nostalgia

Reflections

/ mycatisafrenchspy / Leave a comment

It snowed a little today (12/7). It didn’t stick but I still think we should have gotten an impromptu off day. I think we could get rid of some the holidays and install a few new holidays like, first snow day of the season; we will greet each other, “happy first snow” and we would all celebrate by making hot chocolate and eating cookies and snuggle up with pets and warm blankets and this should be mandatory. And for autumn, we will get a holiday as the first golden (or red) leaf comes floating down; and we would greet each other “happy golden (red) leaf day”; let’s go home and kiss our pets on their moist noses; and feed your little kitties. Kitties are always starving even if they were just fed. Aren’t they a joy ? I love cats so much !!

I love  Autumn / Winter. And I like snow in theory, and when it falls fresh and covering up like a new blanket; something soft and rare and cold. I like being cold but with warm feet. I have a electric blanket and somedays I have AC on and with my feet wrapped with the soft warmth of the blanket as it tenderly caressing my feet. And this time around especially Christmas, people somehow remember about other people like something suddenly popped in their mind or an alarm going off, jogging a memory, which seems to say, “oh right, you are also human”. And they become benevolent and generous.

It is the first snow, and Winter season; and something small in my heart is finally warm again. I have vague memories of how I spent the past few years just going through the motions. It felt and feels blank and urgent, and I’m thinking I would never actually feel again. It may sound very trite and extremely stupid – but that is the boring and familiar experience of absence or loneliness. You watch your life just washing up against the panes of your glass windows, and you watch it happening. you see things that should be lovely and warming but it just feels too thin, too flimsy and too unoriginal. I am desperately uninterested in my hobbies, in life and unimpressed by my life. I told myself and often, I don’t know how to find interest in life again. Interestingly when I look back, I always told myself I am ok.

And almost flimsily and shyly, something strange, something ethereal and lovely is burning in my chest, I avoid looking, worried that it will run back into the shadows like a frightened animal, and that I would lose it. Do I dare looking at it ? Could I dare to sink my hands into its fur and feel it’s warmth and feel the slight rise and fall of it’s breathing ? I’m afraid that if it’s real it has the power to hurt me by leaving.

breath of spring

/ mycatisafrenchspy / 1 Comment

life continues on as it tends to do…. in the years to come and when i reflect back, 2018 will be viewed as a year of growth and unexpected happenings.  a year that was full of so much joy, some tough and even gut-wrenching moments, but also a year that revealed a few unexpected moments. one of these unexpected moments proved to be quite endearing, and came in the form of leaving my marital home. it was emotionally painful but it was a good decision. it was something which i tried to hang onto, but god physically pushed me out and i was forever grateful for that.

and i’m excited about the promise of warmer weather and gorgeous wildflower blooms. winter is still holding on in many places, and it’s goddamn cold still, especially in my neck of the woods, but i’m excited as i’m surrounded by hills and i can’t wait to find some beautiful flowers to blanket them… at least i hope. getting distracted by beauty is a real thing and i honestly can say i can get lost in it.

the other day i got a ticket, alas not for speeding as i welcome a speeding ticket but because of not getting state inspection done; i was stuck behind this state trooper and then he stopped me for not having a current sticker which i actually forgot and in a way i’m thankful to the state trooper as for my lexus boy, i maintain below 5000 miles in a year so i can get an inspection waiver as he never passes inspection because he is tricked out to do drag racing… and then the trooper has the audacity to say to me that he was admiring me in his rear-view mirror and then asks me ‘where are you going ?’ i was like ‘i’m going to petsmart’ to which he replies, so you have one or two… i wanted to slap him. and now i have to go to traffic court and contest the ticket.

i’m like alice in veganland and it’s been almost a month since i have become vegan and i’m quite elated to tell you all that my wheezing is much under control and lately i’m not gasping for air like a fish out of the water ….as i’m a trained scientist, i’m keeping a log and  i’ve been experimenting on myself regards to how my asthma behaves with what i eat, and also i read a really informative article about asthma on an ayurvedic website. i’ve started cooking again as the stores and restaurants are not super friendly for me. i have been making yummy indianized meals with plant based meats and one such yummilicious curry needed rice as a base, and i did and lo and behold, my lungs started wheezing…. i learnt my lesson and i decided i won’t make the same goddamn mistake again. i have taken my kids (coops) to a vegan restaurant and i told them, if they didn’t like the meals i will buy them a burger from max brenner… but the kids loved the vegan food, and i kid you not if i say this, i can totally serve vegan meals and no one would know the difference and in fact, one would feel refreshed instead of groggy and heavy. i have to actually cut down on processed vegan meats and get back into veggies… if all goes well, (ie once i become my past self) i will cut off oil as well. oh, i would give or do anything to marry a vegan chef ! i have a list of people i would like to marry, just an fyi and out of all, i would love to marry dh lawrence !

oh, i also started wondering that i may put on more weight but i am ok with it as instead of looking like a potato because of steroids, i can now look like potato because i’m eating good and clean food… best reason to be fat !!

now a days i keep meeting a girl and she and i pass by each other every day. she reminds me of myself when i was younger and stylish…. and i’m motivated to see if i could revert myself back to the days when photographers gave me their card and begged me to model for them… or men chatted me up with stupid pickup lines like you must work as a model (and i would be in a t-shirt and jeans with beat up sneakers) or when random people gave me bouquets of flowers… so i am challenging myself to see if i could get the reaction though i am no longer in my twenties i don’t look past thirty and so i have  something to work on and keep myself occupied.

i let my boss know that if my salary doesn’t improve considerably there is a chance that i will be leaving next year. she doesn’t want to lose me and tbh i don’t want to go, but if i were to quit working in 5 to 10 years, it’s imperative that i should get into investing asap which translates to working for a high paying salary for a few years. and this way i have a full year to work with the headhunters to get the best deal in case my company doesn’t meet the salary i want.

friday was not a great day. i am currently reading “the time traveler’s wife” (a few more pages to go, but haven’t finished yet as i know that the time traveler is gonna die and i’m prolonging his death by not reading) and i was at the part where she keeps losing babies and before she loses them she dreams. before i lost my son, christian, i dreamt as well and they were really weird dreams and nightmares and so it was physically painful for me to read this part and i was silently crying into my ipad, when my fellow passenger (goldman sachs) gave me a tissue… gosh when i remember the painful parts of my life, i wish i could time travel and go to a happier moment and i just curl up there and not leave. (goldman sachs started getting his train from my station for reasons and we sit together most of the time and he tries to make conversations and i try not to encourage him, as i’m still sulking at myself for putting aside american boy, but it is good to have other options especially because he is a reader and he does seem like he has an iq of 150+, so he probably can hold intellectual conversations with me and i probably don’t have to strangle him or hang myself out of sheer boredom !)

speaking of time travel, i binge watched the oa on netflix (it’s about dimensional jump) and believe me if i tell you that i totally waited two years for season two of this show and it hasn’t disappointed me… i also watched a spanish film “mirage” which is also about time and space, and i was thinking what are the chances of this happening that i’m totally involved in time and space related stuff and whenever i’m looking out of my bedroom window, i keep thinking to myself that if any aliens are just happening to be passing by they must take me with them……. also, in 2013 i did see an ufo.. it was an october night and all the leaves fallen off and so i could clearly see the sky from my kitchen window and i was washing dishes and i screamed loudly and grabbed my phone and by the time i put my pants on (remember, yours truly, when home, runs around with no pants on) and ran out screaming for jace to join me, the ufo was just a tiny little thing in the sky. needless to say for several days since then, i camped out shivering waiting for them to reappear and they haven’t. and if you say i have just saw a plane, i will slap you because i’m an intelligent being who can distinguish between a plane and an ufo.

i have this habit of writing my thoughts composing them on gmail, and saving the drafts and i was clearing out my drafts and i found this list which i put together sometime way back in 2002 titled “ things that break my heart a little each time…………..”

abrupt goodbyes after long phone calls  / when you can’t say no to your friend who eats your fries (it was my husband jace before we were married and after married) / people littering the streets /  how underrated some of the best books are / every time a girl speaks about feeling unsafe / kids who’ve learned swear words a little too early / women denying the need for feminism / people misunderstanding the meaning of feminism / when old books can’t be saved from wear and tear / ice cream falling onto the floor / seeing my mom cry / favourite restaurants shutting down / bookstores being converted into clothing stores / the sequel of a book/movie that just doesn’t live up to the first one / when people while texting type “lyk dis” / reading my diaries from high school / nail paint chipping on the very same day i applied it / a promise broken by my father / reading the news / goodbye hugs that are too short

i probably should update this list…..

i’m sitting on my bed, freshly scrubbed and after the week i had, i’m thankful for: poems about love, a fresh bag of veggie chips (still unopened), every train ride home from work, peaches and plums, countdowns, unmade plans, ghosts, kissing the tip of my kitties noses.

i am looking forward to spring / summer and i already started putting together my reading list… the other day my boss saw my book list and insisted i give her a copy of that which i did as she liked my list…

*sigh*

some days my world is full of bright stage lights that illuminate the shadows where i hide; and of rivers of coffee; and of hope and passion and plays; and of sleepless nights and poetry and essays on the importance of perseverance; and some days its full of miyazaki movies and almond milk; of damp and dreary days and cuddling up with my furry babies; of blue skies and walks on the dried leaves making crunchy sound; and of rilke’s third elegy and of double crossed legs in short skirts.

for the loves of my past

/ mycatisafrenchspy / Leave a comment

‘my life is a wonderful one’ i keep mumbling as if to make myself believe.

i always overthink things that shouldn’t be overly thought. time is a selfish bitch and its consistence and constance is driving me to a point of sad sad insomnia. there’s not enough time.

there’s a boy in my bed reading poems out loud to me and my ribcage hurts when i breathe, but i’m happy, you know. there are so many people to say goodbye to and i’m afraid that tomorrow i’ll be too sad to function properly.

is it just positively not a good idea at all to want to say i love you to someone via text when you’re going to see him tomorrow. i came very close though. i think so, i don’t know. what would you do if someone said i love you and goodbye in the same sentence ? because that’s what i wanted to do and it’s complicated. i don’t know, i don’t know. today was a husky and dusky colored day. i feel like my winter has been one drawn out goodbye. everything is so up there, out there, somewhere that isn’t here. but i’m ending things. collecting the remaining pieces of me and putting them in my pockets.

my life is a wonderful one. i just have to smooth over all the edges that i’ve roughed up in the past, errr, two or three months.

this is an accumulation of my mind. i’m not saying anything anymore. there are no words for how i’m supposed to be feeling. i just want to drive around with my eyes closed until there’s nowhere to go anymore.

a love letter to my boys who don’t exist anymore.

you. i love you.

you may be faded images or i may be driving with my eyes closed. blurred humans or i’m going blind or i may be sleep deprived. i loved you more than i love sweet potatoes. i’ve never said that to anyone since you.

and i’ve fond memories of you; i’ve tucked these memories of you in my every cell to keep me alive and not feel so dead; i warm up to your memories and i remember the bonfires and drinking tea from a tea cup and falling over everyone and dancing with you and smelling your cigarettes and beautiful stories and vanilla flavoured cigars and collecting fall leaves and my electric blue dress and stumbling and talking trash and laughing with you and holding your hands and tracing your spinal cord and nibbling your lower lip & singing whatever and swaying to your guitar notes and forgetting about everything.

and oh how i loved to dance with you and i loved to move in the rhythm of you.. i’d rather not say hello to you and remember you; but you keep tugging at my heart’s skin, bringing up what i’d rather have forgotten. i can’t stop scratching these scars you left turning me upside down. i’d rather be under this spell of no return, knowing that there’s no winning here; i always lost myself in you and i’d rather lose myself in you and i’m lost in you.

ps: in case you are wondering about my valentines’ day… some unknown sent me flowers and they were waiting for me on my door step. i’m thinking it’s the anonymous guy/girl/it who texts me and yesterday i asked him/her/it for his/her/its name and no reply but i got a valentine text today again… robbie made weekend plans for dinner; sandalwood is in my bed reading me romantic poems in the hopes of getting into my pants and oh he gave me a rose dipped in gold; i’m planning to collect a bouquet; my ballet teacher came back from russia and ordered me to get myself stretched and so this evening, i got stretched thoroughly for 90 mins and i’m exhausted. i’m going to bed !

bliss

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pandora’s box or paradox…. if you go far enough you will meet yourself… i mean like what the good fuck is the point of acting sane or trying to fit into society ? everyone is crazy and everything is crazy – after julien’s death, for a while i tied a little string around my wrist that served as a token of a reminder not to slit my wrists and it isn’t there anymore, hasn’t been there for a while, and i don’t know what to do with my hands, with their freedom – except create.  try to create something, away from all of the noise, the distraction. towards all that is violent and gashed open and deeply wounded and biting. you know what i mean? like white noise wrapped in cellophane. my heart is noisy like pop rocks which go pop pop pop when you put them on your tongue. my heart is noisy like a tin can full of pebbles.

i spend a lot of my free time reading literature or reading history that goes against the dominant river of thinking, and it makes me feel all the time like there’s a panic button underneath my tongue; like i’m on the edge of the universe. i was watching news this morning and they were talking about how a man brought his wife’s ashes to the eagles parade and i was thinking how stupid that was and about human beings and how they survive by doing these idiotic things… like attending a parade ! it’s such a mass mentality ! it’s imperative for their existence, i suppose.  i would have happily stayed home even if it were a parade for patriots… humans lose their individualities during such group activities and become flooded with altruistic nature, as tho doing such things would save them from themselves but that’s how they exist and observing human nature interests the scientist in me. to watch humans as lab rats … oh yes, i too feel that mentality to a certain extent (hence i loathe my humanness) like when i grieved the loss of my favorite team.

i have never cared about what others think of me and i have never felt more free to be unabashedly be me. i guess i was thinking about this because of the way people around me struggle with trying to look “good”. their unending struggle to look thin while eating completely unhealthy stuff… they bore me actually and i am so glad i never have gotten a complex about my weight. oh yes, i would love to shed a few pounds for my heart’s sake but i know not to get into that trap of getting stressed out as long as i’m on these steroids. speaking of which i so need to get back to the gym which i skipped as i have been quite fatigued the whole month of jan due to multiple feedings for horus and i can feel my muscles happily petrifying.. but it’s ok and thank goodness, there’s the muscle memory…. and once a dancer is always a dancer.

this evening when i got home, i saw my little skittles got something like a pink eye and i ran her to the vet which she then thought it’s ruptured third eyelid and so now skittles is on antibiotics and may or may not have vision in her eye and i am sad for her but my kids are resilient. all their docs think so and they think i got lucky but i tell it’s not luck, it’s love and genetics. my love is potent and my kids react to it in a positive way. i sang to skittles a very happy nice love song (in hindi) as valentine’s day is coming up and she joined in the song.

i’m planning to not go to church tomorrow and just stay home and take care of my kids and also self care. i wish it were warmer tomorrow… there is no feeling in this world that i enjoy more than being bare-legged, barefoot (like in the summer), with no pants on and just a flimsy t-shirt against my naked skin, and lying underneath a shady tree on a blanket watching the planes streak white and crisscross against the sky. the clouds light water colored. a sparrow or an eagle flying sleek overhead. and to stretch, stretch out against the earth. to feel the breeze glide over you, the entire bloom of leaves rustling as it passes through. my body is extremely sensitive to touch. i am a very sensory being — the world is seen through my hands. the grass against my skin feels like a homecoming. my body feels more my own when i’m not wearing many clothes, when i’m just a layer away from everything else.

there’s a lake around these parts that jace & i used to go… he to swim and i to watch him and during the summers — we drank cold lemonades and he smoked weed and swam naked and we fucked on soft, fraying blankets. (he one time wanted to try angling, for the record i protested this activity for the sake of fish and the worm, but he bought the worms and a whole fishing gear and he stood at the shallow end, while i was romping in the grassy banks looking at these beautiful red and velvety insects, giggling merrily; the fish came alright but they took a nibble at the worm and dashed away and i was literally floundering on the bank roaring with laughter; he had the entire worm (he didn’t want to cut them to pieces) hooked and so the bait was long and not close enough to the hook and you get the picture)

spring is my heart’s home. i belong in the tropics. my shoulders salt-kissed, sun-licked. sex with the windows open, under the blue skies, a lawnmower crackling, all dirty knees from a bike ride around the neighborhood. and the rain — i read a poem a while ago that was on the back of a metro card in new york, which described rain as “a million feral cries of si si si”.  everything is so alive. so, magnificently alive. and everyone is glowing, and they’re laughing and there’s this feeling, this wonderful feeling of endlessness in each day. you get off of work and people seem more open. more open to loving. & there is forgiveness. there’s not much need to survive in the spring, not like in the wintertime. people are more unafraid. in spring, i dance with more lightness ! with gentleness ! with more sensuality ! petals falling over us. the river water warm in the evening time. diet sodas with ginger and limes and the water lapping against the rocks. a cool, white sheet falling against us, our foreheads pressed together, soft moans and sighs and our skin, so delightfully humming.

love apparently

/ mycatisafrenchspy / Leave a comment

i’m here and here are somethings i want you to know, all you lovely people of the internet…. i’m fully exhausted with my scheduled feedings of horus and every day is another misery and i’m wondering how long would it take to finally break me with this sleeplessness…. but seeing my kid come to my bed when i stir in the wee morning and then purr happily with the anticipation of nourishment, is a magnificent sight and he comes meowing and cooing and rubs his head against my face and i’m happy. he is still showing no interest in eating on his own except couple of times when he licked a bit of some chicken flavored food. i so need to get a variety of foods to see which one he would like to eat, but i’m exhausted. i think it’s partly because my lungs are not working as well as they should in spite of inhaler and i can’t wait for the weather to turn a bit warm and bring me fresh set of allergies..

so robbie (the boy who just turned 30) wanted to take me to canada for valentine’s day… but i said no as it requires me getting a passport and i’m planning not to get a passport for a while as i am still on steroids for my breathing and it makes me look bloaty and passports have expiration dates for like ten years or so… and therefore, we probably may end up at la croix, my favorite french restaurant in philly..

i was talking to tim (my mentor) about negative results or negative learning. this is something where you find out that you don’t like to do xyz. for example, one may do something like gardening for the first time and decide it’s not their cup of tea.. in this regard i was telling him how jace (my husband) did two things in the name of science and experiment. well, we scientists are suckers for data and so we collect for everything. when he was fifteen, he worked with a farmer for a summer to find out how farming life is and he found that farming was hard labor and that he never would be a farmer. another time, when he was doing his post doc in paris, france, jace  dressed up as a homeless man and he stood in a corner and begged for money (not even that, he told me, he just stood there with a hat in his hand) and he found out that beggars made lot more than his student stipend… 😊 i was so filled with happiness from talking about jace…

my american boy keeps circling my cubicle… i was standing way too close to him today and it’s hard not to flirt or seduce him… in spite of the cold weather, i was warm. sober and whole and innocent. in the most natural of states. with him, like his presence made me something better, newer, cleaner. like this was all i had needed. a balm for my scars… something so familiar with a foreign thrill, the spits of water burning off the scars. they seem to fade when he touches them. i forget they exist. and i forget that i live in an imaginary world.

little warning my lovely boy…

seduction is both a science and an art.  in order to perfect it, one must construct a hypothesis based on extensive research and subject that hypothesis to rigorous testing. ultimately, though, the key to seduction is the communication of your results.  therein lies the art.  the manner of presentation rests within the curl of my lips and eyes and discretion. and i’m quite an expert in communicating with my curves and lips and eyes.

and also, seduction is like boxing.  it requires both endurance and persistence.

breathe deeply, my darling boy…  i’ve only just put on my gloves.

amor fati – part deux

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the sunbeams sparkled prettily in your eyes when words came out as whispers from my curled lips with the softness of velvety wine. “you may kiss me when the light is right”, i breathed and i blushed heavily. it may be winter air pinching me pink or it may be that i was fully drunk in the sweet liquid you were soaked in as i fell in love. you breathed out my name into the air scenting it delicately and from then on every touch became a divine secret. my giggles took a silver bell tone tinkling with every breeze. you brushed my hair as though they are like a silken whisper. you are still a familiar unknown to me; your texture, tastes and touches i can’t identify; so vivid, so familiar, so out of this earth; savoring your splendor in the glow of the stars cast over our skins; our colors have bled and blended to create a new hue. we twine around each other without breaking. i’m comfortable. you are the exotic tastes, smells and tingles. you are the colors, sounds and shadows. your heartbeats are oceans whispering my name and i dream of seashells.  i still find myself aching for those hues, whispers and time hasn’t faded that memory or that familiarity.

at what point loneliness morphs into something that exists as something bearable ? i find myself missing you, missing your conversations, missing our moments; miss the curl of your tongue and the press of your teeth into my flesh; miss the way my soul sways to your smiles as your smiles wash over me affectionately; so fluid, so subtle and so mesmerizing. you should know that i can never bring myself to ecstasy the way you would; miss you, miss you , miss you a lot, a lot, lover ! please please come back ! melt with me one more time ! there’s always space for you in my heart, between my thighs, beneath my finger-nails, atop my tongue and inside my eyelids.  i breathe your name into the dark sky, pleading with the stars to carry my secrets and my tears to god.

i know none of this will translate into reality and i don’t mean for my words to be profound or planned or poetic. it’s just that i tucked you away in every atom of my body for times i need to feel alive; it’s just that i’m captivated and alas, i’m nothing more than a shadow thirsting to kiss you once more; it’s just that i still can’t remember my dreams. it’s just that tonight, i will bundle up all of the pain that exists inside of me which tugs at my heart’s skin and knead it until i’ve created something beautiful.

time is watching on and smiling as my tiny heart aches and aches and aches….

 

sext

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this doesn’t belong here and it’s not poetic.. it’s personal and it hurts. i wanted to write you a page out of my life but i get nostalgic around this time and i remembered this from my past and so i want to leave this here before i forget, so it may feed my soul and warm my bones when i’m old.

i love the moments when i lie down in his lap and listen to his ridiculous conversation. once he told me that there is heartbeat in my fingertips as he kissed my fingers. we always seem to have tumbled into a world of half awake and half asleep and i love to just listen to him rambling on and on about things which make no sense, but at the same time make a whole lot of sense.

there is a certain tenderness when he holds me. and i feel anything but beautiful when i am in his arms and i feel as tho my heart is remembering and humming a sweet sweet song…. i am entranced every time as his warm throbbing skin makes way into mine. sex is beautiful with him. he taught me how to get choked. the first time he did it, my throat had a beautiful bruise and my windpipe fucking hurt, but i enjoyed the sex.  and the other day, we made a video of us fucking, and he wore his glasses and at that time i didn’t think of anything, but later i was watching the video we made and man, he looked gorgeous with his glasses on and the whole sex act looked so classy. and i loved the way my breasts swung when i was riding him.

i would have felt that my skin and i were out of sync and that i was living a nightmare. but things have worked out. it worked out for both of us. we became oasis for each other and we rescued each other from a nightmare called life. sometimes you want to run away from yourself and your skin and then you hit a wall and you sort of stumble into someone’s arms and you cry out rescue me, please help me and not let me be hurt and then you realize the other person is also hanging on to you and shouting out the same. and then, sometimes, the sun sets at a perfect angle and lights up the sky the way i light up when i see him. sometimes, all i need is a buttered toast and eggs cooked over-easy and i sit and sigh and sigh and sigh and snuggle into his arms a little bit closer and whisper as if to remind myself that this is home to me. sometimes that’s all you need.

 

novembers are hard