a step sideways

recent thoughts have been a series of folding and unfolding, a step forward- no a step sideways. the stirring of online activity over the murder of George Floyd has prompted a lot of this; has pushed an intense critical eye on myself, my beliefs, prejudices, and actions. Or the lack thereof.

today's yoga session (i'm on Day 23): "where attention goes, energy flows." i turn that over in my mind, and am wholly unsatisfied with the largely inward-looking tendency of mine. i recognise a lot of selfishness, concern over public opinion (as much as i cheat myself into thinking i don't hold regard for), concern over a certain aesthetic. it is in my position of privilege that i am able to do so, and at the same time i remind myself not to take that for all it is. that privilege not necessarily translates only to gratitude but makes space for that much more action, indignation, and reflection.

i have a long, long way to go, and i don't presume to have any conclusions nor answers.

xx

https://www.coeval-magazine.com/coeval/christopher-doyle
https://medium.com/@miniflixTV/the-curious-case-study-of-christopher-doyle-c4ccbb805b2e

there's nothing to say now

so we just take pictures.

A reincarnation cycle in which you remember everything about your previous lives.

––– Once, on foot, I crossed the borders of what are now continents. In the vast expanse it was just land, and my sights could unfurl like an unending carpet. 

When the land began to break up and inch away from each other, I was a flower on the precipice overlooking the ocean, blown in the wind that swept across the landscape to breathe a giant 'shush'.

As the trenches deepened and the mountains grew taller, I was a nomad traversing the ridges and indents that would come to be filled with water. I started off with hooves for my daily travel, far and wide with nothing much to reach, contented with the exploration. But as time did its work my skin shrivelled up and by then I'd reached India.

There, I laid dormant a long time. The world had more faces to recognise and more progress to make, and I settled an agreement to keep me in the cocoon until it was ready for me again.

I don't know how much time had passed; time was not important. But when another earthquake shook hard enough as to break the shell open, I understood. Born into a chaos, suspended by the waves, I touched the tips of islands and was borne away again. By this time I was wondering what is was that I was supposed to arrive at; making circles about the globe, the crashing of the waves became anything but second-nature and was quite difficult to bear, and I was hoping to find some respite on the steadiness of sand.

Through a force of will I found myself washed up on the beach, where I reached outwards and into, and wrapped my roots in between the granules. Here, I learned to reach toward the heavens for satiation, and before long was aware of my being so erect. To extend was one of my conditions, although it never left, a particular nature to lay with the landscape, to never have been recognised nor sought. To tower so near the sun was also to threaten my tresses, and one by one they turned yellow, curled inwards, and relieved themselves of my rough and hard centre.

I hear them eating away at me. The dampness reached my bones and the termites made me their home. They made streaks on my surface, complicated pathways eaten away and trodden on, but I had learnt of duty and made songs of my hollowing out in order to hold this house upright. The inhabitants observed well, collected material to be my replacement, and finally I could collapse to release the melodies I'd written.

Time was awfully pertinent now. I had thought it alright to have left it there, or gone into one of those comatic cocoons again for an indefinite period. After all, I could still hear the incessant termites and the footsteps-- theirs or mine I couldn't be sure. But this time I was sent into the wind, whirling and uncontainable, a tangle of dandelion fluff and wishes latched onto my skin. For so long I'd sought a landing place, to cease to be so porous and fragile, to give their wishes at least a hope of germination. I did, eventually. And once I'd settled the dreams into the soil and had myself grown into maturity, I was cast away yet again by another gust of wind, another child of dreams. So I went on as such, as the bearer of closed eyes and crossed fingers, of hopes that stemmed from so distant a place but which were all mine, keeping me dizzy and afloat.

Until one day I reached the soil and did not rise again. I was of the earth and of its will, barely conscious but with bated breath I awaited its next decision for me. Ins and outs of contentment and impatience, and I remember being something one day and then back again the next. I imagine Time was a series of lines and grooves, when I was nothing and something, just like those heartbeat monitors except the record of an entire human life is only like a single mountain on that vast unending expanse–––  

Thanks Rachel for your prompt! Was challenging but so fun :) xx

Write about a stranger you met on your Europe trip! and if they taught you anything.

It occurred to me only months after, fairly recently, that perhaps the blooms on her blouse and my dress had something to do with our coming together. 

It was the day of a Neo-Nazi demonstration in Halle, Germany, and I was leaving the city to be safe, following the cautions of my friends and fellow volunteers. Right as I was walking into the train station I passed by a crowded parking area, as well as a man with an eyepatch on his left eye and a poster, a caricature of Angela Merkel and some German words I did not recognise. I repeated over and over to myself to look straight ahead and feign indifference, which faltered when a group of policemen started walking towards me, all we-mean-business -- the man had gotten into a little tiff with someone just behind me. 

I was still a little shaken when I stood in front of the ticketing machine, and I was not expecting a voice directed at me, a slew of German. I turned and was relieved to see a white-haired lady with a kind face.

"UH, ze kein deutsch"

broken german - "I don't speak German"

She seemed amused that yet, I replied in German. I muttered an apology and she understood. Excitable, this old lady, and she made me feel so at ease. She explained in English, an airiness to her voice, as if not at all bogged down by whatever it is that our voices nowadays sound weighed down by, that she had bought a pair of tickets (it was cheaper with some sort of bundle I think) and was looking to let me have the extra for a lower price. A fantastic coincidence it was that we were both going to the Leipzig city centre, and I agreed before she promptly held my arm and we walked towards the train platform together, her lugging her little suitcase. She asked me the usual: where I was from, what I was doing in Halle... I told her about the volunteering that I was doing, teaching English at a small education centre supporting refugees in Halle, and she told me about how she used to be a teacher. 

We were no short of things to talk about. Christa was travelling all around Germany for the fun of it, she can't sit with her back to the direction of train travel and she offered me some nuts from a little ziplock bag while I offered her some of my raspberries. She showed me on the map where she lived (I have forgotten :(), told me about the places she had visited thus far in her adventure around her homeland, and I showed her the pictures I took when I was in Munich just before I came to Leipzig. We exchanged phone numbers so that I could Whatsapp her some of the pictures she liked. And till today, she still texts me to wish me well on special occasions, Christmas, New Years. Christa types in German, and I google translate her texts and my responses, although sometimes I give up and use English.

We spent half of the day together. After having some free drinks at a VIP area of the train station (Christa is a member and she let me in! cheap thrills.), we visited the Marktplatz, the church that was unfortunately closed for renovation, walked the shopping streets where I looked at some shirts and she very confidently said she preferred the yellow one. We decided on what we should visit by dropping by tourist shops and looking through the photographs on the postcards. I looked to google maps for directions, she asked shopkeepers. She had trouble walking, and we linked arms the whole way, and stopped to sit when she needed to. My favourite pictures I took of her include her taking pictures of postcards (y not save the $$) and her joy after buying a bratwurst sausage to eat:

We were chomping on chewing gum when she led me into a department store, fished out her comb, and took advantage of the mirror of a jewelry display. She also stole a few spritzes of some tester perfume. I just laughed, got a spritz too, and not long after we split paths to go see the things we each wanted to see.

A different kind of sentimentality... not a resistance to split ways but foremost a sort of contentment with having met at all. She filled my heart that day and continues to. She, kind of like Peter whom I met in Switzerland, revealed to me a deep sense of dissatisfaction with what is familiar and known, a courage and light-heartedness that comes with a blatant and sincere undertaking to explore one's own country and to do so at her pace, so fully assured. For her to be able to say; I don't know where I'm going next, when I'm leaving, what I'll see. Just to take the breaks when her legs bother her, to buy a big yummy sausage when she fancies it, and to use a department store's resources at will. Her feet had a heaviness that barely seemed to weigh her down, and when I think of her my heart feels light enough as to sway, as if it still remembers her airy voice and gentle laughter.

I was thinking about her one day, and looked through our pictures. I remember her stopping by a flower shop in the train station and her saying how much she loves flowers. Then, looking at the pictures, I realised and couldn't help but think 

and how much I love flowers too.

Thank you Naila for your prompt and for helping me make a space here for Christa. xx

il pleut

je le sens

l'eau, le vent et la quiétude

je ne savais pas que je l'attendais

it rains

i feel it

the water, the wind and the quietude

i didn't know i was waiting for it

-

Hero.

A unique ability to position ourselves among the masses, to identify contrast and to ponder our place in this world; they say that this has been conferred to the human race alone. So it comes as no surprise that as we attempt to discern our outline we look outward, and it turns out that more often than not what we come to be is a series of what we have wanted to be, in varying extents of success. What we have seen in others, qualities that somehow draw us in because of a burning recognition of our own lack, an attraction to brighter and better, an innocent tender voice calling out - "that's what I want to be when I grow up".

Only growing up is an endless journey, and along the way we change our minds and the destination accumulates nuance. That is not to say that we have not achieved, have fallen behind on chasing after the zip and zoom of that red cape, all that might and glory. For in the chase we have learnt to pave our own path, have learnt of our own strengths and weaknesses, perhaps have gotten pulled in the direction of another beautiful prospect and superpower. 

But what are we to say when the red cape falls and we are startlingly aware of the human behind the mask? Of their own transience, their own susceptibility to the whims of fate -- where does that leave us? I like to think along the idea of how no force is created nor destroyed. Even when the hero has been lost we continue hurtling in their direction, breathe in what they have expended, and our horizon will always have theirs, somehow. We pick up pieces that we most adore and keep them in our pockets. They are memories and emblems of 'what I want to be when I grow up', that timeless journey.

I always wonder what they'd think; those whose fairy dust I have collected and mixed in with mine. I always wonder how I could possibly put into words their influence, their eternal etching on my skin; but it is precisely because it has been so intertwined in the web of who I am that it has become quite ineffable. So I settle with the hope that knowing and remembering them in my heart is sufficient; to speak their name when I act in their memory, to share with others the pieces of them I so love.

To ponder our place in this world, to be so aware of our mosaic whole, is to both be threatened by our brokenness, and be reassured that there'd always be a place. For another piece no matter what shape and size, for more love or for more strength in pain.

Thank you Tharsh for your prompt. xx