The End...Of The Year

Not quite there yet. Today is just the 30th. It's funny how we devise a year - and celebrate its end and beginning at the same time. Nothing can end without something beginning at the same time. And the other way around too. This concept of the year - we know it exists in our head. Oh yes, science says the earth revolves 365 times or so - so let's just make that a year. I wonder though if a year is that. Time has no end. Or beginning. It is ceaseless. It is formless. It is motionless. Time is the captive spirit of our restless hearts. Time is the aching wound on a wrinkled leg. Time is the last crease of a smile. Time is just a myth. Time doesn't exist. Time is unreal. Time is. Time was. Time will be. Time never will be. Somehow, still....there is a poignant hope to time. We want time so bad that we would do anything to lose it.

I don't know where I stand this year. It's been such a riveting year, if I can call it so. I have seen the depths of crassness among human beings. I have had my faith tested. No. Not in religion, I never was religious. But in people. I have set aside dreams. And taken up reality. I have learned everything that I can forget. And I haven't remembered what I should have learned. Tomorrow, I will sleep while the clock ticks over into 2011. And somehow wake up knowing that nothing much has really changed. Or has it?

To the two or so readers of this blog, my warmest thoughts for a beautiful time ahead. May this time be yours.

And I loved this poem from Shakespeare. So in tune with what I feel.

As You Like It, Act II, Scene VII [Blow, blow, thou winter wind]
by William Shakespeare
Lord Amiens, a musician, sings before Duke Senior's company

Blow, blow, thou winter wind,
  Thou art not so unkind
      As man's ingratitude;
  Thy tooth is not so keen,
  Because thou art not seen,
      Although thy breath be rude.
Heigh-ho! sing, heigh-ho! unto the green holly:
Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly:
  Then, heigh-ho, the holly!
      This life is most jolly.

  Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky,
  That does not bite so nigh
      As benefits forgot:
  Though thou the waters warp,
  Thy sting is not so sharp
      As friend remembered not.
Heigh-ho! sing . . .

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Praying?

 I don't know how. But I was just playing around with a few photos I took last week...it's amazing how an image can just transform itself in your eyes. It reminds me of us. The human species. How we transform. At the touch of an emotional button. Into werewolf monsters preying on desire and living on egos. This photo..it made me think. Doesn't it look like there is a mini-man praying inside this flower?

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Flowering

Just to lighten up the dreary starkness of this blog, here's a little blue flower peeping out, wondering about the year to come.

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sTrUgGlE

I could hear the quiet calmness outside. Life seems to be like this. It goes in some rhythm. Lying here as I do, I cannot possibly tell you what the rhythm, but of the possibility of a rhythm I am certain. At some times, I can hear life outside. At other times, like this, I can just about hear its breathing. Sometimes, I am not sure which I like best. The noise of life or the silence of life. Both terrify me.

I know that I shouldn't be scared, but I am. I am scared of what is happening to me. It is strange when you have a mind that can observe your body. I remember my life before - I was out there. There was green, there was laughter, my friends, and the joy of movement. I didn't think I would love to move around so much - back then, all I wanted to do was just eat well and sleep. I don't eat now, but I sleep. I don't move. And now, I find that all movement scares me. Once inside, you never want to go outside. I am not sure why we feel like this, but I think it is part of the rhythm I told you about earlier. We are just ceaselessly crawling our way into disintegrated selves. I am sorry, I know I must not be morose, but darkness does that to you. It is not scary, this darkness. It is comforting. I wish I can lie here forever, and I would be happy. It's moving from darkness to THAT. That light I knew before, which is terrifying.

Yes. I am scared. I am so scared that fear is not an emotion I can even feel anymore. This strange thing now inside my mouth - it moves. I am not hungry, and I don't know why - I cannot remember the last time I ate. Inside here, space is a little cramped. I cannot stretch as freely as I used to, but each time I twitch a little, I can hear a gentle rustling. My back feels heavier, yet lighter. Is that possible? There is something at the top of my head that is new. I cannot seem to understand it, just as I cannot understand anything that is happening to me here. I wish I knew. But I fear that is how Life is. We move around not knowing why something happens. We are just supposed to be thankful that something happens. I am not. I understand change happens, but I am not thankful for it. Sometimes all you want in life is some stability, you know. I thought that being here would be so, but although I feel safer than I ever felt before, I am terrified. Yes. I repeat myself. I want to shout out. Ask someone. Anyone. But I was told not to come out till I was ready. How do you know? Just how do you know you are ever ready? I am not ready now. I was never ready to come here. I am not ready to leave. There! What was that? That hurt. If I had tears, I would shed them. Now all I can do is just weep my anguish.

Ah! Another one! Did I tear something? I have lost all my legs, you know. Now, I just have these two at the back. Two! What can you do with just two legs? How will I ever move? But move I must. Is this being ready? No. I think this is called being scared. I am caught between lying and moving. Suddenly, I cannot think logically as I used to. All I know is that it is now or never. I must leave. This beloved place of my eternal rest. Or so I thought it was. Now I feel it wasn't so. It was just Life playing another cruel trick on my self. I don't even know what my self is anymore. I can feel another rip. A tear. I want to cry out with the pain. But I am starting to love the pain. Someone had told me before, when I was not here in this darkness, that all pain is good. I had laughed. I didn't think how pain could be good. I remember when I lost one of my legs, and it hurt so bad. That wasn't good. I still think pain isn't good. There is nothing in Life that ought to have pain. Life should really be a beautiful wave of unending beauty. Pain. I don't understand. This thing inside my mouth moves. And then, I find myself stretching. I can't stop myself. I don't want to. But I can't understand myself. I wish to stay here. I wish to move. I don't know. Help. Please. Something tears at the back. Those two legs behind me have torn my den! I built it with love, you idiot! I want to scream. But I don't know how I can scream at this my other self, which seems not to listen to me. Pieces of my home shred down. I can hear them falling. But they don't make a sound. I can hear them because they are pieces of my soul. And you always hear your soul when it fails you. I can see this body that is not mine attack more of my soul. More pieces fall. I can not feel pain anymore. I feel the first glimpse of Life. With strength I didn't know I had, I push out. I gasp as the first draft of air hits me. Miraculously I can see. There is Light! Faint, but it is reassuring. Those two small legs of mine push me out. I am out. I am out. I sway. And I find that instead of all the legs I had, I have something else attached to my body. They move. Almost without me telling them to. They flap more. The air around me scuffles in anger. My head reels. The light. The air. The energy in flapping. Yet, I look back, and see the last of my poor little nest, shredded, hanging there almost waiting for me to come back. I smile. I don't know if I want to go back. But I like hanging in the air like this. I cannot describe how it feels...but if there was a moment in my life I could have said was perfect, it was this. This utterly incandescent feeling of being able to just fly. Fly! That's it, I am flying!! I am scared. Terribly scared. I swirl around in captive circles, but I laugh in happiness. I am giddy with glee. I am flying. I am.

Crack.Snap. It was over. The bird clasped the fluttering moth in its wings. Crunch. The flutter died. The bird moved away, unperturbed. It had just had its first meal of the day. A bit raw for its taste, but well, you know, you can't complain much in Life.

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Leaving the Remains

I read Kazuo Ishiguro's Remains of the Day last week. Stevens, the butler, somehow remains in my mind. How devoted can a man be to his work? I can't understand it since my devotion to my work is almost non-existent. If someone gave me a million dollars, I wouldn't work. I would instead maybe live life the way I wish I can.

But I digress. Today, I was watering this small bamboo house plant I was given as a birthday gift in June. How things have changed since then! The plant has grown - it is no longer small, and the yellow stalks it came with have now turned green with life. Yet, the plant reminds me of a person I no longer wish to be reminded of.

I have this policy - I never keep gifts from people who are no longer in my life. As in, not the people who move on to another life, but the people who move out of your life. In such situations, I usually throw away what was given before - not out of spite, but because certain painful things don't need any more reminders that our mind doesn't provide. It's my way of cleansing out the past, so to speak. But I was stuck with this plant. I can throw out all other things - but how do I harm a small, living thing? So the plant stayed. I wonder how the plant feels - it is unwanted, yet survives on largess. In fact, it thrives. Sometimes, I think that's all we need - a little bit of kindness. To thrive. To grow. Why then, is it so hard to find? And how ironic is it that the person who gave this plant that survives on my meager ration of kindness, never could find the kindness to stay on in my life?

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