“Do not be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better. What if they are a little coarse and you may get your coat soiled or torn? What if you do fail, and get fairly rolled in the dirt once or twice? Up again, you shall never be so afraid of a tumble.” —Ralph Waldo Emerson
I lean against the bar’s white surface, nearly glowing in the dim and rosy lights. The world moves at a rapid pace beyond these glass walls. It moves rapidly within here too, but the twining plants and steady chatter help keep the chaos contained. The music swirls in loud circles that tangle up with my thoughts until the voice of the server pulls me back.
“Here you are, love,” she comments, sliding a drink across to me, then sliding back down the bar to help the next guest, her fuzzy ears twitching beneath the overhanging lights.
I pull the cup to myself, swirling the bright peach-colored liquid inside. I take a sip, the sharp, explosive taste drawing a smile.
“You’re not supposed to get smaller, are you?” my friend (to whom we shall refer as “Alice” in this case—what else?) asks, suddenly alarmed.
“No no,” I laugh. “I didn’t order one of those.”
I let her try a sip. She runs the tip of her tongue over her lip, satisfied. Alice swivels on her stool, blonde hair spinning with her, once more facing the cozy parlor, watching the creatures chitter and skirt around the tables. Most are dressed more curiously than is their custom, striped in red and black, speckled with hearts. Faces painted white or furry paws fluttering heart-shaped fans pop against the shadows. I let them fade around us, thankful for this moment. Thankful to be here. With Alice.
And still—troubled. Troubled by something else, something that’s been stumbling around in my head all day.
“I tried to write something today,” I blurt to Alice by way of explanation, naturally. “But I couldn’t get the words right, and I got the lines all mixed up, and it’s…frustrating, to say the least. It drives me crazy…er. I haven’t been able to write something in a very long time, you see. Not since January.”
“But that was just last month,” says Alice.
“Exactly.”
“Oh dear,” she says. Then, “…But what was the subject of your writing?”
“Today,” I answer.
“All Heart’s Day?”
“Yes. All Heart’s Day. The Queen’s birthday…”
“What about All Heart’s Day?” Alice presses. “Surely it wasn’t about the Queen?”
“Not initially. Rather, what I can remember. All Heart’s Day—at least the All Heart’s Days of yesterday, that is—have always been accompanied by some great happenstance. Three times ago, a door (through which I very much wanted to go) was closed quite abruptly, and the key was lost to me. Two times ago, I was wandering a dark forest, following a smile, you see. A smile…but it kept disappearing, leaving me quite lost again. Then once ago—that same door I had wanted to go through before opened up. It opened to the path that led me here. Though ‘here’ hasn’t quite been what I expected. All three happenstances. All on All Heart’s Day.”
“How curious,” Alice remarks. “What do you think it means?”
“That dreadfully important things are sure to happen on this day,” I reply. “And yet—nothing so grand has happened today… It’s left me so puzzled. And a bit sad at that. Am I missing out on adventure again? Even if it doesn’t turn out like I hope… But what does anymore?”
Alice folds her hands in her lap. “Your puzzle is not as complex as you might think. You’ve learned things since yesterday—that’s why you feel so differently. Wouldn’t you agree?”
“I guess. But it’s frightening,” I say. “I’ve been chasing something, holding on so tightly to things. To one thing, usually—a person, a place, or a dream. I don’t feel that way now. I’m not clinging to any one thing. I’m not traveling down some certain path. And it’s left me feeling…well, misplaced.”
“Maybe it’s hard for you to see right now, but I think it’s a good thing,” Alice says, holding my eyes with her bright blue ones, “even though it’s the opposite of what this place advocates. You’ve seen it doesn’t work for you, so you need something new. That’s why this time it feels different.”
Alice speaks with such simple assurance that it cuts through all the noise building in my head. I sit on the stool’s edge, clutching my cup and listening intently. It’s all that I can do in this moment.
“It’s forcing you to recognize how you’ve changed, in a way. “You’re not setting strong expectations, because they don’t play out like you think. And that’s okay. You’re not choosing a specific path…but being directionless—for a time—allows you to find your direction. That’s just part of the journey. It’s finding things and losing things and finding them again.”
“It’s not easy,” I confess. “I’ve always been chasing something—or trying to force something to happen. Even today, when I tried to write about it all. The words wouldn’t come. I was trying to write about the past, but…it didn’t feel relevant. And that’s strange to me. Of course it’s relevant, but at the same time, it’s like it doesn’t matter anymore.”
“Because you’ve moved on,” Alice says. “Why dwell on it when you’ve traveled to somewhere new? When you are someone new. It’s not like you’ve given up on dreaming. You’re just dreaming differently. Not with hands held tight, but
w i t h
a
m i n d
o p e n
w i d e
Alice’s voice fades into the music and warm lights of the chaotic crowd. I smile in spite of the scene, smiling as her sweet sentiments float in my mind, fading into the soft song of a curious, wandering child.
Which way shall you go? Which path shall you take?
If you don’t take any, you’ll make a mistake.
Which way shall you go? Which path shall you take?
You can dream the day away but you grow up just the same…
• • •
The scene within the teahouse is cozy, but the night without is fierce. The wind whips between towers and glittering buildings, urged on by the sea curling the city’s edge. I hop between the colors of the building signs and their shadows, my hand devoid of any flower-tasting drink, though its warmth is still spreading through my veins. The flowers on my shirt catch the bright lights and blossom beneath them. Their vines wind in slow patterns, while I wind through the blossoming crowds. All bedecked in black and red, their extravagant patterns fight for my attention up and down every cobblestone square. All here to celebrate the Queen’s birthday, the day of hearts. My mouth involuntarily turns down at the thought of the Queen. That fickle ruler with all her little games. It’s quite exhausting but we’re subject to them all the same. Especially today.
I push the thought away, wandering the outskirts of the district, dodging careless creatures as they laugh and chirp their way from one dizzying tea party to the next. They guzzle sweet cordial and nibble on cakes, shrinking and stretching and squeezing their shapes. Molding themselves to each other’s sizes. Testing how they might best fit in each other’s eyes. Their white faces and sparkling eyes illuminate beneath the glow of neon lights. Every shop is burning with them, pulling as many travelers through their doors as they can, like flames drawing in marvelous insects. Quite literally, in some cases.
Having already bid Alice goodbye, after much giggling from a caucus race and stuffing our faces with little chocolate cakes (and not the growing kind either), I slink along to the city’s edge, where it runs along the bay. The waves crash against the foundation, splashing in white. A thousand golden lights ripple across the way, a reflection of the glory to which they all aspire. Each, one of many. All burning brightly, as though perhaps in the water they could be stars, and not just another neon glare in the window of another neon altar.
I find an empty edge on a dock and sit with my legs over the side, swinging them in the wind.
What am I to do? I think. How am I to fit within this neon acropolis?
This modern Wonderland.
The wind wraps around me as though responding, trying somehow to comfort with her bitter cold embrace. But after listening for a moment—the wind, the music drifting across the pier, Alice’s words from earlier—I sense the words I’ve been searching for. They are bubbling up from within. To try and force them from myself, from whatever deep lock box they occupy in my mind, rarely proves successful. But give them time, let them stir, and eventually the key will come along, and they’ll rise to the surface.
In the haze between shadow and color, between a thousand unyielding stars and the crashing of the waves, like Ariadne unwinding a tangle of string into the minotaur’s maze, the string of words unfolding leads me down the winding path of this modern Wonderland…
I somehow think that I can pen my fears into these pages and it will pour them out of my skin, into the ink, and I will somehow be released. That is rarely the case. My head is spinning round, my thoughts trapped in endless circles. I’m driving around this city in circles. This restless heart beats in time to the blinking lights. A carnival ride. The neon wheel going round and round. The electric tower falling up and down. Searching for what I’m trying to find. What is it? Some semblance of beauty, I surmise.
I have only ever tried to capture beauty.
The beauty of a world I see — of a world I know could be. Some might say that I’m naïve. But I can see; and I want others to see the world I dream. To find those who feel alive like me. Searching for the inspiration I crave so desperately. The colors, the chaos, the quiet—the inspiration I need to breathe. All that fuels the stories that fuel me.
But the neon is distracting. A thousand flashing arrows that point down other streets. Blinding, screaming. Follow me. You search for inspiration in all those glittering places. In all the empty faces that wander between them. They promise you colors beyond your wildest dreams. But the colors explode and rain out of sight. The lights pop and fade in such short time. They are beautiful—but only for a while, leaving rarely more than a memory of their fire. Only a lasting ache and growing pain…that maybe what you need, that the beauty which you seek is still just up ahead. Just around the next electric bend. When you are wandering deeper and deeper circles instead. Down into a maze you cannot see, though you feel its walls pressing in.
Where are the stories in which you used to live? Where are the monsters you used to battle and then befriend? Where are the spirits of the earth—fantastic beasts skating just beneath the water’s surface, flitting like the sunlight between the leaves? Creatures calling in the courage of the wind. Courage calling you out of yourself instead of pushing you in. You’ve made plenty mistakes before, and likely will again—
But you have the strength, the strength to turn from the phantom shadows in your head. The ones you lock inside your closet each night before bed. The ones that scream and scrape, you must find validation—in everything you make. In all that you say, in all that you are. Without someone to lift you, someone to stand on, you’ll never find your way. What they hope you don’t remember—what they hope that you forget—is the sword you carry always. One for reducing them to ribbons, for silencing their masquerades noises in your head.
Still the sword sleeps abandoned in its sheath, and you forget the power within your reach. For the mountains may look steep, the forests dark and deep, but you have the strength to brave them on your own, without a hand to hold. If you know who you are, the doorways you seek aren’t far—doorways to the worlds you dream, where inspiration sings on the beat of every fairy’s wing. And the key doesn’t lie in the pools of someone else’s eyes. You won’t find it wand’ring aimless through streets spinning crimson and blue, under a sky of fake stars that wink out of tune. Stop searching for yourself in their never-changing patterns.
The world does not by nature leave room for you—or your ambitious dreams. It is a crowded place, always telling you who you must be. It is a labor to make space for yourself, to cut a green path between its charcoal streets. And still you face defeat, walls forcing you crouched in the halos of those streets. But up now—on your feet. You are not a child, save in the search for wonder and the unyielding power in your eyes. You should be dancing under stars of beautiful reality, dancing on between the forests dark and deep.
These thoughts are easy to write but less easy to live. Easy to dream in the light of day until the shadows creep back in. So what is it you fear? —that I’m wasting my young years. Growing up too fast and missing things that won’t soon last. Or maybe that I’m growing too slow and repeating past problems I can’t seem to let go. So what is it you dread? —that the words I am saying are ones I’ve already said. That I’m only winding circles in the golden clock of life. Deeper and deeper into my mind. And where am I now? Should I stay or should I get out?
Am I still looking for Wonderland when I’ve been living there all along? Still searching for the notes of a once familiar song? This could be Wonderland, just not in the way I used to see. Another side of it, something intoxicating like a fever dream. Like a painting full to bursting, bleeding colors out its seams. Maddening, frightening, teeming with disproportions.
But I suppose as suffocating and blinding as this wonderland can be, I shouldn’t shrug it off as useless to me. I’m sure there are still things to learn, even in my wandering. True, most creatures here are of the vexing sort, and it would be nice to wander quiet gardens back to some peace of home. But Wonderland is Wonderland and I’m still working on my song. Between these crowding melodies, I won’t let it drown; I’ll plant its flowers in the ground. And if the flowers grow mouths, maybe they’ll speak the things I try to speak, shine their eyes with the dreams I dream.
I’ll find my own, find other corners of this modern Wonderland to call my home. And maybe I’ll make that journey on my own, though I won’t deny the strength of having another hand to hold. But alone or not alone, it doesn’t deny the strength of my own, of knowing who you are in the midst of card game chaos and a color storm. So wander your paths, dreamer if you be—be you child or adult or somewhere in between. Even if home seems lost down the road, if you feel alone in your maze, caught between blinking arrows pointed every which way, (and a deafening queen yelling of hearts and your mistakes), you ought to know that wonder blooms in the most resilient of souls. If you have eyes to see, you can see how the world could be—and with no small amount of bravery—
Can begin to make that world a reality
Can stand tall on the edge of an electric city, a city that would have you bend beneath her spinning eye, beneath her shadow of complacency. Of conformity
And despite that shadow, despite the shadows in your head,
Standing at the edge, between the wonder and the raging sea
You can still know what it is to be free.
Love Always,
Andrew
“That’s what I believe,” Alice says, snapping me out of my reverie. “You’ve been given this time for a reason. Maybe to really focus on your writing. But also to simply enjoy life without the chaos of a thousand other things. Don’t you think?”
I commit her words to memory as I finish the last of my drink. Then tuning in to the tootling music, a smile lights up my face,
and I ask her—by way of response—
“How about a caucus race?”
// Featured Photo Courtesy of Cassia Sherrill //
a literary labyrinth 