Mortality

Parents last forever. They'll always hold your hand to help you cross the street. They don't shrivel up or become frail. They don't ever threaten to die.

They cannot.

Right?

Motherhood

It's the biggest secret society in the world.

Childhood memories

Fall is your season. There's something in the crispness of the air, the crispness of the leaves, the early sunsets - there's something the breeze carries to me gently, slowly... I know what it is. It's curiosity. And feebly, I put on my little spying eye and I go seeking for trouble. I knew what I would find - picture not updated for 5 years. I was wrong though - a close up I didn't expect. You were staring right at me. Those were your muddy eyes and your goofy grin, your bee-stung lip. Making a stupid face as someone correctly pointed out. Some eye bags, a vaguely asian haircut and wait, has life clouded those orange eyes a bit? Perhaps I thought they were sparkling because I was in love. 119 strangers got to like this picture. But not me. You probably don't even mean anything to half of those people. Then came the more familiar stuff - my internal organs defying gravity and all crowded around my throat.

Did I not know that the gentle whisper of a breeze will turn into (whoosh!) a gust of cold air? That it will make my hairs stand on their end? That no good has really ever come out of this splendid detective work.

But then how could we be human if there was no nostalgia.

The biggest small things

Little jigsaw pieces that fill up the room; they're all made from the same claydoh but they're not quite the same. Some are noodles and some they're taut wires. Some have double voices and some speak in whispers. Some eat cucumbers and some chocolate. Sometimes a grin and sometimes a wail. Some you cannot stand and some you cannot have enough of. Some a blank stare and some bookends for poems. But they fill up the whole room there's no time to arrange the pieces because they're moving, they're slipping, they're running and hopping.

But that's okay because I've memorized the scenery.

Honey I shrunk the kids

"When I said you should see a shrink, I didn't mean it in that way."

"Why is she so little? Did she go see a shrink?"

I am sure there have been some before, but obviously none significant enough to warrant an update. Let's raise a glass to this one.

I think we might need to fix the air

Broken records,

Stuck in a moment where everything seemed to be perfect.
Broken records cracked right through the album cover.
Broken, was cool & dry is warm & hot.
Broken, a hairline fracture in relationships.

Broken, a dot on the nose and a slash on the brow.
Broken, menthol on open wounds.
Broken sleep, now running at minus 42.
Broken a staccato uh-uh-uh-uh-oh.

Broken, where everyone sees it as priority # 7.

Us versus Them

In a much needed attempt to bring some perspective to my life, you asked me yesterday, "Some other people have it so much worse, don't they?". After a day long ordeal of being covered in all sorts of unmentionable substances, I don't really have an answer to that question.

Perhaps the toddler said it better than anyone else could:

"But this is my toy, this toy is mine."

The unbearable lightness of being

comfortable.

Ragamalika

Their relationship was a snow capped tree in the blinding winter. Raw and vulnerable; an uncovered wound. They stamped their feet at midnight and pulled their hairs. She blinked hard and rapidly, trying to build that dam but it wasn't ever fast enough for the salty seas were always in spate. He tried to lighten it up in so many ways but each time it would just make her a shade darker. They zoomed out. Dreamlike, they danced around each other like broken words. I will most liken the dynamic to a poem stripped of all rhyme and meter. Perhaps you could say that is essential to discovering the true meaning of poetry.

Fortunately for everyone, the poem shone.So they were able to piece it back together, delicately. Then they put it aside, they laughed it away and kissed in the closet. She started sentences and he completed them. They ate grapes with cheese. His face reflected in her eyes. Her head slid easily into the nook of his neck. His eyelashes fanned her face. A little nose was born. They had created something special together and it is an achievement to be proud of.

All that glitters is not gold.

I lost a friend in a yellow room.

What is memory but a distortion,  a perception,  a hallucination. The most unreliable form of book keeping. Evil thing, it schemed against me tonight. And on so many other nights. I want to reach and hold your hand but I don't let myself. I've been on for so long, I'd like to switch off for a little while.There is not a muscle in my body that ever relaxes and I am tired, so tired. And I am lonely. I am lonely in anticipation of sorrow. I have ignored my present to worry about the future. We seem to go from 0 to 100 in 5 seconds. I ponder and I rationalize and I tear and vocalize, and yet I have no real problems. And no real go-to's with the fake ones. 

(let, go, let, go, let, go: it says, for 20 minutes four times a day. it's about time.)

A five month old has no memories. Everyday is new and exciting and the same things are wonderful all over again. Colours and lights and shadows, rainbows and vessels, hairbrushes and keyboards all get the same special treatment. In time, she too will start playing favourites. I hope she builds some real happy memories.