Fine. I'll admit it. I wish SOMEONE other than me would read this damned blog.
Or perhaps it is a metaphor for my life: wanting to be saved yet not letting on that I'm drowning.
But I don't always feel like I'm drowning or that I need saving.
And I don't always want anyone to read this blog.
Crap.
Friday, July 24, 2009
Tonight, I want Kansas
There comes a time when you stand face to face with your psychoses and you have nothing and no one left to blame. You've read too many books, attended too many workshops, had sufficient hours with a therapist and had too many genuinely enlightened moments to go back to being a victim.
Oh, but it was so comfortable there.
Tonight, as I pray for sleep to come, as I pray for someone to cosmically clue into my misery and reach out, as I pray for chemicals to magically materialize in the palm of my hand, I wish that it was simply enough to feel wretched in order for the miracle cure to appear.
I feel angry and confused tonight. I cannot reconcile myself to the idea that I must have the courage to pray yet I must learn not to expect.
I must not shy away from my desires, yet I must not wait for them to be fulfilled.
I must not be a silent witness to my life, yet I must learn that I cannot control it all.
It's like trying to brush your teeth and wipe your ass with the same hand, at the same time.
How simple they make it seem - these self-help authors, these wise men & women on Oprah. Oh yes, we know The Secret, they all say, Let us give it to you. Click your heels thrice and say 'There's no place like home.' They lull us into the complacent belief that it's really that simple, this business of getting happy. No one tells you the hows, whens and the how muches. That's your deal, sucker. That's life.
Because some nights, like tonight, there is no logic, no Grander energy and no softness to this feeling that settles in my belly. I have tried all the home remedies and I've tried to banish the familiar aloneless and self-loathing that infects my insides. I know full well that I will wake up, if not tomorrow morning, then the next one, feeling as though the world is right side up again. I will no longer remember this restlessness crawling under my skin. I'll even look back on this evening and dismiss it as just another one of those moods.
But tonight, all I want is to crawl into the arms of someone safe and make my brain stop. Tonight I just want Kansas. Like Dorothy, I'm sick of Oz.
And while we're on the subject, let's not forget how she came upon those ruby slippers in the first place. She dropped her house on the Wicked Witch. The original owner of the shoes and Dorothy's first murder victim.
Oh, but it was so comfortable there.
Tonight, as I pray for sleep to come, as I pray for someone to cosmically clue into my misery and reach out, as I pray for chemicals to magically materialize in the palm of my hand, I wish that it was simply enough to feel wretched in order for the miracle cure to appear.
I feel angry and confused tonight. I cannot reconcile myself to the idea that I must have the courage to pray yet I must learn not to expect.
I must not shy away from my desires, yet I must not wait for them to be fulfilled.
I must not be a silent witness to my life, yet I must learn that I cannot control it all.
It's like trying to brush your teeth and wipe your ass with the same hand, at the same time.
How simple they make it seem - these self-help authors, these wise men & women on Oprah. Oh yes, we know The Secret, they all say, Let us give it to you. Click your heels thrice and say 'There's no place like home.' They lull us into the complacent belief that it's really that simple, this business of getting happy. No one tells you the hows, whens and the how muches. That's your deal, sucker. That's life.
Because some nights, like tonight, there is no logic, no Grander energy and no softness to this feeling that settles in my belly. I have tried all the home remedies and I've tried to banish the familiar aloneless and self-loathing that infects my insides. I know full well that I will wake up, if not tomorrow morning, then the next one, feeling as though the world is right side up again. I will no longer remember this restlessness crawling under my skin. I'll even look back on this evening and dismiss it as just another one of those moods.
But tonight, all I want is to crawl into the arms of someone safe and make my brain stop. Tonight I just want Kansas. Like Dorothy, I'm sick of Oz.
And while we're on the subject, let's not forget how she came upon those ruby slippers in the first place. She dropped her house on the Wicked Witch. The original owner of the shoes and Dorothy's first murder victim.
Thursday, July 23, 2009
Blogging the Blues
Ma baby done lef' me,
Took ever'thang but his boots.
OH ma baby done lef' me,
Took ever'thang but his boots...
He took ma money, he took ma pills
He lef' me here,
Jus' bloggin' the blues....
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
TSE 22nd July 2009
Up until the eve of the Total Solar Eclipse (TSE), I wasn't really psyched about it.
I'd researched this damned eclipse 4 months ago...for a project I am yet to be paid for and perhaps may never be paid for. Nothing worth celebrating here. Even, the horoscopes sounded ominous. I found that in the aftermath of the event, I am to lose (what little) money I have left. I will struggle with finding employment (big surprise) and as a special icing on the cake, I will become fat(ter). There was also some talk about being struck down by deadly water-borne diseases. Yeh me.
So, even as I set my alarm clock for 5 am with a resolve to witness the 'Greatest Celestial Event of the 21st century', I remained only mildly enthused. I stayed awake & sleepless for hours and hours, thinking about my life and the direction it seemed to be taking, the things that I desperately wanted and the life lessons I urgently needed to learn (letting go).
At some point around 1am, my thoughts turned to the eclipse itself. I tried to recall the exact science of it as I had learned in JV Narlikar's massive library in Pune:
The solar system spans roughly a 100,000 AU (that's more football fields than my brain can comprehend). The Sun rotates at about 4500 miles/hour - that's fast. The Earth revolves around it at 107,000 km/hr. The Moon revolves around the earth at varying speeds and takes approximately 27 days to take one round.
For a Total Solar Eclipse (TSE) to occur, not only do these speeding objects have to perfectly align in a linear plane, they must also be tipped at the perfect angle on their axis AND be at the perfect distance from each other for the moon's shadow to perfectly cover the sun.
That's a huge motherfucking amount of perfection to take care of before you can have one successful TSE.
And then, it hit me. While the next one will only occur in 2132, the fact is - in the lifespan of the solar system, this seemingly impossible moment isn't as rare as one might think.
I lay there in bed, grinning, repeating the same thing again and again until I fell asleep - it happens, it happens, it happens.
I'd researched this damned eclipse 4 months ago...for a project I am yet to be paid for and perhaps may never be paid for. Nothing worth celebrating here. Even, the horoscopes sounded ominous. I found that in the aftermath of the event, I am to lose (what little) money I have left. I will struggle with finding employment (big surprise) and as a special icing on the cake, I will become fat(ter). There was also some talk about being struck down by deadly water-borne diseases. Yeh me.
So, even as I set my alarm clock for 5 am with a resolve to witness the 'Greatest Celestial Event of the 21st century', I remained only mildly enthused. I stayed awake & sleepless for hours and hours, thinking about my life and the direction it seemed to be taking, the things that I desperately wanted and the life lessons I urgently needed to learn (letting go).
At some point around 1am, my thoughts turned to the eclipse itself. I tried to recall the exact science of it as I had learned in JV Narlikar's massive library in Pune:
The solar system spans roughly a 100,000 AU (that's more football fields than my brain can comprehend). The Sun rotates at about 4500 miles/hour - that's fast. The Earth revolves around it at 107,000 km/hr. The Moon revolves around the earth at varying speeds and takes approximately 27 days to take one round.
For a Total Solar Eclipse (TSE) to occur, not only do these speeding objects have to perfectly align in a linear plane, they must also be tipped at the perfect angle on their axis AND be at the perfect distance from each other for the moon's shadow to perfectly cover the sun.
That's a huge motherfucking amount of perfection to take care of before you can have one successful TSE.
And then, it hit me. While the next one will only occur in 2132, the fact is - in the lifespan of the solar system, this seemingly impossible moment isn't as rare as one might think.
I lay there in bed, grinning, repeating the same thing again and again until I fell asleep - it happens, it happens, it happens.
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Falling Back
Today after many, many days I tried to handle a difficult emotional situation with a big ol' bowl of chocolate ice-cream, shovelling spoonful after spoonful, long after the body's signals had raised the red flags. Today after many, many days I felt the unnecessary substance churn in my gut, rebelling and resisting every effort of my recently-strengthened metabolism to neutralize it, to tame it.
But it wasn't to be. Out it came, hurling itself in undignified sludge as I kneeled in a most humiliating way, in supplication to the toilet bowl, knowing, knowing that I had once again returned to the poison.
For anyone who has relinquished control to something outside themselves and regained it back, a relapse, any relapse feels as bad as your lowest moment - that moment when you realised that this was no longer working. And as the days and months since then will have given you the false sense of your own super powers, you realise that this is a disease you will always grapple with.
Even after you've understood your own vulnerability.
Even after you've comprehended your own history.
Even after you've forgiven.
Even after you've surrendered to the unknown.
Even after you've proven yourself a million times over.
Or maybe even if you've only just realised how very angry and scared you really are.
There's no way to do it but to do it. And so we start again.
But it wasn't to be. Out it came, hurling itself in undignified sludge as I kneeled in a most humiliating way, in supplication to the toilet bowl, knowing, knowing that I had once again returned to the poison.
For anyone who has relinquished control to something outside themselves and regained it back, a relapse, any relapse feels as bad as your lowest moment - that moment when you realised that this was no longer working. And as the days and months since then will have given you the false sense of your own super powers, you realise that this is a disease you will always grapple with.
Even after you've understood your own vulnerability.
Even after you've comprehended your own history.
Even after you've forgiven.
Even after you've surrendered to the unknown.
Even after you've proven yourself a million times over.
Or maybe even if you've only just realised how very angry and scared you really are.
There's no way to do it but to do it. And so we start again.
Monday, July 20, 2009
Tashakhor
Isn't that a lovely word? Tashakhor. It means 'thank you' in farsi, I think. It makes me want to watch 'Kite Runner' a million times, it makes me want to take up Farsi classes. It makes me crave more words of its kind that skim as delicately, yet assertively, off my tongue. I do love this word.
متشکرم
متشکرم
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