I wanted to be somebody. I wanted my name in lights: proof that I was somebody. And I made it. Oh boy did I make it…all the way to the top. But the marquee loomed up and there was something so public about it all. The paparazzi. The audience. The fans. I didn’t want the stares and the cameras and the tabloid photos of an aging woman. I wanted to jump off the edge of my world back into oblivion, because the somebody that everybody knew wasn’t me.
But first, I needed to find the edge.
Was it the boundary of Hollywood? The west coast? The east coast? The United States? Where in the world was the edge?
I asked strangers: Do you know the way to the edge?
Say, aren’t you…?
I hid behind sunglasses and newspapers and double cappuccinos. I hid beneath the sheets, in the dimness of the afternoon shades drawn down, down, down—as down as down under, and how far down is that?
Maybe Australia was the edge.
I flew across the ocean.
Hopped from continent to continent.
Rode the trains, taxis, rickshaws. Sailed back to America.
Nowhere did I find the edge.
Columbus was right. There are no edges to the world.
Except…
Columbus hadn’t navigated the inner seas.
It was time to travel inwards.
I drove to a rocky outcropping along the California coast and dangled my legs over the side. There, among the cypress trees, I closed my eyes and felt myself breathe for the first time in a long time.
This was home.
This was me, the somebody that was always there.
This moment was the edge.
Ah yes, all the edges are inside, along with all the middles. The California cliffs helped me come to that realization as well. Beautiful post.
Thanks Melanie!