Let Me Just Brush that Dust off Your Back
My Adventures in Back-Stabbing
I dump my suitcase and survey the scene. Like every errant school kid, cheating lover and beauty-salon changer, I am back where I started, only, now, with a mess on my hands. I square my shoulders to face hell, but simply can’t fight the tide of honest happiness flooding me. It feels so good to be back! I am welcome in this familiar land, and bet nothing can go wrong on this beautiful day.
Hello Bloggy, I am back!
Blog shrugs me off and continues to file its nails.
I know you’re mad. But…
Blog is doing a marvellous job at the cold shoulder.
That’s true, I haven’t been paying much attention to you, but you see I got a new job and…
Yes, I know. That’s no excuse, I do have my priorities straight…now…yes, FINALLY…
No, no-one and nothing is as important as you. I love writing here. Really.
And I say the magic words…
I love you.
Blog looks at me, its snowy depths speaking volumes. I gaze at the lovely streamlined titles perched atop glossy pictures, the perfect font, the easy-to-use tabs and fresh waves of relief wash over me. I am home.
Please.
Blog allows itself a little smile and throws its arms open. I put up a new post! I am now irrevocably out of the block and back home! I begin tinkering with my page, editing profile, adding tags to unmoored posts floating in www-darkness, fast and efficient, humming as I chop and trim. Blog narrows its eyes in suspicion at all these sudden, decisively-made changes. Uh-oh. Gotta cover.
I have a lot of new ideas, I missed you. You look better now, don’t you?
Blog is not convinced, it folds its arms and looks at me, staring into very my soul. I shift in my seat uncomfortably. Blog knows me too well. Damn.
Oh, where are all these ideas coming from suddenly? I let out a nonchalant little laugh. Nowhere, really. Well, actually my left elbow, haha, I just think these changes look good.
What have I been up to...? Well, work, that’s it, work and books and all, the usual. Friends. That’s all.
Blog just Looks at me, and I feel guilt cut a little tear in my heart.
But I smile brightly. Blog continues to stare quietly. I feel the guilt heaving up in my chest, the need to just confess. So I smile even more brightly, pressing a lid down on the fear bubbling up inside me. I can hear it whooshing in my ears, pounding in my brain. And suddenly I feel breathless, bitter, twisted, nauseated…
Blog looks concerned. And I can’t do this. Blog was my beginning, it deserves to know the truth. More so, I need to tell the truth. So, I do…
And well, I experimented.
Blog widens its eyes in horror. Oh no, how could I have done this? But now I have started and nothing can stop me, I am throwing up, purging myself of guilt. Bloggy, I will hurt you and you will absolve me.
I started another blog! On Wordpress!
I have said it. The words fall like sand on a grave. Final. Blog is silent, it just looks at me like it is seeing me with new eyes, analysing my every word, tense, distant.
It didn’t mean anything! Really, I just felt like I needed to see what was out there...I was restless, struggling with writer’s block, Wordpress was new, I was anonymous, it all went to my head…
Blog is inching away from me.
It didn’t mean anything…but…but… I’m keeping it.
Blog freezes. Motionless.
I am keeping it, I repeat. I…I need it.
It makes me feel free.
Blog raises its shoulders. Oh no! It is going to shrug! The final word in any relationship — indifference. No, Bloggy, no. Do not shrug your hands off of me.
Blog shrugs.
I feel a nail stab through my collarbone, straight through my heart. A freezing silence blows between us.
But something flickers in the pit of my stomach…
Desire.
For I am determined to hang on, determined to have both. One my muse; wild, anonymous, secret and free and the other my face to readers, my better self, the one with the Expectations I loved to strive to meet. I take a deep breath; I am going to fight this to the end. Blog had to have me back. Writers need volume, Blog had to understand that.
I am looking at Blog, willing it to speak. Blog is staring at me. Words bubble to my mouth, futile words… I am getting desperate…and finally break out..
I have done the chittings and I’m sorry! I wail in complete abandon, going all the way back to my Gujarati* roots.
Blog smiles. I see the sliver of light and jam my foot inside the door.
I love writing.
Blog nods, smiles and shrugs…but this shrug was different, this shrug was an “ok” shrug. Relief floods my veins, a relief so intoxicating it goes straight to my head. Blog understands me, understands the polygamy that must happen. Understands that one must write crap before one can write Public Blog-worthy stuff. Writing, after all, is re-writing. Writing, after all, is a very private thing.
We shake, and our meeting concludes amicably. I begin to write furiously. Blog happily hands me the meeting’s minutes, and I have shared them above for the single, if any, loyal reader who must have searched far and wide for an addiction to replace my posts when it became clear that I was no longer writing regularly. Reader, you can now take your nose out of your powders, your whiteners, your liquors and, for the real cheapskate, your magic markers — I am back!
SAME DAY, MUCH, MUCH, MUCH LATER…
Responses:
Svani: Hey, who posted this?
Svani: Wait a minute! That’s not how it happened at all! I returned after Writer’s Block and Blog threw its arms around me, sobbed on my shoulder and begged me to never leave again. I put my foot down and said I will NEED two blogs to write in and Blog sulked for a week, only ending the cold war when I changed its ‘featured article’ and said it looked “pretty”!
Blog: I did the chittings (*puts on its sunglasses*).
Gujarati — language of the state of Gujarat in West India. I grew up there, and trust me, as a people, we have done some marvellous things with the impressionable English language.
