Autoimmune Flare/ Recovery/ Reading/ Writing Life
Mint
Unpacking Clouds, Inside Cafe, Catching the Ray
“These are my Confessions, and if in them I say nothing, it’s because I have nothing to say” —The Book of Disquiet, Fernando Pessoa
If my brain could publish every single word it churns, I will need a library.
Its incessant tumbling leaves me exhausted but all the invisible pages filled with my mind-talk completes me.
Often putting them back with ink seems overcooked, words losing its sting.
Feelings can leave you confused. On days I don’t know what to feel or wonder if it is enough. It’s like plucking a new white hair and putting it under the light to scrutinize how white it is.
It’s all in the mind believing an intense scrutiny can make white more white, in an otherwise world of fading.
I leave it that.
Thoughts though, follow a track growing and spreading like strong barks with dangling roots, sometimes washed in the moving water, often flowing with the breeze.
It never finds earth for my mind has no country.
Some days my mind is a motel by the highway from where my thoughts vroom past side-picking at the flickering neon signage.
There is something romantic about a flashing neon and the backdrop of a falling night.
Sprawling acres of think-field meandering towards infinity, sky a montage to an opacarophile-ic vision.
There is a deep pain to exist in your world of imagination because it doesn’t know where to end.
Your belly churns and your mind hurts. Satiation always a touch away.
You force the light out of your sight and reality pushes the door.
A different pain arrives.
My voracious hunger to get lost scares me. Strangles my mind. Numbs my brain.
It is not the fear of getting lost but the act of coming back to the same old reality that leaves me corroded.
Then there are days I want to grow over my envelope of unconditionality, the source of my security and confidence and roll down the hill just to feel what it’s like to fall with a thud, with a few bones broken and no one to pick me up.
My juvenilely adventure-seeking-inside-world sprouting more than I can take.
For solitude is my need not a situation. It’s a struggle to reach ,sometimes forcing through my inner clutter.
What distinguishes us from a machine is our un-uniform edges, unique when understood.
The wabi-sabi moody whimsical pieces pieced to peace.
You know in this life bad-hair-days-are-given yet on some days your lacklustre, non-shiny, un-haloed head kills you, it takes the shape of a leopard operating in sharp stealth to catch his prey.
Ferocity of undoing pounce.
What do you do when you want to do what you can’t — minding your brain is the challenge you wish you didn’t have.
But by now you know, parking your mind at that juncture of unrest marks the genesis of a scribe.
The storm is here….can the rain and some cool breeze be far behind?!
My soul is a hidden orchestra; I know not what instruments, what fiddlestrings and harps, drums and tamboura I sound and clash inside myself. All I hear is the symphony.”― Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet
The Sun slashed through the curtain of Air and smiled. Rains parted.
Like weighty velvet red curtains, sheets of shower removed to reveal the stage.
My mind moved with Rain wondering if she eloped with Air.
Where did they go….to another world…..good for them.
Maybe,
Hand in hand, clearing layers of clouds like peeling cobwebs filtering light from old corners, they have reached their dream abode.
That home, sun-kissed and windy always resides in spring.
Where Rain can always fall at will to be swept away by Air.
The sight of spring sun on Rain creating bursts of colours that break the sky in hued patterns.
She bathes in the shower of fulfillment.
A garden of bliss surrounds the periphery. A small bubbling brook flows near by.
The gurgling at dawn is alarm to lazy birds.
When night falls the house floats in the vast blue of unending quiet.
The melody of silence a fodder to her solitude-hunting mind.
The kitchen overlooks a herb garden.
Coriander, mint, parsley, celery — the concoction oh! a hint of heaven.
From where Rain bends through the window to pluck a few mint leaves, freshly smelling, mint-y kitchen echoing her mood.
The grill smoulders the organic veggies as she tosses them over, mint infused smoke filling her senses, the lingering taste of yearning occupying her soul, the burnt lining adding to the flavour.
The table is neatly set with china and hand stitched napkins, handmade fineries helming every corner infusing a touch of intimate.
She opens the window, her eyes fishing array of shining stars and the quivering shadows the running water holds.
Air smelling fresh walks in, giving Rain a smile that melts.
She takes a w-i-d-e puff. It’s time to breathe.
I feel as if I’m always on the verge of waking up.”― Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet
Water from the changed faucet roared and touched the sink base, like a Himalayan glacier rolling down the rocks to the call of gravity. I hardly stand on my sore knees and stiff back to wash my Instamart bunch of mint, already stale at the edges, my kitchen’s cerebral cortex showing no spike.
There are hours where my thoughts lead me to the splendour of a lotus pond, envisioning Monet applying his final impressionist brush, scissored shark-ly through, leaving me with the dull, lifeless smell of those store- bought mint. Like reality, with only form and no crease.
The sink stinks stale.
I hold my breath.
I’d woken up early, and I took a long time getting ready to exist.”― Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet
Reading: I am not a student of psychology and take the liberty of wielding the weird without bothering if it matches with any theory I read in class.
Sometimes not encased by learned knowledge helps to expand mind.
Over the years I am writing, exploring my inner world has become my favourite sport and delivering those on paper my ultimate pleasure.
But every time I am halted or left with self doubt on my process, my confusions are greatly alleviated by books my hands find.
And this time it is Book of Disquiet by Fernando Pessoa ( 188–1935)
A Portuguese poet/writer who wrote under various heteronyms, wrote them all in his secret diary, which was traced, published and slated as one of the greatest piece of writing from the twentieth century literary coffer, fifty years after he passed away.
Book reviewer Aaron Gertler in his article ‘A futile attempt to Review The Book of Disquiet says,”Reviewing this book is like trying to make up a new language in the middle of a conversation. It would seem that, for any common definition of “hate”, The Book of Disquiet is almost impossible to hate. And that seems right. Can you hate the air you breathe? Can you hate the ground on which you walk? Can you hate sleep?
The conversations don’t let you really connect to anyone, but they give you something to think and write about.”
P.S.-How do you take your inner world in your palms, hold bend or Crush it?!
I have not read any book which resembles the shape of my mind as this one has.
I have found meaning in gibberish and know why I should pen down mine too — maybe to be found out one day by an identical ‘wierdo’ to feel peace inside.
Fingers crossed.
I have not felt words with such precision like I felt in the quotes I chose today.
They are ummm….just perfect.
The photo I used to create this above art is given below. This is to answer my good friend Yana Bostongirl:
It’s officially monsoon in my part of the world and its drizzling as I work on my draft.
So thought of sharing a rain number as today’s music and here’s a soaking composition titled Rain, by my new favourite band Simply Three.
This is to my renewed love for Cello, Enjoy:)
