Almost...but not quite...

This was written during the summer of 2004, which I spent in Schaumburg, IL as an intern at Motorola.

Almost...but not quite...

(Musings from Schaumburg)
From the window of my lab in Motorola-Schaumburg, I can see the clouds suspended from a child's crayon sky. I never cease to remark to myself that here in the U.S. the clouds seem much lower...closer...than they did in India. Latitude perhaps...or an illusion caused by some atmospheric effect? But it makes the sky seem so much more accessible...I could almost reach out and touch some of those grey-streaked bales...almost...but not quite...

Ah...there is so much in life that one could almost do...but never quite manages to. The thin line between almost and quite masks the great divide between imagination and reality...between seeking and acquiring...between reaching the last step and taking the plunge.

And thus it is...when I see the tranquil drift of the clouds...or when on a day of fine weather, I walk through trees under a cheerful sky, hearing the birds, and feeling the breeze...I could almost let go of every other wish for the beauty of that moment. And thus it is...when working on my machine, headphones on, I hear the soulful strain of music and feel an acute, almost painful consciousness of something wanting to find utterance...my fingers could almost work themselves into a rhythm less mundane than that of working the keyboard...ah, I could almost create music myself. And daily, in a thousand such ways I could almost step beyond daily existence...almost...but not quite...

Vartika Bhandari
June 27, 2004

January 10, 2007: Today I happened to read Yann Martel's short story: The Time I Heard the Private Donald J. Rankin String Concerto with One Discordant Violin, by the American Composer John Morton. The story resonated with me, and with the sense of "almost...but not quite". I shall repeat here a line from Joseph Conrad's Almayer's Folly that Martel initially quotes as an instance of perfect punctuation, and later ends the story with: "Do you hear? I had it all there; so; within reach of my hand."