The pipe rolled a little under my foot. It scraped the rough
concrete, until I found the perfect spot with the arch of my boot. Secured, I
lowed the blade of the sawzall, and pulled the trigger. It leaped to life,
biting into the pipe at several spots before I calmed down and pushed it
through. It cut through easy enough, but near the end it switched direction,
and the blade bent slightly to the left. One second more and it fell through,
the black PVC landing on the gravel below.
Ugh, that was a rough
cut, I thought.
It really was. Shavings were stuck to the rim of the pipe,
and I reamed them out with my finger. The remaining lip was jagged and uneven;
not a great fit for the coupling. Well, at least the other side looked pretty
enough. I kneeled down in the gravel, and opened the cans of primer and glue.
The purple primer brush was shaggy and mangy looking; a good indication of how
often we used it. I ran the brush on the inside of the coupler, and on the
outside of the pipe. Then I ran through the same motion with the glue. It was
thick and deep blue, almost appetizing. With the glue on, I put the pipe into
the coupler, gave it a quarter-turn, and applied pressure.
“Michael, what you making?” Herberto yelled from the other
end of the greenhouse. He was looking up from the baseboards he was attaching
to the outside walls.
I held the tube out and ran my finger down it. “It’s a
column for the temperature sensor. This black part is supposed to warm the air
and pull it through the white part for a more accurate reading.”
“Oh,” he said, and raised his eyebrows over the top of his
safety sunglasses. He nodded and smiled, and went back to the baseboard work.
He wasn’t a man of many words, but he said more than anyone else.
As I walked back to Greenhouse 6, I kicked the gravel under
my boots. Less than a month ago, I was in Indian shoes, pushing down the gears
on my motorcycle roaring through Bandra. Loose bricks shook under my feet then,
and little bits of filth stuck into the ridges of my sole, and soul. Now those
same feet were shifting over white gravel in Fayetteville.
When I first got back, I considered myself a failure. I left
India before I was supposed to. I left my colleagues mid-projects, broke
contract, and left hurt hearts mid-beat. I felt neither like myself, nor like a
man. I went east with wide eyes, but returned west with my head down.
With my head down, I got closer to Greenhouse 6. I avoided a
small puddle from the rain last night. My boots marched on, and the late
afternoon sun beat down on my neck and the white of my forearms.
There was some humor in my brown feet scuffling over the
rocks. With squinted eyes, it didn’t look too dissimilar to casual Fridays at
Mahindra towers. I even wore the same jeans: Levi’s 501, 30/30s. Which version
of me is better: the jeans and the Eccos, or the jeans and the Timberlands?
Which me walked with confidence? Which one is the kind of person I can be proud
of?
Success is unattainable until you stop and think about it.
Its definition is fluid, and changes every day. Today you may want to change
the world, and anything less would disappoint you. But tomorrow, you may think
that all you want is to live in a house in the woods, with a good dog and a
couple of kids. Then, anything less will disappoint you. The truth is you wake
up a successful person everyday. By some definition you made some time ago, you
are successful today. You may only have a car to your name. Or a cat. Or even
just the ability to buy a new phone. But according to 10-year old you, you have
become someone you once only dreamed about.
Success is some ideal we chase, like a carrot. It’s an
endless chase, and as soon as we think we get close, we change the definition
or our direction, and keep running forward. Every once in a while, it’s nice to
stop, lean back, and let the dangling carrot fall into out mouths.
Crunch
I stepped on an old plastic pot on my way into Greenhouse 6.
Inside, I pull out the flatblade screwdriver from my back pocket, and help my
Dad wire a new thermostat system. We play around with the wires, trying
different ports and staring at confusing diagrams.
“So Open 1 here goes to Open 1 there, and Close 1 to Close
1?” I asked
My dad looked down to a poorly printed diagram in a red
paper packet. “Uh, yeah I think that’s right.”
It wasn’t. After we had plugged everything together, I
touched the male plug, and 120 volts ran through my body. Not bad, just a
little numbing shock. We looked at each other in disbelief. Neither one of us
understood the physics of what was happening.
“Well what the hell.” My dad’s words were my thoughts.
“Um, I don’t know. I don’t know what’s going on.”
“I guess…” he paused and looked at the curtains along the
wall, “Let’s just re-wire the Vent Boss, and come back at it in the morning.”
More wires, more terminals, more head scratching.
The important thing to remember, I kept telling myself, is
that the grass is always greener on
the other side. In India, I yearned for American diners, real biscuits, and my
old Chevy. Now back in the states I yearn for my Honda Hero motorcycle, pav
bhaji, and the Sealink. There is always yearning, and the more we experience,
the easier it is to yearn. We’ve done so much, and seen so many things, how can
we ever be happy with what is right here and now?
It’s a tough task, but it’s all about the little things. As
you read this, there is something that you have right now that will eventually turn into a warm memory of the ‘good
ol days’. The things you hold in your hands today may bring tears to your eyes
later in life. Learning to cherish the present is the best way keep the past
and future at bay. They can both be scary things.
My car shook to life. The orange dials on the odometer and
rev counter swept quickly to the right, then back down to the left. A CD sent
electronic whispers through the speakers as it started to spin. Get ready, it seemed to say. It landed
on a track, and as I turned onto Wedington Drive, high energy Indian music
blasted from the car, leaping through the cracks of the windows, and landing on
the Arkansas pavement below. It bounced around for a moment, before being
smashed under the growl of a V8 Hemi passing by.
As I drove down Broyles, and eventually Highway 170, my eyes
lifted from the road and grazed the trees. I took a deep breath of air, and the
slight smell of smoke brought back a whiff of Carter road in Bandra. Shoddy
concrete buildings suddenly leapt up from the southern oaks. Little
clotheslines climbed up the side, with bright reds and yellows of t-shirts,
kurtis, and underwear. Black lines of cable between the buildings zig-zagged
everywhere, replacing the white contrails of the Arkansas sky.
For a brief moment I was nowhere; exactly where I wanted to
be.
