Europe post

Europe is:
Kissing on the bridge across the Arno. If you look down, you see that the river is absolutely full of water rats. It's quite amazing. And there is almost always a golden haired boy staring down there as well. And you smile at each other. And he says hi, in Italian. Which is a smile, a wink and an outstretched hand. You are crazy, because your parents are sleeping off the afternoon in a little Florentine hotel just across the street. From their room, should they wake up, the first thing they will see from their window is the luminous honey coloured Arno, and their daughter, holding the hand of a complete stranger in the sunset.
But you don't actually think this through, and take the hand that is reaching for yours.
The one thought that you do have is Oh my God, what are you doing!! But of course you brush this aside.
For a split second the world is reduced to the quick, heady motion of being pulled from one point on the bridge to another, just 3 feet away. From one point 3 feet away to the other side, in the under a second, you have crossed over an unfathomable abyss and found yourself alive on the other side. It might be hard to believe, but there will never again be any doubt that connection - the kind that curls your toes and sends your insides into chaos - is actually dead easy. It's like when you first learn to alter your vision by screwing up your eyes. You can never go back to thinking it is difficult, and you can do it at will for the rest of your life. Kind of like learning how to ride a bike. That you are young makes it easy. But it is not what makes it possible.
And you say, only, hello. Once in English, which is a word said with a smile. And once in Italian, which is a kiss. You are not shocked, or taken by surprise, or outraged or indignant. There is no feeling of being taken advantage of. Of your righteous virtue violated. None at all. You kiss him back. And for ten minutes, you just kiss.
Until that thought about your parents possibly watching from the window arises again, and you stop. You hold hands for a while longer, and continue holding for as long as possible, until you are too far away for your fingers to touch. Then it's over. You smile, in English, turn around, and run back to the hotel. When you look out of your window, he is still on the bridge, looking at the street down which you ran.
Life's never been the same again.

I give up.

To want to fly, but to stop, and wait for someone's wings that might never come.
Is this love?
Faith?

To want to find The One, and to wait, for the person who might never show.
Is this love?
Faith?

We prick ourselves deepest, believing that our swan song will be more beautiful because of the pain.
But enough music gets wasted before and after the heartbreak to make that a tragic waste.
I don't want one song, I want a thousand, every day.

It's time to start singing, and flying.
Who knows when he will join me, or if he ever will.
But it is time to go.
Not to leave, but to stop waiting.

Survival...*

... means...

... having:
Flexibility. Eyes front, heart open. Depth.

... giving:
Options. Wide perspective over a deep field. Insight.

... thereby being open - every. single. day. to:
Freedom. Beauty. Spirit.

Spirit. The thing that is deeper than 1+1 = 2, greater than 'first this, then that' and much more than just what the eye and mind can see. Without that, we're all just dry dust, blown on the wind. There ain't nothing on Earth as important as soul.

*imported from Facebook notes -- but hey so what.

936 AD**

I don't know why I was suddenly moved to think this, but I was.
Reading a book my Mum sent over, I came across a little paragraph about India's Zoroastrian community. Of which, I am a part.
'We' arrived on India's shores in AD 936, it says.
While intellectually, I can appreciate how long ago this was, I've never really felt how long this was.

AD 936.

And some smaller waves of people in the years after.

It hits you deeply and personally when you think that the only reason you have the life you have is because someone had the balls to get into a boat and go someplace where they'd have a better life. Someplace they could be themselves. Be at peace. And they recognised the intrinsic value of that, and valued it far above 'staying and fighting forever'. So they left, and somewhere in those boats of people, who I imagine carried few belonginings and their precious sacred fire, were my people as well.
A grandmother from thousands of years ago, a grandfather, my family.

I wonder if they wondered whether they were making the right decision, whether they had second thoughts, whether they were heartbroken to leave or ecstatic about the surprises ahead, or both.

Sentimental as it may seem, I wish I could whisper backwards through history and say, 'Yes! Please do go, don't look back.' Because here I am today, you did good, the people who came after you did good. Brilliant, in fact. And we're here today. Happy, 'successful' and most importantly - we're peaceful. We're left alone to be what we want to be. And that is everything.

We never really appreciate how history flows in our veins, colours our lives, bends them this way and that. The only reason I have the life I have today is because someone made a decision to make that possible for himself or herself - and those who would come after - and followed through on it. And that someone was himself or herself just a speck in a huge movement of people wanting the same thing. Responding to fear and persecution and making a decision - stay and fight, or leave, and live. Of course, I might have lived elsewhere, and that life might have been a good one. But it's the difference between taking that chance and ensuring a better life is what is crucial here. 'I guess my children and my childrens' children might have it better' versus 'I am going to go so that they will have it better.' There is a world of difference between those two things.

I never thought I'd say this, but I can see their wisdom now. They left, I live. And for that gift, I need to be grateful. It's as simple as that.

** - copied from my Facebook notes, but hey.. a girl can only write so much in one day and no more.

The truth.
We are chemical.
You just brushed your hand across mine as you cut up tomatoes for our salad with dinner.
And a mad rush of warmth galloped up from my wrists to my everywhere.

How funny that I seek you out like this only so that I can dissolve.
'I am' wants to become 'I want'. And once it does, there's no leaving. I want, I want, I want. And that's bliss, just by itself.

I love that ever-present, insatiable thing that you do to me, some electrochemical zapper behind your eyes reducing the I-am to I-want.
And leaving it there, alone.

The Boy

This post will make you sick if you are:
a.) Single and bitter to be so;
b.) Cynical and happy to be so, or;
c.) The Boy.

You have been warned.

The Boy has been transcendent this past week.
I, by contrast, have been PMS-ing. Wildly.

I came home one night last week and announced that I was "rethinking us" because we couldn't have "deep conversations about metaphysics" and because he seemed to "live life only on the surface and I couldn't do that, and I wanted a partner who could think at my level."
Nothing wrong with all, that, of course. Except that I have no idea where it came from, and waited precisely an hour before blurting it all out to him.
He listened with a horrified expression on his face, and asked me what exactly was wrong.
I used this as Exhibit A in a long tirade about how see, this just proves my point, you do not get me, yada yada yada.
I then proceeded to burst into passionate tears whilst sitting on the doorstep.
At this point, his expression turned from plain horror into horrified sadness (and, I must add, I suddenly understood the literal meaning of the term shellshock.)

He did the only thing he could: Poured me a glass of wine and rubbed my back as he sat next to me.
Then, he said, "Baby, what do you want to do?"
Glumly, I answered, "I don't know."
"Okay, then I'll be here until you do know, I'm not going anywhere."

Then I cried some more. Copiously. Until his shoulder was soggy.

When it was clear that I was unwilling to stop crying so that we could actually talk, he got up and went to the kitchen.
He poured me some more wine.
And cooked me dinner.
And pulled me onto his lap whilst he ate, and I picked at my plate miserably with a fork.

Then, he said, "I'm sorry. I really am. I do not understand things the way you do, and I cannot talk as well as you. But if you write me any of your ideas instead of screaming them at me during a fight, maybe I can listen and of course we can talk about whatever you want."
Not convinced, I plodded upstairs, banged the bathroom door, and burst into fresh tears. This time even less inhibited, owing to the two glasses of wine.

When I opened the door he was standing there, leaning against the door frame with the palm of his hand pressed against the door.

I then went on to be miserable for the whole week. Thinking: 'he doesn't understand life the way I do, why are we together??' And: 'He is not deep, why are we together.'
I even called my Mum at 3am saying: 'Mum, I think I am about to break up and I'm confused, help!'
When I told her why, she said the only thing that I needed to hear: 'Stop being a fool and go back to sleep at once.' I asked her to explain, and this is what she said: 'He loves you more than you are even capable of loving. And is therefore deeper than you are right now, you selfish girl. You don't deserve him. Go back to bed, and apologise to him in the morning. And for God's sake, get your period quickly and be done with this nonsense.'

I am quoting verbatim here.
She said every word slowly, with full-stops of exasperation in between each syllable.

Of course, in a few days, I got my period.
And magically, I cannot remember what I was so panicky about.
Everything I said is still true: We cannot have night-long conversations about souls. Souls and night-long conversations are still important to me.
But yesterday, he cooked me another dinner. And we watched an astronomy documentary together. And I curled up against his chest and he played with the back of my neck and said, 'You know, I love you. Maybe that is all I can do for you: just love you. And I really, really do."
And I realised what a fool I was.
"I'm sorry about last week", I muttered.

"No need, you were just being honest."

"No, I was being hormonal."

"That, and honest."

Somewhere within this cynical, borderline depressive, starkly frank, irritatingly quiet-minded man is a soul who is capable of loving without reserve, restraint, expectation or fear.
I realised that I am full of all of those things: reserve, restraint, expectation, and oh God, so much fear.
Most of what I was actually saying over last week was just: 'We're different! Why do you love me? Why do I love you? What can you give me that I need! Nothing!'
And his answer, every time he spoke, or held me, or cooked my food, or rubbed my back was: 'We're different! I love you. You love me. That is what I can give you, and that, my friend, you seem to really, really need. And that is everything.'

And magically, my chest doesn't feel so tight anymore (even though, truth be told, I am still thinking of why this came up so forcefully, and what if anything I can do about making myself comfortable with our differences).
And I am not bursting into hysterical tears every night.
And we made love in the afternoon over the weekend, just randomly and unexpectedly and gloriously. And when I turned over and hugged him after, there it was again: Love unadulterated by fear.
I know what a cynic, a skeptic, or the Boy might say about all of this.
But all that matters is that I am not bursting into tears, wondering whether to make what might be the biggest mistake of my life, all for the sake of hormones and a distinct lack of time, money and friends with whom to talk.

The Kiss by William Eric Pansky

I just visited my old DeviantArt page, and found this image again. And in the spirit of random scrapbookishness, I want it up here. So up here it goes!

More by this artist here.