A Walk with Borges

Northstar is a collective dream. We all dream about it in our own different way. Some people, and some things too, have permeated our dreams even though they may long be dead.

And why do we dream?

Because we must, because we can, because we cannot help it.
What happens, every day, in the real world must be counter balanced by what we can imagine, by what we can build in our mind. Not for any useful purpose. But so that we can find a corner, in our soul, that is beautiful and gives us respite when the world takes a toll on us, as it inexorably will.

I go on this trail with other dreamers, companions of the night. We walk slowly, with Aldebaran on the zenith and the North Star to guide us. We walk in the dim light of lanterns. And we meet other wanderers, who join our caravanserai. We are the Journeyers to the East, we go in search of the light in the dead of the night.

The first walker I meet is Borges. It couldn't have been anyone else. There must be some of his acolytes behind him, they must join us too. Reid and Giovanni and Zamana. Many others whose names are kept hidden.

Now that I am already walking, I think I need not walk all the way. I can ride too. An antelope, perhaps a spotted deer. No, the tiger needs to eat too. May be bog deer. The kind I saw recently, escaping a tiger's hunt. Perhaps a horse with three legs. A mule rescued from ferrying invalids and kids. A centaur. A dragon called Smaug. Or an elephant. A little gnome or a giant Djinn. I will think of something.

Let us read a poem from a collection called El otro, el mismo - The Self and the Other. More accurately it can be translated as "The other one, the same one".

Who is this 'one', is that me? Is the other same as me? Is my dream your dream too? Or is yours mine?

As I spend more years with the children and with the adults of the school, I slowly dissolve into a new world, unbeknownst to me. The boundaries of my selfhood become more porous. I become amorphous. I must keep a kernel of me somewhere. And that must be a kernel of love and softness and kindness. Of the warm light of winter morning. Of those words, those mediocre words, that are still mine.

Let us return to this poem by Borges. Though he is made of mirrors and labyrinths and dark materials, he must join us because he loves. And here's what he wrote:

The useless dawn finds me in a deserted Street-
corner; I have outlived the night.
Nights are proud waves: darkblue topheavy
waves laden with all hues of deep spoil, laden
with things unlikely and desirable.
Nights have a habit of mysterious gifts and re-
fusals, of things half given away, half with-
held, of joys with a dark hemisphere. Nights
act that way, I tell you.
The surge, that night, left me the customary shreds
and odd ends: some hated friends to chat with,
music for dreams, and the smoking of bitter
ashes. The things my hungry heart has no use for.
The big wave brought you.
Words, any words, your laughter; and you so
lazily and incessantly beautiful. We talked
and you have forgotten the words.
The shattering dawn finds me in a deserted
street of my city.
Your profile turned away, the sounds that go to
make your name, the lilt of your laughter:
these are the illustrious toys you have left me.
I turn them over in the dawn, I lose them, I
find them; I tell them to the few stray dogs
and to the few stray stars of the dawn.
Your dark rich life . . .
I must get at you, somehow: I put away those
illustrious toys you have left me, I want your
hidden look, your real smile—that lonely,
mocking smile your cool mirror knows.

Our life in school is bound only by love, of various kinds, mostly of the selfless kind. How we must continue, despite every incentive to stop.