A Guest Post

Hear ye hear ye. *blows trumpet, unrolls scroll, knocks gavel*

I have written a "guest post" at the behest of my coblogger friend Ajay Kontham, and it has finally reached the stages of being posted!

I'd love for you all to head over to his blog where it is posted to read it, but before that I will also inform you that Ajay wrote a prelude to posting my actual piece (his own bit of saying Thanks, and also an explanation to his own readers) which you can (I recommend that you do) read here.

As for my actual piece of writing, you can read it here.

Thank ye kindly.

Queen of Dreams

Looking back, I could not point to one special time and say, There! That's what is amazing. We can change completely and not recognize it. We think terrible events have made us into stone. But love slips in like a chisel - and suddenly it is an ax, breaking us into pieces from the inside.”

(Rereading one of my favourites) Queen of Dreams, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

Blank Unity of Uniqueness

Tonight it snowed. A wind howling through the corridors of streets -- racing, searching, or running away from something else altogether? Then the skies opened up and the white began to fall. Tonight, indeed, it snowed.


Earlier, it seemed a tentative entity. A light dusting that trickled down almost, seemingly, by accident. Perhaps like a new cook in the kitchen unsure about how much salt to add, and hesitant to add more, for fear or ruining what has already become a work well done. The wind quickly swept away the new addition, almost so that you weren’t quite sure if it had really fallen.

But if one stopped and looked closely, the evidence was clear. In the chiselling lines of the street edges, between the flat of the road and the slight rise at the curb, white lines gleamed. Like ruler lines of cocaine ready to be inhaled, the white dusting beckoned, attempting to tempt to the other side.


The other side of winter, where we must bid adieu to the lasting rays of warmth residue of months gone by. Before the sun sank with aplomb, and before the wind chuckled its way through the streets gloating over its solitary reign, daylight held us back from crossing the line. The sun came in when it seemed we were about to take the other side, each time pulling back the clouds to announce its presence, in case we might have forgotten.


Could we have forgotten you, whom we most miss before you are gone? The question echoes upon the blanketed white that now adorns the forlorn asphalt. Forsaken we have been, but we cannot cry; we know this abandonment well for it is the routine shift of day and night. We know that for the brevity of cold darkness, we have yet that solace of morning light.


This is the quietude of winter’s cacophony. Amidst the thunder of wind in the trees, silence pervades. Silence the deletion of noise, accompanying the deletion of colour, represented by the stretching horizon of white. Blank.

Keep still for a moment. Do you hear it? Feel it? The chorus of a thousand million tiny voices, as they are shovelled away without another thought, a miracle in itself for each snowflake has never existed before and shall never be again. How do we know? We cannot count each that falls, as unable are we to trace each tear that ever had been shed, or count each star that ever blinked, or remember each dream that floated away beyond unmoving eyelashes. Should we not try? Tonight it snowed.

Moderob

Technically, I don't really subscribe to boredom. Not really. Of course, by careless habit, I do use the word to describe a certain circumstance, for example, I was caught out recently by having declared that my 'Sunday was quite boring'. So perhaps to say otherwise may seem somewhat hypocritical. But I aim to elaborate on what I mean by not really meaning it.

In a nutshell, I have this simple habit of being able to just simply think. That's it.  And I do realize I have perhaps already discussed this issue of boredom before, however there is much in life that does require repetition, so I continue. I think. I mean, I can simply sit, and lose myself totally in my mind. I do this quite often, no matter where I am, and in what circumstances I may be amidst.

In fact I am discussing it right now simply because I caught myself doing this. I had opened my blog to a new blank post, and sat for a few still minutes, just trying to lose myself in that realm where that certain mood and state of mind would open up to me. It's a portal of sorts, I guess. So there I was, just vaguely thinking this and that, remniscing about certain things -- such as the fact that just a few minutes earlier I had gone back to my very first post on Super and how strange it was to contemplate the various personas one could be all within one body -- and then I blinked. That's when I noted what it was I was doing. Thinking.

Sometimes I wonder what those around me might think, observing this girl simply sitting, quite still, and doing nothing, but seeming entirely absent, I'd hazard to guess.

Well, sometimes I catch a glimpse of myself when I am doing it. Sitting on the bus, for instance, heading home, and thinking, thinking, thinking, and it's evening and then I see a familiar face, and hey, that's me reflected in the window pane. Hello sexy.

Oh yes. I do have to admit, I probably spend a good deal of time observing my reflection. I think it's another mode of operandi, being able to reflect. Pun intended, yet this remark was quite genuine, nevertheless. I find it opens up another portal I guess, when I'm looking back through my own eyes. It's also a bit of vanity; I admire myself quite shamelessly, I like what I see. But again, often I lose myself in thought and don't really realize what I am literally looking at.

So that's why I don't really believe in boredom. Because no matter what, even if I don't have a book or music to keep me entertained, I always have my mind. And that's the best accessory a girl* can have.




*Not to exclude the other gender; context meant relative to author's gender.

Let There Be Light

In regards to my last post pertaining to the phantom streetlight, I tried something amazingly weird, but quite expected from me.

One evening when I got off the bus, and then routinely crossed the road to start that walk along that same curve of the sidewalk, the song I had been listening to ended, and suddenly out of the blue (well of course out of the blue, since I set my music player on random shuffle) "that" song started to play. I'm going to just refer to the song in particular as "that" song because my god it's one of those songs that just act like wind beneath my wings, it's one of "those" songs that make me feel like falling in love again (the odd thing is that the refrain actually says something along those lines). Consequently, I had crossed the road to grin to myself in delight, and entered into that feeling of mine where I'm absolutely about to start dancing on the streets all alone (and yes alone I was at that time of evening, thankfully), and the wind was just so, you know? Like it wasn't all that cold and blowing that frigid arctic wind, it had that...extra bit of something, a little bit of warmth that if you were in an optimistic mood, you'd breathe right in with contentment, and forget that it had been almost snowing earlier in the day.

Anyways, in that mood, I was ready to smile at everyone and anything, and I sort of was, I guess, and I was coming around that bend in the sidwalk and for whatever weird reason I decided to look up at my friend the Streetlight before I actually reached it, and wave and point at it and say "ON!" in my head and lo and behold, it lit up brightly. I blinked to myself, but I was so buoyantly happy for that bit of time that evening that I didn't really think twice about it, in fact the amazement of that actually happening just meshed right in with my already happy mood. The other streetlights glowed their usual orangey hue somewhat dimly, in my opinion, whereas my friend the Streetlight was that bright fluorescent white.

 And I know this is really a weird thing to be discussing, but I'm sharing it simply because it really happened. In fact, I decided to experiment again the following days. The next day, however, wasn't that great a day for me, and I ended up being super exhausted and overly emotional by the day's end. I trudged my way home in my growly state and my friend decided to go out completely as I passed under it. The next day was the same. The next consecutive day, I was again in a better frame of mind, though definitely nothing like that buoyant evening I had almost danced my way home when "that" song had come on. This time though, I was prepared, or I thought I was. I had chosen to play "Stereo Love" for the fact that I really love it and then as I was making my way around that bend, just before I approached My Friend, I suddenly hesitated at the song; I got a flashback and a realization that in fact the lyrics aren't that happy in context. In that moment, the damn Streetlight went out again. Sigh.

Out, Out, Brief Candle

I sort of meant to write this a very long time ago, actually each time this event happens, which is pretty much every weeknight, and that too beginning quite a few years ago...

As we know, I take the public transit. I love taking the public transit, for a variety of reasons, amongst one being that I couldn't fathom having to take control of a wheel and direct my attentions to the work of navigating the rush hour traffic every evening homeward bound. Rather, I relish the freedom of relinquishing responsibility to the operator of the bus, so that I could lose myself in my myriad thoughts, feelings, and daydreams..

Each evening when I get off my final bus, I have a 3 or 4-minute walk through the inner streetways of the neighbourhood to reach home...and often I thoroughly enjoy this walk (which explains why it may extend to 4 minutes).

There is one thing that occurs, however, that does seem strange. Each evening as I traverse the sidewalk, in a concave semi-circle bypassing the park, all alone in my own world with music and darkness all around, as I reach one certain spot, that one particular streetlight flickers out.

Now, I've passed it at various times, so it's not simply a matter that at a specific time at night it goes out. Also, the other streetlights along the street all remain alight. Also, there have been occasions where there have been persons walking ahead of me, for whom the light still remains oblivious, i.e. still lights. It is only when I approach, it decides to extinguish.

This is a phenomena that has occurred to me every evening I have passed it, and each time it happens, I remember that this is something I want to write about. And, this is also a phenomena that I have experienced many years ago, and also, with regards to certain other streetlights I have happened to stand under, or as a matter of fact, lights within a certain room flickering, and if it is worth throwing in, the lights within the trains and buses I have sat upon...

Balmy

I don't know what it is, but the weather has been absolutely amazing the last several days...mild (as in not the expected freezing temperatures due for this time of year)...and lots of rain.

Of course, the rain has its negative side effects. All yesterday and the day before as I was travelling, I kept hearing the piercing sound of various sirens; ambulances, police, fire-trucks. And yesterday right out of the office, the traffic at the intersection in front my office building was unbelievable. Cars just packed up for as far as the eye could see, for the longest time ever.

But I didn't care. It was soooo windy and yet soooo nice, because the wind wasn't cold.  Aye haye. And now it's November. Sigh...let us hope that the November fairies bring us something special.