The “Four Walls That Don’t Judge My Ice-Cream Raids” Chronicles 

“The smell of trouble just walked in! Did you bring enough hugs for everyone?” – My Grandma  
 
“Home is a shelter from storms—all sorts of storms.” — William J. Bennett 
 

Home. A word as worn out as an ocean rock, yet as unexplored as the depths of the ocean. It is not merely the four walls that cradle the diagram of the Krebs cycle drawn on the eve of a biology exam, or those traitorous floorboards—silent spectators by day, yet chattering aunties the moment I sneak downstairs for ice cream at 2 a.m. 

Sometimes, home walks on two legs. It’s the Baymax hug of your Dad and the comforting slumber in Mom’s lap. It’s Gran scolding you for leaving the shoes in the rain, or Gramp’s silent food passes to your plate.  

Can a word of four letters hold so much meaning? What does home truly define? A place? A person? An incident? It can’t be confined to one thing. Perhaps, home is more like a constellation – a pattern we weave upon our very own night sky, each star a fragment of what makes us feel whole.  

*** 

“I can’t live with them, I can’t live without them, but I can definitely steal your snacks!” – My stupid brother  

“Home is the place where, when you go there, they have to take you in.” — Robert Frost 

The symphony of home plays in a thousand keys. For some, it’s the scent of cinnamon rolls wafting from the kitchen. Others find comfort them in the most unexpected of places, such as the heavy rhythm of the wheels of a train rolling across the iron. Even the whirring of a useless fan stands as a testament to home: It may not swirl the air to kiss your face, but its dull melody will lull you to sleep.  

We find home in the most ordinary of objects, in the simplest of details. A broken remote held together with tape. A splinter in the doorframe. These small imperfections weave the tapestry of home; a place as unique as a fingerprint, yet universal all the same.  

But what if the tapestry is ripped, its threads slowly unraveling? Does the word home summon a universal smile? Are we all homesick when we are away? Or are some of us homesick for places—and for people—we can never truly return to? 

Perhaps not. 

Sometimes, the word home is met not with a smile, but with a frown, a quiet relief at being away. Perhaps homesickness isn’t always a yearning for a place, but a longing for a feeling – a sense of safety, of belonging, of love. 

Hence, the question is not whether everyone feels the same about home. Home, at its truest, is a synonym for joy. One cannot be saddened by true happiness. The real question, then, is this: Does everyone have a home? A melody that completes their song? 

The truth is no fairy tale: Not everyone has a home. The melody of “home” plays in a thousand keys, but not everyone can hear it. For some have never known the harmony it brings. Life is known to be hard, but for some it’s cruel. Bricks and mortar can build a house, but they don’t always build a home. What about those who sleep under the stars or those who feel like strangers within their own walls? 

I don’t know which is crueler: To have four walls that don’t resonate as home or to not have four walls at all.  

Neither is any less cruel.  

What good is a house if, when you come seeking warmth, all you find is a coldness beyond reason? Everyone has cried behind a locked bathroom door. But what of those who have no one waiting outside, no one knocking to ask if they are all right? 

To feel like a stranger in the very place where you were meant to belong—it is cruel, even devastating. While so many people dream of success, achievement, or adventure, how heartbreaking it is to dream simply of a home while already living in a house. 

And then there are those who have no house at all.  

To live without one is like walking through the world with a soul left bare. We all long to curl up in our beds, safe beneath the covers, after a long day. But what about those who have never known that comfort? Are they content with the stars as their only ceiling? Most of us have cried before a bathroom mirror. But what of those who do not even have a piece of glass to reflect their own face? 

What forgotten language holds a word for the feeling of never having known what home feels like? 

*** 

“I didn’t raise a quitter, I might have raised a silly girl who will try something 3 times, trip over it, and then get mad at it.”- My Momma  

 
 
“You can’t really know where you are going until you know where you have been.” -Maya Angelou 
 

Is home where you were born or where you earn your bread? The obvious answer to me is the place we were born, but only if your origin story isn’t laced with pain. And that is a whole chaotic symphony in itself.  

But when home brings back forgotten laughter and the aroma of curry, a bittersweet reality follows. We leave those memories behind each morning and walk into the polished walls of offices and businesses, chasing our daily bread. Those walls may witness our dedication, our discipline, and our hard work, but do they ever see the emotional burdens we carry back home?  

Sure, we might find camaraderie with colleagues, but they are bonds born from shared spreadsheets and virtual meetings, not the pixels of blood, laughter, and tears of family. We may chase clinking coins, but that is not the sound of home. Home is the bread we eat and not the money that we earn to buy that bread. Does your momma ever discuss how much she paid for the groceries at the dinner table? No, the only currency we hear is love.  

Maybe home isn’t just a place anymore. Maybe for some, it’s a city they didn’t choose. Neon lights were replaced by tea plantations. Or perhaps, for others, the choice was the opposite—they left the paddy fields behind for the shadow of skyscrapers. But do we all eventually find a “new home”? 

*Sarcastic laughter* 

No. A part of us will always ache to walk barefoot on wet soil, no matter how much we enjoy dancing in high heels beneath city lights. Perhaps, home is a mosaic, a bittersweet blend of the motherland we left behind and the land we chose to sow the seeds of the life we’re building. A tapestry that is weaved across cities to countries.  

*** 

‘If you can’t say something nice, come sit by me and we’ll make fun of people together.’ – My Stupid Sister 
 
“Home is not a place, it’s a feeling.” — Cecelia Ahern 

Home is not a physical place; it is a constellation. An ever-growing labyrinth. It’s a dance of broken stars and stardust. Within those four letters lies the vastness of the night sky, waiting for each of us to weave our own constellation. 

At first blush, home is like the familiar cuddle of the four walls that cradle us from childhood to adolescence and into adulthood. A symphony of life unfolds within these bricks – the constant banter of silly human beings who happen to be born from the same womb as us, cascades of laughter, photo frames lining the walls, peeling paint, cockroach-danger zones, and countless little imperfections that somehow become part of the story.  

These cement walls have witnessed the full spectrum of our emotions: the frustration of staying up late to finish an essay, the comfort of sleeping in, our tears and our triumphs. The walls remain silent spectators, but the people who fill the house—oh my, should we even begin to talk about these dramatic people? They stand beside us through childish arguments, celebrate our greatest achievements, and occasionally send a spatula flying in our direction. They are the brightest stars in our first constellation – the place where we begin to discover who we are.  

Beyond the first constellation of our family, we embark on a quiet search for another—our person, our own little home. We discover a home that walks on two legs. Concrete walls are replaced by hands made of stardust. Their laughter fills us with a feeling only home can bring.  

This constellation becomes a catalyst. Together, we continue painting our night sky, one shared memory at a time. We form another family with this person. Another whole constellation. Every little detail of this person becomes inscribed among our stars. The wrinkle of their nose becomes a tiny constellation we return to again and again. 

Some hugs feel like you’re finally arriving, but this feels like you’ve been there all along. Where the walls once witnessed our midnight ice cream raids, this person becomes our silent partner in crime. Now, who will the floorboard aunties gossip to? 

Our celestial journey then leads us to a constellation etched not in stardust, but in the very soil where we first learned to walk—our motherland. Our hometown. Our country. Our hearts yearn to discover the unknown, yet an invisible thread binds us to these well-worn streets. Will coffee from a Starbucks halfway across the world ever carry the same aroma as the cup brewed by the “Tea Grandpa” at the end of our street? Will we wander outside in pajamas in the mid-afternoon, scorching under the sun? Will greetings with neighbors morph into polite smiles and awkward small talk, devoid of the familiar “How many times have I seen you today?” Will we ever truly feel at home in a different country, a different city, with different traffic lights and a different seat beside the driver? 

And then there is the final constellation, the one that fills the rest of our night sky: a feeling. Home is a feeling that can bloom anywhere, quietly waiting around the corner to accompany us on life’s journey. We often find it when we least expect it.  

It may be a small smile of a stranger. A peaceful stroll in the park, the setting sun, a dog brushing up against you, a cat darting across the railway track, a long-forgotten movie. 

Finding home is like finding joy. It can reside in the grand moments of our lives – a wedding toast, a graduation ceremony, or the birth of a child. But it also flickers in the seemingly insignificant – a shared laugh with a colleague, a forgotten aroma that evokes a childhood memory. It’s born from love and built upon it.  
 
*** 

 
‘If you can’t fix it with duct tape, you’re not using enough duct tape.'” – My Grandpa  
 
“We often lose ourselves in the chaos of life, only to rediscover who we are in the quiet moments.” -Unknown 

In the age of “like,” “share,” and “subscribe,” the concept of home is undergoing a metamorphosis. In chasing validation, we often lose sight of what we are truly searching for. We risk building hollow identities upon fleeting approval rather than lasting belonging. 

Screens have come to occupy so much of our lives that we have begun to forget the meaning of many things—and home is one of them. 

For many teenagers, almost anywhere can feel like home as long as there is a laptop and a Wi-Fi connection. But is that truly home? Perhaps not. Our capacity to feel and to belong has gradually been confined behind the blue glow of our screens. 

It’s natural to find a home in a community where everyone understands you. Online communities can certainly play a role in our search for belonging, but they can also be misleading. Can we truly find a home in a community built on online texts? Where is the warmth of a touch or the depth of a face-to-face conversation? 

They say the embers of feeling burn brightest during our teenage years. It’s an era of burning hearts that yearn for adventure in chase of new purpose and meaning. Yet, in a world where the blue glow of our screens so often outshines the light of sunrise, a question remains: Are we, the very generation that is meant to feel most deeply, forgetting what it truly means to belong—to a place, to a people, to a home? 

Where is home for those who have been forced to leave it?  

Do as I say, not as I do.'” – My Dad 
 
“For those who have lost their homes, every new door is a reminder of the one that was left behind.” -Unknown 

The world.  

There is perhaps no greater cruelty than being forced to leave your home. Yet when life demands it, the world itself becomes your home. The sky becomes your ceiling, the earth beneath your feet your floor, the countless buildings your shelter, and the people who journey beside you your family. Family is not formed by blood alone, but by shared suffering, resilience, and love.  

Uprooted, they begin anew. Life throws them on a new path. A chance to build again. Though the echoes of the old home never truly fade, its symphony can be rewritten. It is an opportunity to rise from what was broken and build something new: a place where laughter is once again held within four walls instead of being carried away by the wind. 

“She completes me… and my to-do list.” – My Person  
 
“Isn’t it funny, that we break apart in the arms of those who complete us?” -Unknown 

My Home? 

If this essay is a symphony, then every note has contributed to the melody of what home means to me. As I have shared, I have my own night sky, filled with constellations that feel like home—my own broken stars and their stardust. Though each of us weaves a different constellation, we are all searching for the same light.  

The four walls I call home shelter the people I love and care for. Though I love my motherland deeply, I’m not bound to her. For she gives me the courage to fly beyond her, trusting that I can find home wherever life leads me.  

Funnily enough, I always seem to find it in the arms that hold me—those arms of stardust. 

I’m no coward when it comes to feeling. I embrace everything life places before me. I have woven my constellations across my night sky. And I have so many more still to weave. 

*** 

So, the next time someone asks you where home is, don’t look anywhere else but within. Your heart is a night sky, where the constellations of home quietly reside. It is there that you will always find your way back. 

After all, home isn’t a destination. Let’s not forget that even constellations are constantly in motion. Keep searching.  

 
 
“Gran! What’s the secret to long-lasting love?” – Bestie 
“Oh, just make him cookies every day”- Gran 
“I call her sweetheart because I forgot her name.”- Gramp 

“Why am I even in this convo?”- Bro 

“Well, don’t you worry – no girl gonna stick with you”- Sis 

“You’ll wanna know how I met your sister?” – My Man 

“No!“- collective gasp 
“Why not? it’s cute” – Momma 
“Until he recites it a million times.”- Dad 

“Here’s to love and home!”- Me. 

Home is where you were born, they say.  

She called out to the mother, asking if she might hold the baby just once. No one heard. She tried again. Still, there was no response. Was the answer she had been searching for hidden there? Probably not.   

At that moment, a sweet girl in a pink floral dress lightly bumped into her. The child looked up, and she saw her own reflection in the girl’s bright eyes. She knelt down and held her tiny hands. The little girl leaned in and whispered something into her ear. She gave a childish giggle and ran away. The tiny hands slipped from her grasp, but the whispered words lingered, echoing in her ears.  

“You don’t belong here.”   

Those words felt overwhelming. Sobs choked her throat. She stood there staring after her… 

The sweet scent of honeysuckle. The caressing rays of the bright sun. Once green forests covered with the golden petals of autumn. Bare branches holding the cotton soft snow. The seasons passed. Calendar pages fell away one by one, leaving behind the sweet memories of childhood. The home that had once echoed with children’s laughter now stood empty.  

She entered inside. There was no sound except the echo of her footsteps on the wooden floor. She wondered where everyone had gone. There was only one thing left to do: find the little girl. She was the only one who might have the answer she was searching for. 

She cast one last glance around the old house. Her eyelids could no longer resist their heaviness. They slowly closed… 

The splashing sound of water on the ground. The murmur of a crowd bidding farewell. She slowly opened her eyes, unaware of what she was about to witness. To her surprise she found herself in the backseat of a car. Looking around, she noticed a girl resting her head against the car window. She could see tears rolling down her cheeks. What could have made her cry? Was it because she was leaving the country she had always called home? 

Home.  

 Was that what others meant when they spoke of a homeland? They say your homeland is your home. Had she finally found hers? 

Just then she felt something moving down her cheeks. It felt wet and soft. She lifted her hand to her cheek see what it was. Tears.  She looked at the tear resting on her fingertip. “Long time no see you” she whispered. It felt like ages since she last cried.  

Her eyes continued to overflow with tears. She looked back at the girl leaning on the window. Now she could understand her feelings. They lied. Many people lied. It was not her home.  

It was not her home. 

Even the homeland had failed to become one. 

A chill ran down her spine. Where could she go now? Was she destined to wander like a nomad, forever searching for a place to call home? 

Life was too short to waste. Too brief to hold on to everything.  

Could a single suitcase ever be large enough to carry it all? Even a home?  

Wasn’t a home simply a place that sheltered you from the cold and shielded you from the scorching heat? Or was it the place where you truly belonged?  

“Where?” she cried in despair. 

Once again, there was no answer. No one noticed—except the girl sitting beside her.  

She simply stared. Then she realized the girl was looking back one last time. The engine started, and they drove away, leaving everything behind. 

Wheee…  

The soothing whistle of an iron teapot echoed through the room. Steam rose toward the ceiling, condensing into tiny droplets in which she caught a glimpse of her own reflection.  

Home is where the hearth is lit, they say.  

In a way yes, she thought to herself. She studied surroundings. Everything seemed different from what she had seen before. Through the large window, a colorful world welcomed her. People in colorful clothing. Cars of bright colors. Children of all colors. he sounds of a bustling crowd blended harmoniously with the calls of birds and other animals. The scene before her resembled an enchanting painting from One Thousand and One Nights. She breathed in the comforting aroma of freshly brewed tea. It felt wonderfully familiar. Warmth slowly filled her heart.  

“Finally,” she murmured, “I am home…” Things unfolded just as she had expected. She believed she had finally found what she had been searching for all along, unaware of what lay ahead…  

Welcoming friends. Hospitable people. After all, it is people who make a place comfortable, livable—a home. Even if circumstances were not ideal, it felt like home.  

She had never longed for a grand palace with golden furnishings, servants to wait on her, velvet cushions, or silk garments. A warm embrace and a genuine smile would have meant far more than all of those things. But… They denied her even that. As people grew older, the purity in their hearts started vanishing. Profit became all that mattered. Eventually, that roof, too, began to collapse. She was homeless. Again… 

Deep silence. Utter darkness. A dim streetlamp, nearly broken. Raindrops trickled down her shoulders. Her worn, bare feet told everything.  

She walked without knowing where she was going. It had been a long journey, and still she had not found her “true” home. How long had it been? she thought to herself. Months? Years? Her soul felt too tired, too old. She kept walking until a sweet breeze gently brushed against her face. It was a new and refreshing sensation in the midst of the darkness. She felt the breeze pushing her as if guiding her through the darkness. The wind swirled and swirled… 

She exhaled. Her breath turned to mist in the cold air. A new scene was standing before her. A new scene. This idea sparked an awakening in her heart. Everything seemed fine again. Nature was alive with every shade of green. She lifted her head and found herself beneath a brilliant cerulean sky.  

She glanced around. She could hear laughter. Everyone seemed joyful. Among the crowd she saw someone familiar. It was her. The little girl she had been looking for. She ran as fast as she could, weaving through the crowd. At one point, the girl disappeared from sight. She stood there, frozen in place. It was a graveyard. Her feet stepped backward in fear. She had been searching for a home to live in, yet now she stood before a place where the dead were laid to rest…  

Was this the end?  

Her heart was racing. Suddenly she felt a soft hand on her shoulder. When she turned around, she came face to face with the girl’s smiling face. “But it felt really nice here. I am sure this time it will feel just like home” she said.  

Don’t you understand? 

What? 

She placed her hand on her heart and closed her eyes. “Just try to feel it” she whispered.  

Everything she had witnessed until then flashed before her eyes like a movie. Wherever she went, the feeling of belonging had always been just out of reach. Sometimes she had been driven from her homeland; at other times, she had simply felt unwanted. What she longed for was never anything extraordinary—only a place she could truly call home, a place where she felt safe.  

But her memories were not all marked by sorrow. There had been moments of joy as well. Yet even those beautiful moments were fleeting. They passed, and she could never return to them.  

Her heart yearned for a home where countless happy memories could be made—a home from which no one could cast her out, a home where suffering would finally come to an end. A sweet smile spread across her face. She found it at last. She opened her eyes. This time, they shone with hope. 

You were right. I have found it.  

Was it worth the wait? 

She paused for a moment. The sorrows of the past had quietly faded, leaving only the beautiful memories behind. 

“Can I give you a ride home? Do you live nearby?” 

“Not really,” she replied with a smile. “But it’s not far now. I can feel it…” 

Future is dim but not hopeless
The rebellion in you is not worthless
Stop listening to songs of cowardice
Act yourself out of the gloom and darkness

Your life is an example of uneven chances
Your birth was every bit of miraculous
Beaten the odds countless times
Believe yourself out of the gloom and darkness

Outwork, outlive, outwill the doubters
Muscles are tired, mind is restless
Snap out and control your emotions
Defy yourself out of the gloom and darkness

Act now you are fearless!
Believe your future is victorious
Defy pessimist thoughts and bitterness
Will yourself out of the gloom and darkness

Researchers at Georgetown University Medical Center discovered that when we look at a written word, a special part of our brain perceives it “like a picture, not a group of letters needing to be processed” [1].

The researchers studied 25 participants through fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging), focusing on a small area just behind the left ear called the “visual word form area.”

What’s particularly fascinating about this area is that a similar symmetrical segment in the right hemisphere of the brain, the “fusiform face area,” is the part of the brain tasked with recognizing human faces. Young children and illiterate adults use both this facial recognition and word imaging areas to recognize faces. Once they learn to read and write, the word imaging area performs word recognition only. As familiar faces are stored in our memory (facial recognition area), the words we learn are also entered one after another in this visual word dictionary.

Words we write, think, speak

The words studied in this research are written words, not spoken words, i.e., words produced by sound waves. What role, then, does hearing play in reading?

Neuroscientist Lorenzo Magrassi and his colleagues focused on neural activity in the language and speech processing/production center of the brain, known as Broca’s area [2], in 16 participants. One of the most interesting aspects of this experiment was that it could only be performed during “awake surgery”—i.e., when the participants were awake and their skull was partially open [3]. Since the brain itself does not feel pain, this form of research can be done with an open skull.

When people hear speech, it is transmitted from the ear to the brain as a sound signal or sound wave and triggers a neural activity and fluctuation in the brain via electromagnetic waves. This wave packet unit of sound is called the “sound envelope” or “sound sheath.” Hence, we can assume that each word has a sound envelope and a corresponding neural activity and electrical fluctuation in the brain.

Magrassi and his team discovered that the neural electromagnetic fluctuation matching of the sound envelope and neural electromagnetic fluctuations that occur when we read aloud or when we hear a word is the same when we read silently; neural activity in Broca’s area is the same as if the words were heard. Even before we speak, even before we intend and plan to speak, and although we only think about the word, the sound envelope of the word is already present in the brain. This discovery explains why we feel as if we hear the words inside us even when we are merely thinking about them. Accordingly, researchers started work on an interface software that would enable human-computer compatibility in transmitting thought words from the brain to the outside, even without speaking [4]. This will enable people with defective speech organs to convey what they think to their interlocutors helped by special software and hardware.

In sum, a word thought, whether read silently or pronounced, is first represented in the brain’s visual word form area and in Broca’s area as a sound envelope-neural activity. The word is given a certain form and, if we speak, it is reflected in the same areas of the listeners’ brains in a symmetrical process. These brain areas are created as “mirrors” where the word is reflected [5].

Since words also convey our feelings, when a word we choose is conveyed with its features, does it evoke similar feelings in the interlocutor? In another study on this matter [6], it was discovered that pitch changes in the pronunciation of words stimulate neurons in the brain—i.e., they mirror diverse reflections. By paying attention to the pitch of a speaker’s voice, it is possible to guess whether they are sincere or not. A person lying often averts their eyes because the feature of the word they pronounce does not match the word-imaging area in their brain.

It can be said in light of these studies that the human brain by default bears the ability to mirror the feature of words and that words are not any sound wave in the air. At this instant, let’s remember the following observation of Bediuzzaman Said Nursi:

Just as His art in the universe is in the form of a book, describing its perfect orderedness, so too His coloring and the inscription of His wisdom in human has opened the flower of speech. That is, His art is so meaningful, sensitive, and beautiful that it has caused the components of that animate machine to speak as though they were gramophones. It has given human such a dominical coloring in their ‘fairest of forms’ that the flower of speech and expression, which is immaterial, insubstantial and living, has opened in their material, corporeal and solid head. And it has equipped the power of speech and expression, which is situated in human’s head, with such exalted tools and abilities that it has caused it to develop and progress to a degree whereat they become the addressee of the Pre-Eternal Monarch. That is, the dominical coloring in human’s essential nature has opened the flower of divine address. Is it at all possible that anything other than the Single One of Unity could interfere in that art in creatures, which is so high as to be in the form of a book, and in that coloring in human whereby they attain the station of speech and address? [7]

Footnotes

• “After Learning New Words, Brain Sees Them as Pictures”, gumc.georgetown.edu/news-release/after-learning-new-words-brain-sees-them-as-pictures/
• “Broca’s area”, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Broca’s_area
• “Why you can ‘hear’ words inside your head”, www.bbc.com/future/article/20200929-what-your-thoughts-sound-like
• “The Long Search for a Computer That Speaks Your Mind”, www.wired.com/story/the-long-search-for-a-computer-that-speaks-your-mind/
• Bediuzzaman Said Nursi, Sözler [The Words], Istanbul: Sahdamar Yayinlari, 2010, s. 767.
• “How the human brain detects the ‘music’ of speech”, www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/08/170824141234.htm
• Bediuzzaman Said Nursi, Mektubat [The Letters], Istanbul: Sahdamar Yayinlari, 2010, s. 265.

Following thirteen months behind my only sibling’s academic footsteps was hard. From elementary school on, she was a glowing student; absorbing, digesting, and understanding information seemingly by osmosis. She maintained straight A’s throughout her academic career and earned a college scholarship. I, on the other hand, struggled to maintain a C average and ran away from home at the age of fifteen.

Let’s take a moment and rewind…

I thought I was stupid. Compared to my sister, it certainly appeared that way. However, it wasn’t until many years later I discovered that I learn differently from how I was being taught.

There are three recognized learning styles:

• Auditory learners grasp things by hearing—the worst type of test for them involves reading passages and writing answers. They’re best at writing responses to lectures they’ve heard, and are also good at oral exams.
• Visual learners comprehend through seeing—the worst test type for them includes having to listen and respond. They’re best at diagramming, reading maps, essays (if they’ve studied using an outline), and showing a process.
• Tactile (kinesthetic) learners understand through experiencing/doing—the worst test type for them usually has lengthy tests and essays. They’re best at short definitions, fill in the blanks, and multiple choice.

When I was in school, the general teaching population were auditory teachers. A heavily tactile learner—with a smidgen of visual thrown in for good measure—I was missing the boat!

Fast forward…

Not having done any planning before running away, I didn’t know that if you leave high school before you graduate, you can’t test for a GED—General Education Diploma—until two years after your graduating class.

Biding my time, I went to work for a large, everything-under-one-roof store. Over the next few years I worked my way up to managing the women’s wear department, then added men’s wear, and topped it off with housewares and furniture.

I gained valuable life experience during that window of time. Part of this seat-of-the-pants wisdom was learning to say, “I don’t understand. Can you please explain that differently?” And that’s when I noticed that no matter how many times someone “told” me, it wasn’t until they “showed” me that I got it! When shown, I not only met, but exceeded what was expected of me.

I left high school as a sophomore in 1973. For four long years I waited and prepared to take the GED examination. On a hot day in late June of 1977, with the cut-grass tang of summer in the air, I slipped into a front row seat at the testing center; one of about twenty other people enveloped in the sterile classroom setting.

The all-day test was given in seven parts: Language Arts (writing), Language Arts (reading), Social Studies, Science, Math (calculator allowed), Math (calculator not allowed), and United States Constitution.

Hours later—head held high with a face-splitting grin—I left the facility with every confidence that I’d aced the test. Six weeks later I received my GED certificate, and that was just the beginning. Over time I earned my associate degree, then bachelor’s, followed by a master’s degree. Finally, two weeks before my fiftieth birthday, I sat and defended my Ph.D. thesis.

Hard-wired for buoyancy and tenacious as a terrier, when I set my mind on something I go after it with tremendous resolve. It took a while, but I eventually went from GED to Ph.D. And while I’m Ph.inisheD with brick-and-mortar academia, I’ll never be done learning.

The morning had withheld its sunlight and left only a gray hue to open its doors when the man turned aside to his wife facing him, her Cantu-scented curls waving in his face. The sunlight compliments her already perfect face even though the gray brings gloom to others, but not him. The sounds of breakfast cooking brew an ambience that acts as lenses onto her beauty while her eyes secure her innocence. The appreciation of sunlight comes natural for those who don’t have it, but alternatives are the only option with no availability. As a result, he finds the sunlight captured in her beauty while her eyes take the picture.

“Want some eggs,” she asks, her words softly layered.

“With syrup please,” he replies as his words stick to his mouth.

Her response echoes through the whole house, her laughter bounces off the walls. Her eyes close when she laughs and he wonders what she sees. The sight she sees contains an expression of her love with him at the center of her photograph. In the meanwhile, a whole dictionary was consumed in the process of describing what she feels towards what she sees.

The day passes them by in a swirl of heartfelt emotions. A haze of old music lingers in the house as she takes two steps back while he takes two steps forward.

She asks, “Where did the day go?”                                                                                      

“With you in my arms,” he responds.

“Ha-Ha-Ha,” she says sarcastically.

Her laugh gets softer and softer as he feels the heat escape her body. Her eyes flash red not with pain but with a warning. “Low Battery! Charge Now!” but a recharge isn’t possible, at least not in an electrical sense. With this he holds her memory tightly, tighter than the grip of death itself. He carries her soul in his heart as he steps to the cellar. Her brown hair now twisted with curls, rooted in the insecurities of others. The door creaks open to deliver a gust of contempt for death and a sense of resurrection. Human sized tubes litter the wall. The same face stares back at him at least a dozen times, providing twelve instances of relief. A transaction is made with his heart and mind, and one of the tubes opens. He feels elated but the air still chills around him, and an aura steps out followed by a hand reaching for him.

The morning withholds its sunlight and leaves only the gray to open its doors when the man turns aside to his wife facing him, her strawberry scented hair waving in his face.

Irritated
by trivialities,
overwhelmed
by brutality
and innocent suffering,
disappointed
by our own inadequacies –
–in anxiety, confusion and hope
we turn to You.

Pry us loose from our self-absorption
that we might look for You today,
for Your comfort, Your Peace,
Your power, Your direction.

Break the hold
of the posturing, presumptuous
yet finally false powers of this world.

Awaken us to Your magnificence
that we might live in awe
of nothing but You.

Free us, then, from our fears
that we might, at the least,
be courteous to all whom we meet,
and thereby offer
an opening for Your grace.

Even though the dominant figure in “Persian Poetry” is Hafiz (Saadi is mentioned only once), Emerson showed quite clearly his admiration for Saadi in the Preface he wrote for the American edition of Gulistan (1865). In addition to this, he also wrote a poem entitled “Saadi” (1899) in which we can read the poetic similarities between Emerson and Saadi, or what was the distinguishing quality of the latter that proved such a powerful inspiration for Emerson.

Emerson seems to appreciate Saadi’s “wit, practical sense, and just moral judgments,” which are shown throughout his most famous work Gulistan, a collection of stories in prose and verse combined whereby each story appears to stand on its own; however, each chapter has its own topic, which also provides a connection between the given stories. In Sufi poetry, gul (or the rose) is one of the central motifs. Every rose represents the glory of God, and every rose is perfect in its own sense.

The stories are mostly comprised of Saadi’s personal experiences on his numerous travels,  and this is one of the aspects of Saadi’s poetry which could have been attractive to Emerson, especially because it is congruent with Emerson’s own philosophy, “Only so much do I know as I have lived.”

Saadi frequently uses natural images to describe a situation or to wrap up a story. He wrote, for example:

A flower is sometimes blooming and sometimes withering.
A tree is at times nude and at times clothed.

Saadi uses these images to portray the “wheel of destiny,” and these two verses (bayts) are also a magnificently concise summary of the preceding story about a beggar turned emperor. Natural images of this kind are the core of Emerson’s poetic theory as he considered nature to be “the symbol of spirit.” Therefore, he praises Saadi as the great observer of nature:

In his every syllable
Lurketh Nature veritable.

That is, Saadi is able to interpret the natural facts and extract their essence which opens the door of the world of Ideas, as Plato would call it, or Nature, as Emerson would call it. Therefore, we are closer to ourselves, and the understanding of ourselves, if we observe the other constituents of the physical world, because we are all essentially connected.

The poem “Saadi” by Emerson begins with a list of natural facts and among the birds and sheep are also men; however, the poet is in a way above them all, because he is endowed with the poetic gift (“the lyre”) and instructed by God to “sit aloof” in order to observe. A poet, although part of nature, still has an additional responsibility to interpret what he sees and use it for his own advancement and the advancement of “his folk.” The poet should be a “Man Thinking,” as Emerson calls the upgraded version of a man, who is able to decode the natural facts; he should refer to the “mind of the past” and undertake action in an attempt to “guide men by showing them facts amidst appearances” – and Saadi is exactly that. He learned from what he had seen and experienced, and he composed a guide of a sort for everyone who reads it, implying, however, that this guide is not universal and that it is written by a life experience and literary experience of only one man. It is very difficult to bear in mind all the wise words from Gulistan, unless a previous experience is triggered by them.

However, for Emerson, the individual is the one who can improve and not the society: he says that he “like[s] man, but not men” and that “[s]ociety never advances.” He was in love with the unbound possibilities of an individual, not with a rather fragile sense of belonging to a particular group. But does this make the notion of social action superfluous? We can make use of one of Saadi’s stories to answer this question. In the section “The Morals of Dervishes,” Saadi talks of his experience in a mosque where he was giving a lecture to a group of people “whose hearts were withered and dead.” However, one man was passing by and he caught some of Saadi’s words, which left a deep impression on him. Thus, Saadi said:

When the hearer understands not the meaning of words
Do not look for the effect of the orator’s force
But raise an extensive field of desire
That the eloquent man may strike the ball of effect.

The aim of a poet is not a radical change in society, but rather a change in a man’s heart. Therefore, in the light of these words, Emerson’s statements seem reconciled: the poet should compose verses based on his knowledge and experience, hoping to be of use to men; but only certain individuals among the group will be able to understand and learn from it.

Having all this in mind, we can see how close two poets can be irrespective of the time gap and distance between them. Emerson states in the Preface to Gulistan:

But the Sheik’s mantle sits loosely on Saadi’s shoulders, and I find in him pure theism. He asserts the universality of moral laws, and the perpetual retributions. He celebrates the omnipotence of a virtuous soul.

Emerson had a lot in common with Saadi on an intellectual level, and what truly attracted his attention and admiration was the humanity in Saadi’s poetry. Throughout Gulistan we encounter all sorts of people, but Saadi tries to understand the state of each and every one of them, be they poor or rich, ingenious or stupid, benevolent or malevolent – in the words of Emerson:

Yet Saadi loved the race of men, —
No churl, immured in cave or den;
In bower and hall
He wants them all.