Roads

This is a tale of two roads, a gnarled tree, and the edge.

Sometimes, when I can’t sleep, I listen to my heartbeat. If you lie face up, and keep your head very still, you can hear your ears twitch slightly as your pulse sends buckets of blood through your body. They move almost without notice, but if you concentrate, you can hear them drag against the pillow. When this happens, it sounds like walking through leaves. In fact, before I identified the anatomical reason for this pulsing sound, I thought I was dreaming the sound, and let my imagination loose.

I always think of the same moment when I hear my ears twitch. I imagine the old dirt road leading to our family farm. It’s about half a country mile long, and it’s a tunnel of trees, light, dust, and underbrush. In summer, this tunnel turns green and gold, and in winter it’s a somber brown and grey. But a tunnel it remains throughout the year, and leads you lovingly to the waiting 80 acres of beautiful fields, and roaming cows. You’re almost home, it whispers. When my ears twitch at night, I hear my feet crunching the leaves of the road during fall. It’s a red and orange tunnel, with white gravel creeping behind the crispy ground. Step by step, my ears lead me home. But before I get there, I always fall into a deep, peaceful sleep.

However, my dear reader, times change. Today, at the end of that dirt road, the state of Arkansas owns most of that land, and some by John Roberts, a dairy farmer. John Roberts, a good man, has unfortunately replaced our old Simmental cows with Holsteins. No more beautiful red and golden haired beauties roam. It’s just black and white, and a little harsher.

Today, I live on 21^st Road in Bandra West in India. Don’t bother looking for it though, because there’s no road sign, and absolutely no indication that it even exists. Also, 16^th Road is an acceptable address for me, even though it’s actually one road over. I think.

21^st Road is a brick road, but it’s not yellow. The bricks are the same brown and grey color of an Arkansas winter. They are abnormal shapes, and fit together almost magically. However, many of them are loose, and jiggle as you walk over them. The road itself is a respectable two-lane road, but after cars decide to park on both sides, and traffic refuses to admit defeat, it becomes a four lane thoroughfare. The Skodas, VWs, BMWs, and Mercs might fool you into thinking this is some cosmopolitan neighborhood. But then the roaming cows and haphazard bamboo scaffolding on the new building remind you that, no, this is India.  

There are trees on my road, and pretty big ones too. The sun has trouble getting to the bricks below. The leaves spread out above, and provide a canopy that sometimes mimics my Arkansas tunnel. The trunks are old and big, and they come down to the bricks, and dive in without a splash. In most urban areas, you’ll find a grate, or some area around the tree to allow it to breath and drink. Here, the bricks choke the trunk, and some grout has even found its way up onto the bark. The roots are somewhere below, magically drinking some hidden source.

Stray dogs and cows like my road. The dogs patrol the street, acting as the unofficial guardians. They are obviously Indian guards, because they also sleep on the job quite a bit. There’s a black and white terrier next door, and she just gave birth to her first litter. They grow up so fast. The cows don’t care about the dogs in the least, and they go wherever the hell they want to. Sidewalks, in front of cars, in the middle of the road. They lumber and sleep, and give you a sideways look that says, I’m the boss here.

Still, this nonexistent chaotically peaceful road is home for now.

It’s a far cry from my dirt road. Peaceful silence has been replaced by honking and yelling. A wind rushing through the trees isn’t fresh anymore; it smells like rotting fish. And the freedom to open up 8 cylinders of my Chevy Silverado, roaring through humid air and watching the dust leap up behind me has been replaced by dip and diving around BMWs, with newly affluent jackasses who think honking is necessary to announce your arrival.

If reconciling the difference between my two worlds wasn’t difficult enough, another wrench has been thrown into the machine. My dirt road still leads to the farm, but it’s been mostly sold off. Now, we own a new property out in Newton County. From Prairie Grove, that means a two-hour drive across a few rivers, around a lot of hills, and through a couple little towns removed from time. Finally though, on top of a lonely hill, there is a house called Star’s Edge.

It was just after Christmas, and I had left 21^st road for want of my Arkansas tunnel. Instead of walking through my dreams again, we went to explore some of the new 220 acres. My family was all there, and we were tromping through the woods like monsters where the wild things are. Even though it was winter, leaves still were piled up everywhere, and crunched with a more vigorous sound. We were yelling and laughing, letting up a rowdy roar to the heavens. The Black family owns these woods, and our dreams for the future live here.

We eventually walked up to a gnarled tree, perched on the edge of a tall bluff. It was only about 9 feet tall, but its curved and contorted body prove that wisdom and wind from the valley have shaped it into a small but proud oak. Most of the leaves had fallen off, and even though it was the dead of winter, buds were beginning to form anticipating the coming spring. Its roots grasped the edge of the cliff like old fingers, wrinkled and stiff. Down about 100 feet below, the forest continued indefinitely across a valley.

It was a curious moment. A lonely tree perched between two worlds, completely exposed to the elements. My family in-between the old farm and these new woods. Me in-between Arkansas and India. Times are changing, and all at once a new age heralded itself in. Here we all were, on the edge, ready to jump into the future and our new, constantly changing identities.

Air India Flight 144 brought me back to Bombay. Back to my city, and back to my lost road in the chaotic land. And seamlessly, my feet adapted from the crunching of leaves, to the grinding of sandy bricks.

Last night, I put my head down on my pillow. I waited till my warm ears twitched with my restless heart. A curious thing happened. I heard my feet begin to walk, but the image that came to my head was a whirlwind of confused images. One step would be in the tunnel. The next would be in the woods of Newton County, the next would be on 21^st road. A gust of fresh farm air would circle around me, then rotten fish would swim about. Leaves, bricks, sunlight, shade, Jersey, Simmental, and Holstein cows.

They say home is where the heart is, but I disagree. When you go to sleep tonight, listen to your ears and heart.

Wherever they take you is home.