The Hajj

I've been thinking a lot about Ms. Thomas, my 3rd and 6th grade teacher. With her short Afro and no nonsense disposition, Ms. Thomas was always the one to push the envelope. She told us about the dangers of fossil fuels, made us present current events articles every Monday and talked to us about specials she's seen on shows like 60 Minutes and That's Incredible (yeah I'm dating myself but so what?).

Sixth grade in particular was a key year for me, as I spent it moonlighting between my studies and a series of extracurricular activities that included hosting Newsbag. My parents were newly-divorced and there was nothing I wanted more than to grow up, to be free of the back and forth between houses, neighborhoods and loyalties that often became a weight on my developing brain.

Ms. Thomas asked me to stay after school one day and gave me a lecture about how I was trying to grow up too fast, that I was letting my boyhood pass me by. My answer to this was literally "Cest La Vie," which illustrated both her point and my knowledge of the current pop hit by Robbie Neville. I don't think she knew that. But still, as it turned out she was right. I was in a rush to be on my own because I thought that adulthood came without rules. Even as I watched my parents struggle in different ways, I was so certain that I could find a way around their difficulties, that utopia was just beyond my fingertips. I thought I could control everything. I thought that I could change it all as quickly as I wanted.

I did more in high school than some people do in their whole lives, but it didn't make it any easier. Whether it was getting that rash on my face from my partner's hair gel during cheek to cheek dancing or showing up an apartment complex to see the girl that I thought was mine, the girl who had given my first kiss. It was on that second visit to her home that I learned that half the boys in the building had had a piece of her already, on top of the fact that she had a boyfriend that I was being used to make jealous. My first attempt at trying to be a player was inadvertently talking on the phone to two different girls who happened to be friends only to have them both bring me up in a lunch conversation. Game Over.

Something's always going to be hard. Something's always going to be challenge. Here and now I understand where my greatest obstacles will forever lie. And I've chosen to surrender to them as truth, because it's the only way to get to where I need to go.

As I make this journey, armed only with my intellect and an Ipod, I'm seeing that every interaction we have with other souls has a purpose. While choice is a key factor in how things turn out, a lot of stuff is truly predetermined. As many of my dreams about others have come true, the dreams others have had about me have had equal significance. Someone else told me about my journey to this not so sacred place today. That, coupled with another talk with a man who's been close to me for most of my life helped me to understand it all a bit better. I was going to end up here one way or the other. It was just a question of how I did it.

I am writing a novel and a screenplay at the same time, my usual habit. But this time I know that both of these projects will change things for me in a way that nothing I've done before has. Day by day things arrive at my doorstep by invisible messenger, the weapons and tools I need for this next phase of the game. Yesterday I prayed in the shower that all of this won't be a wild goose chase. Today I laugh at my lack of faith. Tomorrow I'll be praying again. Step by step I get closer to the goal. Eventually I will become it. Out.