What if the dust never settles

If you lie on your back on the floor, with the back of your head against the open door with the sunlight streaming through and look up, you will see dust particles. The light catches the dust, or whatever is floating in the air, and sparkles.

You say to yourself, "This is it...waiting for the dust to settle." And then as the dust particles float down and begin to disperse, you notice something. The dust never settles. A breeze catches a loose microscopic fragment of life and there it goes, floating upward.

Then the air stills. You look up and see a tiny cat air blowing sideways.

You close your eyes for a minute and open them to focus.

For a few seconds you see nothing but the high white ceiling and the hologram of your own focus in bright sunlight. You think, "There. Look at that. The dust has settled. I just needed to be patient and wait."

But you are wrong. More particles catch the light and float above you. It goes on like this. The sun is melting your crown, your hair is wax. And then, finally, only then, you realize that the dust never settles. And for much of your life you have been seeking a thing that is simply unnatural, not how nature works.

87 days and counting. That is the time you have left before you return to your home country, the country that your ancestors immigrated to when they left their homes and languages. But it is your country. You are American. No matter how long you live or how long you reside in another country, you were raised American.

And being raised American, you were told you could be anything you wanted. You could be a pop star AND a veterinarian. You could save all the pigs from slaughterhouses. You could find all the stolen bicycles in your neighborhood. You could learn all the tricks from your sister and run kid-olympics in your backyard. You could tie rubber bands for Chinese jump rope and double-dutch and there would always be a friend who wanted to jump. You didn't need money to have fun.

87 days and counting. Back then, if you were 12 years-old and your parents told you that you were leaving the country for a year because it wasn't safe anymore and it was time for an adventure, you wouldn't have understood.

What does safety mean? The Crips and Bloods, the 9-year old girl that got murdered in the park near Proctor, the strange religious zealots across the street who wouldn't let their daughters wear pants, the suffering eyes of starving women in the halls of rehab, and staying up all night at your friend's house to protect her from her dad. Your childhood, particles floating. Some safe. Some not.

What was safety?

Safety was warm snicker doodles and BBQ chips from Shirley, Melissa's grandma, who wore bright orange lipstick, loved Neil Diamond and worked at Pizza & Pipes until she was 70. Safety was the neighbor Mrs. Plumber, with her oxygen tank, dishes of candy and little Beatrix Potter books in her living room. Safety was your 5th grade teacher, Ms. Saul, who told you that you could skip PE because the substitute that day made you feel weird when he spotted you doing a backbend.

Safety was your dad's jokes and your mom in a pick-up truck full of golden leaves. Safety was anxiously waiting with your eighteen cousins as your grandpa slowly read the name on the next present under the Christmas tree. Safety was camping at Fort Flagler and jumping off cliffs, landing in warm thick sand up to your calves. Safety was summer nights playing Ghost Tag and safely making it to the oak tree before getting caught. Safety was skiing down the trails off of Queen's Run in second-hand clothes and sipping hot chocolate at the lodge. Safety was racing your hamsters down the sloping linoleum floor in your hot pink barbie sports car. Safety was holding onto Charlie in the way back. Safety was climbing into the suburban in your PJs before sunrise, and snuggling into sleeping bags next to clam digging buckets.

Safety was pulling up the ladder to sleep on the roof of the garage on a summer night and seeing a shooting star. Watching it spontaneously burst from light to dark. Wondering if you were just lucky or chosen. Wishing on star dust. Not waiting for the dust to settle.