The Non-Facebook Post #122

'Yun to akela bhi askar gir ke sambhal sakta hun main,
Tum jo pakad lo haath mera, duniya badal sakta hun main...'

'Tera nazaara milaa, roshan sitaara mila,
Taqdeer ki kashtiyon ko kinaara mila...'

The Non-Facebook Post #121

There once was:

Friday, 1 May 2015

The Non-Facebook Post #79

" On soft Spring nights I'll stand in the yard under the stars - Something good will come out of all things yet - And it will be golden and eternal just like that - There's no need to say another word." - Jack Kerouac

We'll walk the warm Spring nights, under an inky black sky, under the stars. And it will be you and I, in a dream. Through a  grassy, rocky meadow enveloped in a delicious darkness. A darkness that needs no words, because a touch is all that's needed. And this will be goodness, golden and etetnal. You and I. In a dream.

Thank God for Kerouac!

"Writing has given me a space to express my innocence. No other world has any use for it." - Natasha Badhwar.

Thank God for Badhwar!

And now there also is:

We'll gaze out, on warm Summer nights, across the valley with flickering city lights,  at the peaks of mountains far in the distance rising majestically and fading in a twilit shimmer.  And it will, once again, be you and I. Gazing softly into the calm evening. And it will be goodness, golden and eternal. You and I. In yet another dream. 

The Non-Facebook Post #121

There once was:

Friday, 1 May 2015

The Non-Facebook Post #79

" On soft Spring nights I'll stand in the yard under the stars - Something good will come out of all things yet - And it will be golden and eternal just like that - There's no need to say another word." - Jack Kerouac

We'll walk the warm Spring nights, under an inky black sky, under the stars. And it will be you and I, in a dream. Through a  grassy, rocky meadow enveloped in a delicious darkness. A darkness that needs no words, because a touch is all that's needed. And this will be goodness, golden and etetnal. You and I. In a dream.

Thank God for Kerouac!

"Writing has given me a space to express my innocence. No other world has any use for it." - Natasha Badhwar.

Thank God for Badhwar!

And now there also is:

We'll gaze out, on warm Summer nights, across the valley with flickering city lights,  at the peaks of mountains far in the distance rising majestically and fading in a twilit shimmer.  And it will, once again, be you and I. Gazing softly into the calm evening. And it will be goodness, golden and eternal. You and I. In yet another dream. 

The Non-Facebook Post #120

I need to write. I need to write when the cacophony of my thoughts whirring about in my head gets deafening. I need to write when the Creative Genius (ala Elizabeth Gilbert's talk) swoops in on me for a fleeting visit. I need to write when I need to think straight - to organize my thoughts, line them up and consider each turn by turn.

It's not you, it's Murphy - you only begin seeing the value of stuff when you no longer have it or have access to it. Back in the day, walking to the grocery lady's corner outdoor stall, walking to the bus stop to hop onto a bus that could connect you to practically any urban location in the city, walking to the neighbour's home were all precisely what I didn't want. It was a yearning for car ownership and driving abilities.
Now, I would happily give up car ownership to be in a place that afforded mass-transit connectivity.

That's just one of the realizing-I-wanted-it-after-I-lost-it instances. There are so many more - things, places, people. I forget half of them until life reminds me of one of them. There are also those that are too personal and too hurtful to willingly want to remember.

I haven't written in a very long time. It takes inspiration to want to write. It also takes courage to want to write and bare once more the soul behind your person. And to accept the dichotomy that you're writing for yourself as well as for another to read. It's meditation and performance all at the same time.

There. It all comes down to Rilke's 'living in the questions' but also some Zen 'living in the now.'

Like Kerouac always guides me, "if you don't say what you want, what is the sense of writing?" I've said all I want, for now.

The Non-Facebook Post #119

The answer to a question that's been trying to take form in my head:
"Humanity needs dreams to be able to survive the miseries of daily existence, even if only for an instant." (Niemeyer)

And, the question?

Well, it was clear in my head at eleven last night when I had a 'writing emergency' (a spin on 'poem emergency' that the 9-yr old oft mentioned in these posts invented). To be able to get enough sleep to get to work this morning, I hushed the question. Now, it's gone - like a well-defined shape Gandalf might have puffed out as he sat smoking that's in a hurry to dissolve into nothingness.

Key ideas from that question linger though. A young, hopeful, naive me saw my dreams shining in glowing sunset clouds from the 'terrace' of 'home' every evening with my cup of chai and biscuits. I guess I thought time stretched on forever, frozen.

Here's my motto as it was stuck to my grad school folder:

Now, there's a new jaded realization that's trying to take hold in my head - dreams and their finitude.

Do we factor in time when we dream? Probably not. Dreams are about what can be. There's an inherent intangibility in them.
What happens when it's too late? You are close to achieving those dreams - halfway there - but the context within which you envisioned those dreams reaching fruition is not the same.

More questions.

It is difficult to "have patience with all that remains unsolved in your heart", Rilke.

The Non-Facebook Post #118

"Write about things that make you cry." - Badhwar

Writing is my heart center. It connects me to me, like exercise and yoga.

Some days the words come out all wrong. A mass of jumbled mess like the muddled thinking that's producing them. "Think clearly to communicate clearly", says one of my favourite professors. Those are the kind of words, and phrases, and thoughts you'd like to erase, unwrite, unthink. 
Other days, the words come as easily as pearls on a string slide smoothly. These are the sentences, ideas, records of memory that time-stamp a portion of your life, that you like revisiting - to reacquaint yourself with the person you were then. 

Kerouac, you're still guiding me - "if you don't say what you want, what is the sense of writing?"

Yes, let's say, but with an "ask". Because isn't it good to ask? To question? 
Why do we question, though? To get an answer? Or to have our notion of an answer validated by framing the question so?
Are answers important? Can a discourse be entirely composed of questions? Can a question be answered with a question? 
Where do you want the questions to lead you? Do you want them to lead you somewhere?

But here's more meandering in the field of my thoughts. Because that's what I like doing best.

 A foggy memory surfaces to mind. As a child, rolling about on my bed one evening, I turned and lay on my back to stare at the ceiling to dream up  questions and fire the volley of them at my Dad. That felt like the right and important thing to do - to ask and ask and ask him questions. My Dad sat beside me and patiently answered every question I had for him. From all the questions I asked, the only one I remember now is, "why is the colour of the sky blue?" After I had exhausted myself or had found a distraction (TV, I guess), I did what kids do best - got up and ran away. And Dad did what Dads do best - went back to working on the task he had stopped midway for me.  

The Non-Facebook Post #117

There was once - 

'Yesssssssssss - that prolonged expression of accomplishment when you manage to drive in snow!

Nooooooooooo - that long shriek of dismay when you discover you lost one from the pair of your warmest North Face gloves on one of the coldest days of the year.
Yeah, yin and yang much.'

Now there is -

Sighhhhhhhhhh – that long release of exasperated breath when you and your GPS take about two hours to reach a one-mile destination. Well, at least it's a one-in-a-million feat!

"Continue on Alley."

"Which Alley, Precious?!"