Apologies

My apologies for believing Serendipity to be set in Stone.
Apologies to the Stone for objectifying it.

My apologies for Big answers to Small questions.
Apologies to all questions for quantifying them.

My apologies to everything for I am not everywhere.
Apologies to everybody for I am not every one.

My apologies to a Self I cannot meet.
Apologies to the meeting I have failed.

My apologies to all the Big words I rely on to sound small and quaint.
Apologies to quaintness for implying it to be small.

My glorious round of apologies for a 'Sorry' I cannot seem to mean enough to want to say.

Moth Memoirs

I am re-evaluating my life-long dream of taking a road trip through the American countryside by clamping on to the grey-hound trail. Of course these plans are all incumbent upon my actually making it to the Land of the Free, Home of the Brave and they depend entirely on whether I am blessed and deemed worthy by that most honourable of foundations - the Fulbright.
The reason I am re-evaluating the fantasy, is because road trips can go awfully sour depending on chance-company, as has been illustrated and revealed unto me within the past two days. What if the person who sits next to me isn’t a handsome, thirty-year old, Greek-born, Olive skinned and tawny-eyed, independently wealthy but flighty-of-spirit academic documentary film maker seeking adventure, conversation, connection and genuine companionship? Two days ago, I was sitting at my desk at work uncomfortably wedged somewhere between the impromptu alternative of sticking it out for another four hours of doing nothing or going home and getting ready for a day-trip to Islamabad to arrange a conference thingie for the Man and be back by nightfall. Option two had me thinking: time-off, travel and the chance to face Demon-central with my armour intact for a change.
“Done!”

The next day Lahore was at its best, which basically means it was raining like no tomorrow and I had to haul my highly-harrowed self out of bed by 8 am, get to the Daewoo Station and face the clogged streets and early morning traffic. But it was raining and I can forgive anyone anything if it keeps pouring. My colleague, who was to meet me at the stop at around 9:30 managed to make an appearance around an hour later and a chance booking on a different bus had me sitting next to what in unofficial circles is now termed as a ‘ninja’.
“This could prove to be interesting,” I thought to myself.

I have no qualms admitting that I enjoy a silent guffaw or two at the expense of people who depend oh-so diligently on constrictive dogma. While I realise that this somewhat tarnishes my claim of being ‘liberal’, I cannot seem to help it and in all unfairness the ninja in question was definitely the real thing: clad in black with black gloves and black socks under neon green slippers. Even the little thread hoops connecting the burka sleeves to the index finger lest the garment accidentally slip and bare a fore-arm. Further the lady was wearing sunglasses on a day where our poor not-so-fair city actually deserved credit for monsooning it like the best of ‘em.

Over the next four hours I am slightly ashamed to admit I derived much silent pleasure by giving in to my subversive nature. My iPod was looped to Joss Auckland’s narration of The Screw tape Letters and the book I was reading just so happened to be ‘Walking the Tightrope of Reason’ – The precarious life of a rational Animal by Fogelin. I tend to read with a pencil in hand, sporadically peppering the pages with my own inane witticisms or genuine questions – which I admit are few and far between- and every time I made a move to do so my companion turned to peek at the pages. She barely concealed loud sighs of frustration and grunts of disapproval at certain key quotes that I underlined, which revealed to me that not only could she read English but that she was in fact reading it over my shoulder. Incidentally- and this is through no fault of my own- the opening quote in the narrative goes something like this “Consider that the choice between theism and moral nihilism is forced on us by the claim that if there is no God then everything is possible”. I am forced to admit that at this particular juncture, for no reason that I can recount I felt a slight twinge of guilt – an abstract notion that I was being disrespectful. Even if this perceived slight was occurring on the confines of a page and through my headphones, but I soon quenched my concerns by reiterating that I had the right to read what I wanted where I wanted as long as I didn’t rub it in someone’s face. Even if in my head this interaction had assumed the proportions of some weird quasi-passive-aggressive paradox of theisms.

In all fairness, my companion left me alone, she did not comment on my silent insubordination with words or barbs, which I have known people to do. For this, she earned my respect, even if I was terrified of her cross or courage (depending on how one saw it).

I soon began to stare out the window and tuned out CS Lewis for Tom Petty, which for some reason makes the best road music to my ears. As the mellow strains of ‘It’ll all work out’ flooded my ears I dozed off to the point where I was woken by a disjointed English accent announcing that we had arrived. Laptop bag in hand, my colleague and I met up with our contact who was to drive us to join Conference-Organizer Man for a meeting.

Islamabad isn’t my favourite city by any stretch. There could be several reasons behind this declaration, but the most honest one would have to be that both the city and I have seen each other at our absolute worst. I lived in Islamabad when it was deadbeat, dull and boring not that I would have known the difference even if it was an all-hour Rasta joint and the city on the other hand had seen me at my most miserable, morbid and pathetic. It was odd really, the realisation that this was my first trip back –after having left five years ago- where I was not visiting family but was alone so to speak. Free to observe and be observed by my past. It didn’t help that the conference venue was two streets away from my original domicile and this ensured that ‘concentration’ was going to be an issue for the rest of the evening, especially considering that I could actually see my house peering at me from the street.

I also found it odd, that my life and circumstance necessitates a lot of ‘looking over my shoulder’. When I lived in Islamabad for ten years, every trip to Lahore meant my sitting glued to the window examining every car that crossed my path for signs of mommy dearest’s not-as-familiar face. This time around I was keeping a look-out to duck the moment I saw sign of daddy demon’s all-too-familiar one. It proved to be a weirder realisation than usual.

Wrapping up business took much longer than expected and it turned out so that leaving the same day would mean leaving at around 9:30 pm and getting back to Lahore at around 3 am. My ten o’clock curfew meant that this option was certainly not on the cards. So we would have to stay on. This meant finding a place on our own tab, because Geo had already covered its costs and listing new ones wasn’t taken to with kindness. My colleague suggested a guest house, which once observed, meant my having to play my ‘girl card’ again. “I’m sorry I am not staying in this place alone,” said, timid, trite and trying little me. In all fairness the ‘place’ consisted of eight rooms, all of which were empty and two men running it. So my mother kicked in her frantic maternal-gear into overdrive, all the way from Lahore and arranged for me to stay with one of her friends for the night.

My colleague and I went to Mc Donald’s – apparently Islamabad considers it a delicacy – and I was astonished to find myself sitting between a horde of moths – much like a swarm of bees- flitting between a total of seventeen light posts. My colleague and his friend reminisced as I sat mesmerized by the Moth Storm. I recalled reading somewhere that the total lifespan of a moth is 24 hours.

Which meant that in the time I had spent setting up a business deal, travelling between two cities, having a minor epiphany about the nature of my subversive hypocrisy, eating a couple of meals, managing a tiny quarter-life residential crisis, come to grips with my now-self and back then-self on the blurred streets of time and place: a moth had been born, matured, gone through puberty, met a girl and/or boy or both (whose judging) and procreated and was well on its way to meet its maker, whatever that entailed. I remember it troubling me that I was unsure about whether or not I envied the creature its simplistic existence; its lack of personality and therefore subsequent identity crises and its apathy for isms. I remember grabbing one that had fallen onto our table - and generally I would avoid doing this - and asking it “Seriously, are you the lucky one?”

And it is at precisely this most precarious juncture that it started to rain.

Mangoes and Maudlin Reveries

My deepest regret of late is the fact that I am allergic to mangoes.

One cannot experience the magic of a sweltering hot Desi summer without mangoes. As a rule I only allow myself one or two mangoes per season, followed by desperate bouts of drowning myself in lassi and water...but them zits still come, all-encompassing...much like the mythic swarm of locusts...only this time emblazoned across the contours of my face.

Recently I have been haunted by an image of myself at twelve relishing the laziness that a Pakistani summer is supposed to summon but no longer does. I have been trying to identify what is missing: the pace, the flavour, the sounds or the smells... all of which, when merged to perfection, managed to create an atmosphere of something old and timeless and beautiful simply because it no longer exists. It is odd how we can forgive our demons in retrospect because they dissolve into faded fragments that are somehow simultaneously pretty and pitiable.

Back to the mangoes - there is something about mangoes that epitomizes the East...they are inherently lazy as a fruit...or they inspire laziness... either way in our part of the world it all amounts to the same thing. I specifically remember myself in a time where houses had bare-chip floors, the old variety of cane-chiqs (spelt differently only to avoid association with poultry or hot women, not that I have anything against either) that were actually designed to block sunlight instead of filtering it in through intricate patterns, small knobbly knit darri's and the entire family- for better or for worse till death did them part, that or indigestion- needed to spend summer afternoons in one room because air-conditioners were a luxury and only one was allowed to run at a time. Summers meant that all my cousins - and that is an 'all' of thirteen- would get together in one room, perched waiting in front of one of those massive 'dechki's' with mangoes swimming in ice-cold water.

I now recall drawing my lines and tracing my alienation from society and family from this point. This could have been because the hostile nature of my epidermis ensured that I could never really join in, or because I was the one stuck with the job of peeling the mangoes that I wouldn't eat but could still smell. The languid scent of the 'chonsa' ought to be bottled and marketed as the quintessential fragrance for lazy afternoons or to insomniacs as a sleeping drought more powerful than Valium. It was the year where Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were an overwhelming influence, NTM evening programming proffered a daily sabbatical from the never ending hide-and-seek quest for survival with the parental units and the standard soap-of-choice was Imperial Leather and Palmolive.
We depended largely on mattresses, (I wonder why people hardly use mattresses anymore) and afternoon naps were compulsory, before summer-vacation homework regiments could commence in the evening. I cannot believe I shall say this, but I think I miss the time where a before-bed routine meant ironing three layers of school uniforms or when wake-up rituals meant an actual breakfast. Or perhaps what I miss is the fact that I was somehow needed - even in the worst capacity as a scullery maid - but needed nonetheless. People, I feel, can largely be bracketed under these two categories: those that need others and those that need others to need them. I am quite sure a third trajectory exists but I have yet to come across one.

I remember an instinct for self-preservation making an appearance in the least likely setting. I have seldom been one for afternoon naps, unless this meant my not having slept all night and having sleep spillover from morning to evening. This aversion is especially true in the context of 'regimented' sleepy time - I am notoriously bad with regiments of all kinds. So the afternoons used to mean the only time of day where I was cut some slack...with everyone asleep, it meant three hours to myself sans chores and sans snubs. I remember tip-toeing out of the snooze vortex, making my way to my own tiny room, switching on the fan, pulling out a book and stealing coke from the crates in the kitchen pantry, which I would replace when Baba Faiz made his evening round to the market.

Few can relate in spirit, but there is an inexplicable thrill in hiding and surviving in the throws of escapism. I have discovered that this only works when outside forces are in contrast contradiction. We need conflict to have something to battle against, survive and/or overcome because in surviving something, anything, we realise our mettle and the fact that we are alive or whether we feel we deserve to be. I remember setting alarm clocks to go off twenty minutes before everyone was to wake up and sneaking back into bed before they did. I am good at being sneaky, constantly planning my next word, move or thought. Which is why those two or three hours were priceless, they were precious because they were transient and every word read or absorbed during them took on a layer of added meaning because there was a purpose behind the journey. It wasn't just idle escapism, it was planned and a lot of planning had gone into bringing it about. This made the voyage - were it with Sancho in Don Quixote or with Peter and Wendy in Pan- all the more poignant. There was an active effort made to seek out the journey, which in effect made the crew worthy and was a journey of its own. Navigating moments in time is my specialty...I am distinctly uneasy with calm seas.

Perhaps this is what is oddly troubling...calm seas as far as the eye can see lay set out before me. There are no more battles and I have joined the legions of old, crippled knights who 'once engaged in great battles'. No one stops to consider that during the battle, every soldier dreams of peace and a home, and once he is there seeks adventure all over again. There is little nobility in contrived conflict, which is what I tend to rely on for inspiration these days. Manufacturing phantom potholes and problems to overcome has now become a necessity because I am lucky in the absence of real ones. Art and inspiration die without conflict, which is why it is necessary to keep the latter alive. Even if all I've got left is a long-winded diatribe about mangoes and allergies.

Times have changed all around. It isn't just me and my picture - it is the canvas that has changed. Time can no longer be whittled away by idly carving in bouts of activity when we choose. Time now chooses the activity and we are the ones whittled in. There are separate rooms now and separate air-conditioners running for hours on end. Television is no longer fun: it is frequent, fruitless and fabricated. We now have Mc Donald's and pizza and mangoes are uncomfortably wedged as an after-meal, if there is room or inclination for them.
There is no 'one' identifiable flavour, smell, sound or sensation to frame any memory .
It is all a congealed mess of mix-ups.

Either it is what it is and the blasted grass is just never green, or I am just bloody ungrateful...or, in all likelihood: a bit of both. There is a perverse prettiness in overcoming maudlin misery, but somehow when it has been overcome, when all is said and done, that prettiness switches tack to shabby.

In a banal setting, at an inconvenient time...does real beauty ever transcend?

On Nothing

I think I enjoy the challenge of a life that resists perfection. This is made all the more ironic because I tend to crave it...not perfection per se, but my version of it.
I can devote precious time, energy and thought into orchestrating the 'perfect' gift, the 'perfect' life, the 'perfect' insignificant other. Essentially this means that I can never win, which brings me to account for my hypocrisy. I have always considered myself disjointed from the rat race and the norm, but I crave normalcy even if it is of an unconventional, bohemian variety. This means a whole lot of time and energy spent in the struggle to appear, sound and think different...but I wonder, if one has to try to market oneself than which version is the self...the marketer or the product or neither? I suppose in some manner everyone thinks they are different, which would make everyone the same now wouldn't it?

The smallest things are setting up tent in my cerebrum at present: the newly discovered taste of a mohito (a Japanese variety of the Gin Martini with mint); the fact that I haven't clipped my toenails in a while and just today decided to wear new khussa's which means my feet are dying; the shame that always follows in the very rare instances where I feel I may be attracted to another human being and frame an immediate rebuttal to convince myself to counter the attraction with denial before I can be discarded, although it just happened to follow through in reverse order this time around; the many pending projects that I desperately wish to take on but am too scared to...like teaching, sponsoring children and learning the blasted guitar; the underlying twinge of guilt at the fact that I am sitting at work freezing under the blast of the air conditioner and the heat wave outside has people fainting by the dozens; the fact that my job is ridiculous and I cannot - with a straight face - pronounce that I am working for an Entertainment Department that produces soaps, which has driven me to write and attend press conferences again to seek some sense of vindication; the self-congratulatory sighs of relief in my head for the fact that should I eventually choose to leave this place I already have at least six great offers; the Watchdog Warden in my conscience telling me not to be cavalier regarding my future; the Bohemian Bandit in my soul reiterating that the future is meaningless if the me living it isn't me; the overwhelming nostalgia of listening to Rachmaninov's Third Symphony for the past 20 minutes; the fact that all I had for lunch was salad and I can't help but dream of pizza right now, that and a coke...a glorious, icy, frothy tank full of Coke; the terrifying notion that is making me think that I may very well be a profound narcissist concealed in the guise of an overtly polite, timid, smiley girl; my reading of Richard Dawkin's and his 'God delusion' solidifying my shaky negation of all dogma begging me to finally take that plunge, come out of the closet and openly admit that I am - after all is said, done and damned- an Agnostic; The fact that I told my mother yesterday to simply 'tell me what to do to feel less alone' and her response was that I should lose ten pounds, and that doing so would solve all my problems.

So here's to losing that poundage.
Can't knock it till I've tried it.

Book Ends

I believe it is becoming impossible for me to ever feel genuine. By this, I suppose I am referring to acquiring a sense of self that fits in with my person – assuming of course that one’s person is the amalgam of head, heart and spirit. I have perfected the projection though… a precariously designed hologram of who it is I think I want Maria to look, act, speak, think and feel like, but I now find myself horribly iffy about whether the many will ever become one. In all honesty, isn’t that the point: to be one…whatever, whoever or however ?

These new questions have forced me to recount whatever I may have read in the past about amorality. I find myself wondering if complete absence of a conscience will somehow manage to convince me of my place and posit my person. There are too many thoughts vying for attention in my head and the disjointed narrative that results is merely an outcome of many nothings that have fused to become an over-whelming, all-imperative Everything: my perpetual quarter life crisis to find my place. My crisis tends to deviate from the norm on this point, it is geared more towards finding whether I can fit in somewhere or with someone by remaining myself and not as much about finding the self in question. I hope that I will simply grow into my person with time, because the premise for the person has already been set …all it needs now is filling.

I wish, desperately, that I didn’t have a conscience, but then I wonder… if I stopped thinking in terms of tangents: Good/Bad, Positive/Negative/, Light/Dark, Masculine/Feminine, Yin/Yang, Flora/Fauna, Yes/ No…would I stop thinking altogether? I doubt that an absence of conscience will pre-empt an absence of context. Context usually emerges in the form of opposites and even if opposites aren’t good or bad, they will always carry the sentimental baggage of the connotation.
I think that if I can somehow manage to have no conscience and am no longer bound by morality then my perpetual emotional calisthenics will cease and I can play God for myself. Heck, I could even be God, since the eschatological opposite of the omnipresent, All-encompassing entity that is often said to be Everything should naturally be Nothing. Taken in the pedestrian context of monotheism it would probably go along these lines: If God is Everything than Satan would be Nothing, which makes more sense if weighed in the sage-old scales present in the law of opposites. In this context, if one were to believe in the former than the opposite should be considered an equal, not a subordinate as we are often lead to believe. Ergo, the absence of belief and subscription to anything would make one God, or the eschatological equivalent.

I mean seriously, we all know that every story is subject to whosoever is telling it. Since we have only ever heard ‘God’s’ account of the tales the balance has been painted to lean only on one side. I believe it was Mohammad Ali Clay who questioned why “the Chocolate Cake was the Devil’s cake and why Cream Cake was Angel cake”…Exactly, what makes one better than the other? Here is where I begin to feel amorality would be a problem, not believing, thinking and feeling in a context of tangents would mean to cease doing so altogether.

I fear it would mean embracing the inimitable full stop.

I fear it would mean voluntary death.

After all, not living -even when one is alive- is akin to death.

The option to embrace such an existence was first proffered to me by an Atheist, Psychology professor (do take a moment to marvel over the underwhelming lack of paradox here). I have recently met two brothers who have both helped and harrowed my struggle to navigate my nocturnal disbelief system. Both are more than twice my age and both appear to be the free-wandering-spirits that I have always hoped to be or find. The sheer largess of their presence is overwhelming, then again, this may just as well be my cavalier tendency to hang on to the words of any and every person who I feel I can learn from. But these two are different they have a gift: they can stop time.

When they sit in a room clocks begin to malfunction. The dials wheeze down to nothing. The second stick shallows into the hour hand and all is suspended. I do not know how many odes I have written in my head commemorating the lazy, summer afternoons spent in the stillness of their presence, perhaps as many as there have been afternoons.
They appear to be the same person, then again they aren’t. I think Mother Nature got it all botched up and their minds were plied apart forcefully, because they should have been the companion-conscience of the same person. Not the same person…there is a difference. They are like the ephemeral age-old voices that live inside the mind, the ones that proffer a response for every word spoken and unspoken by a person, these voices are almost always counter intuitive and contradictory, but only because they are equal enough to balance out the context. It is a lot like the ‘Yes-No’ paradigm, just a little tweak here and there and Yes, becomes a “Yes, I mean it won’t be possible” and a No becomes a “No, I mean I would like to see you tomorrow”.

There is a thin line between the two, butter paper thin.

The first time I met both of them together they were sitting on a couch, clad in shorts and T-shirts, calm and conversation. They looked altogether too much like Bookends. I hadn’t yet met anyone who epitomized the Simon and Garfunkel lament, but now I have. The older one appears to be a sprite. He smiles an awful lot and it is a beautiful smile, but in my experience the most beautiful smiles tend to overcompensate for something, perhaps an overwhelming need to smile, because the subject has already dealt with too many frowns. I do this too, smile all the time to somehow delude myself into thinking that means I’m happy ‘all the time’ – believe it or not, it often works. This one climbs mountains and trots the twisted trajectory of landscape in search of something. I do not know if he knows what the search is all about or if there is a finish line, but I like to think he does it just because he can.

I suppose there are still something’s I need to believe in.

The younger one appears slightly more jaded, which is reflected best - I feel - in his sense of humor. Here too I find that I can relate all too well. That which They call Black humor interlaced with wry, cynicism and backed by knowledge is the perfect battalion to counter the insipid triteness of the compound other. This one said something delightful to convince me that a flushing out of all my toxic ideological baggage was in order, if I was ever to free myself. He said “Isn’t God after all that bottomless pit into which man empties his spiritual bowels.” Sure it isn’t as eloquent as Rousseau, but that is probably why it works. He calls it the cesspool concept: amorality refurbished. Me likey.

I usually resent redefining myself or my disbeliefs in the context of any form of paradigm or under influence, but in the case of independent bookends there is always an advantage…there are no limits to the number of volumes one can fit between them.

There are no limits to possibilities and the possibilities are subsequently limitless.

Peevish Pan

"Man wants concord but nature knows better what is good for his kind; nature wants discord" - Kant

I cant quite put my finger on it.
Somewhere along the line I find myself wondering more about the 'what the fucks' of it all instead of the usual 'why's'. I no longer comprehend what it is I am trying to do anymore. I call myself a writer, but I don't know what I am writing about...abstract nothings and everythings that have a hard time ending up as something. I look at my book sitting in its KB file and I can't seem to write it, even though I wrote it when I was seven. I wish I could be half as candid, honest and sincere as I was back then.
I think about my 'career' and I have no idea what on earth I want, but the past month has me convinced that this ain't it. I may be naive and idealistic but I happen to like me that way.
"What is that job called ...you know the one in which you're committed to the work, but the work isn't really that because its a goal. Where you get to change things, write, read, produce, direct and just 'work' on something that bloody well means something...anything?"
"Dreaming?"
"Yep, that's what I want to do".
"Good luck making money out of that."

Zing!

I'm beginning to think that the real culprit behind this lambent morbidity is Philosophy or my recent reading of it. Curse my need to try/pretend/make believe/act/contrive...try to be/appear/be considered...be smart and pick up these bloody bastards who get to me more than any of the rest ever did. I liked religion, it was easy to deny, easy to refute and practically fell all over itself when confronted with questions or logic. Philosophy doesn't do that, it forces my mind to loop itself into oblivion and I still end up asking the same question. Which,I admit, is practically an aphrodisiac. Then again, I hear myself ask some of these questions and the people who have heard of them - both the philosophers and the questions- immediately launch into a long winded debate on the merits and demerits of Post-Modernism vs Realism.
I just asked if you believed in magic dude!

Then again, many would say that someone who still considers Peter Pan the epitome of all wisdom, has little business reading Kant.
I just hope that's not why I'm reading him.
There is nothing worse than a perpetual reactionary.

Mauvaise Foi

We came across these two words, we don't really remember where or why, but we bless her tendency for copying down random, obtuse phrases and statements by people that appeal to us. These two in particular mean to 'deny one's potential, to put up road blocks for the self, Self-limiting' and it so reminds us of her. It probably reminds her of it too.

She opens her notebook and it sits littered with scribbled quotes and mangled aphorisms by 'Shrieky Girl', 'Man in Third Row' and 'Kitchen dude'. One of them jumps off the page "Hurt?! Fuck it, then stuff it in a place it can never come back from" courtesy 'Really Loud Girl'. We hope she realizes that this really is her calling: to watch and translate. She has never really been a doer or even a be-er...she is simply a wistful watcher.
But she dreams, and that always causes her to drift away from the merits of sheer observation. That is also the precarious point where she gets lost in fantasies; where she is experiencing things for herself. If only she could be practical and stay off course. She could find contentment in the sidelines.
There are few who really see it, but she could.
She has always been that sort.

We fail to comprehend what compels her to fight so desperately with us on this. What elusive, frangible tendency drives her to try and inject herself in reality and what the rest of them call 'real life experience'? Are such trite, transient moments better than a chance at phantom immortality?

Quis custodient ipsos custodes?
Who will watch the watchers themselves?

Oh why can't she just find solace in solitude?! She craves it, she is comfortable with it, she is even complacent and content in her world of paper, pencils and pixels. Why then does she crave companionship so? What does it offer that she has not been able to give to herself? Perhaps she ought to try and fall, just to give up on it once and for all so that we can all be together again. But she just can’t seem to stop.
Many might call her perpetual tendency to weigh and water down every step and the taking of it as a good thing. Most tend to mistake innate, pathological insecurity with maturity and we know that she enjoys the notion that she is being confused as such. But it appears that she can no longer justify her propensity to prophesize doom in every semblance of emotional contact, even if we know that it will play out to that effect eventually. It really has nothing to do with maturity or cowardice - it is plain convenience on her part to run from her destiny. She is ungrateful, to disregard her loneliness in such a cavalier manner, merely for a few snippets of flattery and flirtation.
This is the point where her proclivity towards navigating the moral mathematics of every waking and sleeping moment needs to come into play, in a bad way... she needs to be told that her initial reservations were justified and that she will only find redemption in actively nurturing them.
If there is a basis in past experience for caution and reservation, then grasping for those very straws to avoid taking chances doesn't signal cowardly behavior …it signals common sense, we tell her. But she is tuning us out more and more these days.

The beginnings justify the means towards an end. And the Endings are predestined to tune into bad beginnings, we tell her...but she continues smiling her goofy grin in the mirror and is humming Dean Martin madness.

We come across mention of Cumean Sybil and immediately bring it to her attention - the mythic prophetess who guided Aneas towards Hades and is often regarded as a broker for destruction. We tell her that at present her faceless form is permanently camped at her right side whispering salacious everythings in her ear. 'TAKE HEED,' we tell her. But she has switched from Martin to Doris Day and we are beginning to lose patience with her in this flimsy, floopy state.

All her apprehensions will come into play as she tries to navigate this entirely new tangent in her life: Romance or something like it. We remind her that she is incapable of freely-given-feeling and emotional emendations. But she is brushing her hair and putting on lip gloss.

Beentherella is a force to contend with these days, standing on her pulpit commanding her newly instated mighty army to counter our seasoned legions with freshly woven posies of hope and happiness. She is egging her on. She shoots Sybil down with Browning's "Our interests on the dangerous edge of things. The Honest Thief, the Tender Murderer, the Superstitious Athiest."
"Honestly", we ask her..."What good could possibly come of this foolishness?"
But she is delirious. She has never had many winning moments with her, perpetually the middle child. Maria has been consistent at keeping her around the picture but never really part of it and right now she is drunk with triumph.
"Who cares," she says. She mentions Pan.
We have learned, over the years, to let her be when she gets to Pan.
Sigh.

All this, because of a few kind words uttered in her direction.

All this, because some random man has proffered some seemingly-well intentioned, seemingly-genuine, random compliments.

All this, because she knows nothing about anything to do with any of it at all.
Pathetic.

What is she doing... giggling at her mirror?!

The Many Me's of I

We have been here before.
We stayed, we collided, we conversed but nothing really came of it all.

“You, my dear, are absolutely brilliant! A truly amazing talent. You’re going to go places,” the strange old man says to us.

We never really know what to make of such obvious compliments. “Going places” what does this mean? Does this mean we will be travelling and globe trotting as we hope to do; does it mean we are to be famous and successful; does it mean we need to find direction or does it mean that we are actually falling for such blatantly contrived flattery?
The old man is successful and famous and he thinks this is what we want from our life – overwhelming success, fabulous fortune and glittering fame. He asks us why we want to be a writer and we tell him that writing is the only thing that keeps us honest, sane…remotely human. He asks us why we haven’t made the most of our talent as if he has the right to demand our answers on the subject. We tell him that we are unwilling to compromise our vision and art for a ‘viable market’. He asks us if we are content hiding our ideas on paper instead of selling them and seeing them come to fruition in some form or the other – and we tell him that if that realisation means cheapening and tainting an idea that is good then yes we are happy to keep our head down.
He asks us how we intend to survive in this world without the hunger and ambition to be the best. He tells us we already are the best. We decide that we really do not like this man, because his manipulation lacks finesse. He wants us to want something we don’t over the something that we do. He is a horrible flirt at seventy and we are not amused. He thinks he can buy us by offering us a better pay package for working on a project that lacks both merit and vision and we refuse him.
We do not feel proud for standing up for our selves.
We are numb, our art is all we have left and we are not yet ready to completely disregard ourselves.

The me in us that enjoys her perky facade smiles at this new regressive reality that is forcing us into newer, uglier corners. She, the Sprite, is listening to a lot of old eighties rock anthems these days to enhance her layer of frivolity and appears to be succeeding. She is ridiculously smiley and tends to project a distinct bounce in her step for the express benefit of random acquaintances that cross paths with her in the elevator.

The me in us that acknowledges the effort that goes into projecting our bubbly self has grown more quiet than usual. She, the Hermit, slumps her shoulders forward on her desk at work and stares at the monitor in a manner that ensures a tangible disconnect from her surroundings, her 24-hour shift of designating denial coupons to several random actions is operating smoothly. She has her headphones plugged in and is numbing her emotions and senses with unhealthy doses of Tom Waits and Pete Seeger. She is reading Seneca these days to simultaneously numb her mind. She is painting yellow, magenta and turquoise swirls in oils to numb her spirit from scoping the stars.

The me in us that depends on her morbid cynicism and biting quips to deflect attention, affection and affiliation is working at her usual pace. She, the septic Circe, is slightly downplayed by our resident hermit these days but is always available to negate any offering of good will and compassion directed towards our person.

The me in us that controls primarily our higher brain function (with most of us being frigid and all) is exhausted by her perpetual propensity to please, provoke or procure answers from random sources. She, the pithy Pupil, is on a constant quest to find answers to unnecessary questions. Pithy also faces the added discomfort of never really knowing if this inherent trait of hers emerges from her need to appear smart, her actual desire to learn new things or her inordinate incapacity to filter out the abstract from the apparent.

The me’s in us that tend to drive us into most of our headlong hazards are preoccupied with perfection and penance, or some Utopic notion of both. Beentherella, the incurable romantic, cannot settle for the real over her sublime version of the surreal. She highlights us all as naive, idealistic, “lets-talk-glass half-full”, 'off to find our Happily-Never-After-ending' fools. Beentherella is a twin, her other half being the jaded Succubus that dashes all hopes of the rest of us ever listening to her in tandem. Which is why there are so many warring factions among our self. Succubus lives-glass-half-empty and Beentherella talks-glass-half-full as we all fall down.

We are frightened these days because a dangerous other has entered our midst. She is not one of us, a cold, granite creature riddled with guilt and fuelled with noxious anger. She is rather hideous really, far worse than Succubus who still possesses some nuance of reactionary charm. This new grim reaper Medusa is frightening. She shuns us all, we who have lived here for twenty four years, and is vying to take control of our self by banishing the rest of us into some dark hidden corner of that most-dreaded, dead drop, oblivion: Memory Lane.

She is powerful and persuasive.

Like we said, we have been here before but somehow our paths have never crossed.
But now that they have, rest assured we shall stay, we shall converse and we shall keep colliding until she is defeated.

Danse Macabre

It is an unforeseeable offence, one that I always recognise once it has already taken place. As I leave the room, it echoes and tingles against my skin and I recognise that I have been zinged like this before and that I promised myself I would anticipate the fall in the future. But somehow I always manage to fumble my way into it again. I find that I am almost incapable of honesty unless I am writing it and then it ends up being so brash and bawdy it usually borders on bitter.
I see myself alone once again, which isn’t really news, but this time my alone-ness is coupled with an underwhelming sense of detachment. That is new. I am never detached from my surroundings, which is why I make a conscious effort to appear so. If anything my surroundings are best acquainted with my person: I write on my walls, cover my bathroom mirrors in quotes and favourite lyrics, write in my books and adorn my room with photographs, pottery and all the precious junk I have made in my too few - too many years of existence. I have decided, as of yesterday, that I am finally ready to give up on any notion of family that I have been secretly harbouring and I am grossly disappointed in myself for not having done so in the past five years.
Some people never learn.
I am some people.
And yes, I suppose that means I must admit that I am people.

One would think that I would have given up on both my parents a long time ago, but I suppose that some ridiculous corner in my being still feels the need to be accepted and wanted. This pathetic propensity to please and impress people, even as I contrive intricate means to avoid their company is finally beginning to weigh on me. My much-former therapist would say that it was the natural state of affairs to need to solicit everyone’s approval when one has been abandoned repeatedly for better prospects, and much as I have always resented the notion that I needed help, I suppose I wanted it offered nonetheless. But it wasn’t…at least never from the corners I craved. That’s the funny thing about ‘want’…it is the source that trumps all flavour and essence. Even if one were able to easily get ‘what’ one wants, the craving caves if it comes from the wrong ‘who’. And I have finally acknowledged that both the Beast and Beauty don’t have the time or inclination to ‘want’ to have anything to do with the many me’s that form an integral part of I. They do it, but they don’t want to and that makes me care much less. Okay, that’s a load of crap, it makes me care more but it allows me to accept that I need to stop!
It is a relief to finally face fiction.
This whole conundrum brings to mind a Sex and the City reference where Charlotte mentions that deep down “women just want to be rescued”. An abhorrent notion, even if it may be true. I like to think I am my own saviour as I have been for so long – me, my books and my frameless art.

I am tired of existing in a constant state of being and not living. The random snippets of Sappho and Nietzsche that I have been going over these days would have me convinced that this is all there is. That my dedicated regimen of hours spent sitting spellbound by Hollywood kisses and listening to Baez and Young is all contrived nonsense to inspire hope in the hopeless. That I should acknowledge and accept my agnosticism; my inability to nurture relationships even as I crave them; and my inherent disability to adapt to the mundane series of linear moments in the string of time they call life.

Practicality would have me pause, take stock of the fact that all reality is an illusion and that we’re all going to die anyway and just wash my hands off the whole thing. As my fingers travelled along my shelves yesterday in hopes of some good conversation, I picked out a few old friends. When I am more demented than usual I tend to pull out random titles and read random passages out loud as I pace the length of my room. The opening to Melville’s Moby Dick is - in my opinion - the best prose for this sort of thing…there is something about starting a sentence with ‘Call me Ishmael’ that offers and immediate suspension in present tense. I also love ranting out Douglas Adams, Ayn Rand and Cervantes at times like this. Each - when read out loud - is overpoweringly individual, which makes it easy to carry on with several ends of the conversation all by my lonesome.

I had written yesterday that I was afraid I might die today. I thought about it a lot as I was reading and came across a passage from Seneca, where he said that he passed Death walking along the Street of Sighs one evening. He said that Death was in a hurry and didn’t pay him much attention but that their eyes met in a customary glance. And I pictured myself driving the next day, slamming my car into a tree because Death wanted to get a good look at me but as usual I could not meet His eyes, so I kept looking at His feet.
Today as I was driving on my way to work I felt an eerily familiar shiver creep up my spine. I recognised it immediately because I had felt it thrice before. The first had me at thirteen just about to fall off a horse mid-gallop for the first time - the shiver greeted me somewhere along the split-second between my foot getting caught in the stirrups and my head hitting the ground. It brought with it a sharp thrill of not-knowing, a minute-miasma of images from the past, present and future spliced in a manner that made me unsure of whether I welcomed its presence or dreaded it. I suppose it must have been the former because the second time our paths crossed I was perched on top of my balcony staring at the five-story drop below. I don’t really think I would have jumped but I remember thinking about what might happen if a stray crow distracted me or the wind blew and I tumbled…I remember wondering how people would react or whether they would at all. Then I started therapy. The third time I sat perched at the corner of a bed, five years ago, frozen in the minute that would deliver my get-out-of-jail-free card from hell.
I got out.
But free would be pushing it.

Today the thrill made its unexpected appearance for no conceivable reason, I found myself wondering what would happen if I swerved my car onto the wrong side of the road…but I didn’t follow through with it. I considered it again for about ten minutes, until I told myself that I wasn’t really an adrenaline junkie and admonished myself for thinking about soliciting Death once again. We had been down that path before and I had won that particular War of Wills. He would simply have to do his own damn job this time around. In some Freudian context I suppose this means that when actually faced with death I might fight for life. I like to think that I would have more courage than wanting to hang on to a vague notion of searching for something in nothing.
I like to think that I will finally dispense with all false dignity and look Him in the eye.
But I really need to make sure He has the answers I’m looking for before I drop in for that final quick goodbye.

Miasma

It truly is the weirdest thing, to see oneself most clearly when everything around me is out of focus.
I have found myself in misdirection.
Its brilliant, twenty things at once...all abstract yet workable. For the first time the days are too small for the work I want to do in them and I am no longer complacent about whether or not it gets done.

My documentary has a sponsor, which will mean three months on the road...and if it looks the way it does in my head it could prove to be my Everest. My Everest isn't the summit it is the first step and all that comes in between. I have my historian/guide/soulmate if he will have me and thereafter its second star to the right and straight on till morning!
The novel is coming along, my seven year-old-self is holding God in contempt magnificently on paper. She is hounding him for answers and questions with a veracity and flow that was absent before, perhaps because the courage to follow it through was absent in both the object and the subject.
The camera is also proving to be a friend these days, not my usual flavour and it shall never battle my pencil for the latter won before it was ever picked up, but it is new. It is the beast of technology coupled with the beauty of my not-so-rose tainted glasses. I'm taking pictures and have even procured me a teacher, a renown master. The streets of the city offer much to capture and the pencil is coupling and coping well with the intended column. My words are flowing easier than ever before. Only those who know what I'm talking about really know what I'm talking about.

I never knew I was interested in so much....pottery is making an appearance again. I met an old man who - in the span of two hours - showed me how to use the wheel. In 120 minutes he gave me his life's worth of collected copyrights to twist into variable vessels of my own choosing and all this with a smile on his face. My first personalised purchase with my first paycheck will be a pottery wheel.

I'm finally beginning to feel as multidimensional in person as I always did in my head.
In glorious Tinsel Town this is usually the point where, a character in all her splendour is set up for the primordial stumble.
I hope I don't die tomorrow.
Then again, to die - in the words of the boy who never grew up- would be an awfully big Adventure.