Saturday, 2 October 2010
Another Beginning story
One day, a long time ago now, a girl I knew was deciding on what to wear to a houseparty she was going to. She knew the host, but none of his friends, and was going with a small group from university who'd asked her to tag along.
Black silk top, floaty to a fault, and a necklace bought from Goa for all of 100 ruppees, cascading glass beads of every possible colour.
At the party, she met loads of new people, and one boy in particular, a shy, quiet young man in a blue and white stripped shirt, who was in the kitchen cooking. Something about him struck her immediately, but apparently the sensation was not mutual. He carried on cooking and actually had the nerve to not answer when she asked his name.
Unreasonably hurt and suddenly intensely lonely, she disappeared into the garden for a smoke, and then went upstairs to the bathroom to escape everyone. She sat the edge of the bathtub, her heart somewhere in her shoes, staring at the porcelain door handle and feeling on the edge of tears.
Soon enough it was time to leave, and with the light of dawn and the pleasant cackle of drunk friends walking back to campus with her, she forgot all about the boy who wouldn't tell her his name.
But I believe this. When we meet those we fall in love with, there is an aspect of our spirit that is historian, a bit of a pedant who reminisces or remembers a meeting when the other has passed by innocently…but all parts of the body must be ready for the other, all atoms must jump in one direction for desire to occur.
Six months later, they met at another party, the stars were aligned, each atom was in place and a simple hello turned into a conversation, a kiss, and four years of togetherness.
Black silk top, floaty to a fault, and a necklace bought from Goa for all of 100 ruppees, cascading glass beads of every possible colour.
At the party, she met loads of new people, and one boy in particular, a shy, quiet young man in a blue and white stripped shirt, who was in the kitchen cooking. Something about him struck her immediately, but apparently the sensation was not mutual. He carried on cooking and actually had the nerve to not answer when she asked his name.
Unreasonably hurt and suddenly intensely lonely, she disappeared into the garden for a smoke, and then went upstairs to the bathroom to escape everyone. She sat the edge of the bathtub, her heart somewhere in her shoes, staring at the porcelain door handle and feeling on the edge of tears.
Soon enough it was time to leave, and with the light of dawn and the pleasant cackle of drunk friends walking back to campus with her, she forgot all about the boy who wouldn't tell her his name.
But I believe this. When we meet those we fall in love with, there is an aspect of our spirit that is historian, a bit of a pedant who reminisces or remembers a meeting when the other has passed by innocently…but all parts of the body must be ready for the other, all atoms must jump in one direction for desire to occur.
Six months later, they met at another party, the stars were aligned, each atom was in place and a simple hello turned into a conversation, a kiss, and four years of togetherness.
Friday, 1 October 2010
Thursday, 30 September 2010
Diary
A very wise friend expressed his shock, the other day, at reading through his old diaries. So much of what he used to think no longer seems relevant to him.
I guess that means he has travelled far, and has become a different being.
I've often thought about what I used to write. I have one diary in particular, kept during a particularly poignant year in my life. It's blue binding is scattered with beautiful purple sequins, and its pages are frayed at the edges from my near-constant thumbing them late at night as I thought and thought and wrote and wrote.
I carried it with me everywhere, and wrote in it compulsively. Even if in the middle of a circle of friends having coffee, I would suddenly pull it out and mid-conversation, write something down.
When its pages were full, I put my pencil down, and haven't written on paper like that again, or looked at anything I wrote.
But I carry it with me wherever I go. One day, I'll need to open it again, and there'll be a message in it for me. Until then, it lives with my other diaries - the only one of about a dozen notebooks that is full from page one to page-last, full of exactly what I was burning to write down - and not one word more.
I remember some of what I wrote, though most of the details were just emptied into the pages, and I can't remember them.
Some of what I thought then, I still think now.
Does that mean I haven't moved?
Or that I always knew, and that I need to move from knowing, to being?
I guess that means he has travelled far, and has become a different being.
I've often thought about what I used to write. I have one diary in particular, kept during a particularly poignant year in my life. It's blue binding is scattered with beautiful purple sequins, and its pages are frayed at the edges from my near-constant thumbing them late at night as I thought and thought and wrote and wrote.
I carried it with me everywhere, and wrote in it compulsively. Even if in the middle of a circle of friends having coffee, I would suddenly pull it out and mid-conversation, write something down.
When its pages were full, I put my pencil down, and haven't written on paper like that again, or looked at anything I wrote.
But I carry it with me wherever I go. One day, I'll need to open it again, and there'll be a message in it for me. Until then, it lives with my other diaries - the only one of about a dozen notebooks that is full from page one to page-last, full of exactly what I was burning to write down - and not one word more.
I remember some of what I wrote, though most of the details were just emptied into the pages, and I can't remember them.
Some of what I thought then, I still think now.
Does that mean I haven't moved?
Or that I always knew, and that I need to move from knowing, to being?
There's no feeling quite like it.
You re-read a paper on the back of which your research questions were formed, and out of curiosity, google the person whose manuscript you read four years ago and thought: 'Wow! I want to do THAT!'
You expect an old crony.
And find an incredibly handsome young American smiling broadly in the Indian sunshine.
Hee!
You re-read a paper on the back of which your research questions were formed, and out of curiosity, google the person whose manuscript you read four years ago and thought: 'Wow! I want to do THAT!'
You expect an old crony.
And find an incredibly handsome young American smiling broadly in the Indian sunshine.
Hee!
Tuesday, 28 September 2010
Scrapbook
Suppose there is a God, and you could talk to It and say the thing that mattered to you absolutely above all else, but were only allowed one sentence -- would yours start with Please, Thank You, or Sorry?
On a different note entirely, Blavatsky says:
Nature gives up her innermost secrets and imparts true wisdom only to him who seeks truth for its own sake, and who craves for knowledge in order to confer benefits on others, not on his own unimportant personality.
Of course, there is no way of knowing whether this is true or not - but if it were, then I guess the questions that keep me up at night will never be answered for me.
I don't know how that makes me feel.
On a different note entirely, Blavatsky says:
Nature gives up her innermost secrets and imparts true wisdom only to him who seeks truth for its own sake, and who craves for knowledge in order to confer benefits on others, not on his own unimportant personality.
Of course, there is no way of knowing whether this is true or not - but if it were, then I guess the questions that keep me up at night will never be answered for me.
I don't know how that makes me feel.
Monday, 27 September 2010
To be in love, rather than just outside of it, peering in.
Language is deadening and hopelessly clumsy, sure. But underneath clodhopper words that trample across white spaces, there is something sharp and crystalline.
To be in love is to recall the touch of a lovers skin, sitting here in the office, and to be transported in a lightsecond to yesterday (or tonight!), so that you are no longer in the office, the phone is not ringing, the last few weeks and months of thinking suddenly dissolve and that was not the security guard who just locked you in. Fuck.
Language is deadening and hopelessly clumsy, sure. But underneath clodhopper words that trample across white spaces, there is something sharp and crystalline.
To be in love is to recall the touch of a lovers skin, sitting here in the office, and to be transported in a lightsecond to yesterday (or tonight!), so that you are no longer in the office, the phone is not ringing, the last few weeks and months of thinking suddenly dissolve and that was not the security guard who just locked you in. Fuck.
Sunday, 26 September 2010
To be better. To feel better. To know better.
To know how.
To know why it seems so important.
To see and to understand. To be able to read the world and love it.
And above all: To see if there is anything beyond that "grey rain curtain" and if there is, to fly towards it, arms outstretched, smiling, and with no regrets.
These are things that seem to give one wings when one thinks about them. And yet each step seems slow and excruciating. Each drop of understanding fragile and hardwon and always ready to be undone. And each time one pauses, one sees ones feet more tired, more bloody, than when one started out. One seems further than when one started out. And yet there is no choice but to go on.
Sometimes I wish I could just Topshop and go to the cinema and make out and buy shoes and find that enough. But I cannot. Those things make me smile, of course and give me some lightness. But they don't fill this huge yawning hole that seems to stretch wider every day, full of more questions and never any real answers.
To know how.
To know why it seems so important.
To see and to understand. To be able to read the world and love it.
And above all: To see if there is anything beyond that "grey rain curtain" and if there is, to fly towards it, arms outstretched, smiling, and with no regrets.
These are things that seem to give one wings when one thinks about them. And yet each step seems slow and excruciating. Each drop of understanding fragile and hardwon and always ready to be undone. And each time one pauses, one sees ones feet more tired, more bloody, than when one started out. One seems further than when one started out. And yet there is no choice but to go on.
Sometimes I wish I could just Topshop and go to the cinema and make out and buy shoes and find that enough. But I cannot. Those things make me smile, of course and give me some lightness. But they don't fill this huge yawning hole that seems to stretch wider every day, full of more questions and never any real answers.
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