The Ghosts of Orchard Street

I often wondered why I woke up in the middle of the nights when I was a child. I blamed it on ghosts. I’m sure there were ghosts but more than likely it was the angst of what I would become. Whatever truths existed in my life, the future was a blueprint. There were expectations in my mind to be something more than what was expected. There was no gauge set, no compass, but a meandering direction in my mind.

I can recall the street of our home more clearly than most things, a vivid dream sometimes, and the last time I returned it had all changed. The dream is more real than the reality.

What is our youth? What fate do we own for where we are born and raised? I doubt much, for my birthplace means nothing in my life today.

I don’t believe in a birthplace as much as a “lifeplace.” The more I think of it, there seems to be a lifeplace for each of us. A place, where we came alive or where we feel alive. It is a place where our dreams are real and reality is as close to those expectations as they can be to be what we imagined. Each of the four of us, have a place we may have found or are still searching for. I found mine.

I may have forgotten the sleepless nights of childhood but I know the sleepless nights of adulthood. A child awakes out of fear. An adult awakes out of anxiety. I fear little now, but I’m anxious about everything.

Some of our friends do not contemplate the thought of other places to find their peace. They carry out their lives as if their lives are complete. They know of only one world, the one they made and they gauge the world by how they live. Their compass always points them to their home, their hometown; their birthplace.

I think we all want to feel safe at home. We want to feel complete. We want our lives to mean something in the end. In our minds, our world was created in our youth and as we grew up the Dorian Gray picture of our lives remained. It changed very little until we awoke and felt our age.












The Ghost of Adolescence

My imperfections lie in the painting of my life. No masterpiece, no great work, but something personal. It is a painting most people seem to pass by in this great gallery of lives. Nothing catches their eye to make them stop and look. But if they stopped and took a look there might be something there to remember.

The childhood ideas of being “something” seem less important after I’ve met those people who are “something.” With age, comes the determination of completeness. We wish we could have everything we dreamed. When I’m with the “somethings” they are so afraid to become “nothings” they spend most of their time talking about themselves. They spend too much time telling themselves they have everything.

It is with age, I learned the most meaningful people are those who we just pass by. Their paintings are not masterpieces but they are personal. They don’t stop people in their tracks but a good observer will find a gem in their canvas. A good listener will hear the brilliance in the artist.

When I think about the ghosts of Orchard Street, I think of artists who were busy painting their canvases, unsure of what to paint. We believed in darker tones to match the dourness of a place we thought was home. Now, the bright colors of our lifeplace cover up the darkness. Our dreams on canvas, the artists still painting and trying to use every piece. We each have our hopes the painting won’t be finished until it is exactly what we dreamed.



Let’s hope we have enough paint.