Two Forks

There were two forks. And that's how it all started.

It is well beyond interesting, the human brain. How it works. How it organizes itself and creates a world out of our understanding of it. A world, not the world, mind you. But still, a world all the same. And in these two worlds, we live our lives. The one we experience because our of what our synapses are telling us about it, and the one that we physically take up space in. They work together, these two worlds, They take pieces from each other and form some sort of whole that is totally paradoxical. Because really—how can two truths be disparate, but still merge together as one? How can they both be real at the same time? Our brains might not be able to understand it, but that's ok. There are other parts of us that can.

We organize information in such a way that we make patterns to understand them. It's constant. You are looking at these letters and arranging them into words. Into sentences. Into the understanding of this entire damn story. But we aren't consciously aware of every stroke of pen. Every pixel that makes the curves of an "s" and a "p". We arrange the patterns so that we can understand the whole. Pieces of it. Greater than it.

When you heard that there were two forks, what did you think? You pictured them, didn't you? These two forks. Two silvery, perhaps slightly weathered metal insruments. It doesn't matter what they looked like, really. But there were two of them, and your experience placed them into some sort of understanding. Your world. Your understanding. But this is the story of mine, so let's see how they link up.

There were two forks. But first, there weren't any.

I was driving down a dirt road, windows rolled down, surrounded on either side by a far-reaching expanse of sunflowers that sure that they would someday touch the sky. And I thought to myself, "Isn't that sad? Isn't that so sad that they think they will touch the sky before they whither and die?" It sounds pretty pessimistic, but it felt true - like the last warmth of summer quickly ebbing away through a draft in the floor boards. 

And then a breeze blew, and they all whooshed and moved together. All of these tall flowers still reaching, still reaching. Moving against each other like some sort of white-noised symphony. And it was beautiful.

They were touching the sky. They were. And when I realized it, I felt damn awful for telling them they weren't. 

My brain. I pictured the sky like a children's drawing. A strip of blue that runs across the top of the page, leaving only empty space until the blades of grass beneath. But there is no empty space. Not here. Here, it's all sky. Sky on my cheeks. Sky on my eyelids. Sky in the cooling breeze. 

I know it sounds silly, but I said it out loud then. I said it. 

"Sorry, sunflowers. You were right."

And I kept driving.

On that day, I kept driving, my destination a nowhere. A type of nowhere that means that you are supposed to be somewhere. But I wasn't a sunflower. And I didn't trust myself enough to trust the rest. Fear has this way of keeping us there. Back in childhood. In a world that is the past but still feels like it's right here in front of us. Around us. Inside of us. 

I was missing it. I was missing it, and I could rationalize until I was as blue in the face as that sky—but the fact remained. 

It's too expensive. I'll send a card. I'll see her when she visits again. Those were good ones. It's just a party, however, was the best of them all. Because it wasn't just a party. It was her wedding. 

My oldest friend. My best friend. Or, at least, she was.

Esperanza. Eza, I called her for short. Others called her Hope. It was all the same.

She was always there. At least she used to be. I didn't tell her to move across the world. I didn't make those decisions. The flight from Montana to Venice would take a lifetime. Two stops and 20 hours of lifetime. Time is relative. It stretches out to eternity in the midst of a panic attack.

It wasn't the flight itself that I hated. Some people don't like the confined spaces. Others, the lack of control. Some complained about the seats, or the food, or the child kicking their seats, over and over, from the next row. I didn't mind that stuff. And I've thought about it all a lot. About how it began. About where it started. And I think I was 4 years old. I think it's when I fell from the monkey bars, and broke my damn wrist. And Eza was the first to sign it.

Heights. Also relative. Like the sky. Like the monkey bars that I could now reach with my feet still planted on the ground. But not then. At 4 years old, it was expansive. In my memory, I fell forever. It my nightmares, I woke up falling. And it hurt every time. 

So anyway, it generalized, as fear tends to do. It takes a seed of something, and builds momentum that way. It doesn't need much. Just a small bit to feed on. And if you let it, it smothers everything it touches.

Hilltops. Cable cars. Rooftop bars in the city. And airplanes.

The sunflowers kept whooshing around me. The wind was picking up. The road before me looked long, but it would not last forever. And it didn't. Minutes later, the rows of flowers started to diminish into vast openness, as the sun made its way closer and closer to the horizon. And I kept driving until I saw them. 

Two forks.

One in the road. One made of road.

They weren't the same thing. Not really.

One fork laid there, its metal reflecting against the setting sun with an oddly powerful glint. Its three spokes pointed upward, and out toward the right side path. The right side of the fork it lay within. 

But me? I was headed to the left. To my nothing. Toward Walmart, where I'd get my batteries for the remote control. To the supermarket, where I'd stock up on frozen vegetables and canned beans. That fork couldn't pierce my tires. I simply wouldn't cross it. 

And to the left I went, leaving those curious forks behind. Leaving them behind for about 50 feet. And then I stopped short. Not because I changed my mind. But because I knew someone would be braver than me, and wouldn't see that fork out of pure focus on their explorative task to the right. And it might pierce said person's tire and ruin their whole damn day.

So I got out of my car and bent down, the sun now laying colorful silken patterns across the earth. I picked up fork #1 and didn't quite know what to do with it. I wouldn't throw it out toward the few sunflowers that were left standing there. That wouldn't be right. I turned it around in my hand, fine dust making its way from the metal to my fingertips. It was an ornate instrument, inlaid with floral patterns at the top of the handle, and an elegant swoop at the base of the neck. Rounded, concise, considered. And then I noticed it. An etching on the back of the handle. Small, and not very pronounced. Filled with road and run over with scratches. I rubbed my finger over it and squinted my eyes.

In delicate script, it read, "For Hope."

The breeze stopped blowing then, and with it, came the silence. A million sunflowers in the distance ceased in their dance, flowing with the earth into rest until the sky would move again. In silence, true silence, we can hear our own heart beat. In stillness, true stillness, we can feel it too. I felt the mist in my eyes. My chest expanding. My fingers tingling against the cooling air. 

And on that night, one fork in hand, I turned around and drove home. No batteries. No beans. Just a knowing. That I would. That I would return. That I would take a right at the fork and I would take this world I have created in my head and merge it with what was true around me.

Because it would take a bit of a polish, but I had a gift to give. And there are some gifts that can only be shared when you are breathing in the same sky.