Only when you're sad do you crave the once comforting sounds and voices of the past and the images which seem to hug you tight and never let go. Like a long lost friend or your very own soul mate. Together forever.
The warmth and the coziness of the late afternoon sun. The slowly receding warmth of the evening, sitting on the backyard stairs. Feeling the hair on the back of your hand rise up very slowly as a cool wind blows through the air which is thick and dense with the warmness and the love of the dying sunshine.
A bird sings here and there and you have no care in the world except to just stay there for as long as you can and as long as you like. Until something equally, if not more loved calls out for you. It was a time of not people, but feelings. Simple, pure feelings. Which had no twisted complications and gruesome mutations. The now tainted will of the girl was then straight and unassuming.
Watching the ants zoom past her big toe and each one of them following the other. The only lone one was her and she didn't want it any other way. Everything else seemed to have someone to be with. The trio of the cats lazing out on the stones, the couple of squirrels scurrying past each other, running around the old mango tree and playing hide n seek.
The rustle of the leaves from somewhere up above. A dead dry branch falling down through the branches and breaking into two coming down to the ground. I trying to find out if I can notice which one is missing and where exactly was it before. But I couldn't of course. A hollowed out mango falling down the next second, attacked and devoured by a red-beaked parrot which holidayed there up above every summer.
Even a peacock, once seen from the balcony, from somewhere or the other where peacocks live. And another peahen, white and grand. Always made me wonder why the males were so showy. I thought that happened only in animals. But then as it just turned out, hilariously, when I found out that was not the case at all.
Going back to simpler times..
It feels strange that I don't remember exactly what I used to think about all the time then. Like I think all the time now. But knowing exactly what was on my mind, then would've been precious to know about now. Facebook was not waving "What are you thinking about?" on me then. It just makes sense how super duper psychology is used in making networking websites turn you narcissistic and self-absorbed, to make it work for you. It's good though. Not all the time, but. This, sometime later, I guess.
There was a time when all thoughts went out to how the world looked to me and not the other way round.
When everything feels like it's going wrong, down the drain, tumbling down.. I try to catch at these fading memories, flying away from me like an important paper, a currency note or maybe a photograph I adore, cherish, can't live without. The wind is taking it away and it's strong. And just as I clutch at it, it drives it farther away.
But somehow I manage to catch that. Somehow. And I capture it and put it down right here where no one can take it away from me. Never. The golden sunshine on the roof, hungry crows gathering around the bread crumbs I put out for them. The sparrows sitting on the bird rest, rolling around in the inch high water pooled from the night before. The dark, cold nights spent out on the balcony thinking about nothing at all.
The least about the future and what will be in it. The questions were all about the world, not my life. Leaning against a tree, feeling the roughness of the bark against my arm, smelling smells from the day and the night. Walking on the iron pipe which led to the water tank. Feeling the coolness below my feet standing near it. And comparing it to the still mildly hot stone of the backyard.
All this and more, making me forget for a moment of what is the present and what of the future.
Things like the frayed end of the jeans, walking barefoot and letting it get more frayed, showing it off if I felt like. The walks on the gravelly path to the patio. Barefoot and dreamy. The feeling of dry grass under the feet. Or the moistness, the wetness and the ticklish feeling of little pebbles. Catching blades of grass between the toes and transporting it back to the non grassy areas. Trying to catch a high up branch or a lone flower hanging high high up, looking pretty and so unachievable. I gave up on it, I didn't want to have it. And so it is, now. It may be very easy to get it. I might get a chair to get the pretty flower on the high branch but I won't.
Just like that. It's just inherent now, not wanting what I can have easy.
An evening lies vivid in my mind, like it was yesterday. Or today evening, a few hours ago. I heard someone play the flute not far away. I loved it.. every little note. But I was not curious about who it was or if he/she would be here again. I did not venture out to see if it was really someone or maybe was I imagining things.
Sitting on the cement stairs leading into the house, with a glass of salty lemonade, picking up dry blades of grass scattered near the bottom stair. And then throwing them away. It hit me like love, like a breath of fresh air.. it was not sweet or sappy. It was just soul. Bringing forth music, for anyone it may reach to. Or even if it doesn't. It was just so full of feeling. And I believed feeling was all that was in the world. And nothing else.
Leaning against the handrails, smelling the iron. The paint. And the dust. Scratching out a dried drop of tar on it. And looking at the clean, smooth space left behind.
The ever changing colours of the sky and the shapes of the clouds. The colours, the smells and the sounds and voices. Everything that can be seen, felt and sensed. Heard and smelt. Everything which could be lived. Not just survived.
So it just rolled on to me, all of a sudden. When I feel too negative, it has to be taken to positive. Led by the hand and told to sit there. Until it gets too late and they're waiting for you to come have the dinner inside. To the busy dining room, with maybe the TV on and the day's happening being shared with much gusto. A dozen smells, all clashing into each other. And I would settle into this, forgetting all about the quietness and music of the other world.
I don't want to do that. This is much more than evening ruminations and dinner time.
I was going to the bad and I pushed myself to the good. Feelings can change feelings and nothing else. I wish, hope I hold on to the surrealism of life as it is and not give in to the normalcy of business, which people say life is.
But it is the world, for me, which I think about. And not my life. Is that such a bad thing. No, it's not a question. Not any more.
