Clueless

This is one of those days when I can totally relate to the world of the writer’s block… I want to write not for the sake of practicing, but mainly for distraction… I need a major distraction to rescue me from all the judgmental and the lying eyes… Those staring eyes that make my heart beat faster and feel sick inside…

What should I write about? This is perhaps the most misleading question one should ask before the first attempt of writing… My mind is dictating me to write on my arduous plans and self ambitions… on certain things that are floating out of my life… on the wrong decisions I sometimes make, which remind me that life is not a contest but a learning journey… on faraway places and the other side of the horizon… on his big lies and all the favours he gets in return… on being desirably or undesirably selfish… on negative outlooks or on Sylvia’s* Bell Jar…

This is when my heart shuts up my knackered mind… This is when I can sense the block is gone and I’m almost done…

This is the end of the blue era…

S

* Sylvia here refers to “Sylvia Palth“

Lost In Thought

I passed the park
and saw a guy,
left alone
on the edge of a dead tree
with a to-go cup
and the orange end of his pot,
hiding under le parapluie.
oh, it’s
pouring down from above;
the cruelest clouds
tangoing in
the grayest sky.

A few days were left behind…

I passed the same old park,
the soaked up guy
wasn’t there to nod to me, hi
I saw this time
a guy who
was killing time;
left alone under the
yellow sun.
his abused child was only five;
he looked calm
with a fragile heart.

I passed the park
nodded to him, bye
left the roughness of the present
all behind…

… and suddenly I felt dodgy inside
and left alone,
all alone
lost in thoughts.

S

Blindness

… And today I met her again… not a face-to-face kind of interaction, but from a distance just like the previous times… she was tucked in the same beige raincoat, holding a bag in one hand and her white stick in the other one… she, in all her glory, left me in vague wonders and entire appreciation.

It’s surprising how the universe sends us signs when we feel blue in our guts… the saddening yet inspiring signs of people who were once merrier than today… or perhaps not as much as their future… how sickening it is to grieve about the silliest things while this lady and many more like her lost their ability or were never able to observe the beauty of the spring colours… the breeze of the blue sky with its shapeless clouds… the people rushing in and out with often frowning faces… not that they miss seeing the lady, who is all dressed up to perfection yet accompanied with an attitude as numb as a faceless mannequin on a random display… nor does the corrupted teenage girl in an all-ripped John and Yoko tee shouting out loud and with no self-respect whatsoever.

She might not see what we all see, but what she sense is more precious indeed… she feels the beauty of her surroundings, I can tell… she feels the greenness of the only leaf on that maple tree, which once was a nest for many wings… she feels the aroma coming out of the café at her train stop, feels the kindness of the guy who sells her everyday cup, while defining the beauty of life in her own heart.

She continues her walk, heading blindly to the brightest highway… the highway of hope and desire.

S

Le scaphandre et le papillon…

Today I feel blue… I can’t focus on this never-ending world… I don’t want to admit it but today I feel lost… And only he, from above knows why…

A few nights ago, after my cooking therapy and puffing on a cigarette, meant to be the last one for the week, I watched one of my most favourite films for the second time and it felt even better than the first one… The Diving Bell and the Butterfly… A memoir of a guy whose charm was once causing jealousy in many a man… Jean-Dominique Bauby, the editor-in-chief of French Elle magazine, whose luxurious life was covered with loveliness and surrounded with style… Until one day in his early 40s, he got hit by the hardest stroke while driving his new Jaguar with his older son sitting right beside him… He got locked inside and was left all paralyzed except in one eye, his memory, and his imagination…

The movie is an adaptation of Jean Do’s memoir, which was magically written by himself with the help of a transcriber and him blinking thousands upon thousands of times to choose the next letter of the alphabet with his one and only eyelid…

All I can say is that we are all living in a world full of surprises, where we are all tied up to the thinnest thread and our lives can be changed dramatically in a blink of an eye… So why don’t we seize the day instead of being lost and blaming this beautiful world with millions of butterflies leaving their diving bells every single day and flying around as graciously as one can ever fly…

S

The Writer’s Place

It’s Saturday, May the eight… a cold day, which screams for a cozy corner.

Last week towards the end of the class (yes, I’m finally taking a creative writing class), we were given a subject to write about: “A suitable place for writers to work”, and here I am now, at one of my favorite cafés in the city, watching people moving slowly under the rain, and hearing the bearded, long haired guy who’s playing with his guitar strings on the other end… I’m convinced that this is the place that I’d like to be left alone, quiet and calm inside and ready to put my pen to this little piece of paper of mine; well, at least on the eighth day of the month.

Funnily enough, this morning just as I woke up in the coldness of my own room, my eyes got pinned to Virginia Woolf’s “A room of one’s own” essay… oh dear lord, this had been sitting there forever, all dusty and craving attention… I curiously picked it up and started leafing through the pages… in her essay, she says: “A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction.” and I thought to myself, today is a good day for me to start, not as a real writer, but as a woman who seeks a room warmer than hers to write her assignment journals; with or without money.

As much a cliché this may sound, I usually write, or would rather write, in a corner café where I can dream… where I’m surrounded with others and where it serves my caffeine addiction… my brain usually becomes more creative when I watch people of different races, talking in different wondrous languages… whether I understand or am left puzzled by the strangest words coming out from their mouths… in a place where I see the stunning artwork of an unknown artist hanging on the walls both behind and in front of me… and when the coffee stains on my notebook papers inspire me to fill the rest of the blank papers with the words of heart and imagination… with the past and with the present… with at times nonsense yet honest thoughts.

I am told there is no right… and there is no wrong… they’re all my true thoughts from deep inside.

S

Tell Me, Is The Rose Naked?

… Okay, I have a confession to make: I totally adore Pablo and his magical poetry…

“Tell me, is the rose naked
or is that her only dress?

Why do trees conceal
the splendor of their roots?

Who hears the regrets
of the thieving automobile?

Is there anything in the world sadder
than a train standing in the rain?”

— Pablo Neruda

Read it… three times or perhaps three hundred times? Read it over and over and try to feel and then digest it…

Happy Friday!

S

Heart of Palm

What an antic and odd world we live in… full of creatures coming from different eras… entirely different times…

Some seek praise in desperation and some feed them with attention… some dream big hopelessly, while some are engrossed in daydreaming… some smile at their future love and some learn how to hurt us and carry on… some know how to fly and some are unfaithful to the sky… their heart is black; they don’t feel white… they only see black and white… some conduct then play it hard; that’s when the king kills the knight…

… and at end of it all, they all seek a crystal heart as pleasing as the heart of palm…

S