iF... So...

Hers is a tough act to follow.  But I follow anyway.  Because I don't know any better.  Or perhaps, because I know better.  Than to sit down, curl up, give in.  "If she can do it, so can I", I tell myself.  And I often wonder, what drives me, what drives the people around me?  And the necessary corollary, what stops them?  What stops me?


If I can do it, so must I.
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MeLTDowNS

Meltdowns happen to remind us that we are fragile. That our soul needs a moment to heave and sigh and gather herself again. That life and love and laughter are not enough to carry us through. That there are many straws that break the camel's back.

Meltdowns happen to remind us of our humanity.

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dO NoTHinG

Sometimes the best thing we can do, is to not do anything.
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OveRHeArD

"Sometimes, you can talk a man off of a ledge; sometimes, a man's just got to jump."
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sNOwfLaKE

And I slowly discover, grief is like snowflakes, no two are alike.
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sO dEliRiuM

So dEliRiuM mourns
for the passing of friends known and unknown
So dEliRiuM weeps
for the night time terrors that haunt the sleep
So dEliRiuM sighs
for the mask and constant white lies

So dEliRiuM forgets
that she never forgets
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HiAtUS

For some inexplicable reason, the death of Amy Winehouse has unleashed a torrent of emotions in me. Now, I don't know Amy Winehouse personally, don't own any of her music, probably won't even recognise her songs if you played them to me. But to know of yet another young life vanquished by a tormented mind hurts me. It reminds me. It reminds me of people and places and emotions so raw they have no name.

It has been too long. Their stories need to be told too.
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i aCcEPt I fORgEt

Sometimes I think acceptance is just another form of forgetting.
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WeiRD

It is interesting to me, that there is a certain vanity I succumb to, even in death. When I was a teenager enamored with romanticism, I believed that drowning was the most beautiful way to die. I don’t know if I saw it on TV, or a painting, or read about it, but I have this very vivid mental imagery of a lady walking out into the sea, back facing me, dressed in white. And she walks deeper and deeper into the sea, while I look on. I know she is going to die the further she walks, but there is something so heartbreakingly beautiful about the scene that I don’t stop her.

Even before that, at a time when I was devouring all the Chinese classics on screen, it was in fashion to die of TB. It felt dignified, coughing up blood and laying down to rest for the last time. Ladies could cough discreetly, holding exquisitely embroidered handkerchiefs. This coincided with the time I was always coughing as a kid. I remember regular visits to the doctor, and endless bottles of horribly-artificially-flavored medicine. I also remember wondering if I had TB too and could die in this poignant way, in a garden with the cherry blossom petals all around me. Straight out of a scene from "Dream of the Red Chamber".

Yes, I was weird even as a kid.
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hOMe

Today, as I was stepping out of the shower, a vaguely familiar feeling hit me. I had experienced something similar many years ago, in a hotel room, also while I was stepping out of the shower. It was very momentary, flitting. I believe it is the feeling of being homesick.

Now, I rarely get homesick. I have been away from home often and long enough to develop a kind of callousness towards my physical location. Yet there is something about bathrooms that trigger a rather soulful mood in me. Not that there is anything exceptional about my bathroom at home. It is fitted with the usual toilet paraphernalia, and old enough that there isn’t a separate shower area. So it always takes me by surprise, to realize that the bathroom represents what I miss about home.

The bathroom is my safe haven. I have spilled secrets and tears in the bathroom. I have had brilliant flashes of ideas while in the bathroom. I have sung my heart out in the bathroom. The bathroom is my hiding place.

Enter at your own risk.
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PaiN

Pain (any pain - emotional, physical, mental) has a message. The information it has about our life can be remarkably specific, but it usually falls into one of two categories: "We would be more alive if we did more of this," and, "Life would be more lovely if we did less of that." Once we get the pain's message, and follow its advice, the pain goes away.

(Peter McWilliams)
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i THougHt I kNeW

What had always made math and science a little intimidating to me is that you either get it right, or you don’t. I remember feeling disadvantaged in math and science exams, because the answers are so clear-cut there is no way I can argue for my case, if any. 4 x 8 is always 32. Limewater always turns chalky when you introduce carbon dioxide to it. If you release a block of a certain weight down a plane of a certain incline, it will travel at a certain speed and come to rest at a certain distance. It was this certainty that defined math and science.

At least, that was how my world held up, until I learnt that nothing is certain in medical science. That many language disorders have no known cause. That etiology not specified is the norm and not the exception. That there isn’t always agreement on a cure. That there are as many treatment options as there are clinicians. That there is a lot more grey than there is black or white.

I am beginning to realize that perhaps growing older and wiser is not about knowing more or having more answers. Perhaps growing older and wiser is about not knowing, about having more questions than you have answers for.

I don’t know, do you?
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Of lIFe & DeAth

"As a well-spent day brings happy sleep, so life well used brings happy death."

(Leonardo da Vinci)
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