Entre la vie

Lately, I find myself hovering at the threshold of an ancient question—whether this “I” that gazes out from behind my eyes is something to tend to like a delicate flame, or to simply let drift, untethered, through the ever-turning sky. Am I a spirit wandering inside a human shell, or a human who, by some quiet miracle, brushes the edges of the spiritual? I can’t quite tell. On certain days, when the world feels wide and my worries shrink beneath the hush of stars, I feel like little more than dust caught in the slipstream of an endless universe. A fleeting speck, nameless and unclaimed. And yet, dust does not dream. Dust does not marvel at the soft, gold thread of light cutting through morning blinds, or ache at the memory of a touch now distant. Dust does not hear music and feel its ribs expand as though to make room for something ineffable.

So, what is this strange, brief arrangement—this particular convergence of cells and silence that calls itself “me”? If the universe is vast beyond measure, then what is this singular life but an eyelash flutter in its quiet, breathing face? And yet, there is tenderness here. Tenderness in the way this universe, ancient and unknowable, chose to cast a sliver of its own gaze through this body, this heart, this fragile mind. Could it be that the stars arranged themselves just so, so that I might taste both sorrow and joy, and learn to call them both by name? Could it be that the universe made itself small, just long enough to whisper its own name through me.

There is a temptation to dismiss it all, to dissolve into the comfort of detachment, to say, “None of this matters.” The sages on mountaintops and the poets of dimly lit rooms speak of transcendence, of leaving the mess and clamor of this world behind. To rise above attachment, they say, is to free oneself from the heavy pull of desire, to become the sky rather than the weather passing through it. But if that were all, why would this sky have carved itself into so many fleeting storms? Why gift us hands only to tell us not to touch, lips only to tell us not to kiss, hearts only to tell us not to yearn?

No, I don’t think this existence is merely a hallway to somewhere else. I think the hallway itself is alive. The scuffed floors, the echo of footsteps, the chipped paint catching light at certain hours—it is all part of the journey. We are here, not simply to rise above the world, but to plunge into it. To be soaked by the rain, bruised by the fall, warmed by the sun that breaks through after. We are the dreamers and the dreamed, the ones who can hold eternity in one hand and a fleeting laugh in the other.

Perhaps we are not merely travelers here. Perhaps we are doorways ourselves, bridges between the dust and the stars. We are the ones who stand at the intersection of dreams and flesh. There is a reason we wake with the lingering taste of otherworldly places on our tongues—trains that run endlessly beneath cities, forests where the wind speaks in forgotten languages, the face of someone we have never met, but somehow loved, appearing in the crowd.

Perhaps we are here to reconcile opposites—the dust and the divine. To realize that we are neither fully lost nor fully found. That there is no shame in savoring the sweetness of fresh fruit, in holding a lover’s face as though it were a fragile planet, or in grieving the things we can never keep. It is all part of the design: the sacredness of laughter at the edge of despair, the holiness of boredom, of heartbreak, of nights spent staring at the ceiling, asking unanswerable questions.

Sometimes, I imagine that the universe has scattered pieces of itself across dimensions like breadcrumbs, and this life, this very moment, is one of them. The sharp tang of salt air, the weight of a stranger’s gaze across a crowded train, the sudden hush that comes when snow begins to fall—these are not distractions from the path. They are the path. They are the riddle and its answer.

So, I will not rush to ascend, nor will I disappear into apathy. I will sit where I am. I will let the beauty and absurdity of this existence wash over me like the sea. Some days, I will feel like nothing but dust, drifting without a name. Other days, I will feel as though the entire cosmos is leaning close, whispering secrets meant only for me.

It is both. It has always been both.

If not now, when will I dance barefoot in this imperfect, miraculous life? We speak often of other planes, as though this one were a waiting room. But isn’t this too a holy place? Isn’t this soft, trembling moment—a conversation with a dying flower, the taste of fruit warmed by the sun, the ache of saying goodbye to someone we love—just as divine as any other realm?

Maybe it is not that we are meant to transcend this place, but to fully inhabit it. To hold the paradox in our arms—the dust and the divine, the mundane and the miraculous. Maybe the ache in our chest, the pull toward meaning, is not something to cure but something to carry. To become a vessel for both sorrow and celebration, equally sacred.

I think the universe is not asking us to choose between dust and starlight. I think it is asking us to be both. To carry the weight of impermanence tenderly, while living as though every mundane moment could, at any second, burst into eternity.

-Vie (21 Mar 2025, After all, even the stars themselves collapse before they are born anew).