Monday Memories 1 – Bottomless Pits, Edible Weapons and More

I was looking for more ways of wasting time and thought of starting a new series called ‘Monday Memories’ .  There are times when some little thing in the present takes you back to some moment in the past. Some bittersweet memory comes floating to you and then the things you remember are more real than the things you see in the present. I always wondered if a moment from past tasted the same . Sometimes it does. You can actually feel, hear, see touch exactly the way you did at that moment or maybe you believe you do and that’s all matters. It keeps you going in hard times, in times of loss, separation, loneliness.

My boys are now grown up and many a time a simple little thing as a pack of cookies, a box of crayon, a song or a sentence in a book sparks a memory of  their childhood, a childhood that was an adventure for them as well as for me, and I realize how those memories are piles in endless stacks inside me.

My elder one is now 21 and I guess we spend 3,000 more hours on our first-born than the second one. Every little thing the child becomes precious. I don’t think I remember his “Firsts ” or  ”Lasts” but I do remember some particular incidents that filled my young mother’s heart. Raising boys is not for wimps. It is a challenge only some can endure. I guess I developed eyes at the back of my head when Adi was growing up. He was one little explorer who was curious about anything that he could lay hands on. A complete foodie and an absolutely fearless boy. While I struggled to keep things under control without going insane he invented different ways to bring the house down. Those were moments when I cried and laughed at the same time unable to decide which was the best thing to do.  Never thought that these very incidents will become irreplaceable with time.  I had to think two steps ahead to find a way to involve him while  I went about doing my household stuff. One of them was colors. He would sit for hours totally immersed in various types of coloring material, old newspapers etc and create masterpieces on everything in the color zone including himself. He would then look around quietly, make sure I am not watching and then slip through the door with a riot of color in his little hands. He would pin it somewhere or place it where I will surely see and then hide. Waiting for me to make the move. As I said, I had somehow developed superpowers so I would know exactly what to do. I would pretend to do something right where his treasure lay and accidentally discover it. It was such a joy to see him creatively involved. I would say ‘ look what I found. This is such a beauty and who made this gorgeous piece of art? ” and he would shyly emerge from his hiding place , his eyes sparkling with joy and pride and his a big dimpled smile lighting his face and say , “me’. I would hug and kiss him and we would sit and talk about his masterpiece all covered with colors of love. For many years I kept those paintings and drawings till they were discovered by another curious adventurer who had found the art of dismantling, dissecting, tearing and making new objects what could be  anything from weapons of war to some new inventions of a technical genius. My second boy was exact opposite of his elder sibling. four years his junior he loved a leisurely peaceful life most of the time. Another bottomless pit was added to my misery. At times I thought I was created for just two things- cook and clean.

Shubhang was always curious about the “hows” and “whys” of life and he practically dismantled anything and everything to observe the intricate machinery that lay within the mundane looking objects.  If a watch was missing we knew where it would be or for that matter bigger things like camera carelessly left unattended. It would all end up in the junk box or will be discovered months later buried under something neatly tied in a bundle. One really needed a high IQ to figure out what that originally was.  Watching him working with rapt attention on some complex toy or gadget that he had decided to open up I would often marvel at the working of his mind at such a tender age. Of course I went into a rage on finding something destroyed for good but then there was some magical spell these boys put on me every time they screwed up something. Yes, they were a gang of two. Partners in crime and vowed to defend and protect each others honor at all times Unless there the offered bait was a better option . I had to shell out big time in kind more than in cash to get the desired information. This was the beginning of a very strong bond between them which I can see even now.

One thing one must remember as a mother of growing up boys is that anything can be converted into weapons and landmines. It is through cuts and bruises and spilling of blood one learns this unless you are prepared for it and you never are. You never can possibly know what will burst under your feet or hit you from nowhere. It just isn’t possible to know. I realized it when I watched these brats chew their toasts in shape of guns and shoot each other or target strategic places or people with things they found uninteresting to eat. Although I hovered like a chopper to watch over the proceeding they managed to turn almost anything into a missile. I just had to learn and master the art of being alive.

The space between these memorable moments were filled with hair-raising tales about which I will talk some other time and between those tales of horror I cooked endlessly to fill those bottomless pits. It was something I loved to do till it became the sole purpose of my living. “WHF, I would say , You guys just had your meal” and they would look at me with those innocent puppy eyes and I wold melt like butter on toast and tie my apron once more.

But you know what, although I could kill with bare hands and I got so tired at the end of the day that I wanted the earth to split wide open and take me in I never restricted them in any way. I disciplined them but not at the cost of snatching away their childhood thought they may feel differently.

That bond which we three developed grew with passing years and slowly we rose above the mother-sons  relationship without even noticing it. This is a friendship which I think should be there between all parents and children where the kids aren’t extensions or your subordinates but individuals. You got to respect their uniqueness and intelligence to gain respect and love. You got to listen to them, praise , them, guide them and make them believe in the fact that they can count on you for anything and you value their presence in your life.

Anything is possible in the house with growing up boys. It is fantasy land where you can trip on cars, you got to dodge flying objects and things popping out of no where, where there are no time zones, where there is battles are won and lost every day and you can hear one of the finest remixes and music pieces ever written. It is also a warm cozy zone of love and togetherness, of laughter and craziness, of pains and pleasures that life offers. Here you will find yourself floating in a cocktail of emotions almost all the time. From birth every stage of their enchanting life is an irreplaceable miracle.  You learn the biggest lessons of life and the greatest strategies of survival in this world. You got to enter at your own risk but once in you are part of the gang. Once in never out. That’s what friendships are all about.

This is for my boys with love and a warm hug. I treasure them and very proud to see them all grown up into sensitive, discerning young adults.

The Song Bird

Someone asked me,”Should a blog be used to rant about personal issues? Is it alright to expose your vulnerable side to the entire world?  Is it in good taste to bare your heart’s innermost feelings in front of  everyone? One can write about so many other things then why whine, rave and rant on a blog and why not use a pillow instead to cry your heart out? There will be hundreds who will offer you sympathy but that’s all BS. Actually no one cares a hoot.”

I listened patiently and said,”I don’t do it often and I don’t do it for sympathy. That is the last thing I want from somebody. Sympathy and pity. I write for no particular reason. Not everyone reads my meltdowns and those who do, maybe it helps them overcome theirs. Who knows? “

Obviously she and I did not see eye to eye on this like many other things. So, if you think personal outbursts are not your reading material, move on. For, this is going to be one such post.

Sometimes one goes through this deluge of “what ifs and whys, If only and I wish” and seeks answers to questions which are better not raised. Questions which burn like embers in a dying fire. If you stir it you might start a wild fire. Uncontrollable and Unstoppable.

Your heart gets filled to the brim with this deluge and overflows on the blog. I think it is cathartic in more than one ways.

It makes me restless to realize that there is no escape to freedom. There isn’t a thing called ‘freedom.” It is always a caged reality. The cage gets bigger and better than the previous one but the walls begin to rise magically the moment you want to step out and not just the walls , the roof and the floor begin to close in till you choke and gasp for breath and surrender to “what is”.

It’s a woman’s life. A caged song bird.

“You always think as if  the entire world is out to get you and is conspiring against you.” She said. (It is strange when women talk about women’s issues in this fashion. Why am I surprised anyway? )

I think it is because at times I feel it.

Not the entire world maybe but then my world is very small. It is a world within a world and in this world are people who don’t give a damn about what I go through but are ready to make snide remarks, pass judgement, show all kind of indifference camouflaged as love, care, support and what not. It is an art. Not all posses this skill.

How does one feel to leave behind young children  in a personal quest for dignified living?  Mind you it is very different from “empty nest syndrome”  and ‘one day kids will grow up and do their own things and go their own way” thing. It is a living, pulsating, raw hurt which eats you away bit by bit. You try to reason with your self  but fail. I always said, “I have given my boys roots and wings”, never knew it’s not them but I , who will fly away leaving them to fend for themselves. Leaving, in search of myself.

Did I find “myself” ?

“No” and “Yes”.

“No”, because there is a lot that is concealed. There is deeper play of shadows that I do not understand at times. A door opens and closes behind me. I forge my way through the unknown only to discover a wall , a trap or again a door, sometimes just a window or a crack. The search continues.

“Yes” , because I managed to cut out most of the weeds which were blocking my way. I bled and bruised myself but finally found myself at the edge of a new beginning. Another challenge but certainly not as suffocating as the previous one

Some prisons have no bars. Some cages are imaginary. Some others we build around us unknowingly or knowingly because we are used to certain comfort zones.

I sometimes wonder who has got who locked in the cage. I just might be free, on the other side of bars. Looking in. Remembering my time within the cage. The feeling sweeping through me whispering to me that I am still there when I am not.

Have you heard the song of the caged bird? Do you find it different from the one who is free?

One day when I woke up I saw I had grown new wings. They seemed so unfamiliar and yet they were part of it. I was scared to spread them lest I lose an illusion. Instead I wrapped them around me and found comfort in the new-found warmth but wings are meant for flying. They throbbed with exciting energy sending sparks into my listless soul to make use of them as I should.

With the break of new dawn I decided to take a plunge into the valley of unknown. Either to sink or to rise.

The cage suddenly didn’t seem to be there. Was I living an illusion or just a shattered one? I wondered.

I looked around at the crumbs , the bowl of water now empty and turned upside down. I looked at the blue sky , slowly spread my wings, flapped them, took a deep breath and folded them back. I wasn’t ready. Then the wind began to blow. It picked up the momentum and I could feel my cage sway with it. Scared of this wind of change I buried my head in my breast but with one shove I found myself at the edge of the window. Perched precariously. Now there was no turning back. I leaped on the back of the wind and dipped my wings in brilliant sunlight and claimed the sky which was truly mine but the storm raged in insane fury and rain lashed like whip of bare skin. Bewildered and panicked by the raging storm, blinded by the dark rain I plunged and rose with the tempest fighting the forces beyond me, trusting my wings to keep me afloat. Fear gripping me from within, a tight fist beneath my breast. Caught in the whirling skirts of winds I circled and circled and longed for the comfort of the cage I had left. I scanned the murky unknown, shadowy in parts brightly lit in parts, a plethora of possibilities that could take me anywhere.

Startled by the fire bolt that swept the sky with lurid glow I screamed and was shocked to hear my own voice, stilled for so long. If I could scream in fear I could sing in joy. I began to hum and the words came back to me. Muted words buried in some deep crevices of my heart. In the midst of rolling thunder and chaos I had found my song. I began to sing and I don’t know when and how I glided out of the storm into a blaze of color — oranges, pearly pinks, vibrant purples, molten gold and when I looked down I saw deep green mountains and rivers coppery with sunset.

Then , at that moment I realized , “Deep in the heart of winter, there lay within me an invincible spring.”

I realized that the cage though real was also imagined. I had built it myself.  It was wherever I went and no matter where I would run, I just ended up running into myself. If you stay within the patterns and conformity you carry the cage with you. I broke those patterns and reclaimed myself, my freedom.

This post is especially written for a songbird who lives in the Pyrenees.

Empty Spaces, Inky Nights and a Sound Cave

This is just a collection of thoughts triggered by a fabulous photograph of an empty walkway, a message exchange of thoughts on the beauty of sunsets and nights, an emotionally charged lash-out from someone right in the morning and a gloomy rain filled day.

Words explode in my head pushing and thumping against its walls to escape, thoughts stumble on each other like perplexed mass but I could not bring myself to write a single word. Frustrated with myself I turned to reading but the words became a blur. Crying is therapeutic and I was filled since some days. Suddenly my eyes became pools of hot liquid and from under the closed lids streams of hurt and pain and utter dejection with self began to slid down my flushed cheeks. For a long time I just let it all flow. My temples throbbed and zillions of electric currents passed through my head sending shock waves down my tired body. Then it all ceased. Sleep is a healer too.

Words still kept their distance. When the walls begin to cave in and suffocate you light streams in from some crack somewhere. I chanced upon a lovely photograph of a walkway and a simple exchange of thoughts and a some comments reminded me how I miss the empty spaces in life. How all the life, even in lonesomeness, I am filled with an inner chatter, how I need to calm my self and embrace what I love. Go where love is. I have always been fond of long empty corridors, walkways. They give me a sense of intimacy. There are stories drifting in the play of light and shadows.Shadows that add meaning to the mundane. I remember how I would lean against a pillar , a tree or against the coolness of a wall and watch the deeper play than that which words can express. I would imagine the people who must have walked there once, their conversations, silences and then those empty places would fill with colors, textures, sounds and smells and as suddenly they would appear, they would vanish. Leaving a quiet silence and I would stand at its threshold not moving a muscle listening to the silence.

As I saw the photograph I was sucked into that place, that time and for a moment nothing else existed. The conversation drifted to sunsets and nights and I remembered what beautiful sunsets I had seen during my various journeys. Each one distinctly different from another. Sometime a carnage of dreams and memories, a sun stabbed sky turning  from Merlot to scarlet to shades of crimson, purple, blue and bronze which existed only in the box of crayons from my childhood. As I grew up I usually found them spread across the sky. A few of those brilliant sunsets I still carry in my heart. The orgasmic meeting of sky and earth at the horizon. The shimmering snow-clad peaks of Himalayas. The deepening evening shadows, the cacophony of birds, the sweet fragrance of pine or flowers riding on the back of evening breeze, the timelessness and a knowledge that we have a few hours of solitude ahead of us. It is surreal experience that remains etched in the memory for ever.

The sunsets led to the nights. The rich hues of night sky, the changing patterns, the calm that slowly seeps into the hollow of your bones. Night sky holds a very special place for me. I find it more alive than the day sky. I have memories associated with the night sky from my childhood, from my growing years and those years in between when it became my constant companion. The healing dark, I called it.

I often wondered what pulls me to the night and realized that just like memory it suppresses the idle details. Night is all-inclusive. Everything is draped in one single color.  A vast expanse of oneness that takes everything in its compassionate fold. There were times I felt choked behind the walls and curtains during nights and it loomed large over me like a hungry carnivore ready to take a plunge and dig its sharp claws in my soft flesh of my heart. I longed to step out and reach for the night sky outside my prison , lay bare my body and soul to it but then slowly I realized that all the serenity and calm that the night brings is inside me. Nights became the blotting paper for my sorrows, a playground for my desires, a confidante for the untold secrets and unfulfilled dreams just as it has been a fairy kingdom with stories written in stars and imaginary shapes and figures lingering in the drifting moon and cottony clouds during my childhood.

There was something about the darkness I loved then and do now. Every perspective changes as the night deepens and then fades with the first break of morning light. Laying in bed  just before the sleep takes over is the most rewarding time. It is a time  when the human heart , alone and unperceived, is full of powerful emotions and surrenders itself completely to the darkness. When all that is concealed is revealed.

City nights are harsh, artificial, haunted by neon dreams and smog that chocks its lungs and yet there is a time when everything stops. When one is pulled by the magic of the night sky. The few hours before dawn when I usually step out for deeper communion with self and whats around me.

Nights spent lying under the stars on terrace during summers still makes me nostalgic. The first thing that we lose when we grow up is the sense of wonder. I remember nibbling on a blade of grass and just watch the night sky. A million zephyrs, a lonely and frayed moon tugging the corner of a cloud drifting aimlessly, smokey wispy clouds,  sometimes  just inky blackness  of a winter night descending on everything under it like a widow of the universe it mourns in silence.  Its deep horizons yearning and longing for all that is lost.

The wild stormy nights of rain armed with jagged spears of lightning slicing the sky in two. Rainy nights that cleanse the venom inside and outside. I have spent hours standing under the night rain letting it out flow out.

Have you ever heard someone play soulful music on a wooden flute in the stillness of the night? Ever felt the warmth of human body next to you on an endless summer night without even touching? Ever thrown your arms open to the sky as if fishing for stars? Even looked at the mist moving like a ghost in the night from behind a glass window. Ever stood in an open filed, a lonely beach, a moonlit desert, at the edge of a cliff jutting across a deep valley drinking in the night? Ever walked the smoke-filled, neon lit, city roads at night? If not then you haven’t lived to the fullest.

I have walked the meandering , winding roads in the hills with sweet intoxicating smell of wet pine filling my lungs and puddles dull of moon light creating a magical scene after a sudden mountain rain. Roads hold me captive but we will talk about them some other time.

I woke up to a rain-soaked day today. When you stir a dying fire there are chances of some spark turning into a flame. Some questions burn like embers and should be left alone. Relationships are complex tangled web of emotions. I watch an emotional outburst turn bitter  and pungent with rage right in the morning. With heavy heart and tear filled eyes I took the blows , scared that one wrong word may spin the thing into uncontrolled roller-coaster and it was the last thing I want at this point of time in my life.

Brimming with pain I tried to stop the deluge that waited to be unleashed. The best option at such times , and I have faced many of them, is to go into a sound cave.

This is something I learned over the time. To switch off, disconnect, choose some music with drums, guitars, preferably rock, heavy metal , turn up the volume, put on the headphones and go into a sound cave. My favorites in such times are Enigma, Nirvana, The Rasmus, Evanescence etc. I used to listen to soft melodies which acted like fuel to fire marooning me in deeper in sadness. Music can be a great stress reliever as well as an escape into another world which is far remote from the grim, heart wrenching reality. Wearing headphones acts like  insulation from outside world – a sound cave where nothing else exists. In times when the world seemed too much for me I learned to slip into this sound cave. For an hour or so I sedated myself with music giving myself time to emerge out of  the incident that shook me. I often play some music according to my mood and listen with headphones on. It is my way to kill loneliness , to disconnect with the unpleasant and to connect with the sounds and rhythms , to absorb the lyrics which may or may not really have any relation with my current situation and mood but it soothes my inner.

I realized that doing this cleared much of the blocks within me including the writer’s block.

The sand is slowly shifting from under my feet. Uncertainty is looming large. Am at the edge of desire. I tell my heart that everything will work out well but I know certain things are elusive, distant dreams that may never get fulfilled. Sometimes we are at a crossroad of emotions and all we can do is either push through the fear and go ahead with the flow where ever it takes or become a cynic and get caught in the web of “what if”s and “if only”s .

Last one year  has been a journey within. I discovered facets of me that I never knew existed. I found myself doing things I could never imagine doing in wildest dreams and yet I am still unable to cut that one thread that is rubbing against my soul and making it bleed.

There is also something else tugging at my heart apart from losing my new-found economic independence. Something which holds the key to my life.  Love is a many splendored thing. Right now , with my muse back, I am letting the universe take over. I have slipped the questions to the universe. I know the answers will come .

Leaving you with a song I love

Photograph : Part of the collonaded walkway that surrounds the Plaza Mayor at Salamanca. Photo Credit  James Goddard  . Many thanks.

You and I – Secret Tales

“I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where,
I love you simply, without problems or pride:
I love you in this way because I don’t know any other way of loving.”  Neruda

There is a certain relish in what you steal, in savoring the flavour of forbidden fruit. Stolen kisses . … stolen moments … a sudden brush against me in the cyberspace that made my soul dizzy. Today I am searching for words, searching for those apt words to describe the feeling of intense love that I feel for you. Love that is not laced with passion or lust or longing but with a  warmth that rises from different strategically located places in your body and then slowly sweeps over your entire being .

You entered my life like a comet and exploded into a zillion stars, illuminating my night , my life, me. I felt star spattered. A blooming new galaxy.

You made me feel like meadow of wild flowers. Not roses. Not tulips. No. Just a beautiful landscape blazing with thousands and thousands of wild flowers.

You brought out all the essences of a woman in me. The wild gypsy girl , the sensuous lover, the porn star, a nurturer and a healer . You stimulated and ignited my intellectual side, spiked it with wit and humor.

With that and much more you gave me dignity, honored my womanhood, held my hand and pulled me up into the comfort of your embrace.  Shielding and protecting me like a cocoon. A womb for my metamorphosis.

Unlike all those who scarred my life where ever it touched theirs, you asked for nothing in return and that I guess made me open myself to you completely without fear and inhibitions.

This is called Trust.

One doesn’t sign a treaty for this. One just believes totally and with no reservations and second thoughts.

This is called Love .

Across thousands of miles hearts connect, blossom into something nameless. Something much above the usual norms of friendship and romance, above everything that’s temporal and ephemeral.

I know when we meet , it will be enough for me to just sit beside you.

There were million little things that added up together over the time and I knew we were destined to be together. I knew it the first time we reached out to each other. It was like a journey back home and You were the talisman I needed to survive the highest highs and the lowest lows.

It is so simple to love you. To go about doing the mundane just with knowledge that you are there. It’s easy to let you be with your solitude, understand the language of your quiet and return when beckoned with love.  It is an aromatic blend of cinnamon and clove, ginger and honey, strawberry and cream,  Fragrant Tisanes.  It is the raw mango and mint. It is the citrus moon and the marmalade sky.

A margarita with its lush flavors and smooth delicate blend in a salt rimmed glass. A long tropical cocktail. A tequila shot. Single malt on a rainy day besides the fireplace.

We are different, yet similar. Distant  and alone yet together. Whatever we do is as much  yours as mine. Love grows in spaces between, not in bodies or someplace else.

Every time you call my name some piece of me falls into place. I’m glad to have you in my life. I feel  infused with glitter and stars and popping candy. It’s flowing in my blood and brain. fingertips and toes. I love him. I don’t know how to describe how happy I am. I am still searching for some apt words to describe my love for you.

For now I will just surrender myself to you, my laughter, pain, truth, lies, half-truths, half lies, my hopes, dreams and secrets, my fleeting days, endless nights, . I give you my flesh my skeleton . I let you occupy me. I will remain vulnerable for that is how love is supposed to be.

There is a pleasure in simple things. Simple words of love carelessly thrown , stolen kisses, stolen moments. These are secret tales. You may have your own. We all have unbridled desires, secret wish lists and they all start coming out when you are in love. 

read all the posts here YOU AND ME 

I am large, I contain multitudes

I have a contemplative self and an impulsive self. A short-term self and a long term self, some distant past selves and distant future selves. At present I am in conflict with myself about the imaginary selves and the so-called real self.

Which of the self is actually me? Who am I?

No, it is not dissociative identity disorder, though at times one may think it is. Mind is a devious creäture who makes us believe who we are and is aided by the powerful emotions – anger, guilt, sadness, desire, pain, longing etc. Within our brain are different selves who pop up in and out of existence, each one with different desires, and each one wanting control and planning, scheming, plotting to get hold over others.  Walt Whitman said it aptly, “I am large, I contain multitudes.”

I think I have a strong coping system to deal with all my selves.  The idea is to maintain a balanced interplay between all the selves, a balance between long-term contemplation and short-term impulse.

As the time span increases I feel we have more multiple selves. I feel that I shift from one self from another smoothly; there is no clash, no conflict, no overpowering of one over other. Sometimes these selves that we create protect us, help us cope up with daily life situations, help us emerge from some deep hurt or realize some desire. They also help in making us strong. I see it as therapy.  I feel that different selves are brought to the fore by different situations and it is a continuous process.

A friend once remarked that I come across as a shy, introvert, scared, insecure person and that does not fit the image I have as a blogger / writer in virtual world. People who read me and know me from there expect me to be that gregarious, extrovert, bold and outgoing. Both these selves are me. One what I wanted to be and maybe was from within and other which people saw in me as a person who interacted with them. These interactions also differed from situation to situation and people to people.

I noticed over the time that I was able to merge the various selves to create a new stronger self, shedding the weaker aspects. From the moment we are born, we wear a mask and a robe of who the people around want us to be and the layers increase with time and under all this the true self in subtly forcefully buried.

I felt that under this entire role-playing I developed some overpowering selves which took control over those which initially existed. As the awareness increased the conflict also did. Maybe, to combat that, I created more imaginary selves, one of them being my virtual self. Most of them are various “me” in complete harmony and control over the situation they are in.

I realized that this creating imaginary selves  helped me to become what I am today and by that I mean to uphold what I believe in. Enjoying fiction requires a shift in selfhood and I think participation in what is unreal is the best way to spend the leisure time. To take on different identities makes takes much of sadness and hurt from the real-time experiences. It helps heal. I find creating alternate identities or selves, interesting and harmless.  My imaginary friends and selves have a lot of fun and adventures. I am fully aware of these imaginary situations and selves and often joke about it as I love my schizophrenia J  . I guess they have made me more socially adept than before. More confident and secure and most importantly helped in “being myself” and not a shadow of what others expect me to be.

Most of us from time to time hold conversations with people who are not actually there. Conjuring up people or physical props is common and with me creating selves to match these props or people comes easy. As I said before maybe I have a strong coping system. Internet is interesting place for creating the alternate self and many people indulge in it due to its relatively safe environment. I know people who have created different avatars to explore or release different aspect of them.

It would be remarkable if all the selves coexisted and worked as team inside our mind but they clash and create compulsions and addictions. If one can keep them under control then they can prove beneficial too. In my case to an extent they did help me get out of a messy life and change my path.

Self binding helps to contain oneself from dominating the other self. Both the short-term impulsive self and the long-term contemplating self are essential for growth, the conflict continues and sometimes one wins, sometimes the other.

I define my self as what I stand for and believe in, sometimes visible and at others camouflaged.

I remember a short verse from Rumi which says it all:

 “Anyone who knows me, should learn to know me again;

For I am like the Moon,

you will see me with new face every day.”

― Rumi

This post is in response to week  #54  (5-27-12 to 6-2-12): Self  BGE 2

Last Night

 

Last night was longer and made for torture or reflection or for savoring of loneliness. Like an ancient tomb where the souls come out gasping for life and searching for potential bodies which they can occupy. The soul with as opposed to them struggles to escape.

I lay taking in the  stuffy darkness of the room.  Everything began to rapidly merge into blackness. Unfamiliar shapes, menacing, uncanny, or merely grotesque began to emerge.

Some prisons don’t have bars, or guards. Such was last night, thicker than any wall, blind, empty and  immensely engulfing . Like a huge gaping hole which slowly sucks you in and  now and then you brush against appalling things that roam and prowl in its chambers. You see nothing. Hear nothing. The murderously asphyxiating silence is all one has for company . 

Was I scared? No. It was a trance like state where you feel nothing or feel so deeply that the pain makes you numb.

An owl screeched and I could imagine it gliding past my window. Stillness returned.

On the opposite wall a pattern began to emerge. The fluorescent hands of the clock like some invisible claws blurred into nothingness and a face of time emerged. The glowing numbers burned holes in my mind. Nothing stirred.

Spellbound by the deep penetrating eyes I lay transfixed on my bed.  Thirst like the scrape of hot sand-paper began to bruise my throat. I tried to get up but something held me tightly to the bed. My eyes returned to the face on the wall.

All the uncertainties, all the questions came rushing to me. Here was Time who had all the answers.

“Only the time will tell ” I was told.

I looked beseechingly , pleading for the answers. None came.

Maybe it wasn’t time for them to be revealed.

So, why was it here, staring at me like a death mask ?

What did it want?

Why it glaring eyes seemed to look accusingly at me, making me shift uncomfortably?

Time doesn’t tell anything. It doesn’t heal. Don’t believe it all you have been told. Time simply crushes you, chains you, makes you its slave and whiplashes you to obey its commands. The answers, the healing comes from either within or from elsewhere. Time just watches the drama and laughs at our misery . Time is the devil to whom we have sold our souls. It is the master , we  mere slaves. Only an inner uprising can bring the change. Only that can create true love, true courage, true self.

Tonight the battle was at its peak but something was amiss or maybe someone and it made all the difference.

I shifted my pillow to the other side but I could still feel its gaze  penetrating   through my skull.  It’s measured ticking reverberating.

With some effort I pulled myself out of bed and removed and shoved the menacing clock under a pile of clothes. The muffled sound of its breathing still audible.

I gulped a chilled glass of water and decided to lie facing the window. The hot summer night-sky claimed me.

The butter-gold moon came encroaching through my window. Suddenly filling it with a calm glow. Spent by my inner state of being I watched as it lingered in deep sky. Watching me with its forlorn eyes.

A jarring buzz vibrated in the small of my back  scaring the wits out of me. The cell phone had quietly slid itself and nestled in the comfort zone away from the events of the night. The led light brought me back to the real world. Reluctantly I opened my laptop to work. Sometimes one is just pulled from all sides like an elastic band and then released. The sting of pain shot through my head as my fingers tapped mindlessly at the keyboard.

The cellphone meanwhile breathed its last. Sleepless and restless I went to put it for charging, took the chair out in the balcony and slumped on it. The moon had disappeared behind the high-rise buildings. The air was still and did not provide any solace. Back in the room I brought the clock out . The hands had miraculously appeared, the face had melted into the fiber of the machine. 3 AM it said.

I could hear an early bird call somewhere.

Sometime loneliness and absence digs its claws deeper than usual and leaves one wounded. Such was last night. The ache hasn’t subsided nor has the yearning.

You and Me – More places where I found you

I found you in the creases of my bed, in the mirror when I suddenly turned around and glanced at it, in silence of early morning and in the stillness of the night, in the rise and fall of my chest, in the warmth of water cascading down my aching shoulders, in my fingertips as they traced upon all that you wrote to me, in the webs between the fingers, in the heat nestled between the legs, in the vodka flavored ice cubes  kissing my lips and dripping down my neck, in the salt of my tears, in the honey dripping from a hot crisp toast as it touched my mouth, in the aroma of freshly brewed coffee, in the box of spices ( cinnamon and clove ),  in the swirl of Bavarian chocolate ice cream as  it melted on my tongue,  in the jingle of the charms of my bracelet, in the kohl that lined my eyes, in the softness of  lingerie that clinged to my body, in the changing colors of the sky, in the delicate ensemble of words, in the early morning drizzle, in the depth of the night sky, in tequila sunsets, in the shadows of dusk, in the tangerine mornings, in the droplets of water precariously clinging to my wet hair, in the blush that rises on my cheeks, in the base of my throat, in the half-open box of crayons, in the edge of the rose-tinted cloud, in the jingle of coins in my pocket, in the swaying sheer curtains, in the prayer flags fluttering in the summer breeze, in the smoothness of cocoa butter as it melted and morphed  into the skin to become my body, in the soft moonlight that filtered through the bare branches of trees, in the paper boat merrily drifting , in the whistle of the steam engine as it turned around the corner, in a folder named “favorite” , in the music that linked us  from across the miles, in the sensuous sweetness of your name when I whispered it in my sleep, in the verses of Neruda as I feasted on them tucked inside the comforter, in scent of cookies baking in the warm oven, in the bowlful of vodka flavored ice cubes and the lemon slice that floats in it, in the smile that struggled through the tears, in the changing shapes of raindrops on the cold glass windowpane, in the heat rising from the city roads, in the fiery magenta, pinks, oranges , whites and yellows of Bougainvillea draped over ancient walls and clinging to the naked trees, in the folds of my laughter and in the eyelids heavy with sleep, in the changing temperature of cold marble floor beneath my burning body, in the thirst that rose in my parched throat and in the  subtle flavours of my life. 

I can go on making a list , listing all those dark secret places where I found you , those mundane things that remind me of you like a baby sleeping peacefully in comfort of his mothers arms, his little head resting on her soft breast.

Now I want something Real, something truly your own to  touch and smell and breathe and kiss day and night.

I want to find you in you and in me at the same time. 

Also Read You and Me series here

You and Me – Touch

Sometimes I wonder if I will ever touch you but with these words.  Words that fill the infinite whiteness of the screen and emptiness of my life. In a technologically powered relationship, that’s all I have. Words, quickly tip- tapped on a keyboard. I try to give them soul, bring them to life. add flavor to them, try to see your zest and humor in them, the charm, the seductive laugh , the warmth that trickles down the spine and makes me forget that I have knees.

I try to feel the fits of kindness, your bouts of rage, the maddening rush inside you that electrifies each pore , each cell of your body when you type those words at an alarming pace, a pace quicker than your racing heartbeat, try to make them as intimate and sentimental as they can ever be. I turn them into thoughts and make love to them, smudge them with tears, trace my fingertips over the neatly arranged lines, feel you with my finger tips in them. I linger over each syllable and watch it pulsate with hunger or thirst. I feel my fingerprints merge with yours and feel your touch. I take  a dip in them with you.

I get drunk on those words, wait for them to flash on the screen as text, IM, email, on FB, Messenger app. and  let them have their way with me. The way it would have been with you. I take them to bed,  fold them and tuck them inside my heart, and carry them where ever I go.  What if one day we were suddenly removed from these modern gadgets of conveniences?  These words will be all that we will have to hold on to.

Although words bridge the distance between us, I still yearn for a handwritten note from you, a picture I can hold in my hands and place upon my ravaged heart. That is till I have something better than words. Till we create a deeper play than words can.  They will do till then, though they fall short for want of the exact emotion/feeling they should evoke at  certain time.  Keep writing to me so we can be together. Something that in reality only time will tell.

Let the words be personified into us. Let them conjure up the flesh for that’s what they are meant to do in your absence. Let them be your  figures, your tongue, your damp body resting against mine. Let them sustain me in such times of hunger just as your voice does. Let them hand feed me the longings, the secrets, the desires that nothing else but your touch can do. Let me amble on the delicate assembly of vowels and give them your voice. Let us stay wrapped in the warmth of the  wordrobe around our bodies. Let them lean over my shoulder and whisper what you have no courage to give sound to. Let them nibble at my earlobes and bite my mouth with hungered teeth. Let them slide into the folds of my body. Let them still my heart.  Let them melt between my legs. Let them run through my hair as your fingers would and trail behind my ear down the nape of the neck and all the way to the small of my back.

Let us map the topography of our  body, mind and soul through them. Patiently with love.

Maybe this burning patience will some day lead to splendid happiness, till then let words water our dreams.

Read  all the YOU AND ME  posts here 

A Blogadda Tangy Tuesday Pick.

From a distance

From a distance earth and sky seem to meet but the reality is different. I prefer to watch the horizon from a distance, to feel  romance of the sky and earth. I keep alive the magic of day and night linked together like no two things can. One can not exist without another. It’s a complex relationship they share, Forever together and yet forever apart. So do we. 

I love its cryptic majesty. The sacred orgasm where the earth lays itself bare to the sky, the sky bows down to kiss her and both explode in colors of their cosmic union. To get drenched in those colors, to feel the energy flowing between them is like a spiritual orgasm. The agony and ecstasy of love. I love to lose myself in those glimpses of  deep divine ethereal ritual. The way earth bounders  the boundless sky.

It is intoxicating to watch the different facets of love so beautifully revealed by nature. The two polarities ; known and unknown, visible and invisible, the . We all have a little of sky and earth in us. Love has its roots in the earth as pain and agony and its branches of ecstasy reach to the sky. The horizon for me is also the dual aspect of love  – physical and spiritual.

Then this feeling of timelessness and egolessness when I watch the horizon and think of many beyond that. There is a magical pull that draws all the negativity and fills me with calm when I gaze at the horizon. I feel that there is this solid grounding energy of the earth, reassuring and supporting and the vast ,warm, expansive energy of sky and the horizon is the blending point of both. A balancing point and that’s what it teaches me. to reach for the sky and still stay rooted to the ground. 

It is the perfect love affair where the sky and the earth meet. As I look deep into the horizon I find answers and explanations for everything: every pain, every suffering, joy and confusion. 

Horizon has another meaning for me.  Sometimes the reality of a certain situation is so painfully obscure that you do not wish to face it. I like to view it from a distance at such times especially if it is about love. Love that is unattainable. A mirage has its existence and beauty only from a distance, if we go closer it vanishes. Such is love sometime. I love to keep the image alive , to rejoice in it from a distance from where it looks perfect. A perfect merger of two beings in love. For a moment all the inhibitions, doubts, reservation are shed. It is as beautiful as one imagines it to be. A closer look or a pondering about its really would shatter the heart. Sometimes to sustain oneself we need a horizon.

I know that somewhere between where the dusk and dawn meet I will find love as splendid, as magnetic, as erotic, as spiritual as the love of sky and earth at the distant horizon. As real and as dream like as it seems. For that is a wholesome love, where no one owns the other, where there is distance and togetherness at the same time. 

Photograph courtesy Google images. All credits to the rightful owner.

Mind Wanderings – JLT

Tear, they know not for whom and for what they flow. Warm cocktail of happiness and pain. Sometimes the eyes just can not hold them anymore. Sometimes all that is unsaid constricts the heart and then the volcano erupts ending a painful conflict within. For the time being. There are days when you long for human touch. that one hug from someone you love or maybe from someone who loves you. Reassurance of something deeper than just frivolous playful words. Love,  not pity, not sympathy, nothing, but the silent warmth of trust, care and togetherness.

It is strange feeling to love from a distance. Strange and heart wrenching at times and yet there it a sweet pleasure in it. Pleasure of knowing, believing  that someone thinks you are worth it and a smile travels through the tears. An instant flush warms you up and then  reality shows you the mirror. The illusion fades away. The pain returns with greater vengeance. We fear “fear” the most. Fear of things that have not yet happen and maybe they even won’t but we fear and in that fear anxious heart cries for comfort. Comfort of that illusion, that mirage we call love.

It feels good when one is made to feel special but sometimes one knows how teasingly obscure it is… unattainable. Thank God for dreams, they take the pain out of life. Even if for time being.  You say little but when you do even my heart stops to listen, my senses become aroused to every said and unsaid word. Yearning, longing, wanting more. My brain is working at frantic speed. My dreams have suddenly turned neon.

You want to pour it all but how do you convey your intimacy and sincerity of emotions via phone, test, email, chat? How do you fill it with the sensuousness of a hand written love note mildly fragrant with the perfume of your body.  You can’t. The emoticons are absurd they can’t ever convey the frenzied torrential desires and warm snuggles, the silent lingerings and quiet surrenderings. How can a piece of metal convey all this? And yet that is all we have. And the dreams. Dreams where you are more real than the real. Dreams where there are no distances, boundaries, commitments, rules, duties, ties or strings which pull from all sides and drag you into quicksand of social obligations.

Reality makes me ask questions, makes me fear , makes me uncertain.

It makes me  hold you and ask you, “What are you? Why do you make me want to be better? Why am I afraid of disappointing you? Why am I afraid of the way you look at me, the way your gaze, your voice , your words strips me naked? Why does my heart collapse at the thought that if you turned away from me , I won’t know what to do with myself. I will be invisible even to myself? ”

Some feelings can not be described, some things remain unexplained like the smell of rain slaking the parched earth.

We mix and match the twenty six alphabets all the time, trying to bring out the most from what we have but sometimes they shrug their shoulders and walk away and then there is pause. Pregnant with all that could have been said through eyes and lips and tongue and fingers. Pause pregnant with frustration of being so utterly helpless and tongue-tied due to loss of words. That is the time imaginations takes over and dreams suck you back into the warmth of womb.  Reality is known to have super powers. It has sharp invisible claws that dig through your flesh and penetrate the deepest layer of your being. Life doesn’t break it crushes.

There is a shadow figure that moves with me. It wraps itself around me and hurls me down the stairs . It weaves absurd circles around me like an invisible web. I feel a pull and hear the sighs and whispers of lost souls. I am electrically charged. There are sparks everywhere. Bright, colorful sparks . Upside down I fall and catch the glimpses of forbidden,sunken lost world. I hurl towards it drenched in Red.Illusions collided against reality and got shattered into pieces. Now there are more of them.

I wonder how I got so addicted to your unavailability. Standing at the periphery of your world I turned into a plant and took roots . Roots that went deeper and deeper with time and even began to grow from my body above the ground. Complicated mess of tangles just like life.  I braved the seasons hoping that one day you will give it all up and come to sit under my shade and then I will embrace you and take you into my fold and fill you with new-found life. The wait is longer than I believed. In fact in is unending.  I shed leaves this winter.  Hoping that a chance glance will make you aware of  the “You” in my naked body.

I wonder how you so seamlessly slid under my skin. How you slowly occupied my thoughts, actions, silences. Every sleeping and waking moment. How you became me and yet …. there is a something amiss, an emptiness.  Something you need to figure out and fill, because for all I that can do  for you , this is something you need to do. Till then I will find solace in your being and not being and wait.

Sometimes I wonder

what if

I was

unavailable

unpredictable

cynical

measured my words and my silences

what if  I was guarded

what if

I appeared and disappeared at will

what if

one day you don’t find me waiting across  the line which I can never cross

what if  I one day vanished in thin air

I am afraid to know the answer to this “what if” .

but you don’t need to fear my love

for I have taken roots just at the edge of desire

at the periphery of your circle of life

am perennial  – just  like love

I will wait for my spring

and till then

weave a private tapestry

with

a thread – you

and a thread – me

Distance and silence makes you realize what you took for granted.  Do they?