Written by Julian Chehirian

     Something is happening right now, and it’s happening regardless of whether or not I’m there to see it. It could be somewhere that I’ve been before, or somewhere I have yet to go. It is this indirect significance that makes me want to be everywhere, at all times. While I sit in my room, somebody is experiencing something that I am not. It’s so easy to deem these ideas as insignificant; it’s very common not to think of a train that leaves its station somewhere far away. I realize, though, that I do think of distant places that I’ve traveled to, and of alleys on which I’ve once walked. Unfortunately, I missed seeing a street performer in some faraway city. I’m pretty sure that I missed something else that has happened as well. I can’t see everything, and I can’t go to every place. When I do experience something, however, I try to remember it. I have a jar in my room where I throw a handful of sand from my travels. Through the glass, I see layers that are easily distinguishable, and yet others that have blended together to a point where they can no longer be separated. I’m pretty sure that I just want to remember and to re-live these moments, regardless of when they happened.

      I’ve always found a strange comfort in people around me knowing the answers to questions, specifically my father. I find myself asking absurd questions and receiving thoughtful answers so often that I’m utterly surprised when somebody tells me bluntly, “why should I know that?” I find myself to be unnecessarily distracted about issues of immediate significance and necessarily attracted to things that are deemed unimportant by others. I can, for example, remember the strange smile that a lady gave me outside of a fitting room when I was trying on red pants, but I once forgot to ask for a girl’s name after a memorable conversation. Does this make me less focused or motivated than others? I doubt it. What I do know about myself, though, is that I have been given an opportunity to wander. I have experienced things that I once paid little attention to and now can’t help but treasure. I didn’t always appreciate it when my parents took me to concerts and museums instead of a movie theater, and I often showed it. I remember myself roaming through exhibitions, searching for little visitor badges that had been carelessly dropped on the floor. Today I feel a pull to go to these places myself, and I see my time spent there as something inspiring and meaningful.

     My parents have always taken me with them wherever they traveled, and as I’ve grown, I have begun to value these travels for what they truly were. It was not always the sophisticated European cities that attracted us, however. We also traveled to countries where people lived just as their ancestors would have hundreds of years ago. When I was on the southern edge of Morocco past the Atlas Mountains, I rolled through the sand dunes of the Sahara and spoke to a Bedouin. The man lived in the desert with his family and earned a living by leading tourists on camels. He had never gone to school, yet he conversed decently in four languages. He had never seen a city, but was content with what life had fated for him. Out of curiosity I questioned him on how he performed his ritual ablutions without water on such barren land. He told me that he only needs the earth beneath him and the sand that runs through his cupped hands. This is what I see life as. We have two cupped hands filled with sand; our experiences filter through and we are left with the memories that we treasure most. My grains of sand are different, but they do blend well with those of others. I look at my future knowing that I will never truly have more answers than questions, but in the end I guess this is only human. In the end I feel that life will bring to me only what I deposit, and so I give this grain of sand.