these days have been full and brimming and chaotic and deeply, deeply beautiful. it feels as though i have been running for miles and miles and all the tall trees, like maples and oaks, blossomed and started dusting their pollen. whenever i look at time and if it says 11:11, i smile a little and remember my husband who doesn’t exist anymore. this was a promise i made to him (we both made to each other but he is no more). i made similar kind of promise to my love julien, and that was every day at 7 am and 7 pm, i would remember him. and yes he did the same kind of promise and well, he doesn’t exist anymore.
some days i feel heavy with all these ghosts i carry around but those ghosts sustain me. my losses and traumas are irrevocably twined into the tapestry of my life…. i keep tracing my scars with my fingertips.
life has become a bit restless for me. but i have been very productive. kind of buttoning down all those things which were hovering in general.
have been chatting with various people at my company (not in my department) in order to pave a way for a different career and use my education for a change possibly as a data scientist and predictive analyst. it won’t be quite the same as research and development, but it’s definitely more intellectual and analytical. i am so awed by all these scientists who i was chatting with as they are so grounded and so down to earth when they talked to me and i was humbled. also, loved talking science things for a change.
today was mother’s day and i have hugged my children tightly and bought them a roast chicken. when i was out to store to buy the roast, i saw quite a lot of families and all the mothers (wives) were pushing the carts fully loaded with purchased items and i was quietly fuming at the lazy bastard husbands who were strolling alongside while their wives were pushing. i mean, really, one day you can’t do the pushing ? i am not one who observe these holidays especially now that i am literally an orphan, but i thought at least this day, the women would get a break from pushing a cart.
i understood my family through the lens of men in my family, who told stories – who passed their histories to me. the mythology of men who tried to shape how i viewed the women in my life, like my mum or my mother’s mum or my dad’s mum; i am rewriting that narrative. i write and rewrite the women, especially my mum and the years of her grieving; for me, my distance away from her, a reminder of what she lost; i also remember, that she has hurt me in ways that she never accepted or acknowledged. i remember, i remember, and again and again, i return to those memories and her house. i return to those long, long car rides, and how tired i was and how she sounded, a little happy “call me sometime soon okay ?” and that she would not call her children, but will wait for them to call her. and she sounded relieved a little that the pressure is off of her. she always sounded well. i miss her all the same. she was who i molded my personality and i imprinted after her and her strength was my alphabet for feminism. i have been blessed with women who have the strength of 100 people even when their entire world would tell them to stay in a corner because they were women.
sandalwood keeps pestering me to go and play tennis with him and there was a time i used to play and not anymore. maybe i should dust off my racquet and try and hit some balls. sandalwood feels like summer, and he is brilliant and burning; a hot spit and a violent flash of possibility. i’m not sure if i am ready to fall in love with him. for a boy who is tall enough to reach the stars, i want to learn how to trust (you) with my eyes closed and fingers crossed, but i am too scared to do that.
lately i have been spending a majority of my evenings outdoors and i think that’s what summer is all about sometimes. i’m fresh-faced and open to exploring the wilderness. i don’t mind the bug bites and curls in my hair from the heavy humid air and the way my toes scrunch up at the first touch of ice cold water in the shade. i don’t want to stop moving. i’m still youthful and i’m ready to stop thinking and start living, and if that means getting lost sometimes on purpose and taking spontaneous late night walks where the fireflies illuminate the trees, then okay, i’m ready. there are so many things that i’m hoping to find this summer and though i’m unsure of what exactly they might be, i’m ready to discover them hidden within the parts of people, of strangers, of myself that i never expected to uncover.
and that’s where i’m at right now.
soft delusions 