Enlightenment

     She stared out her classroom window and watched a plastic bag blowing across the well-manicured lawn, wondering if she let go, if her soul would become light enough to just blow around the world.  She imagined floating high in the sky, staring in the windows of high rise apartments, seeing life at its most intimate, the occupants sharing food, angry thoughts and awkward love making. Watching to see if a woman brushing her teeth in the morning would do it before bed time as well, as she is sure she tells her dentist she does.

     She imagines flying low to the ground through construction sites, where sweaty men work toward a retirement full of arthritic backs, skin cancer and drinking problems born of a self professed responsibility to feed their families and their own vices, sometimes more the latter than the former. She wondered how many memories should could fit inside herself before the weight of the world would be so heavy that flying became an impossibility.

    She thought that night time would bring cool winds and the glow of lights in which she could see the writers, the artists and the musicians practicing to become more than the sum of their dreams.  She loves the pajamas, the late-night raids of the ice cream and the one man  that would surely be surfing the high definition images of his favorite creamy white thighs and dreaming of a tryst filled with danger and delicious delight.

     She didn’t want to understand the universe, she wanted to be the universe and know all of things that were true and unknowable. She wanted to be filled with the warmth of understanding, the elevation of compassion and the crisp sweet tang of electricity. She longed to hold the human race in her bosom and cradle the fears and triumphs, washing over their lives with a wave of security and a notion that they were useful, beautiful and loved.

     She turned her attention back to the front of the classroom and listened to the teacher do his best to impart the wisdom of the world he knew and she knew it would not be enough.  When the bell rang she gathered her books, walked to the front of the class and set them on the teachers desk.

      "Where are you going,” the teacher asked.

     “Somewhere that rings true and calms my mind and spirit."

     “Will you be back?”

     “Look for me outside your window, I will be there watching over you.”

     “Can I come?”

    “When you understand who you are, you will find a light at the bottom of your dream.  You will find me there."