I have been at the threshold. More than once. There aren’t gates but there is an entrance, a doorway. There are the most wonderful creatures inside. People I recognize. People I have never met, but feel instinctively drawn to. It is a very earthy place; not sterile and white at all. There is dirt and mud and funk. The sun shines. Plants grow long and lush.

But for some reason, many times I have resisted walking through. Maybe because I was afraid it wouldn’t be as good as I had hoped, but I think mostly because I enjoyed the anticipation. I like to sit just outside the door, maybe chat with some of the people inside. There is a shiny black Labrador there, and she seems to recognize me. She wags her tail when she sees me, jumps up and lets me scratch behind her ear. We play around, but she always wants me to come in. I can rarely coax her out.

So I wait here, at the threshold. It’s comfortable enough, and I visit with people on their way in. They seem to accept me as some sort of unofficial receptionist. I look up and smile hopefully, and some of them chat for a while. Some ask why I don’t cross over. Others just smile and walk through. They leave me.

Other times people actually sit down and visit. The view is pleasant, the earth smells good, and it’s really not such a bad place to be. Just outside of heaven is not hell. Far from it! There’s some residual heaven out here; it’s just inevitable. It spills out.

Sometimes I think they have the same issues as me, though, the ones that stay. They’re afraid too. Some even want to draw me further away, and that is where I can get myself into trouble. Mostly, I’ve gotten better at keeping myself close to that source.

This waiting around outside the door, though, it can become an occupation. I get used to it. I sit down, eat a meal, I get sleepy. I say to myself, It’s not so bad to wait here, is it? Besides, It’ll be there tomorrow… and then I fall asleep just outside paradise, like Dorothy did within view of her Emerald City. I sleep through the night.

But when I wake up the next day, the door is gone! Branches and vines grew up and covered it. Or maybe I wandered a little too far last night and got lost… I don’t remember. I could swear I laid myself down right near the entrance. But somehow I lost it.

So here I go, running, desperate to find the door again. I cut myself on a branch, twist an ankle, but I don’t care. It’s one thing to live just outside that door with the promise of what’s inside so close to me. To lose it entirely, that is another thing, one I can’t live with.

Then I find it.

I stop, lean forward to catch my breath with my hands on my knees. But I’m already calming down, getting my confidence back. I recognize the doorway, the view inside, the earthy smell. The vibe I get when I’m out here, close to this beautiful place. There’s a woman this time, just inside the entrance. She is brown skinned, with features that suggest she is Indian, or maybe Pakistani. She smiles at me.

“You’re Tristan.”
“Yeah… . This is still heaven, right?”
She laughs.
“Yes. When are you coming inside?”

It’s a great question, and the truth is I almost bolted right through the door in my hurry. But I’ve found it again. My heart beat slows, relief floods my body. There’s no reason to hurry…

“I can still come through anytime I want, right?” I ask her.

She smiles, shakes her head.

“Of course. But why not today? We’re having a party tonight and we want you to play music for us. Plus I’m going away tomorrow and I need someone to take care of my place for a few weeks. Maybe longer.”

“Really?” I ask her.

“Mm hmm. Dolphins swim up to the dock every day outside my house, and I need someone there to visit with them tomorrow. They like sardines in the afternoon.”

My heart jumps.

“You live on the ocean?” I ask her, breathlessly.
“Yes.”
“I could feed them?”
She smiles again. “They would appreciate it.”
“Do they like… chirp and stuff? Make those sounds?”
She laughs.

“Of course.” Her speech has that effervescent quality I recognize when Indians speak English. It’s like she’s laughing when she talks.
“Could I dive in and swim with them?” I ask this one anxiously, afraid she might say no.
“Sure!” She says. “They would love that. As long as you don’t forget to feed them the fish.”

Something about the way this woman smiles. Or maybe it’s because she gave me an actual job to do, something tangible.

I walk through.

The first thing I realize, as soon as I get in and start making plans, meeting people and starting a life, is that waiting outside was silly because stepping inside is not an ending, it’s a beginning. It’s a process and it’s relationship driven, so the sooner you get started the better. This place isn’t lily white with everyone floating around with inane expressions on their faces; it is a buzz of excitement, fresh ideas, inspiration.

So here I am. There is much to discover here, and much to learn. Heaven is a hilarious place. Everyone here makes me laugh. I find I am fascinated with the real story behind things, the degrees of connection between everyone and every thing, and this is the place where I can get it. I meet people I knew from my life before, and we marvel at how in the worst moments of our former lives we had the answer the whole time, right there in front of us. We agree that the times when we laughed were the closest to where we are now. Most people focus on discovering their hidden talents, like raising baby parrots, jumping off a sheer cliff to soar down just over the ocean and fly back up again, and creating objects by speaking them into existence.

I’ve been working with some people, designing instruments that respond to thoughts, and key on changes to the electromagnetic fields around your body. I’m a drummer so I still need to run my fingers over the instrument, hit things and make noise. I still want the tactile pleasure of getting my hands on things and laying into that physical surface in three dimensional space. Still, it’s pretty magical to feel something, imagine it, and hear it streaming back at you with no loss in the translation between the music of your inner world and the sound that comes pulsing out.

I’m still here at Sajani’s. I spend a fair amount of time at that beautiful old Steinway baby grand in the room with the gently whirring ceiling fan, the windows open to the beach and wild ocean outside, the brick fireplace and exposed hardwood beams in the walls and old barn wood ceiling above. She travels a lot, but I like when she’s home because we trade stories and make chocolate smoothies. I slept a lot at first, but once I started meeting people and making connection after connection in my new life, I found I got swept up in the excitement and projects that unfolded from them. A lot of these are based around reaching new people who aren’t ready to walk through that doorway yet.

Sometimes I go back and find the entrance, only now that I’m on the inside, I have such a different perspective that it literally looks like a different place. It’s a little dull: not as vivid and exciting as the life inside. I’m in a unique position to speak to the people hanging around, if there are any. They’re a lot like I was. I tell them: it’s okay to be afraid. I was afraid, too. I tell them that once you step in, you’re lifted up on a rush of energy. You get carried off by it. I remind them that if they choose to walk through, they can walk back out anytime they want to, although of course I know they won’t.

The one thing I find common to almost everyone hanging around outside the entrance: they’re a little blurry. Their colors aren’t as bright, their eyes not as brilliant.

I tell them what I have learned: that the conditions do not have to be perfect in order for you to walk through. You begin improving them as soon as you step in. The party is happening now. To hold back is like saying, Well, I’ve been starving for close to a month now and someone just invited me to dinner, but I think I should put it off for a day or two… get myself ready. It doesn’t make sense. They invited you tonight for a reason, and you are hungry. Go.

God is here right now. God is the animal suffering horribly in a bioweapons lab. God is an Afghan woman, an Iraqi child who’s legs were blown off in a US bombing raid.

Jesus said, “Whatsoever you do to these, the least of my brothers and sisters, you do to me.” And yet we have the torture of prisoners, we have systematic, dreadful cruelty to animals, we have economic exploitation of developing countries as a matter of policy. We have corporations and politicians who profit from the same senseless, illegal wars they create. Americans live in a nation in which those who have risen to the highest ranks of supposed authority perpetrate the lowest acts of degradation and atrocity human beings have ever been capable of. If they only knew that the things they imagine as so far off are available to us now. We have shown that by living in fear and competition and separation we can create hell on earth. As bad as we can make it, that’s how good it can be. I think the responsibility rests with us.

In my opinion, that baby cow suffering so horribly and alone in the veal crate is God. This is your chance. This is the test. You will not get closer to God than to open that crate, cradle that fragile creature’s head in your hands and say, “I am so sorry. We will never do this to you again.” and then lead it back to its mother.

To me, this is it. This beautiful blue pearl of a planet that we’ve ground into near total pollution and destruction. No one behaves this callously, this arrogantly, this viciously to the beautiful plants and animals of this exquisite planet, dies and goes to heaven. That is just not possible. This is where it happens, starting with me and starting with you: here and now, or not at all.

Tristan L. Sullivan

Broken Arrow
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