Yesterday

I was split open emotionally at work last evening. I was ploughing through reams of research and expert feedback on a trending topic in economics and finance and I was 4 hours past my deadline. I kept staring at the screen as the panic slow and steady shot up my spine and lodged in my brain. I slammed the desk, wrung my hands and clasped them into a tight ball. Hot tears welled up behind my eyelids squeezed shut, smarting from frustration. 

After muttering an incoherent rant, I shot up from my chair and walked away with my phone securely in my hand, head down staring at the screen pretending to message someone. I hit the side stairwell and climbed up to the top floor where no one goes and sat down on the topmost stair. Emerging from a frigid interior, I note in relief that the air up here is warmer. 

For half an hour, I did nothing but take deep measured breaths to steady my raw nerves. I then stared at the wall for another fifteen, until my mind relented and left me alone to recover. 

All in a day's work for me as writer. I'm wondering if more seasoned writers ever feel this way. When I read established writers' online or in print, I envy how well their story flows, how effortless their language constructs and how succinct their points are in writing; yet when they communicate so much more is conveyed through a single sentence. 

Don't get me wrong, my research, ground work and ability to chase known and unknown sources are spot on. In fact, I'll go as far as to say that I'm pretty good. I'm not very good with compliments and I've never really given myself credit where it's due - but this I will admit, because honestly, its a skill I worked hard to hone. 

But I digress. It's the constructing that I peak and trough with. The troughs, oh, how they smart! How do I explain the sheer agony of having all the information I need but not being able to draw out its essence in superbly fashioned paragraphs. 

On some days, its perfect. Literally. I see sentences map out in front of me even before I type them. Each one linking beautifully to the next until the perfect finish. On a day like that, the high trumps all else. You almost feel like you could accomplish anything, and still have time for a long drive afterward. 

I want that feeling everyday. Everyday! To be able to put a story together in the syntax and flourish of those writers whose words I greedily devour. At times I loathe my vocabulary and on occasion I marvel at the way my turn of phrase, quick wit and clever puns. I smile indulgently when I pack a punch. It's so addictive. 

Yet that next hit can be a torturous lover, who scorns you for fun and remains hidden deliberately, playing silly games as you thrash about in the dark playing in protest but playing - pitifully - anyway. 

I question myself as a writer everyday. For above me so many do better and below me so many have unbridled passion. It isn't uncommon to feel like a pretender even when in your heart you've swum oceans, and sacrificed equilibrium to dance with words.

I hold court, she says. So easily, flippantly even. Almost jealous. Good people can be too. I don't grudge her subtle mocking, for I can see there are aspects of me she'd rather have herself. Funnily enough, her stature is hard won, but not natural. She knows this. Yet, I will not belittle what she has accomplished. 

I have a talent, this much I know. An unwieldy power that I'm able to grasp when it lies sleeping with one eye open. When it awakes it's cyclonic temperament puts me in tailspin. My stubborn and gutsy countenance forbids that I let go even when it thrashes wildly. It's at this moment I look around me in despair, hoping against hope that a godsend force helps me tame it - this power - this talent. I wish to master it. 

It lets me guide it under false pretext. Why can't we be friends? Is it the place, the time, the space, the air conditioning? 

How do I smoke the peace pipe with you? Won't you sit awhile and talk? Won't you have a hot beverage with me? Won't you let me in?

It's time. 

Die inside.

I was leaning into her car, when she told me. After a weighted pause, I was told that a person I knew had committed suicide. At first, it was quite difficult to take in. She didn't appear the kind. To commit suicide. She seemed so sure of herself. At times cocky, to the untrained eye. However, it would be silly to discount how she wore her chinks. There is no mistaking the vulnerability.

When I knew this woman, she was spearheading efforts to produce a play in which I was cast. It was a good project, it had all the trimmings for one hell of a reunion, if you know what I mean. In short, I really enjoyed my time working on this. I made a couple of friends, met up with others who weren't half as bad to hang out with while I lived (and loved) in this particular city.

She and I never really got on famously; the project however, threw us together and we were quite friendly and tolerant of each other. She was well loved by most of the group. Most of them were her friends. Others, weren't. I was part of the others.

The reason why I mention this is because, it is important to consider this as part of this post. It helps me explain, how I was able to look at her without the rose-tinted glasses and without the several layers we tend to draw as a buddy, lover, relation, friend or wannabe.

It helped me get there faster. I didn't need lifting, you see.

Most of the time, behind her smile - lay this fragile frame of energy. It was almost as if she was drawing all that she could from her source to hold herself together. As a result, her mood swings were excessive. Holding it together must have really taken a toll on her on most days.

The drink sessions or the get-togethers after practice on some days, was an escape. Indulgent and rewarding to her. Balm like. During practice, we would have breaks, and I would see her gnawing at her finger-nails and nodding excessively as the director and production team briefed her on what was going on.

Sometimes, she would walk over to some of us and display paternalistic emotion, asking us if we were doing okay and if we were pumped. I wanted to ask her the same thing, I never really did though...I was scared she's collapse into a heap if I did.

Everyone was going on about how strong she was, how organised, how adept and how she was the only one holding it all together for the project. Self-serving? Maybe, but I also believe that they believed it when they said it. Either they didn't want to deal with what they saw or they didn't see it at all.

She hung herself on the eve of February 14. After a night of partying and a fight with her partner / husband. 20 minutes. He stepped out to buy cigarettes and calm down. She locked her self in and got it over with. She left no note.


In one of my earlier posts, I've indirectly (or directly) blogged about suicide. A self-reflection piece. Yes, I had a lot on my mind. And yes, I have thought about it. Several times. Have I tried to take my own life? No. Maybe, just maybe, I'm chicken. I'm working on a more refined response, but this is what I have so far.

I believe for the next few weeks, the friends and friends of friends must have sat up in shock and tried to play back the hours that led to this catastrophe. Till date, no one I know has come back with an explanation. The last I heard, they say her husband was put behind bars, as a murder suspect. Her family thinks he's responsible. Well, if that's anything to go by he's fucked, for awhile at least.

When I thought about it (suicide that is), I've often considered the inconvenience it would cause others. The messy business of walking the thin red line between what went wrong and what one didn't see and saving one's own ass; since this is an unnatural death, of course.

I've thought about loved ones going in for questioning, dealing with the body, the hunt for personal effects. The hiding of or playing down of the suicide by a landlord, especially when it comes to finding another tenant. If it's your own house, it's the case of the messy memories and scared younger generation, who will never consider sleeping in the room until their over 30 and sufficiently skilled in the whole concept of being balanced when it comes to negotiating childhood fears and family legend.

I think of the funeral and the curious gazes from people who only come to watch the survivors of the family break down piece by piece. And then proceed to eavesdrop on close family and see if they can piece a good enough story to spread out and quench THAT thirst which is never slaked. I think of the wake, the ground, the rotting. I think of how everyone will move on. Most without a scratch. Others with a reality check. And a precious few with their vitals performing below optimal.

What drove her to do it? What was it that snapped?

Was it reason? Was it meaning? Was it feeling?

What does it feel like when your brain shuts down and you're a countdown to self-destruction? Literally.

How do you fashion a knot that won't give through all that rushed and insane breathing? How do you manage it in time? Do you have an adrenaline rush, when you're trying to do this before someone can save you? Do you have the satisfaction of watching them crumble when they find you, eventually?

Was it fear of failure? Dissatisfaction? Lack of purpose? Was it revenge, served cold? Were you tired? Did it not matter any more? Any of it?

I think as lives extinguish around us. We'll never truly learn the answer to our questions. Everyone has a reason, valid enough for their misery or happiness. When you can't look misery in the eye because it's too ugly, you'll never truly accept who you really are. Cause we all want to be beautiful, the illusion of perfection is such an intravenous addiction.

Being happy is necessary. No doubt. But it's learning to be sad that we need to master. Irrevocably so, and once we have, we must own it. Own it like it's your own. Not someone else's. Feel it, let it wrangle with you, shake your bones and flood your system. Clench hard, focus and coil into a big ball. Die inside. Rising from the ashes is the easy part.

Die outside. And you won't.


Rise.

When the penny drops. It isn't always nice.

A few months ago, I tried to get back in touch with a friend. We had met through work and through the rough patches (I assure you there were many at this particular place) we seemed to always end up seeing a big patch of light at the end of it. In short, I enjoyed her company and she mine.

We parted from daily exchange after we both left the company. Distance as the realists will have it, does not make the heart grow fonder. Over the next year we moved on an even orbit, not meeting, yet knowing where each other was and how each of us was carrying on.

We met, a couple of times, and on other occasions we would catch up on the phone. Over that year, I realised that it was the very first time, I missed someone from any place I've ever worked. Genuinely. That emotion, was the catalyst for me thinking up the possibility of a sustained friendship.

Sadly, a few months ago, the penny dropped. It was not her intention to carry on a friendship. In her eyes, I no longer held that lustre. Also, she had bigger fish to swim with now. Also, we both don't really speak the same language effortlessly.

It hurt to think that out of the few people I do really tend to genuinely some really nice ones do a turn coat. Sad, because their excuses are valid and yet so lame at the same time. They're almost relieved that they are busy and don't have to beat about the bush to say it. But I think to myself, if I mattered. Really mattered to you, you'd make an effort. Like I did. Like I dud, rather.

So...plink. The penny has dropped.

C'était génial. Adieu, ma chérie. Peut-être que vous regarderez en arrière et se demander «et si» ... et puis je vais dire ... "Nous ne saurons jamais maintenant, allons-nous?"

Groping for an A-ha.

I think we're all looking for something to believe in. Deep enough that we make it through to another day - looking forward to it.

When we eagerly stare at another and are taken in by their sense of content, we aren't necessarily hating (although there are parts of us that would like to...hate), but sensing something that there is something being believed in.

Is that why chefs wake up to a tumultuous day at their restaurant and loves every minute of it? Is that why audition lines string across the street and around the corner? Could it be the reason for nine year novels in the making and lonely hours spent in space?

Why do we do the things we do?

What is it that compels us so much?

Does it matter to anyone else past a certain degree of obvious? Personally, the feeling is, it doesn't (matter to anyone past a certain degree of obvious). So what makes you or him or her do it?

What I've heard from the handful of people I've seen in this state of zen is, "I couldn't fathom doing anything else, this is what makes me happy."

Okay, but why?

"It matters..."

What does?

"I do, what I do matters, what it does for me matters, what it does for others...I don't know, it's quite obvious to me and therefore I cannot do anything else."

Okay...


Almost all of the time, I find myself almost willing that epiphany to come to life. forcing it out of incubation or thrusting my hand into a sac of nothing and groping for an a-ha.

Bursts and spurts, bursts and spurts. People and reason. Situations and places. Silence and noise. Sullen and joyous.

People. Situations. Silence. Sullen.

reason. places. noise. joyous.

Patterns out of nowhere. Faces on the bathroom tiles. Messages in condensation. Signs leading nowhere.

Scanning: pages, faces, posts, emotions, conversation, noise, colours, textures, food, liquid, pieces, juice, waves, slippers, feet, hands, fingers, ring, nails, brow, mouth, tongue, chin, neck...

Heart.

I think it starts here.

My expectations from life have been debilitating to say the least. I often out-expect everyone out of the park and end up sitting on a bench all alone wondering why it is quiet and lonesome.

It isn't what but why?

If it isn't the battle against meaningless or the rage against the mundane, I am otherwise consumed with thoughts that have little or no meaning in the cosmos. Except for the odd principle and code, the others are wisps in grey smoke, which I replenish when it is about to disappear.

I upset someone very dear today. It's the smoke! I promise you.
I am addicted to its acrid smell and its foggy countenance. It shielded me from so much; and now I have run out of reasons to envelope myself.

What is down to a few clouds will become mere shadows. All I ask for is understanding and you.

Insight

Over the past couple of months or so; I've had the opportunity to discuss several aspects of self-evolution with a good friend.

'Work-in-progress' may sound very intelligent, but to be honest it doesn't even begin to scratch the surface.

But that's what we are - work.in.progress.

It all began over a buffet lunch; when the jokes made way for serious banter and I found myself wallowing deep in what we call self-induced mull. My friend being a total sport joined in enthusiastically.

So while one group cracked up on the live entertainment and stuff memories are made of. She and I started sharing our personal anecdotes directly inspired from a book we're both reading (A New Earth).

Don't be fooled by it's OTT promise; the text is extremely heavy with what one can only begin to describe as 'prepared and peppered with extreme know-how'. So much so that the premise is simple - either you're ready or you're not. There's no in between.

A key point from our discussion is how every single act or reaction in our lives draws deeply from roots we almost always overlook or take for granted. Some of the stuff we always think we were too young to handle permeate through to adulthood for example.

It was quite a revelation when during a phone call recently the point was further broken down for me; when she asked me a rhetoric. Do you feel as if there are certain people or situations that seem to repeat itself constantly in your life? I had to agree there were. Definitely.

You keep meeting these people in your life; and you think you know them from somewhere or they remind of someone. You wouldn't have met this person your whole life, but the feeling or situations that come attached seem so familiar.

Unresolved in your mind. Unresolved in your present.

I guess letting go is easier said that done. I mean where would one start for example? Where would I even begin to unravel those very thoughts that now confound me when I need to make a choice, decision or even a step.

Most of go through life basing so much on a random event, occurrence or thought. Sometimes it becomes the very foundation of what we build our lives on. How many of us are paralysed by a fear, supposition or opinion or idea.

We're consumed by its familiarity, thrive in its warm softness and then can't seem to dip our toes into anything remotely different.

We blame our random event, we blame it till the cows home. We identify ourselves with it, we live it everyday, we colour our decisions with it. We wallow in it. We draw boundaries with it. for ourselves.

In my own little cosmos, I'd ideally like to stop the repeating waves of debilitating .

Let's just say off late I've been feeling two things; confusion and over a few events; nothing to drastic but nevertheless, enough to keep me 'knit-browed'. The second being disappointment; the realisation of a few universal truths (much like Murphy's law) has not been really kind in it revelation.

So in this particular stew I languish, slurping up every possible wave of gravy that accosts me. Smacking it down wondering anyone will throw me a bread stick so I can get outta here and to something.

Apoall pinne kanaam. Salut.