The finger on the wall began to move... and
still unsure, she smiled.
There’s
a time for waiting and a time for waking up
And
when it’s time to leave, it’s also time to make space for the new.
And when it’s time, you know it’s time, and nothing
happens before that.
I am done revolving my writing about being
single, it’s always been more than that for me. I’ve left a pic of myself up,
as a way of saying I was here, and it was fun.
I will be finding a different blog home, so
if anyone still wants to read my stuff, mail or message me through Datingish
and I’ll send you the new link. So long, and thanks for all the love!
When I say I don't mind dying today, people think I'm suicidal.When people hear one of my favourite books in the Bible is Ecclesiastes, they usually do a double-take. It is written by a king who identifies himself as The Philosopher, and people write off the book as "pessismism." This is how Ecclesiastes opens:
"It is useless, useless, said the Philosopher. Life is useless, all useless... Every river flows into the sea, but the sea is not yet full. The water returns to where the rivers began, and starts all over again.... Our eyes can never see enough to be satisfied; our ears can never hear enough. What has happened before will happen again. What has been done before will be done again."
It's actually a pretty famous book, though not many people may realise the source when they hear The Byrd's "Turn, Turn, Turn" or read T. S. Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock". This:
"He sets the time for birth and the time for death The time for planting and the time for pulling up, The time for killing and the time for healing, The time for tearing down and the time for building, He sets the time for sorrow and the time for joy, The time for mourning and the time for dancing, The time for making love and the time for not making love, The time for kissing and the time for not kissing, He sets the time for finding and the time for losing, The time for saving and the time for throwing away, The time for tearing and the time for mending, The time for silence and the time for talk. He sets the time for love and the time for hate, The time for war and the time for peace."
I have felt at times like this:
"Better off than those who are dead and gone are those who have never been born, who have never seen the injustice that goes on in this world."
And I laughed softly when I read this:
"Think before you speak, and don't make any rash promises to God. He is in heaven and you are on earth, so don;t say any more than you have to. The more you worry, the more you are likely to have bad dreams, and the more you talk, the more likely you are to say something foolish. So when you make a promise to God, keep it as quickly as possible... Don't let your words lead you into sin, so that you have to tell God's priest that you didn't mean it."
And yet, and yet, someone who ruled a kingdom powerfully, who saw shit and felt that living was like "chasing the wind" because it all seemed so pointless and going nowhere, said again and again as he touched bottom:
"No matter how much you dream, how much useless work you do, or how much you talk, you must still stand in awe of God."
It's crammed with some really wise, beautiful lines among all the yearning for a perfect world, a world in which life made sense to someone who sought to understand. All he says again and again is: enjoy your life, it's all you've got, and have reverence for it and for God.
I can't speak for the philosopher, but I hold the same thing as true. If you can see the world really, all of it, and still feel love, if you accept that "you can't put straight what God made crooked" and just enjoy every day of your life because it's all you have, you will really truly live, with your eyes and your heart open. I was ready to die at the age of 15, because I had done all I ever wanted to experience and I thought life would just be more of the same again and again. I was wrong. I still don't mind dying today, because I will still die with a thankful heart. Perhaps that's all I ever want to say about my life.
p.s. I posted a photo album "head in the clouds"- it's what made me stand in awe this morning.
“Tell me one of the love stories you heard
yesterday”
“No, they were
depressing”
“Come on, this is what happens in real
life, you should know what happens in real life”
“The same things don’t happen to everyone”
“But they’re stories, like books or movies,
and you watch them all the time”
“These haven’t reached their happy ending
so I don’t want to say it”
She thinks I’m not sharing on purpose so I
give up and decide to just say it without the drama
“This woman got married to this man who
lived abroad, arranged marriage, the guy had done an MS so the parents were
quite happy, he seemed decent. Six months passed and he hadn’t made the
arrangements for her to join him yet, visa problems he said. Her parents talked
to his and finally the girl’s parents decided to just send her abroad on their
own. When he received her at the airport he told her to sit in the backseat and
when they reached the house he asked her to sleep in another room. At first she
thought he had an affair or something was wrong with her, but she found out
that he was gay and he knew she had, so he cut all the phone lines in the house
and locked her up. Her parents hadn’t heard from her since the day she reached.
They could only get through his number but he kept saying she was in the shower
or having fun at the neighbours’ house. They got suspicious after this happened
a few times and finally they managed to find a relative who visited the house
and rescued the girl from there. Now she’s back home.”
“That’s what they say about boys who go
abroad, you’ve got to be careful.”
I know, I’ve heard too many stories. I
can’t club all emigrants in one category, and it’s possible to marry an idiot
anywhere in the world.
“Why did he cut all the phone lines?”
“Because he didn’t want anyone to know he
was gay.”
“Why did he ask her to sit in the
backseat?”
“Because he didn’t want her to be anywhere
near him. Pretty cruel.”
“Is it a characteristic of being gay?”
“No! Anyone could act like that. Gays are
just not accepted by a lot of people, it’s like being a minority group, so it’s
pretty hard, like you have to live undercover. I guess both thought they had to
get married. I have no idea what the girl is going through now. Really sad.”
“Are there more gays now than there used to
be? You didn’t hear these stories before.”
“They
were mentioned in ancient Greece, the Kamasutra talks about gay love, it’s just
a sexual orientation. It’s like women are coming out more now, gays are
finding their voice.”
She doesn’t notice the inversion, she’s
shifting perspectives. I love her for being so sheltered and really wanting to
understand. I know people who have been screwed over at the altar because
people just can’t let each other be, and it’s not fair to anyone. A friend was
going through arranged marriage proposals recently and we were talking about
chemistry and I remembered Sex and the City and how the girls would never
consider marrying anyone they hadn’t at leastkissed before. “I think that’s what you’re supposed to do when the parents
leave the prospective couple alone to talk.” (I was kidding) There is no right
way to find love. I really wish there weren’t so many restrictions on it.
I don't know what surprises me more, that people are strange or that I spent most of my life wondering if I was normal.
I just read an excerpt from an article a friend mailed me, about international tourists choosing Goa as a wedding destination:
Unlike Indian weddings that dutifully obey the prototype, the foreigner's wedding is singular. Lester says, "Some couples
arrive at the scene on bullock carts and elephants and some come by
boat. Some weddings are held on yachts, others on hill-tops... One groom found a singular way of
stealing the show from his wife-to-be. "He asked if we could arrange
for him to land at the spot by parachute!'' laughs Ranjan. "We checked
if he was insured, made him formally accept blame for any mishap, and
found him a parachute.'' The groom did make his grand entry, but the
trouble with a beach wedding is, you never know which way the wind
blows. He landed on a tree. Of course, the guests had a field day with
their cameras.
I remember English class, twelfth grade, and we were about to read the scene where the priest is about to propose to Elizabeth in Pride and Prejudice, and our teacher asked us to each say how we would propose to someone we loved. The coolest response was this guy, he said he'd take her on a rollercoaster ride, and right when they were about to drop off the top, he'd ask her, "Will you marry me?"
I remember some really bizarre moments, like last year when one of my friends, persistent in his pursuit of another of my friends, got thoroughly drunk and stood up in a pub and sang a Hindi song at the top of his lungs to her, gestures and all. I was caught between feeling for her, she was so embarrassed, and laughing my guts out. I never thought people actually did that, it's hilarious. Another whacked-out memory was back in twelfth grade again, when a friend's boyfriend I had never met (she had gone to live abroad a few years before) actually called me from another country to find out why she was breaking up with him. I was like in school, and I hadn't met her for years, and this guy on the phone was telling me that he'd found our home number on the government telephone exchange website (of all the things for our bureaucracy to get net-savvy about) and could we just talk, because he had washed a million dishes and had no one to spend the pocket-money on, and he'd remembered my name from some conversation he once had with her. I felt pretty bad for him, but again, so bizarre.
I have to run now, life's calling. To the people who feel bizarre all over the world, you are not alone.
i've been paddling around, it's been a crazy month for me. actually, it's pretty much been a crazy year.
Two birthdays define my professional career. One was my 23rd, I had to go for counselling practice and I met my first client who acted on a suicidal tendency. It was in a hospital set-up, the gloomy government kind, and although she opened up, her family got all fierce because they weren't sure they could trust someone who could go to the police with information that could get her jailed. That was pretty sad, but it was part of learning that you cannot take responsibility for people's lives, you can only offer to hold them with love.
The other one, the 25th, a few months back actually, I was in the middle of nowhere, visiting tribal villages with a great bunch of friends. It was crazy, my friends managed to get spicy chocolate doughnuts from somewhere the night before (totally gross, it's the kind of thing you eat when you want to test yourself) and decorated the hotel room with newspaper streamers, a real "journalist's birthday'". the actual day was insane, we walked 10 km (of which half was uphill) to meet a tribe but it was totally worth it. i heard some really crazy stories. and in the evening, the hotel actually had a bar so we had some wine.
maybe in another two years i'll be on the top of some volcano with a bunch of people discussing the meaning of life, i don't know... anything's possible, and i really like that.
Clarity Jones. A name that means I'm clear, and I could be anybody, the girl in the jeans and kurta walking down the road who smiled at you and you didn't wonder why. :)
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