We each found a crack and wedged ourselves in. We prayed for rain. Welcome showers washed away dirt from our faces. Uninvited downpours threatened to wash us away. Heavenly sun kept us company. But it would stay too long and burn our bodies until the veil of night. We grew afraid of what cannot be seen.
Still, we held our heads up high.
Still, we planted our feet firmly into the ground.
And like weeds, we survived.
And like weeds, we thrived.
And like weeds, we are alive.
The blunt end of a small blade rests between my thumb and index finger. Pushing the sharp edge against the tip of a pencil, I peel off layers of wood and graphite. I spin the pencil as I glide the sharp knife against the graphite’s edge, slowly but with precision until the end feels sharp against my index finger. After few minutes, I tuck the knife back in my pocket. The pencils go inside my metal case. I rest against the concrete wall to rest.
In front of me is a drinking well. Cylindrical in shape, the well is four feet tall. The top covered with two semi-circles of concrete, it provides drinking water through a series of underground piping. It is located behind my Harabeji’s house and my old neighbor’s house. To the left of Harabeji’s house, an alleyway snakes out into the main road. To the left of the alley is another house. This is where the twins live. And between the twins and another house is yet another alley. This another house is just next to my old neighbor’s house. The two alleys connect two “main” roads, surrounded by five houses.
I stand next to the wall in front of the well to shade myself against the heat. A memory comes to me. I’m not sure if it really happened, an imagination sprouting from a story I once read, or simply a dream.
This is what happened, or what I remember from that bright summer day. A gaggle of people fills the two small alleys. As if playing a game of tug of war, each stand an arm’s length behind one other. The air is eerily quiet and no one is taking the lead. In unison, they pull a short and thick rope. Sweat beads down their sun-kissed faces, and they continue pulling.
I’m too small to help, and so I do what I do best. I stand back and observe. There is no one to indulge my curiosity but it appears a man has fallen inside. I’ve never seen adults hang around here. Why would anyone be so stupid to fall INSIDE the well? The tug-of-war goes on for some time. How long can a man stay afloat with no space to tread water? How much time do we have before gulping for our last breath? How long can he hold on to the end of a rope? I’m too short to peer inside, and I know it’d be inappropriate to do so, even if I were a beanstalk.
My memory stops there. Did the man survive? Or was it a woman? Was it a dream?
I jolt myself back to the present. I spend a lot of my time here. Lost in my own thoughts, sharpening pencils. Creating worlds of my own imagination.
I start writing on a notebook, held together by a spiral metal spine. After a while, I interrogate the pencils once again. Testing the sharpness of the lead with my index finger, I take out the trusty knife to make the tips pointy again.
I am covered in black, head to toe. Too hot for this heat. Or, maybe not. The weather turns. Scattered rain quenches the heat and my arms grow cold.
A cappuccino arrives in grey porcelain cup with a floating heart atop the dark liquid.
“The origin of religion and the fact that we are Indian…” the man in front has an audience: his family. I don’t have headphones to drown him out.
My eyes move onto the screen as I change the pronoun from she to I.
Because this is my story. As I peer into my past, what I once thought trivial is turning rather interesting. Even academic. An internal chuckle. Rice paddies. Drizzles. Tadpoles and dragonflies.
I clean up a chapter from moving onto the next.
I remember the texture of what remains of rice stalks under my feet, in the midst of autumn festival. Hard and strong, it is the same bristle we use to sweep rough surfaces to clean away the grime.
As daylights get shorter, winter will arrive. Without a doubt, it will bring snow and cold rain to freeze the water underneath, to create another playground to keep us busy. Until the ice breaks, becomes messy slush, before it is set free to give life another chance to thrive with the dawning of spring!!!
I stop by a colleague’s desk for no specific reason. What do you know?She also loves to write. A coffee date is promptly scheduled for Thursday. Maybe we could push and pull each other to unleash our words into this world. Then I read the last 5 pieces on this very site.
Words I desperately needed to soothe the fear inside. Reminders to be grateful. To not worry about the things outside of my control. To wait it out without the great freak out.
Streams of worry and fear flow through fossils of previous thoughts crafted when I was in a much better state of sanity.
We lament. But we don’t put in the hours. We don’t do the work.
I offer CV advice for free to a selected few. The CV usually starts with “Private and Confidential curriculum vitae of so and so”. Page 1 wasted.
After initial feedback and coaching, the CV doesn’t drastically improve. It’s full of job descriptions and free marketing of the company he/she works for. It lacks the personal spice. What did you do to make things better? How did you make a difference? What sets you apart?
It takes me an average 23 seconds to reject a resume/CV. It takes 90 seconds to toss it into maybe pile. 2 minutes for a firm yes.
Usually, when the first page simply states the name, the rest of content is hardly a page turner. It’s inconsiderate of the reader as I need to figure out how this person fit into the overall organization and how she added value.
How do you make it better? My guidelines are as follows.
In closing, do the work. It takes at least 6 revisions to make it better. Revise it. Sleep on it. Look at it again. Share with others for honest feedback.
Do the work! Do the work!
Red awning outside.
Copper balls suspended by electrical wires, sway gently from left to right.
The water escapes the perforates pipes outside to cool the passerby.
High ceiling connects the floor with clear glasses to bring the outside in.
It must be the late afternoon after the gay pride parade. I see rainbow suspenders and belts all around time.
Just another summer day in Johannesburg.
The recent downpour drowned out the negative buzz inside my gut. The cicadas no longer hum for attention. They rest in peace, and blissful silence takes over. To my right, I see yet another sunset with soft brush strokes of pastel blues and pinks. The city seems so far, yet I know it is near.
I read a short story about a man served prison sentence for eight years and was released at the age of 24. He didn’t know how to get a driver’s license. It took eight trips… He had not been taught the basics of life’s administration. He worked at a local book store, where he fell in love. He married and had two children. He was invited to work at Harvard. Despite the odds, he became a lawyer, championed by his peers and professors. And look at him now! His story on New York Times has reached millions around the globe.
He could have given up, citing life’s compounded unfairness on his black body. Having no father to look up to. The unfairness of the criminal injustice system. How the bar may not even allow him to practice despite him getting full marks. He had enough reasons to give up. No one would have blamed him.
He reminds us.
We are not a sum of our circumstances. We are a product of the choices we make. The things we do. The things we don’t.
Being the first to achieve life’s milestones has its challenges. My university combined theory with practical reality. Not only did we learn about diesel thermodynamics, but also how to time cylinders in a four-hour lab. Most people from my discipline became facility engineers or sailors. And when looking for jobs, I set my sights on similar postings: grease monkey.
The combination of luck, networking and good grades put me on a different course. My “first” job with an awesome global company afforded me the opportunity to travel the world while earning a nice living (with expense account), and doing cool stuff. It opened my eyes to a brand-new world. I met people pursing their MBAs. CEOs. Entrepreneurs. Teachers. Volunteers. Those who dug trenches. Cleaned houses. People from all walks of life. Averaging between 10 to 13 hour days, I found ways to work hard while having fun.
Traveling was great until I grew tired of making new circles of friends every few years. I needed a change and looked around. My peers were pursuing MBAs, and so, I jumped on the band wagon. When I disembarked two years later, I found myself in a foreign country with no job and no friends (once again).
Luck propelled me to another global company to do more cool things with amazing people.
What is the point of all this? Not long ago, the best job I could ever imagine was swinging wrenches at a power plant or a HVAC company. Working every day, ‘earning’ my wages.
Today, I am thinking of ways to make money not from my wages, but from creating value. How to best leverage, delegate and focus. How to be a better leader, manager, and team member. How to be the best me. Money carries a different meaning. Money doesn’t buy you happiness. It buys you time. Passive income trumps active income (wages).
They say you are an average of the 5 people you spend the most time with. You set your sights to mimic those around you.
So, if you want to dream the impossible, change your habits. Change your surroundings. Change the way you move. Change the way you live your life. Until then, nothing will change. Achieving different outcome by doing the same thing is simply impossible.
My eyes squint to see who is driving a fancy white car. I am amazed to see someone from my team. What I know is this: she makes too little money to afford such a car. Why would someone buy a moving liability that gets used 2 hours a day, that sits in a lot, and most likely a heavy financial burden?
Why do live beyond our means? Why do we enslave our lives to jobs to pay for products with no intrinsic value? Why do we buy things to impress others and seek external validation?
I don’t care about worldly posessions. I value time and fleeting moments full of joy.
What do I drive? A small car that does what it’s supposed to: get me from here to there safely with no bells and whistles.