Beauty in the Breakdown

"Love was enough."

I can't imagine her pain or her ecstasy as she said those words to me. Sitting in a B grade bar, on a rusty stool with no piano in sight, this acclaimed singer/musician was batting her now almost gone eyelids at me.

Having seen the small shrine she built to her immortal love, just a little while ago, I didn't know what to say to her, a few paintings he had made for her, an autographed book, a few now yellowed pictures and her wedding ring.

Their was a story which was worth talking about, a 50 something man in love with a not yet 20 something girl. If age wasn't what worked against them, there was also the media pressure and the public images they both carried. One who was a famous writer and the other who was just about beginning to know what being famous felt like. It was all very new to her, to him she was his third wife. The fact that he had children from previous marriages didn't bother her, it was love.

Today after 10 years of loving him and some 15 after losing him to life, she sits and looks at me, as if it was all still happening, she was still with him, there in that rundown bar.

She doesn't have the money, anything from the inheritance of the books, the estates, its all with the children or the other wives.

" I didn't want to loose everything I have, the memories of him over some cheap squabble about who will have the money. Love was enough."

I wonder, about her, the love and the beauty of her breakdown, taking a sip of the cheap beer in front of me, I call for another round.

For me. For her.

Dream of someone else

"What about you, is there someone else? "
..
....

"No."

" No, but, but there's the dream of someone else."

RoadBlock

There is something to be said about roadblocks and my life. The minute I hope and think that I will manage a way to careen off the pothole and just in nick of time, I find myself deep in muck. You climb out of a ditch hoping that it will be okay the next time, that maybe this will be the last and the next pothole will come a lot further down the road. But no sir that is now how it is supposed to happen I guess, its like a series of potholes, sewn together at seams. Like those on a perforated strip.

Most of my posts seem to be in a similar vein, I wish I could write lighter, happier posts. At the moment tho, I cant seem to bring myself to do that, or do anything for that matter. It doesn't do well to dwell on the past and forget everything else I know, but when your past seems to haunt your present? When recurrent memories seem to repeat themselves in present for some reason, aren't you supposed to talk about it? Think about it?

Right now I imagine myself in a small little drive in restaurant, serving people the day's best - apple pie in some long forgotten town. One of those small places you see in many of these hollywood movies. I would be very content with that kind of a lifestyle, going back home with a porch and a forest at the back, sitting with a mug of coffee and hearing the crickets, as the moon glides across the sky. A small isolated almost content life. Would it really be too much to ask for?

Sideways.

The sky looks pretty
Normal and so do the trees
I woke up pretty
Early and I could see
That I've been walking
I've been thinking
I've been looking at you
Sideways.
I've been moving
I've been dreaming
I've been looking at you
Sideways.
I have no problems
Dipping in my feet
But the trouble comes when
I have to jump.
And all the reasons not to
Seem pretty good
At the time
Cause I've been walking
I've been thinking
I've been looking at you
Sideways.
Yeah I've been moving
I've been dreaming
I've been looking at you
Sideways.

The Swan

By my side,
You'll never be.
By my side,
You'll never be.
Cos I'm fake at the seams,
I'm lost in my dreams.
I want you to know,
That I can't let you go.
And you're never coming home again,
By my side,
You'll never be.
By my side,
You'll never be.
I wanted to tell you I'd changed.
I wanted to tell you that things would be different this time.
But I see you, you see me,
Differently.
I see you, you see me,
Differently.
You tell me that you love me but you never want to see me again

Scars

People have scars in all sorts of unexpected places. Like secret road-maps of their personal histories, diagrams of all their old wounds. Most of our old wounds heal leaving nothing behind but a scar, but some of them don't. Some wounds we carry with us everywhere and though the cuts long gone the pain still lingers.

What's worse, new wounds which are so horribly painful, or old wounds that should have healed years ago and never did?

Maybe our old wounds teach us something, they remind us of where we've been and what we've overcome. They teach us lessons about what to avoid in the future. That's what we like to think. But that's not the way it is, is it? Something's we just have to learn over and over and over again.

Grace

I dont think I would have left my old life that easily, I could have still gone on with all that pain and misery for maybe a couple of more years, had it not been for the accident which finally didnt let me have that choice.

I was living my life on scraps, thin strips of scraps is more like it. Hanging on to them with all my might and making myself believe that this was it, this was the last time it will happen, there could be happiness and maybe things will be back to the way they were. In my profession at that time, it was a gift > Imagination. You were lucky if you had that, had a real shot at being a successful copywriter or maybe a good graphic designer. Only, that I didnt realise how to channel it in the right way, today when I look back at the people who were with me at that time, all of them, they're all so far away from me. Leading lives some of which are now famous, successful, accomplished. These were the people who actually made it somewhere, can think of a lot of things for themselves now, a family perhaps, their own house maybe. And there is me, still standing in the queue to take a bus. Trying to begin my life over again, did I go horribly wrong somewhere? I suppose I did. I didnt stick on long enough, I didnt do so many things the right way, the way they were supposed to be done.

I actually thought I could make a difference, tried my luck at being someone and I wanted to keep trying that. Forever maybe.

Just that forever was too long.

Now its the same me, hanging on to a scrap again, in a different time, but in the same place.
All over again.

My Visual DNA

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AncientPromises

I could go hiding. Far away from people, world and everyone. To a place of my own creation. I have been blessed with that little thing called imagination or survival instincts if you may, and that will let me create this make believe world around me, a small little haven where I could stay locked up in a tower for a while and not think about anything else. Its easy to do that, so just sit back and think that you cannot do anything now, now it has all been done. It has been said and it as been foretold.

I have decided.

I am going back to my old life. The life I ran away from. The life which remains unfinished, untold and unsaid. Maybe this is the sign that I need to finish that, what I had begun so many years ago. That escapism isnt the answer. That running away is temporary and that you need to do your karma till it finishes its cycle.

While I sit back and think over the years gone by and what was and what is now, I am scared, I dont know if I am up for it all over again, if I will be able to survive, if I have it in me, to muster the courage to fight and then to remain. I dont know any of that. I may not last long in this. I dont even know if this is what I wanted from my life, hell I never knew what I wanted anyway. But this is it then.

Life try me.
Its not like I have a choice.

The Prophet

Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.

And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears.

And how else can it be?

The deeper that sorrow carves into your being,

the more joy you can contain.

Is not the cup that hold your wine

the very cup that was burned in the potter's oven?

And is not the lute that soothes your spirit,

the very wood that was hollowed with knives?

When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find

it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy.

When you are sorrowful look again in your heart,

and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.

Together they come,

and when one sits alone with you at your board,

remember that the other is asleep upon your bed.

- Khalil Gibran

Careful! Speed Breaker Ahead!

5 days in the aftermath of my birthday and I didn't even realize that it was my birthday. My new life was supposed to have begun. I was supposed to have relocated and re started my being into a new me. The new job was supposed to be interesting and the new city exciting. I was at my destination and at the doorstep of this life. And then what happened? Destiny. Mix-ups and mis-understanding and then some humiliation and some sadness. Oh and lets not forget the 1500 Kms of bus travel in about 24 hours. A screwed back and a sore ass, that is what you get for wanting more, for thinking that you could maybe, possibly maybe turn your life around. I know, I know what everyone will say, its all in a learning experience, maybe its for the better, there must be something good in all this. I have heard all that. Ever since 2004.

It isn't and so I carry on, drag my feet along the sand and get some more blisters on my feet. Gather some more dust and have my shoulders a little more stooped. I'm a survivor am told, but what else can you do when there is no other choice? Once upon a time I had dreams. I wanted to be someone, today my best ally is pretense. I can pretend. Maybe that's all that remains when there is nothing else, the ability of make believe. Like Satine said in Moulin Rouge "I make men believe what they want to believe.." me too. I make everyone believe what they want to believe. Someone may call me just a big drama, maybe I am, there is nothing else to me anymore.

Maybe its hope. That's the thing. I hope. Things will be better, they'll solve themselves out. But they don't. Not for me.


I'm tired.
I wish dying was an option.

Birthday

It's 12.00am. As I sit here waiting for phone calls, or just a phone call, I wonder about the year gone by. One more added onto my age and one more gone by. The new year ahead at the moment promises to be interesting and full to the brim of hope. But wait that sounds familiar.. isn't that what happens every year? The year ahead looks pretty. Anyhow, This year I intend to make a few changes and alter the kind of person I am. Mellow a little maybe, if that's the word. Try and see if I change around then would my life change ?
12.04am am am still waiting for the phone call. I have never made big deals out of birthdays, but I think like everyone I too count the number of people who wish me, doesn't everyone?! Birthday presents.. I get one every year, the one I actually wait for.
The night is breezy and pleasant and there is a full moon against a inky blue sky. I can inhale the cool air and feel it filling my lungs, someone has Queen of the Night blooming in their garden, there is a sweet, musky fragrance in the air, its delicate perfume caressing the insides, almost as if I touch the isolated strand it would shatter into million little pieces.
12.10am.. phones ringing.
someone remembers.