The Fool’s Journey (Chapter Excerpt)
From the Novel I've Poured Myself into Behind the Scenes
The car dropped me off in front of my childhood home, and had my driver not ushered me out so quickly and efficiently – eager to move on to his next ride, I supposed – I might have stayed in the car forever. As I stepped out of the vehicle, the road felt familiar beneath my Jimmy Choo’s, like I knew every pebble layered into the concrete by name. Like they were old friends greeting me; as if we’d seen each other just days ago. I stayed standing there for a moment, even as the Uber driver started making his way down the street, and my knees buckled as I gazed at my parents house.
The house stood there with me, silently welcoming me home. Friendly, soft, and without judgement. I pressed my lips together and bit into them to fight back the tears as a thousand memories flooded my brain all at once. Each of which, I knew so intimately, that they pressed into me all at once. It was enough to make me want to take off my shoes, and start running down the street to flag down the Uber driver who’d just dropped me off. Enough to make me feel like I couldn’t breathe. To make me feel as though a thousand bees were buzzing on every square inch of my skin.
I hadn’t been back. Five years had passed and I hadn’t stepped foot in that house since I’d left. I couldn’t bear it. Not after everything that had happened. Not after I made such a big deal about leaving forever.
It’s not that my parents hadn’t tried to get me to come visit them in Florida — hadn’t tried to bring me home. I’d simply refused. I never wanted to come back here, and yet there I was, standing on the street, frozen like a statue. Unable to take even a single step forward.
I felt like the Fool card in my tarot deck — like I was at the start of a new journey, about to step off a cliff without even realizing it. Just blindly feeling my way through each moment. Only, the character on the fool card moved forward with faith and trust, fully knowing that the Universe had his back. That wasn’t how I felt. On the contrary, I felt like vomiting. Like I’d had one to many whiskey sours on a busy night at the bar.
“Run, run, run, as fast as you can,” I sang quietly to myself.
Then, the front door opened. It was time. The past was waiting for me, and I had to face it sooner or later.
“Why are you just standing there, Mija!?” My mom said walking down the steps of the front porch.
I walked toward her without thinking, like a zombie that acts off of pure instinct. As we met, she wrapped her arms around me, pressing one hand into my upper back and one behind my head.
“Hi mom,” I said.
She kissed my cheek with hers and I could feel myself yearning toward her and trying to pull away all at once. Like two very different versions of me were at odds with one another.
“Grab your bags,” she said. “Let’s go inside.”
We walked toward the house and I took everything in slowly. The creaking of the splintered wooden steps; steps that I’d traversed barefoot far too often as a kid – the result of which was an unthinkable number of splinters that my mother would have to remove carefully, while I screamed in horror. The chipped paint on the railing; paint that I used to peel off the banisters on days when I was too bored to even daydream. The rusty screen door that slammed obnoxiously if you weren’t careful. I was scolded for letting that door slam at least once a day between the ages of 7 and 14.
As we stepped over the threshold and into the house, I was careful not to let the screen door swing behind me. Familiar smells filled my nostrils, and I took in everything all at once.
Nothing had changed. My parent’s home was like a time capsule that I had buried years ago. The contents were special, but they were old. They belonged to a past version of me that I’d outgrown. How was I supposed to fit myself back into these things that I’d almost forgotten about? The bay windows where I’d spent most of my afternoons. The kitchen table where I’d completed hours worth of homework assignments. The computer room where I’d typed out countless poems and short stories. The living room where we used to watch Charmed and Wheel of Fortune. All the threads of my past that were a part of the complex fabric of my life.
They didn’t feel real. I had that feeling I sometimes got when I was sleeping... Like a part of me knew that I was dreaming, but the dream version of me was convinced that it couldn’t possibly be a dream, because surely, I would know. Or surely I’d be incapable of such thoughts, if it really was a dream.
No. This was real. It was excruciatingly real. And unfortunately, it was exactly where I was supposed to be. That much I knew. That much I could count on. The rest would unfold, only as time went on. All I had was time, and time was all I needed.
Just trust the process, I told myself. We’ll get through this. One way or another.
This different from the type of content I typically share. It’s fiction — an expert from the novel I’ve been pouring myself into for over a year now. It’s still me though. The content and tone is not unlike the essays I share here on Substack each week, and even though the main character is not me, I hope you see the bits of me she represents.
My hope is to sprinkle little fragments of this major part of my work here from time to time. I’ve chosen to post this today — my first post for the month of May — to share my excitement with you… This month, I finally get to start working with my editor and I can’t wait to dive into the kind of revisions that will hopefully get this novel primed and ready to grace the nightstands of readers all over the country (maybe even the world)! Wish me luck my friends.
— Oh, and let me know what you think and if you’re interested in seeing more little snippets like this :)