That Feeling

When your eyes meet across a crowded room and the second you lock eyes the smiles are already exchanged before facial muscles can even move. The feeling of a warm, snug hug that is simultaneously full of care and yet so nonchalant because it is ready to give more. Or when you're sending messages to each other on the way to meet each other and you turn the corner to see him smiling at his phone while reading your last text and already responding. When he's drunk and spends the night talking to you while you're halfway drunk on the way to fully on what he's telling you because all he can talk about is you.  When you meet again after what feels like ages though is only days or even hours and you both start talking at superspeed to share and catch up with what the other has to say. When he asks you for songs even though he can't understand a word of the language and you start to fall in love with the songs you thought you wouldn't listen to again. When

Contentment

Sitting here alone with the blue sky and white clouds, autumnal winds blowing, and the sun shining on my head, whilst really great music is playing and keeping me and the elements company. Despite the context of the song playing and the very state of being up here watching the tips of the evergreens alone, I'm smiling.

Dance

At a very young age, I was finally enrolled in dance classes. I say finally, because it seemed like that was what was just waiting to happen, I slid so seamlessly into the role of the dancer.

These were the standard classical Kathak dance form, and my father having also been totally raised in the world where classical art forms were a requisite, it was only natural that he'd finally get his own children into the same thing. Classical music was something we already had started since he himself was a music teacher, but the actual art form of Kathak was something best left to a real dance teacher.

And boy did I love it. The arrangements, the ability to simply let go and feel your body just sway to those internal and external rhythms...I couldn't ever explain the sensation it created within. To me, it felt like life itself was already a rhythm, and this was the best way to exercise an excuse to move to it, moreover it just seemed to make so much sense of life itself. It felt so amazing to find oneself amidst a moving body all synchronized and contributing to a bigger sense of togetherness intertwined with music.

Slowly but surely, I mastered the movements and was promoted from class to class, until one day I was the smallest child amidst all these huge women. I was -as I am still now - the quiet and somewhat reticent one, and I wasn't fully formed into the grace that usually underlines femininity, and as a result I likely projected a somewhat self-conscious aura...but inside, that's where it all bloomed in the thrall of it all. I relished those moments, even as I in my self-conscious self dreaded it.

It was often the attention that made me dread the experience. I have never really been the kind of person who wants to be totally in the limelight - I guess I've always preferred being in the background, the support...although, there was also this ambiguous sensation of loving the ability to shine. It's something that sort of pulls me this way and that even till now, because I suppose there is that fluctuation balance of introvert and extrovert that constant moves the way tides do, a sway and comfort left to whichever influences are around me.

A vivid memory serves as the perfect example of this quandary. My teacher had the habit of picking on me to show off the proper way to perform a certain dance step or technique, and on this particular day, she had already asked two other bigger girls (women?) to do this for the others, and they both didn't do it the way it should have been done. She turns her glance finally toward me, gives me that haughty and knowing smirkful look of hers - I was fearful of that look, but now that I'm older and have met her since that young age, I realize this was simply her way of showing her quiet approval and pride and certainty that I was accomplished -  she asked me to do it. I looked around and felt the dread of the attention, and not only that, but more strongly the sensation that once I "showed-off" the technique and did it easily and perfectly, the other girls would hate me for it. So midway, I purposely screwed it up. And felt immediate relief in doing so...although she gave me a searching look as if she knew exactly what I did. But for me at that moment, screwing up despite knowing that I was more than capable was a better option than proving this for all to see and being singled out for it.

My dance teacher also decided that while we learnt the classical techniques, we should also be performing the usual 'bollywood' type dances, and this is something my father wasn't too happy with. He wanted the rigor of conservative and original classical dance forms, not for his money to be put into performances of little girls shaking their bootys and yet-non-existant bosoms around the stage. Soon, my having stayed at the top class without the teacher able to teach me more, and the increase of Bollywood-inspired dances, my many years as a dance student was put to an end.

Often I think back to those days and feel a longing to have been able to continue dancing in the learning environment. It was structured and such that I didn't feel the self-consciousness I did in other environments to move around and dance, because that was what was expected.

And that brings me to the other side of the coin. I am always the most reluctant of persons to join friends and whoever on the casual dance floor. I'd rather sit quietly or stay in conversation with a really good friend, or eat (ha), rather than get up and make a monkey exhibition of myself. I can't explain this reticence, I'm not really comfortable in doing the party type dancing thing...despite dance being there in my blood. I guess it's that sway again, of introvert and extrovert. It isn't really so much what other people will think of me, either, it's just a matter of my own personal comfort level.

Despite that, I still catch myself moving about unconsciously when I'm listening to music, privately and even publicly - and of course, when I'm all alone I have no qualms, dancing about early in the morning with my hairbrush while I'm getting ready to go to work is usually the norm, and the best of all is coming home down the pathways in the twilight dark or thundering rains and just letting go and dancing like no one's watching!

Temporal

I have realized another change in myself. Not something that is deeply embedded or having to do with emotions and personality, exactly.

It is interesting to remember that there was a time when it was necessary for me to always have my earphones on, music on, plugged into the computer I was using simultaneously. For hours, days, months, years, this was my status quo. While studying, reading, essaying, writing, researching, designing, coding, forum-ing, chatting, I had the earphones in, music on. Without fail.

In the last few days though, I suddenly realize that I have almost no tolerance for doing this anymore -- I feel irritated, and disoriented, plus there is this sensation of cognitive dissonance. I, the once notable multitasking queen, am losing my touch.

Or am I? I feel that it isn't just the physicality of the context. There are so many other variables contributing to this difference in me; now I feel that I am much more busy - mentally, emotionally and physically. I have more on my mind, and more emotional responsibility...I guess you could say.

And it's just another symptom of the same thing, when you correlate it to why my writing has changed as well - something I already discussed a few times. Writing....music...they were my constant companions and go-to's for my loneliness. Ah, those times back then, sure I had friends and was filling my days with that constant chatter of comraderie...but that too was also another sort of balm for my loneliness.

Now that's all changed, somehow. My days of filling lines in a notebook have diminished in being able to share it all to someone else instead. My hours of filling silence with music have also floated away with time...

But then lately, in the past few weeks, there has been a quaint revisitation to old songs and themes long past. Thanks to a co-blogger who has been steamrolling ahead with sharing songs, I've been finding myself navigating old alleyways searching out certain tunes and it's sort of a lovely feeling to refind old tracks and blow the dust away from them (figuratively) and remember the.. memories.

And finding old memories has also happened in terms of my writing. I first started blogging on Xanga.com way back in 2004. Before that, I used notebooks to write any thoughts (and also had this 'thing' about writing actual letters back and forth with friends). Last week, it occurred to me to go revisit those old blog posts on that domain, only to discover that the site was undergoing some changed that entailed anyone who wanted to use their services having to pay. Basically, all my blogs were gone.

For a memory-hoarder like myself, this sort of thing was simply disastrous. Heartbreaking! I immediately emailed the website admin. Paced about a few days. Then they replied back with a link to download my archived posts. Phew.

So then I downloaded the xml code. Figured I could import it to Blogger, but nope - for some reason it wouldn't allow the parsing. So...well anyways, this is the point: my old blog posts are now posted on Lucid Iridescence (my 'prose' blog) and going through them again was sort of like another revelation of remniscence. I had quite a few of the posts that I had kept as 'private' when they were on Xanga. I didn't want the public to read those emotions and thoughts. I thought about this briefly when posting to Blogger, but felt that since those emotions and contexts were detached from the person I am now, I do not feel so uncomfortable with having them see the light of day. Or rather, have other people see them. So they are all there in all their glory. If you are interested in this, I have done some simple organizing: the posts from my first blog on xanga are labelled 'Sapne' (that is what my first blog was called). The posts transferred from my second blog on another domain are labelled 'Read My Lips' (again what that blog was called). All my posts that had been posted since, directly during my time here on Blogger remain unlabelled.

The interesting thing to note is that going from each different blog phase, the difference in me itself is startlingly stark. Or, maybe it is for me. I don't know. Again it's quite amazing to remark on how the state of a person's lonesomeness can correlate to their state of mind.