If Only

If only…

If only I could view him merely for who he is devoid of my own baggage.

If only he could view me for what I am because of my baggage.

If only he could understand that when you keep yourself emotionally closeted for over 25 years, then even once the walls break down, it still takes years before you actually feel free. Like having a ghost limb.

If only we were not looking through such different looking glasses, his crystal clear with only black or white, mine murky in shades of grey.

But then when has life or love been that easy.

I love him for his simplicity. He is without any hidden agenda. But his simplicity makes it hard for him to accept my complexity. He doesn’t understand why I cannot think like a ‘we’. I want to. But I have been an ‘I’ for so long that I don’t know how to be a ‘we’. Talking it out before taking a decision is a couple thing to do. But when you have spent years having to have all discussions within the confines of your own head because its too risky to vocalize every thought, and then had to weigh every word before delivering it, and more importantly take every decision yourself because there was no one else to lean on – ‘discussing as a couple before deciding’ is almost counter-intuitive.

We have a lot to work on. And lucky for me, he’s willing to put in the work. We talk about it and work it out.

If only it were easy for me to really talk.

Written in response to the Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday “if.”

An elusive heaven

“Where the mind is without fear

and the head is held high

Where knowledge is free

Where the world has not been broken up

into fragments by narrow domestic walls…

Into that heaven of freedom, my Father

let my country awake.”

– Rabindranath Tagore

The above are a few lines from Rabindranath Tagore’s famous poem Gitanjali that were seared into my mind when I was a young girl. I guess I was at my Another brick in the Wall phase. The poem was written in the early 1900s when India was still under British rule. Naturally it was viewed as a chant for freedom. But Tagore was not just a freedom fighter, he was an intellectual. His goal was not just the freedom of the body, but freedom of the mind – freedom of the conscience and of expression. Most people miss that point.

Yesterday I was listening to a talk by one of the political satirists who I follow. While explaining what attracted him towards satire, he read a few articles written during the 70s and 80s, critical of the administration of the day. Ironically, most of those words apply just as well today. There are those who would say that while we have become more socially conscious, when it comes to political dogma, we may have even gotten worse.

Over a century later, we are still nowhere near Tagore’s Heaven of Freedom.

Written in response to this week’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday – where Linda gives us the word prompt “where”

Kingpin

Pincers – that’s what they should be called. Cause when they stick ’em into you it feels like a damn pin prick. Proboscis sounds like something that just probes. They aren’t just probing. They are sticking it in and sucking me out.

Ya, its mosquito season and thus the rant.

I tell you, they bring out the inner Dexter Morgan in me. That splatter of blood left behind after a kill – what a high. My… that was a good memory. That opening sequence is phenomenal.

Image: dexter.fandom.com

We’ve had a few showers. The weather has cooled down. Woohoo. The plants are lush green. There’s enough jasmine blooming in the garden for me to wear flowers in my hair.

Everything about the rains is wonderful. Except those indestructible blood suckers that it breeds.

Time to grab the mosquito bat and go into terminator mode. My electric bat versus the pincers. Who will emerge as the Kingpin?

Written in response to the Stream of Consciousness Saturday prompt, where the prompt word is “pin”

The Huntswoman’s Week

My week has been a mixed bag.

There’s been a little bit of adventure trying to furnish a very very compact apartment. After looking at several beds which were either too long or too bulky or the base material was too questionable, today I am going to meet someone who makes custom furniture in teak at a reasonable cost. I’m excited, but I am also a little apprehensive. Another challenge was finding a, you guessed it, small but good-looking porcelain wash basin. There are a lot of options in acrylic but we were not too crazy about that. The good brands it appears, do not sell small wash basins. I guess their logic is – if you can afford us, you can afford a bigger house!

Normally I do not like shopping. I tend to tune out after an hour. But here the challenge has kept me motivated and alert. O, and he who seeks shall find. I managed to find my little 12 by 15 inch wash basin yesterday. Something that will match the wooden countertop and beige walls. Let’s hope lady luck stays with me today also.

In my opinion this washbasin should work. What’s yours?

---

Written for the Stream of Consciousness Saturday prompt where we are asked to start with ‘my’ and end with ‘yours’.

Ode to an Ex

Today happens to be my soon to be ex’s birthday. It probably does not bode well that he was the first thought that came to my mind. But the undeniable fact is that he is an integral part of my life and my writing. The credit of my passage from innocence to skepticism, from naivety to wisdom and from dependence to self-reliance goes in a large part to him. So here goes nothing…

ODE TO AN EX

On this day when the calendar turns its page,

A legal note acts as a balm to my rage;

I think of you with strengthened spirit,

In you I do see much merit…

You taught me how to school my expression;

That I have the strength to fight depression,

That anger makes one talk like a fool,

Better strategies emerge from a mind that is cool.

On this day when the calendar turns its page

And I have the strength to break the bars on every cage,

To you I give thanks for making me strong

The strength to choose right from wrong.

Written in response to the Stream of Consciousness Saturday prompt “ode.”

Lucky No.28

What is luck?

I log into WordPress a day after signing my divorce papers and the Saturday Stream of Consciousness prompt that greets me is ‘Luck’. Is that some kind of a sign? Or sheer coincidence?

That I married a person who was wrong for me, was that bad luck, or sheer stupidity on my part? I clearly recall my hesitation before signing the wedding contract. That was the sign that I should have recognized. Pre-wedding jitters are normal, they had said. I bought it, because I was not confident enough to trust my own instincts. It takes 10 years to find balance in a marriage, was another advice. Well, it took me 10years to finally give up on mine, and another 15 years to acknowledge that I could not continue in this state of fugue.

So divorced after 28 years! Hmm… I guess that makes 28 my lucky number 🙂

At least, I was lucky that it is an amicable separation. Or is it that this time he saw the determination and confidence in my eyes?

sWEEt Nothings

This week’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday prompt is to use “wee” or words containing wee.

I’ll be honest… the first thing that came to mind was Wee Willy Winky.

It’s really bizarre but for some inexplicable reason I remember most of my nursery rhymes. Not even because they were reinforced when my son went to kindergarten, cause fortunately creepy rhymes like Wee Willy Winky are no longer taught, at least not commonly. Today’s woke parents are offended by potential stalkers and pedophiles being normalized to their kids.

The Weekly SOCS prompt – O how I love it. An opportunity to boldly go wherever your mind takes you. If I vocalized this stream, my kid would panic that mum has started to go senile.

I’m getting there I suppose – old age (not senility yet). Waking up in the wee hours of the morning has gone from answering a booty call to answering nature’s call. Going wee-wee (hah, threw in another wee word).

Incidentally with rising Covid numbers there is a looming threat of weekend lockdowns. Inevitable since people refuse to be sensible and practice proper social distancing or masking.

Well, I ween its time to end this ramble before my readers start weeping. Adios, and have a good weekend.

Keys

This week’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday prompt ‘the last photo you took’ asks us to write about what comes to mind when we look at the last photo that we took.

The last photo that I clicked was of a key.

Keys… Life gives us all these keys but leaves it to us to find their missing locks. Do we have the patience, the perseverance and the will to do what it takes to find that locked door and unlock it? Do we have the wisdom to know which door to unlock and which to leave locked? These little tests decide the story of our lives.

I had a lot of keys that I have been too unsure of myself to use. A lot of the times I have just walked through doors that someone else opened for me. Did I always take the right path? No. Did I always take the wrong path? In all fairness I have to reply in the negative to that too. Sure, had I taken all the decisions on my own, I might have taken many of them differently. I might have written myself a different story.

But I realise that I cannot move forward while I am looking back. I still hold some keys. I can still make choices. Age has taught me that I need to walk through some ‘wrong’ doors before I can get to the ‘right’ ones.

So here’s to using some more keys… and may the journey be interesting…   

People

This week’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday prompt requires us to use our “least favourite word”.

I don’t think that I have a least favourite word, but I certainly have a least favourite phrase – What will people say? That and its many variations like What will the family say / What will your in-laws say / What will the neighbours say / What will people think…

Why is what other people say or think more important that what is right or fair or what makes me happy? Most of my life has been spent hearing that irritating phrase, asking this very question, and receiving no satisfactory answer.

The worst part is that it has been so deeply ingrained in my psycho, that even today, when I am consciously making an effort to live by my principles and individual beliefs, I still hear myself hesitating and wondering – What will people say?

2019-2020 SoCS Badge by Shelley!

bIGHly

Stream of Consciousness Saturday prompt: word that contains ‘igh.’

While it may not be right, let me shed some light on my fight with my weight.

At my age, that’s all the number ‘igh’ words that I can remember.

I’m proud to say that I put the lockdown to good use in order to work out seriously. A regiment of aerobics in the morning and walking in the evening supported by the absence of restaurants yielded good results and I managed to lose quite a bit a weight. But then they started easing the lockdown. Food delivery started. My weight reduction plateaued. At least I was maintaining – I was content. Restaurants opened. Slowly my weight has started creeping up. It is so unfair. My constitution is my own worst enemy. My knees are my major monitors. A few more pounds and I know that they will start creaking out warnings. If only I could bring my heart and body to want the same thing.

Has anybody tried hypnotherapy for weight loss? I am seriously reading up on it.