More than twelve months ago, He set off for a year-long crash course in what He hated to call 'soul searching.' Thinking that He had lost it to begin with was more than disappointing; it was terrifying. What else had been unknowingly dropped through the holes in his mid-Western khaki short pockets?
Having an idea of where the winds would take him but not completely sure of what, The Boy remembered boarding the plane that would whisk him far from the land where his closest family and friends resided. This action, however small it was, would be the first of many times He knew that such a thing as happenstance existed. Despising his parents for enrolling him into karate classes, being forced to become a puppeteer, being one of two boys who were cut from volleyball tryouts, watching as his parents lost almost everything they dreamed of having, first seeing a dance performance in high school, choosing which schools to apply to and which one to attend, falling in and out of love... It all carried him to this year, this place, this state of realizing that He
needed
so
much
more
from
his
life.
Wanting to break His curse, The Beast set out to find what it was He so desperately needed. True Love's kiss? Such things only existed in Fairy Tales, and given the circumstances, his story strayed far from that.
... Or not so much.
As a particular french host reminded him on his last night in one of the most romantic cities in the world, "For someone who claims they don't make many friends, there sure were a lot of people to say goodbye to you tonight." This single phrase would unleash a chain of memories He strung together throughout the year. He had found so much love in the flowered shrines of India, in the cement huts of Uganda, along the shores of Australia, within the dimly lit milongas of Argentina, and the cobbled streets of France. Echoes of the most important lessons taught to him resurfaced in a rosy fog, reminding him that
"I never had to choose between passion and profession"
"There is a war in you, and it is coming"
"Wherever you go, there you are"
"You need more presence to lead successfully"
"Being handsome is not enough. Be great, be beautiful"
The Boy, the Beast, the One that Got Away, Our Hero, now the Prince, had chosen his happy destiny [whatever that would be], that much was clear. Whatever complicated pathways were ahead of him, He would face them with everything He learned this year, and with the lessons He would keep learning on this journey [according to the fellowship director, "The Watson is never over. It's just beginning."].
The pieces He found to the jigsaw of his life were now in place, but he knew that there would be so much more to find. The bigger picture was far from complete, but well on its way to being solved. He would remember everyone He met during his travels, and how unstuck they seemed to be in life. Actually, now that he considered it, there were an equal amount of people back home who seemed to be the same. The unfortunate thing was remembering who did become stuck, so immobile and so scared to find their pieces, to complete their picture. What they were holding onto, He'd never be sure.
The Prince would hold hold onto this year, these memories, this feeling like none other, trying to remember the last stanza of a poem he found scribbled on a hostel wall:
There once was a man who'd become unstuck in the world -
and he traveled around like a leaf in the wind until he reached the place
where he started out. His car, his job, his phone, his shoes -
everything was right where he'd left it.
Nothing had changed, and yet he felt excited to have arrived here -
as if this were the place he'd been going all along.
Our Hero had reached the place where He started out, but wouldn't stay there for long. Not when the next journey was waiting to begin.
"Joshua," he remembered his mother saying to him, a very, very, long time ago, "One day we'll go to Europe. You, me, Daddy, and Kikay." She looked back to the TV screen, where a young cartoon woman began to cry as she reunited with her long lost grandmother. He remembered not taking his mother seriously, only being interested in finding another peanut butter jellybean somewhere in the bag they bought earlier that afternoon.
"Aye, my god. Paris... London... It's always been my dream to go to all those places before I die. We'll go. One day. Maybe. When we win the lottery."
Many, many years later, as he pedaled his way past the Arc de Triomphe, past the Louvre, and past la Bastille, this tiny fragment of a memory, however minimally detailed, surfaced to his conscience. Almost colliding with a parked car, he pulled into an alley and locked his bicycle.
He had fallen in love with the City, that much was obvious. Throughout his travels, he never regretted any of the places he had gone, but was always asked,
Why did you choose to go there?
His initial answer was simple: I want to touch each continent before I die. Upon further consideration, he realized that different reasons brought him to different countries. India: where he would experience sensory overload. Uganda: where he would learn to appreciate a much more simple life. Australia: where he would find how much more he needed to grow. Argentina: where he would experience passion, firsthand. But France?
Where he would live a dream - his or his mother's, that wasn't clear - at the end of a dream year. Why the rest of his family never made it to Europe, he couldn't exactly understand. He had made it here without the lottery [although the definition of lottery was now in debate], accomplished before the end of the first quarter of his life.
"Don't worry about your mother," Betty said in Argentina, "If she didn't travel somewhere, she had her own reasons."
As he walked past the patisserie full of macaroons and tartelettes, he couldn't help but think, How fair is it that I got to live her dream before she did? A tiny pang of guilt tugged at his stomach.
In Australia, Philip had once expressed hesitation in becoming a
parent. "I think the real challenge in being a parent," he argued,
"would be to help my child find happiness. And if my son or daughter
could say one day that they found happiness, I know I'd have done my
job."
Later that night, he would take his camera out of his bag and snap a picture of himself with a flower-shaped cone of gelato. Maybe it was the mix of raspberry and chocolate, or maybe it was the first night that felt like summer, or maybe it was just the good company with whom he had dinner. Happiness had been sitting there with him so far this year, and he was sure that it wouldn't leave afterwards.
Once upon a time, in a faraway land close to where you sit, lived a young computer programmer and his wife in a small suburban townhouse. Traveling from an even fartheraway land, the young couple had moved in hopes of raising their children in a land rich with opportunity, hope, income, and monounsaturated fats. Slowly building a stable foundation for a home, the computer programmer and his wife worked tiresome days. Life in the faraway land was hard, but much more inspiring and worthwhile than their even fartheraway homeland.
~*~
"Do not worry, dear wife," the computer programmer said [in the language of his fathers] one day, "for all this hard work will pay off, when we send our children to particularly wonderful academies where they will become exemplary models of society by taking on careers in medicine or law."
In her free time, the computer programmer's wife would tend to the small grove of trees outside their home, where she grew some few fruits. One particularly sunny afternoon on the day of the Earth Festival, as she went to water the trees, she was surprised to find all the plants gone. In their place stood a single mango tree.
"My! Whatever must have happened to my fruits?" She gasped [in the language of her mothers], and before she could run to call the local constables and file a missing persimmon's report, she stopped to listen to the increasingly loud sound of crying. It came from the tree. As she stood underneath its shade, she was taken aback to watch as one of the tree's blossoms opened, and out sprang a baby boy, who landed in her arms. The computer programmer's wife took the child back into the house, where she waited to tell her husband of the good news.
~*~
The young couple declared themselves the proud parents of the baby boy, whose head was covered in an unusual amount of thick hair, dark as a raven's wings and unruly as Britney Spears' career. Fond of constant squirming, shiny objects, staying awake at odd hours, and sweets, one could have mistaken the young child for a woodland creature. As the baby's first birthday - which, they decided, fell on the same day as the Earth Festival - drew near, the computer programmer and his wife sent invitations to all of the village people to meet at the YMCA and partake in the traditional cakes and meats of their homeland.
The baby's birthday was a wonderful one, filled with laughter and music, hairstyles, and shoulder pads from the eighties. The wife, being the social butterfly she was, had even attracted the three local fairy godmothers to attend her baby's birthday. Being godmothers, they of course knew this baby was not like other babies.
"He must be protected," the first godmother said, "so he can become what he was sent to this earth to be. Accordingly, we've decided our gifts will be used for that very purpose. My gift will be the gift of natural wit and humor. May he always use his mind to get out of questionably tight and/or awkwardly uncomfortable situations." She waved her wand over the child.
"My gift," the second godmother said, "will be the gift of health. May he always be fit to take on any physical task, energetic to run on however much calories he has or has not consumed, and enduring to stay up during late hours of the night for hearty partying and/or schoolwork." She waved her wand over the child.
Before the third godmother could give her gift, the great doors of the YMCA blew open, upon whom entered an evil wizard.
"It's quite unfortunate that I wasn't invited to your baby's party. And from what I understand, you wish this boy to become a respectable man of medicine or law? Is that what you wish him to be, what you hope will make him and yourselves happy? Not if I can help it, being the antagonist with a brief cameo! Therefore my gift," he said, drawing out his wand, "will be that the boy will grow up as a beast from this day forth! Not only will he grow up in ridicule for his looks, fashion sense, poor eyesight, and questionable life choices, he'll also suffer poor orthodontics. He'll never be happy! Oh, and to ensure it, your family will suffer misfortune as well." The wand was waved and the wizard vanished.
"Not to worry, I still have my gift," the third godmother said, "but I cannot remove the curse. True, the baby will grow up as a beast. But the curse will be removed if he can find happiness." She waved her wand, and all three godmothers disappeared from the party.
"That was ever so vague a gift," the computer programmer said to his wife, "But I'll assume that by finding happiness, she must mean that he'll earn loads of money by being a man of medicine or law. Besides, one doesn't need to be particularly good-looking to receive a proper education."
~*~
~*~
As the years passed, the baby grew into a young adult. Firmly believing that no cursed Beast son of his would become subject to bullying or shipwrecks , the Beast's father enrolled him into karate and swimming classes. Sure enough, the Beast swiftly became an outsider amongst his peers with his secondhand clothes, his spectacles, lack of athletic ability, and orthodontic apparel. Unlike the other boys in his class, he preferred to read literature, create art, solve puzzles, and generally apply himself to the school's science club. All of this raised the Beast's father's hopes in becoming a great man of medicine [this and the fact that his wife had given birth to a daughter, uncursed by a wizard, who would double the family's chances of success]. As the wizard prophesized, the computer programmer had soon fallen victim to the faraway land's economic crisis, lost his job, and became a small sandwich shop owner.
Of course, this merely meant that the Beast would work in the store, where he would roll sandwiches, sweep floors, and deliver food in poorly decorated automobiles instead of partaking in underage alcoholic shenanigans, like so many of his peers.
Yes, the wizard succeeded in shattering the Beast's self-esteem. At family gatherings, many guests would comment on his sister and cousin:
"My, look at the daughter! How she looks so much like her mother. How beautiful."
"Ah! And her cousin! How she too looks so much like her mother. Beautiful as well."
But when they looked at the Beast?
"Oh. And this is the son."
One day in the sandwich shop, the Beast asked his mother and father, "Mother, Father, when will I cease to be so beastly?"
"When you find happiness," his mother said as she sliced bell peppers.
"That's what the fairy godmother said, so we can only assume that's when you bring honor to your ill-fated family" piped up his father over the ham slicer.
The Beast found this particularly strange. Having always read fairy tales, he was sure that true love's kiss would break a curse. And, considering he wasn't waiting atop a tower, the Beast hesitated about asking if the 'happiness' he had to find was a someone rather than a something. Never considering himself particularly prince-ly or heroic, the Beast continued to place cheddar on bread, pondering where he could find happiness.
~*~
One day during his first year, whilst running for a physical improvement course at his academy, the Beast was almost knocked into concussion by a rogue basketball [thrown by an ogre and his band of horrid ogres who were much more physically developed for their age].
"Oh athletics!" the Beast cried to the heavens, "Why must you be my downfall in higher learning?!?!?!"
"Fear not, dear Beast," a soft voice said. The Beast turned, and saw a fairy godmother appear where the basketball had landed. "There is a way for you to avoid taking any more of these unnecessary so called 'physical education' classes. If you truly want to grow, join the circus performers. Dance with them."
"But they would never take me! I've never performed, nor danced before!" the Beast exhasperated.
"I can help with that. I helped you once, and I will help you again. After all, it's where you're meant to be. You'll never have to lie in the dangerous shadow of any more basketballs. However, because your state is one of few in that requires 4 years of physical education, you'll still be forced to participate in unnecessary physical examinations [involving an ridiculous amount of running, situps, pushups, and stretches] twice per year."
"Oh, thank you, Fairy Godmother!" The Beast fell to his knees. "I'll be forever grateful to... to... to..."
And thanks to Orchesis, the Beast did in fact befriend a considerable number of creatures, persons, and imaginary hallucinations in the faraway land's local high school's circus ring. Here, he met mysterious persons from foreign lands, giants, little people, rhinestone artists, princesses, fortune tellers, chefs who cooked bugs, and even the occasional hypochondriac. 'Twas amongst this motley group of performers the cursed beast decided to best use his talent of poor public speaking skills, martial arts body awareness, and general lack of self-esteem in the art of dance.
"My, I'm doing wonderfully courageous and different things for a Beast my age," the Beast said to himself one day, "and no doubt I've enjoyed it, with the eclectic group of friends I've made. But why am I still so Beastly?" He frowned at his reflection in the mirror. Happiness hadn't hit him yet.
~*~
~*~
Nearing the end of his high school career, four years later, the Beast's family was hit with yet more trauma and turmoil from the wizard's curse. Due to poor location, terrible seasons, and lack of karaoke participants, the sandwich shop had closed and the Beast's father had been stricken with heart disease [the even fartheraway land's traditional meals held a surprisingly high level of cholesterol]. The Beast's mother had sold herself as slave to an evil department store corporation, leaving the Beast and his sister to fend for themselves in the rapidly deteriorating townhouse.
"But... But... But how will I afford college? Can I even apply?" the Beast cried in agony one afternoon.
"Mayhaps, dear Beast Brother," his sister replied, "I can quit school and take up lanyarding or churning butter or embroidery and earn money for your education."
"Fear not, dear Beast," a heavenly voice said, and the Beast and his sister turned to see yet another one of his godmothers. "Like Orchesis, I can help your life. There is a way to get a proper education, given your current situation. Apply, and I will help get you into the right schools. After all, it's where you're meant to be."
"Oh, thank you, Fairy Godmother!" The Beast jumped for joy. "I'll be forever grateful to... to... to..."
And thanks to Fafsa, the cursed Beast did get into a school, and a very special one at that. Located even farther away from his home, in the frozen lands of the north, lay a quiet and hidden academy for intellectually and/or monetarily gifted youngsters. Here, the students were considerably different than the ones in his high school and circus group. Although the diversity in this academy was roughly the same as his high school's, the tolerance was considerably higher. 'Twas amongst the peers here that the Beast began to accept his and other physical and mental differences with a reasonably liberal frame of mind and attitude.
"My, I've earned the incredible chance of going to an esteemed instution to further my personal growth and education," the Beast said one day, "and no doubt I've enjoyed it, with the all-night paper writing, the delicious all-you-can-eat buffets, the rush for greater academic understanding, several failed attempts at relationships, and the uneasy levels of racism and homophobia on campus. I've made friends who will last for my entire life, not-friends who pushed me in all the right directions, un-friends who made me realize what constitutes a friend, and the occasional fleeting friend who I'm sure would have been a best if we hadn't been together for just a moment. But why am I still so beastly?" Again the Beast frowned in the mirror. Happiness was doing a good job of hiding itself.
~*~
Before he knew it, four years had passed at the academy, yet the Beast still remained a Beast. Graduation swiftly approached, and the Beast had come to two realizations.
"I don't want a career in medicine AND I don't have a job for post-graduation! This will be my ruin!" the Beast cried, tearing some hairs from his scalp.
"You can always live with your parents back in their cottage," one of his chambermates said.
"Or you can just move to the metropolitan area without a job and find one once you're there," another chambermate suggested.
"OR you can sign away two years of your life to the Peace Corps, where you'll only have five days of vacation in the entire time to see your family and friends," the final offered.
"They all sound like the rustlings of Death's robes!" the Beast threw himself upon the nearest oversized cushion.
"Fear not, dear Beast," a heavenly voice said, and the Beast and his chambermates turned to see the third of his godmothers. "Like Orchesis and Fafsa, I can help your life. There is a way to live after the supposed best four years of your life;to which, I must say, if it were true, I would be highly disappointed. See the world and do what you love for one year. Apply, and I will help you travel to lands of which you and your family have dreamed! After all, it's where you're meant to be."
One year? Could it be true? This would give him some time to figure things out...
"Oh, thank you, Fairy Godmother!" The Beast fainted upon her lap. "I'll be forever grateful to... to... to..."
And thanks to Watson, the cursed Beast did get to travel and to do what he loved. Inhaling the smells of the east, swimming in the southern oceans, coasting along red-dusted plains, and wandering the brightly lit streets at night, the Beast felt... different. In his journeys, he had met friends, made family, and learned from would-have-been-enemies-in-another-life. A certain rush filled his lungs evertime he set foot on a street he had never walked before, entered a restaurant or bar alone, and saw the sun rising and setting from a new horizon.
"My, I've earned the chance to travel to foreign lands where I will certainly unearth some long-harbored secrets and experience scary but refreshing awakenings," the Beast said one day, "and I've no doubt enjoyed it, with experienced chilied foods, stranger hospitality, dressing in women's clothing, hostile partners, and questionable skin deisease. All this, I had the chance to do while studying, doing, living what I love. But why am I still so..." the Beast didn't finish his sentence. He stared at the mirror, and noted that some things did change. No, he didn't turn into a prince [unlike most Disney movies, but he was certainly considering his followed the Dreamworks/Pixar route] with golden curls and a square jawline. The Beast saw himself, still as a Beast, but only a few years older. What did change was the way he looked at himself, his life, his world. There was only so much that he couldn't control, but so much more that he could [with the help of fair godmothers, of course].
Living with what he was given, it was time to stop trying to change everything he was and to start changing the way he lived. The Beast was done lying in wait for someone to save him, to remove the curse he was given since birth. He was done doing what was expected from him, and to follow that twist in his stomach and shiver down his back. He now realized that finding happiness, but the act of looking for it that would make him stop feeling like the Beast his life made him out to be.
~*~
~*~
Far from everything and everyone familiar, he knew now that whatever happened, happened for a reason. He might not have been a prince, or even the hero, but in this story, the only person he could save was himself. Wherever this chain of events lead him, he followed, and it all surprisingly turned out very well. The Beast wouldn't know if it lead towards happiness, or if it was all just an awakening to the fact that somewhere down the line,
he. could. find. it.
Maybe it would happen this year, or maybe it wouldn't. Yet. But the Beast got an unsettlingly good feeling that he had already begun to change, to be a little less
A year ago, The Boy's chest pounded all morning, hesitant to open his email account. He sat in front of the lobster heart He removed earlier, eyes pressed against the microscope, the tiny forceps in his hands hovering over silvery tissue.
"What's wrong?" Mika asked, "You've been quiet all morning. That's not like you."
The Boy looked up, then at his watch, then at her. "Today's..." He began.
"Today's when you find out!" She gasped, and grabbed his shoulders with harpy-like strength. "Have you checked have you checked have you checked?" She asked, jostling him back and forth, and He shook his head.
"We don't find out until noon." He turned back to the lobster heart, but didn't bother touching it. His laptop lay nearby, shut off.
She said something reassuring, something about no matter what happens, something blah blah blah blah. He wasn't listening.
Time at Mount Desert Island Biological Laboratory passed slowly to begin with; what was supposed to be a week-long stay during Spring Break felt like forty years of gluing shiny dots on lobster backs, placing them in water tanks and tracking movements, removing their tiny hearts, removing even tinier nerve bundles from the hearts, and dousing other hearts in neurotransmitter. That morning passed slower than usual, and The Boy thought He would suffer a heart attack from all of the anxiety. When the lab instructor called for a lunch break, The Boy realized He had been hardly breathing.
"Aren't you going to check before lunch?" Mika asked while He put on his jacket. His watch read 11:30, still a half hour too early.
Although it was spring break in mid-March, snow still lingered on the trees and pathways on the island. The sun had done a decent job melting some of it, but He could still see his breath fog with every other step. She skipped from side on the way to lunch while She held her arm in his. This did next to nothing to calm his nerves, but if it made her feel like she was helping, He would let her continue.
-||-
Her cell phone beeped during the taco salad lunch.
"Emily wants to know if you got it." She said.
"Tell her I haven't checked my email."
Mika typed away, and in a few seconds, her cell phone beeped again.
"Emily says that you should grow a pair and check it."
He rolled his eyes, and took a bite of ground beef. Food at MDIBL was considerably gourmet compared to most camp food [although he had never been camping], but today's lunch tasted particularly bland and dry.
The walk back to the lab seemed even longer than before.
Everyone in the group returned to their lab stations, and The Boy switched on his computer. His fingers gripped the keyboard as He waited to connect to the internet, and opened his inbox. There was a sudden sense of panic as his eyes ran up and down the list of new mail, and after a few seconds of not seeing what He was looking for, He realized He wasn't even reading the words. Taking a moment to breathe, He slowly went through the inbox. And there it was, the tenth or so line down:
From: Cleveland Johnson; Thomas J. Watson Fellowship Announcement
He dragged his cursor over the email, and hesitated. Grow a pair, Magno. Emily's advice rang through his head, and He double clicked.
-||-
They stood on the shore, just outside the lab. Fresh, clean air filled his lungs again, and She balanced herself on some rocks, and stared to the horizon. The sky seemed less cloudy, the wind less cold, and the ocean water less dark.
"I... I don't think I can breathe." He gasped, and placed both hands on his knees. "Holy shit. Holy shit."
Mika smiled, looked at him, and then back to the ocean. "You're going to see the night sky from so many places..."
She, of course, would be right.
-||-
He thought of where He would be in a year. Somewhere out there, He thought, beyond the sea.
In a year... Well, He wouldn't even be finished with the year. So much would change in that time, and He didn't bother trying to figure out how much. He'd find out, eventually.
He knew that He would learn about himself, more than He dared to before. The Boy would experience so much in a year; mysterious skin conditions, questionable invitations to homes, eye-opening life conversations, and incredibly embarrassing practices and performances. He would walk for kilometers before He admitted He was lost, learn how to speak a foreign language for the sake of getting a lower price, prepare to get into a contemporary dance school, and even wake up in stranger's apartments at 3 in the afternoon. This year was something unexpected, something He never would have been able to predict would ever happen. Living abroad would be more than just going to country after country. He'd learn to do something He'd forgotten; how to live, and how to love it.
And when He came back home? He'd still be miles away from where He used to be.
The Boy had been hit with a kind of dry spell over December and January. Except the occasional venture out into the city, to the country, to the wineries, to long lost relatives, and especially to the week-long dance intensives at Restless, all of Australia seemed to take a break from being eventfully stimulating [contrasting the experiences had in India and Uganda, where he had to painfully decide everyday what he would attend and what he would have to miss]. Apparently, dancers needed a break for the holidays too.
He remembered, almost a year and a half ago, staring at the poster for the fellowship in the dining hall. He knew the answer. Almost anyone who knew him could answer the question:
What sets your soul on fire?
He also remembered the day ten months ago, the one in which he opened the email after an agonizing morning of research set in the middle of an island. First, the sensation of being dropped from the top of a tower. Then, a small spark that spread from his chest to his fingers to his toes and then to his face. His hands began to sweat, his jaw paralyzed ajar. Leaving behind the microscope and the agar dishes full of lobster hearts, he ran with her to the edge of the island and stared to the eastern horizon.
"I can't breathe," the Boy said, over and over again. She just smiled.
Something had been set ablaze that afternoon.
Classes back in the theater and the train station dance studio were bathed in a different light since that day. It's going to be like this, he thought, only all the time. And everywhere else. Every step on the marley floor sent a warm pulse through his feet that settled in his chest. Maybe it was even then he started to look different in the mirror. One year of this feeling, he told himself again and again.
Months later, he would practice in the living room of his bharatanatyam teacher, on the outdoor marble stage with his kalaripayattu teacher, in the storage house of the Gulu Theatre Artists, in the cement hut of Breakdance Project Uganda, and in Restless' studio. The same feeling came back every time. So this is what it's like. My soul's on fire, he would think, smile, and wave it away. Okay, that was a little pretentious. No need to start writing "Eat, Pray, Love: Magno Edition" yet.
The teacher at AusDance had used music that kept his fire burning; he wouldn't mistake her choreographic style or song choice for coincidence. Too much had happened this year that was too perfect for random happenstance. Three hours of moving across the floor in front of the mirrors and he was still looking for more, almost as if he would never run out of fuel. And it was all so very strange: his sudden ability to pick up choreography, to let it stick in his mind, had sharpened since his days back at college and high school. He hopped from foot to foot, impatiently waiting for the teacher to move on. Whatever the fire was feeding on, he had plenty of it. It certainly came as a disappointment when the class had ended; it wasn't enough! The bike ride home did little to expend this energy. He decided that he would find more classes, more styles, more teachers tomorrow. And the day after that, and the day after that. He wanted to keep feeding whatever was inside him, whatever had awakened back on that island.
The Boy was sure it wouldn't extinguish, not for a while.
