12 before 13

Fighting year end blues (and yellows), drowning in the misery of untouched bucket lists, marathon reading and being an ostrich. Every December has been true to it's promise to me in the past couple of years, no matter how differently the rest of the year played out. So I decided to play it up a bit this time, with to-dos for here and now - 12 things to do before '13. (The thought struck me when I was idling online, pipe dreaming and reading Stephanie's Europe for Three Weeks, and stumbled upon her 25 before 25.)

We make (and remake) lists all the time - and say, someday! A fortnight to 2013, and 12 things to do - that seems more determinate and doable. Until now I have four things on the list - Four. Talk about checking-off of a list that seems harder to make! Am off to finish the list and get going. (Ummm. May be that should be #1 on the list, taking the listed-total up to five.)

Being not-me.

You don't plan for it, and you'd think it is the silly thing to do. That second scoop of ice cream inspite a scratchy throat; rushing out of a restaurant - with your best friend, stomach cramps from laughing too hard, and a 'borrowed' knife in your pocket for a souvenir; 'happiness-in-a-shot', one too many you realize waking up to a heavy head; the stack of stones from places you've long forgotten or times you don't want to remember anymore.

Sometimes we choose or end up in the alternative tracks of our lives - ones you'd think is unlike you, ones you say you did not plan for. All silly, you say. Then you close your eyes, and feel happy. Exactly how you felt, with the ice cream melting in your mouth. With the wind against your hair and a grip so firm you know they'd pull you back before you went down - for the rest of your lives, each time, every time. Laughing, talking, sharing - not knowing when to say when. Holding the rock and knowing it still breathes life into a precious memory, a special moment unlike the ones you did not mark with a stone. And then you know, sometimes the alternative tracks are the right ones to tread, to enjoy and to strut your way through life.

The near extinct writer’s tool.

Not thoughts. Though it's very close in line to the frontrunner today, the pen.

I suffer the creative’s privileged disease of sulkiness. Humbly, I call myself neither a designer, nor an artist; neither a thinker, nor a writer. I indulge in little of all whenever the alternative moods set in. And these days, on the rare occasions that I conquer my laziness.

Yesterday, adorning my writer’s garb, I sat down with the smartest invention by mankind after the wheel and most constructively destructive by far after the guns and the bombs - Man’s smartest machine, and the most powerful today with every man with an average IQ being its slave - the computer.

I had been reminiscing about my childhood. A certain friend in particular. And the lovely times we shared. Then came the unstoppable urge to string these fragmented thoughts with words. I started typing. Leaping through the waves of my emotions I got farther with words than I had expected to go when I started. Trouble began when the power failed. I did save a copy of the draft before the battery gave out. The cause for the frustration was the inability to proceed with my writing towards its completion. Exhaustion, forgotten in the midst of an enthusiastic stunt with words, set in; heightened by the afternoon heat and the sumptuous meal savoured earlier. A quick nap put this restlessness to temporary rest. I had a strange dream. Nightmare, while I was still in it. My computer crashed. With it, my intellect. And communication. I woke up to a comic reality. Honest thoughts do not need a brush of fancy words generated by the thesaurus. To write all I need is a pen and paper. And my thoughts. Not MS Word. Not a web dictionary.

I concluded the ‘Autobiography of a Pen’ eleven years back, with its broken nib earning it a place in the corner dustbin. It wasn’t penned as an obituary to this marvelous writing tool. In today’s scenario, however, it’s metaphoric to this impending death.

(A page from 2009. Was compelled to pack it in with the rest of the stuff here!)

Melancholic.

The reading had left me so about a decade back; the movie did much the same. To a degree where when my four-year-old nephew declared, 'I feel sad, for the boy', instead of trying to convince the preschooler of 'the happy ending', I told him it was alright. It was alright to feel sad.

And then I slipped back into my own thoughts, about closure. And, about communication. Wondering about words that should have been said, but never were. How it is sometimes the hardest to articulate the most basic emotions. To say, I wish you well. Or, good bye. So you shrug it off, or, simply disappear.

'What a terrible thing it is to botch the farewell. I am a person who believes in form, in the harmony of order. Where we can, we must give things meaningful shape. It is important in life to conclude things properly. Only then can you let go. Otherwise you are left with words you should have said but never did, and your heart is heavy with remorse. That bungled good bye hurts me to this day.' (Life of Pi)

'Just as far in as you'll ever be out.'

A rhapsodic way of saying stuck in the middle; that was my first impression when I first heard the line. And the logical thing to do is to keep moving. Grow the distance from one end, in order to get closer to the other.

Or, could it be?

What if you didn't start from one end, but somewhere in the middle? And, what if you didn't know how you got there, or, which end you were making your journey towards? What if you haven't been travelling in any one direction all this while, but back-&-forth and forth-&-back - vacillating - undecided on which end out you want to choose? What if this isn't about that one precise preordained moment of being in the middle, after all, but of all of the journey? And, what if, just when you pause to consider this, the tunnel is altering and you will always be just as far in as you'll ever be out.

Peonies & poh-uh-see, ah so passé!

(Delusions of a twenty-something-naiveté-not-anymore!)

Trust, I do.

Trust was

When love taught me

To lose my defenses

And give in to the moment.

Trust was

When silences abound

My aching heart with calm

Studied your beseeching eyes.

Trust was

When death didn’t scare

As we chased the wind

Navigating trails unknown.

Trust was

When fast asleep

As strangers the bodies apart

Our souls in love making sweat.

Trust was

When our throats parched

Tears hidden and smiles con

For time infinite we kissed good bye.

Trust is

When days of solitude I fight

With your memories unbound

To be just a day nearer to you.

I bet you know this one already!

'Today is the first day of the rest of my life'. It's a beautiful thought, yet stifling 'cause of the weight of 'the rest of my life'. Carpe diem, yes! Make it good; make it count. But, let me not overshadow the promise of today with the responsibility of it being good enough for tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after the day after. I want to tell myself instead, twenty-four hours should never be good enough to be played on loop. For the rest of your life. Improvise. Don't settle. And, take the chance to be you, a renewed you, everyday - for the rest of your life.