it's january first as i write this post, couched up on the velvet at the Emison's in Medina -a patchy suburb, miles away from minneapolis. it's relatively warmer outside this evening -it's been terrible the past few days. i think i can smell the snow tonight -through the insulated window panes and burnished wood. there's a quaint glow brushing the waxy olive paint of the wall, a bizarre pattern of light scratching the uneven edges of the textured ceiling. seventy yards away from my couch, a string of christmas bulbs glisten in the darkness -golden, crimson, moss and turquoise. i've never really observed them before. they are beautiful.
it's funny how things change with the transition of a new year. needless to say, a digit adds to the lousy four numbers of the calendar, but it feels rather peculiarly odd. i don't know what happened yesterday, but i didn't send emails or cards to people who have mattered to me all my life. i even got down to clicking on the tab to send a greeting, but pressed the cross button instead. i've deleted a couple of contacts who i thought were important to my sanity. i've skipped over contact names on my cell phone -people who i used to keep constant tabs on once upon a time. these names are slipping away today, through my loosened grip of emotionality, and i sit and wonder why this is happening.
there's this passing muse today because i have tried to forget you all this while. i will confess, i have not succeeded. not even a tiny little bit like i wanted to. and then at the cabin, in the solitude and quiet, i've thought about you more and more -rapid fancies and outrageous desires compounding my thoughts. you remember those messages you used to send in the evenings, giving me plastic hopes and fake impressions of how much you really cared? what happened to those blank stares and uncoordinated smiles you would plaster on your face while crocheting by the fire place? really, was i that unimportant that you decided to play this little game? this little game of test and manipulation to question my patience? this little game of who wins in ignorance and sentimental mutilation? have you ever considered your selfishness? your jealousies? your intolerance? i agree you have a basis underlying your estimates -whatever the issue may have been, but have you ever asked me what i have thought? have you ever looked at the situation through my kaleidoscope?
fine. ignore me as much as you want to. i will reciprocate your ignorance: doesn't mean, i will forget you. you know, i've tried to do that over christmas and the new years. i thought i'd resolved to blanch your face into nonexistence, crumble your smiles into an outrageous puzzle of powder and mist, freeze your memories onto a palette of greasy pastel, but i think i have failed. in your last telephone conversation, remember how you curled your lips and pinched at my love, before we played blackgammon by the stairway? remember how you called me the fallible insomniac with your concrete rationale of perversion?
thank you for the love. that's what i wanted to say.
it's funny how things change with the transition of a new year. needless to say, a digit adds to the lousy four numbers of the calendar, but it feels rather peculiarly odd. i don't know what happened yesterday, but i didn't send emails or cards to people who have mattered to me all my life. i even got down to clicking on the tab to send a greeting, but pressed the cross button instead. i've deleted a couple of contacts who i thought were important to my sanity. i've skipped over contact names on my cell phone -people who i used to keep constant tabs on once upon a time. these names are slipping away today, through my loosened grip of emotionality, and i sit and wonder why this is happening.
there's this passing muse today because i have tried to forget you all this while. i will confess, i have not succeeded. not even a tiny little bit like i wanted to. and then at the cabin, in the solitude and quiet, i've thought about you more and more -rapid fancies and outrageous desires compounding my thoughts. you remember those messages you used to send in the evenings, giving me plastic hopes and fake impressions of how much you really cared? what happened to those blank stares and uncoordinated smiles you would plaster on your face while crocheting by the fire place? really, was i that unimportant that you decided to play this little game? this little game of test and manipulation to question my patience? this little game of who wins in ignorance and sentimental mutilation? have you ever considered your selfishness? your jealousies? your intolerance? i agree you have a basis underlying your estimates -whatever the issue may have been, but have you ever asked me what i have thought? have you ever looked at the situation through my kaleidoscope?
fine. ignore me as much as you want to. i will reciprocate your ignorance: doesn't mean, i will forget you. you know, i've tried to do that over christmas and the new years. i thought i'd resolved to blanch your face into nonexistence, crumble your smiles into an outrageous puzzle of powder and mist, freeze your memories onto a palette of greasy pastel, but i think i have failed. in your last telephone conversation, remember how you curled your lips and pinched at my love, before we played blackgammon by the stairway? remember how you called me the fallible insomniac with your concrete rationale of perversion?
thank you for the love. that's what i wanted to say.
4 comments:
There's a foreboding, admonishing emotion that's overcoming everything I feel as I read this post, and it is that sensation that's forbidding me from really feeling, as an objective reader, what one is to feel from it. I'm commenting because you asked me to: you asked me to think about it, and that puts me into a flurry of ugly thoughts. Because this is clearly a post directed to someone, and in writing my viewpoint on it, I feel like I'm insulting the beauty of it, crushing the passion behind it, critiquing the love underlining it. I wonder, sometimes: are we really anyone to critique odes dedicated to somebody? Shouldn't they, as the rightful, righteous recipients of it, be the mere candidates who have a say in adjudicating what feels right and what feels verbose?
But that's besides the point. What I truly and essentially wanted to say, in accord, was, that love is a conflicted and confusing emotion--one perhaps beyond all our deluded understandings of it. Maybe someday we'll figure it out, maybe we won't. And perhaps it's when we truly understand and recognize the pains and traumas of being our true, inner selves, will it be that we'll understand those we love or deem important enough to love, and that will be the fruit, and the root of really giving ourselves to those we'd like to.
It'll be a while before we get there, but who's to say that means we can't enjoy the journey?
you didn't HAVE to comment, i said you could if you wanted to.
i'm surprised how you actually feel the person concerned would refer to the self in a blog. it doesn't always work that way
I know I didn't have to, I didn't insinuate that, sir. I wouldn't have unless I really wanted to. All I said was that I felt a little... dirty throwing my comments on the post, because it's so obviously meant to be left untouched.
Also, I'm not sure I understand what 'the person concerned would refer to the self in a blog' means. I'm trying to re-read it every which way, but it's just not clicking in my head, and hence I don't quite get the rest of thy comment, either. Pray, do explain!
Turning over old leaves this new year, Tanmoy? You have ranted - something I've seldom (if ever) seen you indulge in - revealed the wounds in yourself.
Maybe we should talk of this a bit . . . next time we get online.
Take care my friend.
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