The One Year

Dragonflies sleep in trees.

I learned this early on in my experiment in village living. Walking to my latrine one evening, I spot a cluster of them perched on the tendrils of moringa that hang over my shower wall. They were so still I wouldn’t have noticed them had the edges of their transparent wings not framed their silhouette against the blue dusk – an impossible marvel, a blink-twice enchantment, like an Escher painting brought to life. Something about the delicate veins on their wings rendered them objects of stained glass, or dewy spider webs made solid. There they clung to the branch like a ladder, one above the next, synchronized in their splendor.

So struck by this, I gaped at them for a few minutes with a concentration normally reserved for election returns and season finales of Grey’s Anatomy – expecting them to do what exactly, I’m not sure, they were asleep! – then washed up for bed. I could hardly lie down without first sneaking back to find them, yes, still there, still asleep, still suspended in a gravity-defying chain of stillness undisturbed by my awe. They, after all, had been sleeping in trees for the entirety of their little dragonfly lives; it was no more a miracle to them than breathing or waking up each day – which is to say, a miracle beyond measure.

They kept me up at night, those dragonflies. They became something to Figure Out, to plunder for meaning: How could something so exquisite, so strange, not mean something – about Beauty? Mystery? Grace? God? Well, maybe not god in name, I’m not into all that, but… Creation? Life? Death? The Point of It All?

Night after night, I fell asleep to thoughts trailed by question marks and branches lined by dragonflies.

***

There is a chill hovering above my skin as I step out into the airport parking lot. This may have something to do with the beer in my blood, the breeze in the air, or the anticipation in my gut. Whatever it is, it’s a welcome respite from the muggy heat and the daily grind. I am here with a small but spirited group of Peace Corps Volunteers and administrators to welcome the new group of Trainees, fresh from Philly via JFK and Brussels.

Our first glimpse of them is from across the lot, where they stand huddled together in magical confusion. They are smiling, dazed, exhausted. Before we even load the bus to their hotel, they’re flooding us with questions – and just like that, we are the experts now. The answers to their questions taste good rolling off my tongue; there’s a strange satisfaction in having been around the block. I know how you feel, I say. It seems like just yesterday that I was you. They nod along, glued to the bus windows, awestruck by the lively street vendors and labyrinthine roads. And so their excitement rubs off on me like soot and I’m swept up by the exhilaration of commencing a grand adventure all over again.

Yes, it was wild. Yes, it was strange. Yes, it was deliciously nostalgic, a real full-circle moment. But if I told you it was climactic in its glory, I’d be stretching the truth. Rather it was a humble breed of elation that crept up on me, like roots not flowers, conveying the secure, unassuming peace that comes from being at home in your own life.

Our wide-eyed new arrivals, however, are far from home. Rushed off the plane and solicited for bribes on the runway, they see Togo in its natural state of (dis)order, defiant in its rawness: It never changes; you change. The biggest thing you figure out is that you will never really Figure Out a damn thing, so why not love the mystery.

***

I’ve been living in Togo for a year now. The dragonflies left months ago; no idea where they went, but no doubt they’ll come back when the season dictates. Gone, too, is my compulsion to ask Big Questions of small things… for the most part, anyway Having spent a year like pocket change, I recognize it’s only natural to pause and use this as a benchmark for reflection. So I could bore you with the requisite summation of this formative year (“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…” yada yada yada) but I don’t think you need a bow tied up all nice and neat. Did the dragonflies need to analyze themselves for me?

Seeking and making meaning is only human, and everyone does it to varying degrees. Did you see The Fighter? It seemed to me that those spiteful sisters did not pass much time in the grips of existential hand-writhing. I, on the other hand, am what one might call a meaning slut, searching for it everywhere and inventing it where it’s not readily found. But Togo has introduced me to a world whose boundaries extend past the confines of meaning, a world where things simply happen:

Americans move to villages.
Rains come in July.
People laugh at the same joke long after its humor is gone.
Pringles make a wholly satisfying meal when you’re too lazy to cook.
And dragonflies sleep in trees.

We all want a meaningful existence, but sometimes just existing is meaning enough.