Take What You Can Carry

by Gian Sardar

Boredom, she was told—and now believes—is a privilege. If she could go back in time, she would, just to kick herself. A pinch in the rib. Without thinking, she’d trip herself to stop her restless wandering, to keep her from boarding that plane. Be careful what you wish for, her father used to say. And there she’d gone and wished for love. That bottomless, enduring kind of love, the kind in which you see the depths of all someone wishes to keep hidden and yet still you love, relentlessly.

This is a hazard she’s familiar with: when you love, you see what you love, not necessarily what’s there.

Is it possible to truly know someone if you cannot comprehend that which made them who they are?

“It’s only too late when you believe you can’t do it,” he finally said. “So do it. Do whatever you want. Just do it big and bold and brave.”

She could take care of herself but craved someone’s caring.

“A small key opens big doors,” he says. “One of our sayings.” Then he smiles. “Everything, always, is the beginning.”

The man is not drunk. What she’d seen was grief. Pure, disorienting, numbing, risk-inducing grief.

“For decades sometimes, the seeds lie dormant. Tucked away and asleep. Then a fire comes along and wipes everything out and that’s what they need. The challenge. The wake-up call. Like a slap. Everything else is gone, and the world’s just recovering, and that’s their cue to rise from the ashes.”

“Loss keeps going, you know? It doesn’t just stop with what was taken from you. It grabs new things all the time. You think you’re up against missing the memories, all that happened, but Christ if you don’t miss all that didn’t happen even more.”

“If you wanna know,” he said. “These flowers, they’re beautiful, but maybe they’re just beautiful because there’s nothing left around them. You don’t need destruction to shine. And you don’t want to be one of those people who thrives when it’s difficult. The sooner you figure out easy is good, the better off you’ll be.”

It’s a mistake to care, just like it’s a mistake to not care enough. You may live another day, but you will never win.”

“So everyone’s wrong.” “Yes. Everyone’s wrong.”

tree. “Or everyone’s right. Some people are more right than others. The Kurds, I’d say we’re more right.”

“‘Kurds have no friends but the mountains.’ That’s our saying. Our proverb. And that mountain there means ‘close friend.’

She should have better understood the landscape, but instead she romanticized it. A mistake that was hers alone, to have considered danger only from the vantage of privilege.

You love them for who they are, sure. That’s the easy part. But you also love them despite who they are. That’s the important part.”

she’s hit with a feeling that if the world spun as many times as it did and somehow they found each other—though they were born continents away—that that in itself is a miracle. That truly, in looking at where they all began and somehow have ended up, that life itself is a miracle.

“I never said move on. You move with. You move with, but you move. That’s the point. You cannot stop. But to do that, you need to put it out of your mind so you can. So you become a politician and fix things or be an artist and put it in your art. If you crawl into a cave and let this defeat you, everyone loses.”

His life, his world might not be one she can be part of. All the lines she fed herself about differing pasts and backgrounds not mattering were just that—lines.

“It’s good to have a big heart. To allow yourself to be open and to feel things.”

You earn your place beside someone by not walking away. Even when all you want to do is run.”

You love someone because of who they are but also—and maybe more important—despite who they are.

All of it. And the urge to flee, to be home at all costs, to be safe is so strong, so dense, it swills like sediment inside her and makes her sick. To leave is to admit this is just a trip, while for them it is a life.

Olivia sees it, the need for normal. And she knows that Delan was right in some ways. You don’t move on. You move with.

There is no choice, Olivia tells herself. No choice but to meet people and fall in love and live and lose. To work and worry and grow old, if given the chance. And hopefully, hopefully what adheres to it all is a bit of joy. Or maybe just an openness to joy.

“Everything,” he says when she wraps herself around him, “always, is the beginning.”