Amends to Myself

Let’s play a game
Of “Let’s Pretend”
And pretend
We’re not pretending.
Let’s pretend
We’re free...
Unbound by limitations,
Time and pain.
That the walls we layer
Around us
Are the bridges that
Lead to rainbows...
That the demons
Which ravage and destroy
Are gentle spirits that
Restore and heal...
Let’s pretend that
Solitude and silence
Are the keepers of our soul
That the darkness
That we walk with
Will surrender us to the
First light of day...
Let’s pretend
We’re still together
Before we choose
To forget who we are...
Let’s play this game
Of “Let’s Pretend”
And pretend
We’re not pretending.

Stain

I gaze at the canvas; clean, white, new. I imagine the colours that will fill its vast emptiness, line it from end to end, top to bottom, and the textures that my painting knife will create and enhance. I think of bright yellows, happy oranges and fiery reds as I gather my brushes, bring out an old palette and remove the covers from the paints. There is anticipation in my deft movements and a beauty that can be seen only in my mind; one that will be translated onto this canvas, soon.

I close my eyes for a moment, to capture, to affix the forms and hues in memory, but instead, I remember the way the rain had fallen, the day we first met...that day in August, with its defeated, grey skies and crystal tears. I hadn’t seen you then, yet I had conjured your image in thought, defined it in my imagination. I had painted the rainbow-arched bridges that we built so fast between us, and textured the crumbling walls between two people locked within themselves for a long time. I used a lime yellow to tell of the freshness in our friendship, your favourite colour, and complemented it with the palest pink, for me.

I lift my brush to the whiteness now, but the bright colours I have chosen seem to dissolve into murky browns and pallid greys; colours of irrevocable change, of inevitable endings. I blink, once, twice, in the light, but the hues continue to deceive. But I go on, stroke after stroke, slathering the creamy paints onto the stark, white canvas, altering its appearance forever.

I step back to take in the collective tone. My knife has carved jagged patterns in the thick hues of an evening sky, mingling swirls of yellow with vast quantities of red, the colour of passion, the colour of beginnings. An orange sun sinks into a violet sea, its bed, the colour of pearls. I realize I am no longer wistful over doomed, silver friendships and their fragile, gossamer memories. I have honoured, preserved what remains, in a place where colours do not bleed and salt water cannot corrode or wash away...

There’s just one last thing to do. I have saved a little puddle of pink on the palette for last. The colours clash, but I still dip a determined, fine brush into it, and sign my name in simple, unassuming curls at the bottom of my dream.

Rain

The crack of thunder
And a shower of rain,
The smell of wet earth
And that feeling again...


The lifting of spirits,
A surge of pure joy
A face turned heavenward,
Liquid diamonds to enjoy.


Splashing in puddles
Defying the wind,
An upturned umbrella
With a stitch unpinned...


Memories of childhood
And the first blush of youth
A warm hand to hold
And a loving heart that soothes.

Illusion and Dream

Against the darkness in my mind,
I see faint starlight.
A woman dances, in the ethereal gleam,
Held close by a man she doesn’t know.
Yet they sway in perfect harmony
As he leads her across the floor.

The melody fades, the image dulls
And I see a room with mirrors...
Shadows through smoke,
Distorted reality and a single pure note.
The face in the mirror
Belongs to a stranger...
Reflections of a yearning, too hard to ignore.

Reaching out to touch an illusion
And to live a practiced dream,
I set sail a little paper boat
Into a turbulent stream...
And pray it safely reaches the other side
Through the uncertainty of the game...

To the island that is inside me,
To a nameless face that resides within
To bring to life the reason
Why the stars sometimes glow brighter
In their pattern through the skies,
As they shine and spell out destiny’s trail.

The Table

I wait at the table laden with baking things. You gals show up predictably late. I don’t tell you, but I love the impossible excuses you both make and the way you scream at me for actually expecting you to be on time.

We pause midway in our yelling and after a moment’s silence, break out into peals of prolonged laughter. We continue that way till we remember what we’re here for; to exchange news (a kinder word for gossip), to discuss the general stupidity of boys and of course, to bake.

We’ve always baked chocolate cake together. We tell our stories and air our theories as we mix the batter, fold in the eggs, and grease the baking tray.

And through the noisy chatter and the laughter, a thought strikes. This is it...this table...this moment. This is friendship.

I take a second off to watch the two of you. And I feel blessed.

Reminiscence

Nostalgia breathes a name across the sea. It lingers awhile, taking me back to the days when the sun shone brighter, the breeze kissed a little gentler.

And then the memory fades into the falling darkness around a setting sun that has quite lost its warmth and fire. I send a whisper back over the waters…

Another Day, Another Holler

I’m bored.

It’s not like I’ve nothing to do. Oooh yes, there’s loads to be done! But I’m still trying to work up the enthusiasm to lift a finger and start on any of it. (and there’s that wretched word ‘work’ again!) I’m hardly the nine to five working types. (Hell, I’m hardly the noon to five working types!)

I started the day with a list of things to do, and the neat and organized person that I am, I sorted my tasks into three categories–
1. Things I won’t do now

2. Things I won’t do later

3. Things I’ll never do

(I like lists. They sure work for me.) :)

There! Now that I’ve got it all neatly classified, I think I’ll be off for a siesta. Fighting inertia can get so exhausting…

Zzz…

 

 

Scars and Souvenirs

She walked down that road again, the one she’d gone down so many times already, in her mind. This time, her feet complied; sure, steady steps, which in her mind had been haltering, hesitating, every single time – until the last.

A drab wooden box, unadorned and plain, lay at the end of this path. She lifted it slowly, caressed it almost lovingly, then opened it to look into her memories. A bundle of old letters, tied together by a ribbon of the softest pink looked back; a bundle of letters that had once been written by a caring hand, and delivered with an almost reverent touch.

She paused for a long moment, her prize in her hands, and untied the ribbon holding it together. The letters came loose, slipped and fell in sheets around her. She knelt down, offered a few, final glistening drops of grief as tribute to something precious, though long gone, and began collecting them, one by one.

Each letter revived a lost moment; each line in blue brought back a sentiment. But she dismissed the kaleidoscope of images that threatened to dilute her resolve and with a stubborn hand, thrust them into the hungry flame of a grey wax candle. The pale, ageing papers crackled, turned inward, singed, and then burned. And somewhere in the curling smoke that rose from it, evanesced the hopes and dreams of a younger, more innocent girl at a happier time.

The smoke briefly cast an illusive shadow of a face from the past...once intensely loved, immensely trusted, and then dissipated into nothingness.

He had not asked, not said a word before he had gone away, nor had he explained why, and she had been unable to completely give him up. This time though, she could willingly let him go. She would willingly release his memories.

And in doing so, finally, be set free.

Divergence

My love,
You’ve come to meet me
And at first I wonder why,
And then I know
What I have to do
As we're standing here awhile...

Words left unsaid then,
Want to be spoken
And explained,
But the distance
Is so much easier to bear
If only silences remained...

You might breathe easy
And heave a sigh
When I leave and go away,
But I’ll finally exhale,
When I hold back nothing,
When I weep and plead and say...

That I only want
My heart back
‘Coz it just didn’t seem fair
That you keep mine
And keep yours too,
And leave me with despair.

Maybe you’ll return my pride
And the happiness
That you stole in stages.
Then maybe I could slowly
Erase the pain
From distant memory’s pages...

Today I’ll be gone
And the precious feeling
Forever laid to rest,
But if it’s not treasured
And returned with love,
Then maybe it’s for the best.

But you’ll be left
With an empty space
Where my heart once used to be
And then you’ll begin to feel the absence
Of the love that I
Take back with me.

Life's Little Casualties

Sometimes, you don't realize how deeply you care about someone or something until you risk losing them, or do.

The Resumption of Time

There will be a day
When your yearning will
No longer choke
Every waking moment,
When reminiscing will
No longer open old wounds.

There will be a day
When you will remember,
But not hurt anymore,
When you will stop mourning,
And slowly
Begin to cherish.

There will be a day
When the heartbeat that
Once stopped yours
Will be laid to rest
Forever...
Then, time itself shall resume.

Didn’t We Almost Have It All

You ask me
How long
And I tell you,
Forever...
You ask me if
I mean it,
And I tell you,
I do,
But, it takes
Two
To make
Forever last...
You tell me
You love me
But then
I love you too,
Only, differently...
And that
Makes all the
Difference
Between an
Endless,
Shattered moment
And eternity.

Empty Spaces

I remember the day
You turned to me for comfort,
When time with me
Had been something you needed
And then looked forward to.

I don’t remember the day
The tables turned...
When you stopped needing me
And I started leaning,
Waiting, wishing, hoping.

Now you’re gone
And your place, taken over
By wistful longing
And a yearning for something
I had never needed in the first place.

On the Verge

"When you have come to the edge of all the light you have
And step into the darkness of the unknown
Believe that one of the two will happen to you
Either you'll find something solid to stand on
Or you'll be taught how to fly!”

- Richard Bach

Happiness

It’s what everyone wants. It’s what everyone seeks. And yet how many can truly say that they’re there?

Maybe it’s our longing and expecting and running toward this elusive state of being that keeps it constantly, just out of our grasp. And then again, maybe we haven’t quite deciphered what exactly it means, more so, what it means for us. We confuse happiness with temporary highs, and so we go looking in all the wrong places. And feel cheated in our pursuit.

Perhaps, ‘looking’ for happiness is what blinds us to what we already have, to what is already here, in the now. Maybe, eventually, we do stop running and that’s when we figure that happiness has been with us all along. Not in our wishes, not in our hopes...not in our memories and not in our dreams.

It’s been right here all the while...in the familiar, the comfortable, the known. In everything we’ve taken for granted, and in everything that we miss, when we are far from it.

______________________________________

And a song, in keeping with the spirit of things-
'Wonderful World' by Louis Armstrong :)

Grace

A contrite heart looks heavenward,
Seeking compassion,
Fearing judgement
Eyes closed, hands outstretched,
Whispering a silent prayer
For deliverance.


Dark clouds thicken, convene,
Obscuring faint starlight...
The winds blow strong
And loudly howl
As if to reprimand,
As if, to condemn.


An unseen hand
Writes verdict across violent skies
In streaks of silver
And raises a resounding disapproval,
With faint echoes of
An unexpected understanding.


Heaven spreads wide its arms
And lets fall mercy drops
Which pelt down hard and cool,
Cleansing, refreshing the soul
And washing away every regret, every grief.
Sometimes, calm comes after the storm.

On a Day Like Today

“The glory of friendship
is not the outstretched hand,
nor the kindly smile,
nor the joy of companionship;
it is the
spiritual inspiration that comes to one
when he discovers
that someone else believes in him
and is willing to trust him
with his friendship.”


- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Eclipse

I painted this for someone I thought was like the sun...close enough and yet exceedingly distant, warm, yet sometimes harsh enough to burn, and though jealously guarding his spaces, letting me in as far as his affection and need would disallow.

I painted in a smile; a reminder of mine that had once been reason enough for his. It reflected a happier time, before the beaming yellows evanesced into the greyness of an almost uncontrolled chaos...

This painting never found its place under the sun. It didn’t get to spread cheer like it was meant to, by infusing warmth and colour into a blank, stark wall, in a blank, stark room. No, it was dismissed to the bleak darkness of a cupboard, or a box, maybe, to lie there forgotten, along with a few, old dog-eared photographs of two happy-in-the-moment people, and other fading memories of me.

Maybe it’s just my imagination that I see a smile wilting, drooping, dying, in the suffusing blackness. Is it mine? Is it his?

Or is it the one in the picture...the painting that had once held meaning, which now simply holds two separate, distinct hues. A strong yellow, painted in thick, determined strokes, and a dull blue, delicate, unsure, receding...

That, and the ghost of a smile that once was.

See how we almost fly...

What if you were loved, but didn’t know by whom...
Could you still perceive it?


If this love were to disappear from your life someday...
Would you even know?


And would you miss it, if you did?

Consequences

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.


Hope glitters, hope gleams,
Hope slowly starts coming apart at the seams...
Resentment froths and swells,
Like bile, from the dark depths, it wells.


From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favour fire.

Red, and rust and then pitch black
The anger, born from expectations that lack...
Acrimony drives a blade as deep into the heart
As affection did once, to tenderness impart.


But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say


Then unafraid of speaking out,
Now brave enough to let silences shout.
The warmth that’s rendered hard and cold
Breathes different, restrained, yet bold.


That for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

A shadow, a memory, a time gone by,
Broken promises, and a part left to die.
To fill the emptiness that, in the end, prevails,
The numbness that consumes, when even sentience fails.

As usual, I lean on a poem by Robert Frost, ‘Fire and Ice’ (in blue italics) to help support the meagre lines I pen. However, if Frost’s poem compels a reader to consider more deeply the potentially devastating capability of the human psyche to destroy itself, then mine tells its own tale to uphold that conviction, so that where his implies, mine states.

Confessions of a Bibliophile

 “When I get a little money, I buy books; and if any is left, I buy food and clothes.”
- Desiderius Erasmus

Truth and Dare

“Our idea of happiness can prevent us from actually being happy. We fail to see the opportunity for joy that is right in front of us when we are caught in a belief that happiness should take a particular form.”

- Thich Nhat Hanh, ‘Teachings on Love’

The notion of a soulmate has always fascinated, yet repeatedly failed to convince me. Maybe it’s the cynic in me that surfaces more often than not, which persuades me to believe that people who are waiting for one, are simply living in some kind of fool’s paradise where spring blossoms eternal and the rain brings forth arched colours, not the mud that stains or the acid that corrodes.

So what is it about a soulmate that charms us to such a vast extent? I wonder, for I am yet to see a real person match the enchantment of the illusion.

Perhaps the idea arises from the superficially nonchalant yet inwardly desperate craving for happy endings. And maybe, its strength lies in the enigmatic unknown. Then again, maybe it’s quite simply the result of the culmination of all our secret yearnings, projected onto that one person, who we know, with the unwavering faith of a believer, will be everything we’ve ever wanted, to make us feel complete. Who will, in effect, grant us our ‘happily ever after’.

What then of happiness...that ephemeral, elusive butterfly that seems to flutter awhile in thoughtful circles before it finally alights on our shoulder, only to fly away faster than we can reach out and touch it? Why do we seem so naturally predisposed to linking our happiness to the discovery of this equally elusive person...the one we label soulmate? And how can happiness such as this, that is so contingent on another person, find a way to stay?

So maybe I don’t believe in the idea of an ‘other half’ to one’s soul, and maybe I prefer the idea of two people who enhance, rather than complement, or even complete each other. Maybe I'd rather acknowledge that happiness lies more in our own conviction that we are loved, and wanted for who we are, by someone, by anyone, rather than in laying and risking the burden of this feeling on one person’s fragile shoulders and calling them our soulmate.

I, however, lend my heart to the undying optimism of those who believe in finding their twin soul, because I think that it is this, their unshaken belief in the veiled but definite presence of their very own someone, that keeps people going, long after all the reasons why they should, have ended.

And maybe it is this conviction...of a soulmate, waiting for us somewhere down time and space, which sustains us and gives us reason for hope in our perfectly imperfect lives.

But Your Angel Flew Away...

“Deep down
I've always loved empty cages
reminding me
of angels who capture sparks
and learn to fly off.
A pattern of flashes
once kept on leashes
released.”

- Kathy Ostman-Magnusen

Endless Numbered Days

“Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day
You fritter and waste the hours in an offhand way...
And then one day you find ten years have got behind you
No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun...

Every year is getting shorter, never seem to find the time
Plans that either come to naught or half a page of scribbled lines
Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way
The time is gone, the song is over, thought I’d something more to say...”

- Pink Floyd, Time

I look back on forgotten time and wonder how to account for it all. Standing where I am now, at this moment, I have nothing to show. The pointlessness of my life suddenly looms large and it’s not a nice feeling.

So many squandered opportunities, so much lost time, so many mislaid priorities, so much water under the bridge. If I can only put the ‘could haves’ and ‘should haves’ behind me, then maybe I would still have a fighting chance to make it to someplace, if only in my mind. But inertia rules, and I remain, in misplaced complacency, in the place I am now. And wonder where the person I had set out to be, got lost, or left behind.

I listen to ‘Time’ and figure I’m not the first who’s been thinking these thoughts. And I know I’m not alone in my deliberation. There must be others who wake up to the same realization and maybe feel the same way I do. This unknown, invisible company of strangers brings a certain solace. It’s a good feeling. One that almost cancels out the bad...

Almost.

Random Thought on a Rainy Day

Every once in a while,

all we need

is for someone to remind us,

to let us know

we’re not alone.

Bring Your Alter-Ego Along

There’s a crowd in my head, and it’s getting louder...

Before the noise drowns me out, allow me to introduce my selves.

First, there’s me. I need space, and lots of it. I’m prone to frequent bouts of claustrophobia, and I think mostly of running. To anyplace, as long as it’s open and vast. And far, far away.

Then, there’s me. I need enclosures to make me feel safe, protected. A hug does well. My car does, too.

And here I am. I see reality. I recognize it for what it is, and am clinical in my observation and assessment.

And here I am too. I dream. I refuse to let what’s in front of my eyes dictate to me its terms and conditions. I believe that someday, things will be alright. We will be alright.

This is me. I thrive on seclusion. I’m sadomasochistic in my loneliness and do a good job of elevating it to self-righteousness.

And me...I love company. I love the attention and I love the spotlight. It brings out the best in me.

Oh, wait, here I am. I’m unsure about a lot of things, and I hesitate and I agonize over small, insignificant things that don’t need a moment’s thought, really.

And this is me. I’m confident. I’m not given to worrying because I know I’m right. And even if I’m not, I don’t really care what anyone thinks.

Here I am, again. I can never be good enough. For anything. For anyone.

And then there’s me. I’m the best! But didn’t you know that already?

This is me. I cry over spilt milk and obsess over how things could possibly have gone wrong.

But then there’s me. I fetch a cat to get rid of the mess and then get rid of the cat too.

Here I am. I’m given to being haunted by ghosts. No matter how far I run, I cannot outrun them. Sometimes, I don’t even want to.

There’s me. I hear angels. I hear the voice of hope. I see yellow and white and gold. And feel love.

This is me. I’m dark, negative and brooding, cynical and sceptical. I turn inwards for comfort.

But there’s also me. I have corners that are flooded with sunshine and warmth. I am joyful and optimistic and reach out easily to others, to share my goodness.

I think of what Walt Whitman once said -

“Do I contradict myself? Very well then, I contradict myself. I am vast; I contain multitudes.”

And I know that I contain multitudes too.

And through recognizing, discerning this multitude in me, I understand the multitude in you.

Jump They Say

“I really don't want to wax philosophic, but I will say that if you're alive, you've got to flap your arms and legs, you've got to jump around a lot, you've got to make a lot of noise, because life is the very opposite of death. And therefore, as I see it, if you're quiet, you're not living. You've got to be noisy, or at least your thoughts should be noisy and colourful and lively.”

- Mel Brooks

Some Kind of Anodyne

I have been one acquainted with the night.

I have walked out in rain -- and back in rain.

I have outwalked the furthest city light.

Sleep doesn’t come easy. Nightmares do. That, or the umpteen thoughts buzzing ceaselessly in my head, giving birth to strange, twisted stories in black and white. I imagine that if I can keep running, even if only in my mind...if I can watch the miles disappear behind me, then perhaps, just perhaps, I might disappear too.

I have looked down the saddest city lane.

I have passed by the watchman on his beat

And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.

It would please me to leave my memories behind, but my mind wrestles with itself, trying hard not to think about them, but trying equally hard to remember, to keep them alive. It’s an experiment in pain. I choose silence over words; words take the attention away from assessing the extent of damage. Silence controls it well. Where no explanation is required, silence heals what words never could.

I wonder if solitude chooses a precious few, or metes out similar degrees to all. I stand alone, and yet blend well into the vast multitude of those who seem to have it all together. And then, a doubt; is this multitude putting on a façade too? I do not necessarily want to know.

I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet

When far away an interrupted cry

Came over houses from another street,

Sometimes, I imagine others like me, trapped in the confines of their doubt and recurring thought, but I am at times, selfish in my seclusion. I would share, but chances are, a part of me will be misunderstood, or even judged. But then again, in rude contrast, sometimes, all I want is for someone to understand, and to accept.

But not to call me back or say good-bye;

And further still at an unearthly height,

A luminary clock against the sky

And time...

I am willing it to move faster, to hasten my step forward, to take me away from this time and place, sooner. And if time is, like they say, the best healer, will there or won’t there be a day when none of this will matter anymore? Not to me, not to you...

Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right.

I have been one acquainted with the night.

And yet, I’m stuck in a moment, unable to detach from the past, and unable to move forward. I try, to honour what was, to respect what is, and to accept what will never be.

I walk. I run. I stumble. I fall. But I pick up the pieces, and keep going, because at some point, I know that the night I am acquainted with, will eventually surrender me to the light. And though the sun will continue to cast shadows, I will turn towards the radiance, and force the shadows behind me.

(In italics, ‘Acquainted with the Night’, a poem by Robert Frost, that has stayed with me ever since I chanced upon it.

In regular text, my mindless rambling, which I do not expect anyone to derive any sense from. It was in my head. Now it’s here. Soon it will be in the trash.)

Deterioration of the Fight or Flight Response

When all is said and done,

And you’re left
In your own personal hell
With nothing but time...
Time to look back
And figure
How you’re gotten here,
And why,
You finally realize that
The one
Who chose to hurt you over the other,
Who betrayed you
And abandoned you the most,

Was you.

Brown, and the Blues

When you're depressed, it helps to lean your head on your arm and stare into space.

If you're unusually depressed, you may have to change arms.

Vicissitude

"Life can't be controlled.
It changes in the blink of an eye...
Sometimes, the things that we can't change
end up changing us."

Abyss

Where do you draw the line between a dream and a nightmare?
Can you identify the point where one ends and the other begins?

The dream is good and the feeling is one of pure joy, with everything going the way you always hoped. The touch seems real and the happiness you feel is unbound, overwhelming…surreal. For a moment, you step away from the person that is you in your dream, and simply observe. You know it’s just a story that’s unfolding in front of you…that it isn’t true…that it’s got to be some waking thought that has percolated into this illusion…but for that one infinite moment, you almost believe.

You wake up, with flashes of the dream still vivid in your mind…but what you remember most, is the way you had felt, which only magnifies the loneliness you feel now. It awakens the void within you, which exists in the real world, where the players, having departed, will never return to fill. You realize what you’re missing, a hundred times over, and with a degree of despondency, recognize that you can’t control or keep the players in real life, any more than you can, in your dream.

Maybe this is where the dream ends and the nightmare begins. When you wake up. To have touched elation, to have tasted desire, and to have seen it dissipate when your eyelids flew open. To perceive the depths of the abyss you’re helplessly falling into, and to know that in your waking hours, the closest you can come to living the dream, is by dreaming wide awake.

Crash and Burn

"These violent delights have violent ends
And in their triumph die, like fire and powder,
Which, as they kiss, consume."

Romeo and Juliet, Act II, Scene VI

Identity

“All I can do is be me, whoever that is.”

- Bob Dylan

 I give you, Frank Sinatra. 'Why try to change me now'

...and a reminder, that
someone out there is happy to have you just the way you are.

Metamorphosis

Growing up. It implies a continuous augmentation of wisdom and understanding.

But, seriously?

As children, we knew exactly what we wanted, and how to ask for it. And we did too, without hesitation. Even before we learned to talk, we managed to make ourselves perfectly understood. When we wanted affection, we stretched out our hands for a hug, or pressed our face close to another’s, to feel warm. Such implicit belief that we would be taken care of…would be loved, no matter what.

And then, we grew up. And suddenly, all the languages we’d learned couldn't help us say what we really needed to say, or even ask for what we wanted…that, considering we even knew what we wanted. We learned to wear masks to make others believe that we were perfectly alright on our own, and that hey, we actually liked it this way! But on the inside, we still desired to be loved, to be held, and to be accepted for ourselves. We built walls…

Maybe we need to go back to being kids. Maybe we need to go back to trusting the world at large, fearless of the consequences. Maybe we need to realize that people weren’t meant to read minds; that we need to get vocal, at some point. And finally, we need to understand that walls isolate, rather than protect. And that they only block our view to the beauty that is around, to the possibilities…

And that communication is all it takes to bridge the gap between who we used to be, and who we are now.

Another Place, Another Time

Another voyage around the sun

And yet my life did pause,

At that place where the sun shone brightest

After which the light was lost.

Arrested in another time

A still frame in my mind…

When forever was a promise to keep

And friendship was sublime.

It’s been a year of sunrises,

But the sunshine stayed behind

At that moment when dreams awakened,

Another place, another time.

Desire

In those hazy, nebulous spaces between sleep and wakefulness, between dreams and reality, lies a secret place where our deepest desires come so close to the surface, that we can almost reach out and touch them.

Indulgence

There’s something to be said about having too much of a good thing…

How do we know when to stop? How do we recognize that point when something stops being good, and the indulgent sweetness starts leaving a bad taste in the mouth?

Because, most of the time, we don’t. And by the time we do, it’s usually too late.

The Art of Warfare

The way to a man’s heart has always been through his stomach, I know, but sometimes, given a guy’s penchant for indecision, this route seems fairly fraught with trouble too! Especially when the guy in question is your five year old li’l boy.

My pride and joy, one fine day, concludes that I’m slacking way too much in the culinary department, and decides to take matters into his own little hands. So he comes up to me, and with some hostility announces that he’s had enough of me taking short-cuts with meals and calling French toast and pancakes dinner, and that if he needs to become strong like them power rangers, he needs to eat chicken and atleast two types of vegetables every day. For the briefest moment, I wonder if the big guy had been coaching him with this little speech, but then change my mind. He quite follows the stomach to heart rule without much ado.

So, I stare incredulously at my brat for a full minute, allow some mental wheels to turn, click into place and then with a big grin, agree to help him turn into ranger material. He scoots, with a bigger grin plastered on his impish face! As far as he knows, he’s won the battle. And all this drama because he hates eggs in any form, even in pancakes! Go figure!

Thus begins the veggie onslaught at A-102! You name it, and I cook it! But like I already know, while I’m quite the wizard (albeit lazy and uninspired) with cooking foodies, there’s only so much veggies a five year old can take.

Two days and five different vegetable preparations later, said little boy returns. Oozing confidence, he informs me that he’s had enough vegetables to give him ranger muscle power, thank you very much, and if I so wish, I may now make pancakes and French toast again. Ask him if he’s sure he doesn’t want more veggies, especially greens, and he’s quick to tell me that he’s sufficiently nourished to last a year. (Yes, for the tiny mite that he is, he does use rather big words)

Yes, I do wish. And I agree.

So maybe every now 'n then, we gals ought to stop and let the guys win a few battles before we subtly win the war.

And what’s for dinner tonight, you ask? I dunno. I’m having trouble deciding between take-out, ordering-in and driving thru…

But in the end...

...it doesn't really matter.

"I'll take a quiet life
A handshake of carbon monoxide
No alarms and no surprises
Silent, silent
This is my final fit..."
 
♪ ♩ ♫ ♬ ♪...
 
Listening to 'No Surprises' by Radiohead. You wanna?

The N,N-Dimethyltryptamine Trip

Last night I had the strangest dream. No, not strangest…I’ve had stranger ones before, and I do mean the kind where you see your friends supporting a few extra appendages, fancy tentacles…that sort of thing, excavating on the surface of Mars, all the while dressed in some kinda shiny fireproof outfit that does much to enhance their appearance.

No, this was different. This saw me laid to rest in a coffin, peaceful and stone cold. With people walking in an orderly line around it, to view me!! View me!!! And at one time I remember yelling at my parents when the topic of marriage had come up, that the only way anyone could ‘view’ me was over my dead body! (Hmm…maybe the things you claim have a way of returning to claim you!)

Well, whatever. The point is not that I’d died, but how! Because, that, my dream did not reveal! Ah, that makes for interesting discussion over a hot cup of tea. Yes, the beverage and the temperature it’s at are both important. Coz if anyone bugs you too much during the course of said discussion, you proceed to make yourself a hot cup of tea and pour it on the lap of whoever’s stressing you out!

Oooh wayyyyt! There you go…maybe I just discovered cause of death! Simple retaliation from injured party with blunt, heavy object! Now, did that turn my frontal lobe into putty and deliver me immediate vegetable status or did it give me a decisive shove towards the light and ‘up, up and away’ me? (For a moment there, I felt like superman! No, it wasn’t the vegetable part that did it, coz I’m not sure whether superman’s abilities here on our planet can be linked to vitamins obtained through ingesting carrots or okra…but the up, up and away bit.)

So, ah! I see the light. Rather, I saw that bright light which apparently guided my soul in the direction of St Peter at the pearly gates, and left my earthly form in that coffin, to be viewed (by me in my dream?!)

However, I’m awake now, and technically my mug ain’t grinning at you from the obituaries column in the papers, so I’m thinking... (Thinking…which means my frontal lobe, pea-sized though it may be…is still in working order! Mass relief…knowledge, that.)

Anyways, I’m thinking that this dream has left me with one displaced, yet disturbing thought. About the vegetable state of being…and that I wouldn’t ever want to be there. So, here’s my declaration, just in case…

I, Chellsie, being of sound body and mind, declare that in no condition should I be kept alive artificially; under no circumstance should my fate rest upon doctors who would simply like to see the length of their bills grow, and lawyers who couldn’t affix a light bulb to save their lives. Hence, when atleast seven days have passed and I have failed to request even one of the following:

Chocolate

Tea

Pizza

Cosmopolitan

Sex

Chocolate

Chocolate

Muffin

Cake

Chocolate

Sex

Ice-cream

Dad’s chili chicken

Chocolate

Breezer

Sex

Chocolate

You may safely presume that I have fallen off the road to recovery and won’t be finding my way back ever. After such has been determined, I hereby instruct my next of kin and attending physician to yank the plug, save the environment some energy and call it a day.

PS- For the morons who are clueless about what N,N-Dimethyltryptamine is, but are hesitant to ask or too lazy to google it, allow me put you out of your misery.

Quite simply, it’s the stuff dreams are made of! ;)

Now if you want the science…It’s an endogenous substance speculated to play a part in dreaming as well as near-death experiences. It’s naturally produced in the human brain during roughly the first month after birth, following which it is stored there and released only at the moment of death. How neat is that!

Wake up! Now here’s the really cool part! It can be synthesized externally and yes, you can smoke it to dream up some wild, psychedelic stuff! But people, please! Say NO to drugs. Help bring the prices down!

End of science/economics lesson. Feel free to get back to your mundane, boring lives.
Cheers!

Heartache

Pain…It hits you sometimes, when you least expect it. A word that stirs a memory you’ve tried to repress, a date on the calendar that used to hold some significance, a song that carries you to another time and place…

And when it does, what do you do? Do you stoically veil the pain with a smile and hope that the smile will turn real in time, or do you let the weight of the memories crash into you and run you down?

Maybe you just have to live through it. Let it wash over you before it leaves you, hopefully taking with it some of the hurt, the anguish and the disappointment, so that the next time it strikes, the intensity would have dulled. And you’re left with something resembling hope, not for what is gone, but for the things yet to come.

You realize that maybe you were destined to be together, but only for a while…That though your time has passed, it has left behind with you, answers to questions that used to haunt, and lessons that perhaps no one else could have taught. And finally, you understand that having your happiness so contingent on another person is what eventually breaks your heart…and that it should never have to be that way.

 

Pain…There are no shortcuts to overcoming it, and there are no quick fixes. Maybe you just have to swim through it and do your best to keep from being sucked under. And wait and pray for the wound to heal and for your spirit to be restored.

But then again, who’s to say?

Because sometimes, you don’t recover. You simply survive.