the other side of grief

If I could turn back time only once, i wouldn't have went back to any other moment but that one, when i thought it wouldn't matter if i pushed harder, when there was a momentary lapse when i wasn't thinking. just one stroke of that little syringe. i would have turned back to that moment and stopped. and remembered that i was human. and that you were alive.

I'm so sorry, Chihiro. you trusted me to care for you and I betrayed it. I betrayed our friendship. i caused you to suffer. i forgot that we were friends, and that you were a living being. i took it for granted. i became inhumane.

I will always miss our moments - when you were better and i was relieved, and you followed me just to sit on my foot as i worked. When i called you and you came to me, although you were only tiny and learning. When you kept looking out for me, even when you were sick, thats all you wanted. when you slept on my lap, when you placed your head on my arm. I loved you truly. I'm sorry for what i did, for that moment of impatience and frustration at you. i didn't mean it. i didn't mean it. i was anxious for you to get better and ended up killing you. i'm sorry.

the way in which i have been designed to grow
is layer by layer
solidifying, before the next layer is added, expanding
like trees, growing hard, tall, strong, infallible,
till a hundred years old.
continually growing inwards as such,
who can see it?
the solid strength of the deep insides of the trunk cannot be seen
the curious mysteries of the depth of the water
to the passer by,
it is just another tree,
just another calm surface of a nothing lake.

but cut me and see that i do not bleed the same
place me in the path of a deadly storm
shaken at first by the force of that darkness,
i will eventually look down at my feet, the roots
and realize that it is impossible to break

how many people can say that

*

the glittery shadows reflecting from the water
only threaten to make me invisible
they would take me and make me into something dependent
something dependable. like i could only be a reed, or a pillar for their support.
they would take my voice and make it their own.
until they themselves would forget that it was my gold nuggets,
carefully guarded, in the first place
they would make me feel invisible for my lack of splendour - my lack of showmanship.
if something is not seen to exist, does it exist?

but i will carefully distill my opinions - my voice
where others echo, loudly, borrowed thoughts and ideas, borrowed catchphrases, endeavours, egg shell words.

*

bled dry,
i , finally, identify the thieves of my life for what they are.
having almost let them get away with my life many times, for many years,
finally i catch them for what they are
i unmask them
and identify their true selves
as my own reflection in the mirror
i will no longer let them steal from me,
my time, my thoughts, space in my life.
my spirit and sanity no longer dependent on these elements in my surroundings

like a solid tree,
drawing from a life source deep within itself
sufficient into itself
sufficient unto others

existing
even if nothing else recognises it
in-dependent
true

free.

*

i cannot believe that just a while ago i would have given this existence away
but for the realisation of this self sustaining life force that feeds and rejuvenates into its own

i cannot believe i would've just given life away
safe for this one step across the threshold
this one defining layer around my girth

and if i had given up before,
i would never have gotten here, into this harness of birth - of true life.

its surreal, how at times it feels like you don't really exist.

you remember shadows of the past, what must have been reality at that time - things you touch, you breathe, you feel, as tangibly as the grainy details of the concrete you stare at when you are thinking of what to say in a deeply emotional, intense conversation with someone who mattered at the time. flashes of anger, of the world passing by as you sat with your face to the car window. thoughts you had as you showered, cold droplets falling on your face, as you started at the square white tiles, thinking about decisions in loops in your mind - even then - what could be, what would be, what could've been, what could've been. moments suspended in time, when the world went in slow motion, and you stared at the ground three storeys down, and wondered. the sight of your feet shifting, one in front of the other, as the big black cloud hung weighty on your shoulders; again as you climbed a mountain, feeling alright; again as you felt the dirt and pebbles shift under your feet on another mountain, feeling alone. moments when the world seemed to rush all around you, and your senses didn't work - when you couldn't see straight, couldn't hear, couldn't perceive - you only felt the rage of a dark devouring tornado that came from within, all around you. moments when out of nowhere, sitting at the backseat of a car and looking in front, suddenly the past, and future, and present all seemed to exist at the same time - when things are both the way they are and the opposite; when your parents are no longer around and still around; when you are both happy and sad - when all is as it is, all is as it ever is. everything is everything.
the moments bleed into one another. every moment becomes the same moment.

when everyone has passed by, and no one remembers your name anymore... do we still exist? there is no dent of my existence on society; none on the people i once called 'friends', or ex-lovers, none on the burned bridges of the ones called my family. like a ghost, passing through time.

The moment they came and put their hands all over it, filled up all the space with the things they had bought to equip it, it no longer felt like mine. None of the things felt like it belonged to my space - i was so happy with it, so proud of what little i'd put together, so happy to be there.. when they had come and left with their storm of goodwill, i was no longer happy with it. it no longer felt like mine. i watched the spaces and the things that filled them warily, like it had been inhabited by a stranger without my knowledge. whatever i had found and equipped together for myself came to be zero - nothing i had achieved, nothing i had built and owned, as in the name of love, those i was bound to  watermarked everything, owned everything, everything in my life.

sneakily
The cold tight grasp of loneliness creeps so deep inside that

it goes beyond the reach of friends, beyond the reach of talk, or drinks and cigarettes, beyond work or light and love, beyond laughter; beyond looking for attention or worrying if people care. 

already dead and buried within, wrapped in a shroud, nailed shut. 

And then at 10.40 in the morning, when all the drinks were drunk and all the pills were spun, i found myself plotting my own death.

What are the things that are required?

A clean slate - so those responsible for you do not have to deal with a lot of rubbish, so that your secrets written down in darker moments remain unreachable. You would need to clean up. Clear debts. Throw out what needs to be thrown. Give away what needs to be given away. Assign what should be assigned. So that when they need to sort out your non-existence, it is smooth, seamless. Do not burden them more than you need to.

You need to have spoken. So it will not do to leave permanently, silent or unknown in your thoughts. I would need to write it down - write my thoughts, write everything i have arrived to for all my 28 years of living, write my inner intentions for the people around me. Then write a word of comfort, and of love that i feel of them, so they know; so the final word is spoken.

And write a message to the world - in general. because it is the world in general that has screwed you over. in its innate undertones of evil, of nonsense, of shiny pieces that do not fit, can never fit.

The world is a lonely place for those who seek. Its a lonely place for the pure at heart. Its a lonely place for the lowly.

i worry about coming to the place where drinks aren't enough, smoke ain't enough, music or people aren't enough...even meaningful service isn't enough, when travelling and being in a foreign land isn't enough. when there's nothing, when everything meets with a dull thud inside. then its stark, then you take the only logical next step.

Like the back of her own hand, they say

But in passing she caught glance of a back of a hand she did not know
with unknown lines and contours,
she stared as if it were the back of hands of a stranger
and in that moment she knew which part of her body would age unrecognisably first.

You imagine a scenario in which at the crucial point, you gave in to the inner numb buzz that let's you know that deeply, nothing really matters, and finally letting go, tired of all the nonsense and tired of all the voices, tired of all selfishness and all farces, tired of all the selling out of love and of justice, tired of being alone, you

got lost in the vast nothingness of white snow, snuck into a creak between the layers, embraced the numbness.

This is love's eternal duty:
To stretch you, to beat you out, to mould you and shape you
To sift the superficial from the true; to distill purity from the plain


and so if you find yourself left on the dry tide of love after its job is done
and you find yourself truer, although worn and beaten
and you have fought the bitter bite of regret and envy and hatred - and won;
the light in you has grown stronger (for what is faith except the torch that guides us in our hearts)

then just know that love has done its eternal duty
and like all the people before you and all the people around you and all who will come after you,
you are part of the fabric of life and of humanity that has been tested and shaped by love

sometimes all it takes is a dream to unhinge you.
i wake up with your warmth on my skin. a look on your face. feelings in your eyes. a declaration of love. a comfort of knowing that it still matters to you. another few steps walked together.
then i wake, and i still do not have you.

We must be careful that in our journeying and coping, we don't end up taking on the narrative of the villain. Some thoughts that may foreshadow a resemblance to the villain's voice:

"Everyone does it. Evil is reality. If I act unjustly, I am just being a normal player in this world."
"All of these ________ people are the same."
"You/They made me do this. If I hurt you/them, it is your/their fault."
"For me to do well, you need to crumble."

I searched for the word to talk about how i've felt after the 'coming home' of the cycling trip. i feel... free. light. like i don't need anyone or anything really. like everything i need to live and to cope, i have within me, within my means.

The word came to me today, in a short bliss when i drove on the highway and the sunlight illuminated the paddy fields, the landscape around me and i thought for a moment that happiness is munching on muruku, those delicious crunchy things loaded in good spices, given by my student, made by the closest thing she had to a mother.

The word was - self-sufficient. That's how i feel. And self-sufficient means, yes, that i earn enough money to physically sustain myself and everything i physically need; but also, that i am emotionally sufficient for myself now, no longer to need emotional attachments or outside admiration to feel worthy. that i also do not need anyone's approval to feel alright. that everything i need to live, to cope, physically, emotionally, spiritually, i have within, and within my means.

That's alright. That's an alright way to be feeling after many years existing on a false sense of helplessness.

its because i have broken and have put myself together. Also, it is why i decided to keep teaching - because in that it pays me, and it gives me a sense of purpose, and in that the relationship with my students gives me a way to feel emotionally and spiritually both fulfilled and needed - it is one good decision that keeps me feeling self-sufficient. because that is what we should be doing anyway, more and more of the things that make us feel alive, feel like ourselves, that keeps building a force that grows and feeds back into itself - self sufficient.

Teacher Thoughts

1. Care. That is number one. It starts from the heart. If you care for them, if you learn their names, they will know it. They will fall into your circle of influence. This will show in your attitude towards them - in whether you smile at them, how you greet them.

2. Be consistent. Do not lower the expectations. Do not bend the rules. Do not 'pick your battles'. Make the rules clear from Day One. Hold it every.time. Each day's goal is 100% students 100% doing what you want, what they need to succeed in this class.
This consistency is what will change their behaviours; change their lives. Also apply it to yourself. Be consistent with routines and structure.

3. Make routines. Anything that will be repeated. Make it a routine.

4. Do not repeat things. Say it once, follow through.

5. Do not raise your voice or show emotion / frustration. Always tow the line of the management system. Rest in it doing its job.

6. Teaching English is building blocks. The basic brick is vocabulary - words. Build word banks. Then sentences. Then passages.

7. Make charts.

8. Create jobs from day one. Kids invest in being an active participant in classroom culture building.

It's not easy at all.

It's easy to breathe, to exist.
Living? It's hard as hell.  It takes courage to show up day after day,  to keep pushing to be where we are, to hold on to dreams, to not be beaten by brick walls around the way. It takes a special kind of strength to hold on to innocence and do things out of a good heart. It takes strength to not become the one who is bitter when compared,  as we all do, to the success of others.

It takes fortitude to live with and through pain, and failures, and the realisations of how truly limited we are; truly needy, and yet, truly alone. It takes a hidden treasure to walk with life through days when you suffer from a dry soul.

It's the simplest thing, and the hardest thing.

they never found her body. the man who worked in the stall nearby reported seeing her walk into the sea. he thought it was strange that she was all alone, and she looked entranced.

Later they would find leftover cans of beer in her car; cigarette butts in her room. a video left on her laptop of her singing, 'its times like these we learn to live again'. pieces of writing, of poetry that she had written at different times through the years. a picture of her smiling.

1.

the hurting person
the hurting teacher
pushes the sticky welcome of the floor away
defying gravity
and with the crumbling remains of debris,
puts one foot in front of another.
smiles,  adding an extra cheer in her voice
overcompensating for the deep hollow echoing inside
hurting teachers; hurting parents, hurting workers everywhere

we build with blood weeping from our broken parts.

tell them i was broken
tell them....i was pieces of a broken pot
but for all the brokenness; all the empty pieces and jagged edges, all the bleeding of the substance i tried to hold
i did my best
to love
to embrace
to have a life of meaning
with all my broken pieces

breathing out slowly... letting go.

to feel heavy and light at the same time..

It was about the time when reports began to be confirmed that the plane had been shot down, with 298 people and children inside, because of a conflict unrelated to the people on board, that i thought to myself 'I don't want to live in this world anymore'.

It is a world where people kill each other, where massacre and injustice happen because of what when scaled down to its simplest form is the evil within people - ego, pride, greed. It is a world where 298 people go on a commercial flight for a holiday or to come home, and are shot down because of  A MISTAKE. 298 people, a plane caught in a case of MISTAKEN IDENTITY. they were not part of a war. there was not even any reason or motive behind the shooter's actions. nothing they wanted to achieve. 298 people died for an arbitrary, meaningless incident.

It was about this time when I realised nothing matters. If nothing makes sense, nothing matters. The last remnants of my belief that 'things happen for a reason' is gone with the understanding that there is no reason in what happened, no reason that brought them there. and if i were to say there is a reason for things to happen in MY life, some pattern of stars that have been written for my future, then I am saying that those on the plane had to be on that plane to die for some reason. but i cannot say that. there is no reason.

nothing matters, then. nothing really means anything. all life is about is for me to struggle out my existence, for my own sake so that I MAY BE REDEEMED. so that when all is done, i am found on the right side of light and darkness. that i am found on the right side of eternity. All life is about this- about making my own life worth its existence, FOR MY OWN SAKE. no changing the world, no real impact. i need to act and work in a way that my living will redeem my self, and my loved ones with me.

The path life takes us...

Its curious how the dots connect in our lives. A seemingly blank future, in the sense that nothing yet exists and there is no telling what can happen, other than the sketches we etch out of what (we think) we want - our plans. Plans of work, of marriage, of a place to live - minute plans like what to have for dinner or bigger plans like to write a book. None of it exists other than by imaginations in our minds. We dream of making them true, and we dream of the 'happiness' that comes along with it. We dream of 'having arrived'.

But what actually happens, happens arbitrarily. Shaped by the million forces that are outside our control. And it is curious, how these seemingly arbitrary incidences shape our lives. If I hadn't showed up for that interview, I would never have met you. If I had taken the scholarship as I sometimes regret not doing, I wouldn't have been looking for a job and set up that interview. If I weren't driving and listening to the radio at the exact time you were on, I would never have heard of you or your work. I wouldn't be anticipating a life of being alone, wrapped up in love for you, wondering at the possibility of one day adopting and raising a child without a man, having failed to muster any love for someone else comparable to the force our arbitrary steps has led us to.

And yet, by principle of the same arbitrary pattern, anything can happen. And we can be judged only in history.

There is, then, no need for fear. No need for worry.
There is need only to BE - to grow our hearts into a strong, discerning torch that allows us to live fully and love truly.