Last Sun-day i was doing a bit of sweet self-imposed time, serving as an exam chaperone in a chum’s just-past-noon, on-screen classroom. Fittingly perched upon my dazzling academically tailored bat-throne, pompously facing my fancier-than-most ultra-fine dynamic spectrum retina display, i was lackadaisically letting things run their mind-made course when an unpredicted high-strung heartbeat instantly thrust my slumberous essentia out of that wishy-washy bottled environment and into a vast, flawlessly carpeted stretch of fauna-teeming savanna.
In a breakneck flash. Whoa. From kind-of-attentively hanging around in a stone-colored cubicle to upliftingly appreciating the scalding aliveness of earth-nurtured goldness. From unwillingly catching imposed whiffs of urban boredom to cheerfully taking in the intoxicating scent of mature lemon grass, slowly baked by the best of solar intentions. From aimlessly staring at a glare-tainted virtual world to disconcertedly goggling at the stupefying wildlife manifestation. Out of sight, kiddo.
Quixotically standing in the midst of the spellbinding biome, i looked up at the vibrant deep-blue sky. Not a single cloud. i listened. Not a single sound. All around, in every shape, way, and form, nothing but eternal, pervasive beatitude. Nothing but venerable blessedness, solemnly spreading its miraculous wings, comprehensively submerging the scenery in a boundlessly forgiving multi-textured sea of A‑U‑Ms.
So powerful was the display, so overwhelming the revelation, that i curled up, consumed in an uncontrollable fear of annihilation, self-possessed by the belief that this was way too much summum bonum for my dirty-dealing, sin-loving, vice-practicing selfdom to witness . . . and survive.
It was at that precise moment that a gracious feel took pity on that low-spirited “me” and arose from Agni-land to swiftly replace my verging-on-delirium bum trip with a vibration-induced dance trance that promptly imbued the totality of my afflicted pneuma with sparkling new impetus.
Then, an epiphany: for an infinitesimal dt, there i wasn’t. No pathfinder. No frontrunner. No whiz kid. No architect. No fabrication. Merely a well-worn, unpretentious, as-of-yet overlooked knowing quality coming forth to briefly but decisively shatter all hope of a brighter tomorrow. No flaring promised land. No coming of the king. No combustible augustness. Not at all what had been expected. Not in the least bit. Better. Undeniably, unquestionably, unthinkably better.
Alas! Soon enough, the “me” hopped right back online with a seemingly hot-off-the-press i-have-seen-the-light shell and was about to boast some new enlightened agenda when one of its chief not-so-unprecedented meal tickets—the old victimized trash-talk, thought-fattening ploy—started rearing its pleonastic second-in-command head. Bah. More of the same. Business as usual.
Fortunately, before the customary self-flagellating to-and-fro rigmarole could set in, another opportune peppery heat wave briskly giggled its way into the masturbatory mess, dispelling the soon-to-be whacko-brainiac nightmare throughout the gleamy savanna and engulfing “the me” and its rhetorical correlations into a broader individuality. Whew. Intense. That was dangerously close.
So, with the heart and soul of a stillborn pretense, the expanded singularity consciously permeated the vivid prairie for what seemed like an incorruptible eternity. i—i still called it an i—ethereally traveled with the benevolent breeze. i randomly wavered with the tall blond grass blades. i undisturbedly rested in the plain innocence of the gazelle’s graze. i boldly scintillated with the precious twinkle in the hungry lion’s eyes. i rhythmically glittered with shimmering sunray reflections over isolated patches of flooded plain. i sensed the radiant quintessence of True Nature as It projected onto that unimaginably pulchritudinous setting. The localized water holes were My eyes. The iron-rich soil, My skin. The glamorous here-and-there baobab trees, My limbs. i was positively and emphatically off duty. In full immunity, that broad peculiarity—the thing that i still called i—ardently celebrated while the reassuring warmth of the afternoon solarization thoroughly invigorated its luminous, devout actuality.
It was then that i realized i was in full control. Suddenly, nothing could stop me. Suddenly, i was unpinned, unconstrained, unhooked. Suddenly, no whos. No hows. No wheres. No whens. No whys.
i felt like howling to the flame-bearing omnipresence. And i did. i felt like talking to myself. And i did. i felt like crying. And i did. i felt like dilating a bit more. And i did. i felt like laughing. And i did. i felt like being me. Me. Along with my very own let-it-happen spree.
In a scorching eruption of undiluted euphoria, i spectacularly cartwheeled in mid-air multiple times—i knew the drill—and then spent the rest of that footloose and fancy-free afternoon consumedly folding and unfolding in curiously unimaginable ways . . . for no reason in particular.
By five-plus-five-minus-three o’clock that thing that i still called i had had enough. i took what appeared to be a deep breath in, then let a full breath out, and with the following in-breath simply allowed my all-over-the-place beingness to regroup into structured corporeality.
Gloriously re-forged, i gently lay on the enchanted grounds in glowing awe as early traces of twilight slowly flickered over formerly magisterial heliacal ubiquity. Bathing in a healthy measure of amiable affection, i closed my eyes and mellowly decompressed until i eventually dozed off in candied bliss . . . .
When i ascended back to the surface of dream-state awareness, the sun was nearly setting. Breathtaking tones delicately tinged the multicolored western sky in anticipation of the majestic eventide, about to embrace that magical site. The chirping. The cricketing. The croaking. i knew it was time to go.
Revived, renewed, unfettered, appreciative, i relaxingly shook off my valle lacrimarum attire, lingeringly beamed toward daily responsiveness, and, as i nimbly re-entered the virtual classroom setting, i immediately noticed that every one of my students was still there, cyber-gaping at me in utter and complete disbelief.