earth looking for Home, just to look back, years too late, and see that it was sitting in the backseat of the car with us all along. 

     As I write this, my mother is writing too, but in England. My father is reading too, but in Los Angeles. My friends are all spread out, some in Texas, one in Costa Rica, some in Boston, some across the hall. I always knew this would happen, I knew everyone would leave, move, grow, and shrink. I knew that “Home” would turn into something bendy and twisted and moldable, just like Moonsand. I realize how much of “Home” is synonymous with safety. Security and familiarity. Home is saying, “You can do anything you want to me” with your wrists pinned down. Home kisses you on the nose. 

-

     There are six old LIFE Magazines scattered on my floor. I’m cutting out art and ads and pages to put all over my bedroom walls. Another year, another flood of command strips. Another semester, another bedroom. I had a different bedroom last summer. It was part of an extended stay Airbnb that I rented out to work in New York City for the summer. This was my first time living alone, convincing myself that gunshot ricochets were fireworks and catcalls were compliments. A red leather diary was my good luck charm of sorts. I brought it everywhere. And as I sit on the floor of my new apartment, scattered boxes and LIFE magazines on the cold floor, I hold this journal in my hands and begin to read:

“We live in a harsh world. We live in a cold world. We live in an overheated, overpopulated world. We live in a lonely world. We live in a hating world. We live in a world so interconnected, we are no longer connected at all. We live in a dancing world. We live in a singing world. That man sitting on the curb has a mohawk, and a rainbow just came out of nowhere. We live in a loving world. We live in a contradicting world. I can see an old couple through that window, over there. They have been hugging for six minutes straight.”

–

     One night in New York, I was stuck in a taxi for two hours. There was a dark and different type of traffic, clustered around the Manhattan bridge. I sat restlessly as the driver blasted the radio’s harsh, loud rap, and ranted about New York City politics. My driver held many strong opinions, ranging from articulate and thoughtful to baseless and theoretical. As we sat in the traffic, he told me about his life. He told me that fifteen years ago, he lost his passport and his identity was stolen. 

    I looked out the window, first at my own reflection, then past it. Laced between the broken chaos, I observed quaint and quiet moments at each passing block. A group of gray-haired women, assumed lifelong friends, ‘cheers’ their glasses of wine. A Hasidic Jewish family entered a warm, inviting market. A young boy swung in the air by holding onto each of his parents' hands. 

     The driver turned down the radio as our car approached the bridge. Everyone was re-routing. The bridge was bordered with patrol and blockades. NYPD surveyed the scene, scolding sirens against indigo water. An officer stood with his chest puffed out as my taxi driver rolled down the window.

     “Officer, can I ask, why is the bridge shut down?”

     The officer looked over, raised his furrowed brow, “Young boy spotted up there, he’s tryin to jump.”

     My stomach dropped and eyes welled with tears; what a spectacle of loneliness. I wondered where he came from. I wondered what he was looking for. The taxi driver was unfazed. Sirens exploded in a saving grace. The Hasidic family left the market with a fresh basket of bread. A rat slipped its way into a hole of protection. And on this night, this boy was brought down safely from the bridge. That night, my journal read, “Where did they take the boy next? Who was there waiting when they brought him Home?”

–

     Homesickness follows me from New York City to Syracuse. Perhaps it is because my family is particularly makeshift and small. Being an only child may be the most misunderstood and misrepresented experience. Being an only child with divorced parents who are still best friends is something else entirely, and everyone is a musician or an artist of some sort. It was instilled in me at a very young age that family is chosen and that love is larger than anything else. Close relationships of any kind are like inventing a new language. That isn’t something to discard or forget.

–

     So much intimacy comes from a car ride. A road trip. A summer road trip from New York City to Blue Hill, Maine. It is so mysterious when a place you’ve never been to feels exactly like Home. We drove to Maine together, just a week after we started dating. It didn’t matter how fast we were going or the time that it took. In those moments, everything else dissolved; driving towards something vivid and beautiful, right beside someone I adore with my entirety. Our lodgings were in a cabin perched by the ocean’s edge. 

     I am still unsure about the confines of Home. I am confused about its walls and how far they can stretch. I wonder if Home can be a voice, a feeling, a memory, a ceramic mug. Is it a box of miscellaneous objects that watched me grow up, or that soft freckled space between my eyebrows, above my nose? Is it a room, a voice, a feeling? It is certainly something untouched and uncharted, alive and carried. Bendy, twisty, and moldable. Just like Moonsand.