xi

ties that bind

/ mycatisafrenchspy / Leave a comment

i always wanted my love life to be a really grand adventure like that of my days with julien. since then it’s like “in search of lost time” and the love i find is actually very pleasant and quite restful but no grand adventure.

a recent development in my life which is kind of rippling my feelings is the american boy started going to the gym right the time when i am in the gym… i mean, i understand why tho as at that time the gym at our work is quite vacant as opposed to during lunch hour. the gym i used to visit near my house had closed down and i am in search of a gym which is really unfruitful and i am bouncing from one to another and feeling in general unmotivated. and since the closing of the gym i have not been working out which is a few months and my problems aka asthma related breathing issues, steroid related tummy and bloating issues started creeping back. and so i started going to my work gym and much to my surprise american boy started as well and tho i am pleased i am bit miffed. well can you blame me tho ? i aimed for a grand passion and excitement with him and wanted to go to pieces with him but it wasn’t so and now that i have sandalwood and i do appreciate him who understands me and wants to be with me in my quiet moments. and now here i am again and i am a bit confused with my feelings for this american boy. well que sera whatever will be and all that jazz i suppose..

in other news, last week was a busy week for me as wed, thurs, friday i took three cats to vet and after $600 later, found nothing is severely wrong with any of them and thank god for that, but i was exhausted. i get home around 6 and then take the kitties to vet around 7 pm after feeding the rest of the brood and get home around 9:30 and take a shower and get into bed. as if this is not enough, the workout i have been doing resulted in me being sore and boy, i was sore.

this sunday, i watched the movie ben-hur which is a remake and not the original ben-hur with charlton heston. while the cast looked more like middle easterners, like the jewish people in judea would have been, they wanted to make it politically correct where everyone is guilt free, etc and this honestly wanted me to go and puke my little guts out. i kept giggling at the actor who played jesus as he was quite awkward in dialogue delivery and looked quite cross. so every time he comes on the screen i was giggling at the jesus who looked cross.. 😊 but i cried my eyes out at the crucifixion or rather the journey to the cross as these scenes remind me how a thousand times i failed him and yet his mercy remains towards me and how much god loves us all and not as a whole human population but that he loved each and every person whoever lived on this planet earth. and i hastily add that jesus’ suffering and dying on the cross is not just about the physical pain and first death as many people in those times were crucified.

i made enough vegetable pottage to last me for like, three full days’ worth of meals. incredible. i spent sunday indoors as it was super muggy and hot and today surpassed sunday reading a god of small things. the boy that i’m seeing, sandalwood, texted me, saying he saw me walking through town while he was driving. i am lying curled in my bed , watching my lazy cats play and furl, play and furl in slow, slow rhythm — i thought “it’s nice to hear from him today.”

i’ve finished eating my stew a while ago but still i am so much warmer; all those spices and five cloves of garlic and turmeric will do that — fill you with a hazy hazy heat.

 

june

/ mycatisafrenchspy / Leave a comment

if a june night could talk,
it would probably boast it invented romance ~ bernard williams

bonjour a tous ! it was not so very pretty day but i got myself a bagel, a coffee and a book. weatherwise, it’s super muggy and a bit warm and on account of me being allergic to everything under the sun and including the sun, i didn’t venture out after this little trip.

i have been quite busy and occupying my time with gardening and cats as to love a cat or a flower is the most delicious form of escapism. the honeysuckles near my bedroom window started blooming and they scent my night air swirling together with gossamers of my dreams of the future and wisps and sighs of my past.

life became a blur and i am reminding myself to be still and not become a blur as well.

excuse me while i frolic in the glow of sheer happiness of my boys les warriors win the nba championship and hear me do a war cry of victory. there was a time, when i was sitting in a japanese/thai restaurant in ardmore with sandalwood on the night of game six of warriors v rockets, refusing to go home as rockets were leading 3-2 and i was so afraid that warriors may be done as they sucked for the last few games. i sat there petrified to eat even but there was a tv in the restaurant and i could clearly see the score and warriors were already lagging and my heart sank further still; but sandalwood is like i guarantee you that warriors are gonna win tonight and you must watch the game and he finally convinced me to leave the restaurant and so we packed our foods which just arrived much to the wonderment of the waitress and we raced home and yes, warriors won that game and they tied the series; and on the final game where there was 50% chance of warriors to win and again i was so terrified but sandalwood was  again supportive and told me that i should watch the game as it’s all about greatness achieved through competition and boy, was i glad to watch them win. and when they were in finals, i had no doubt that they will bulldoze cavaliers and yes and yes, my boys were brilliant and i especially loved the little facial expression of “yes” on durant’s face after he pulled the team into lead in game 3. everyone assumes that i like curry, but i actually like durant more and if i were to choose between curry and durant, i would go with durant as a romantic partner because i love strong, silent types.

in summary i don’t know about warriors but i am emotionally and physically drained but it was a glorious journey to reach the cup.

at the office i have squabbled and debated with my colleagues pete and tom as they were super fans of lebron james and i, just can’t stand him. they have this tendency to like pretty much everyone i despise. and for the record, i have no clue why i detest lebron so vehemently… i stand corrected, i think i know why; it’s because he was given a god status and i think he is so overrated and yea, that ticks me off…

i have started a gardening project after almost killing a variety of plants in the office. i would buy these little potted plants and bring them to office only to find them near dead in a couple of days (not my fault, i hastily add. it’s just that the office environment not conducive to any living organisms) and i would hurriedly bring them back home to nurse them back to health. even my cacti died. so i got a few baby spider plants from someone and now waiting for their roots to flourish so i could pot them. i brought some seeds to office and now my little seedlings are poking their itty bitty heads out of the soil and i am carefully coddling them. i really hope that they would thrive and that i could slowly transform my cubicle into a garden full of greenery and throbbing with life.

people break so easily along with their dreams and hearts. the suicides of kate spade and bourdain was awful news for me to hear. severe depression leads you to a place where pain is just too great to be awake filling you with despondency and paranoia and utter loneliness. truly it’s a hard disease to cope with not only for the person who is going through that but also to the ones in their lives.

i have made no progress what so ever on my grand plans. if i can be real with y’all for a second, the past few months have been a bit difficult of my entire fucking life second only to those right after my husband’s death. i’ve been hit with like twenty different curve balls and all at the same time, and again and again and again. i’ve realized many things like who your friends are and who i can count on, ventured out of my security zone, my family’s and my personal traumas and my oh so many allergies; i have to hold people up even when i was not able to hold myself up; but the good news is i have finally forgiven myself and come to love myself and i have wept over how precious the life is and all those lives were of my loved ones… i have wept at how we all are evolving at such a rapid & terrifying rate.

wept inconsolably when saying goodbyes to the nba games on tv and the goodbyes to my precious warriors. how i said goodbye to my best, best friend who came to visit me and, my face puffy, breaking out in hives, and cried all the way back to my home, in the mist. i have been so lonely countless times, but i have — & this is where it comes — i have never felt so tremendously proud of myself. in my entire life. there has never been a point where i felt like i am capable of anything, & i feel that now. truly, more than anything. my sense of self is so strong, and i know that this may be a momentary feeling, that i may be basking in a new-glow, a feeling of hope & opportunity like you would find in a new language, a new place, a nuevo-scape that one have yet to understand, and master but i am ready to immerse. i am ready to become. i am ready, so ready. i want to engage as intimately and meaningfully in a place, with the people that mean something to me, & i will glow, and the ones i love around me will glow, and we will be so brilliant under every single sky.

11:11

/ mycatisafrenchspy / Leave a comment

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.

evening thoughts

/ mycatisafrenchspy / Leave a comment

i’ve been sad for a few days now,  as sunday before last, i lost my very pretty baby girl bastet. on friday (april 6) evening when i got home, there were indications that she had been vomiting and when she saw me, she cried aloud. and i knew her heart is giving out when i touched her and her temperature was down and her paws were cold. it was a hard but i decided to let her die in my home and in my arms as i know it would be futile to run her to emergency room and subjecting her to all kinds of torture. so i sat with her and let her sleep on my chest. she finally passed away sunday morning around 3 am. and she still looked beautiful. i kept her in my arms till the rigor set in and i went to bed.

as a mother i want to keep my babies safe forever and i know life is not like that. i am glad to say, i have and will provide the best possible care for my kids knowing fully well that they will all leave me. but i count my blessings and am learning not to be greedy and let them go without being selfish and subjecting them to unnecessary torture (like taking them to vets) because i want to hang on to them .

i am silently thanking god for the thorns as well as the stars he placed in my life.

and of course, the whole of last week i moped around a bit.

now that the spring is in the air, i am attracting unwanted attention as usual. and they do get drawn to me like a moth to the flame. i mean, i am not making fun of them because they are attracted to me, but i get cheesed off royally because of their lack of romance or paying me compliments… for example, they expect me to get wooed when they say “you are stunning”, “you are amazing”, “you are beautiful”…. and usually i’m a cold bitch and i would give my standard reply “fuck you” and now a days i have this guy at the trolley station who says the above things and also if i am wearing flyers jersey (they won one game) and lost two so far (i know, i know i cry every time and it’s exhausting), he goes “ooh flyers”…. i mean, come on ! my iq isn’t in single digit to fall for that crap… and he tries to talk to me but he is as deep as a rain water puddle and he gives me migraines. i probably have to change my trolley stations and soon…

i think i may be a little too hard on some people. maybe i’ll stop. there are times to be a cold bitch and times to forgive and forget. i feel like lately i’ve been too stressed out to differentiate.

now a days i have a lot of time on my hands and i have analyzed and found that careerwise, staying where i’m is not gonna work for me long term. for one i don’t think the department would provide me with opportunities to excel and i’ve bleated myself hoarse asking for some projects, to learn something new and acquire skills and then i realized i’m wasting my time and i’m not suicidal and so i’ve started making lateral moves into a different area.  probably soon or in couple of years, i should move on to a better position. and i’ve plenty of time on my hands.

i’m also getting influenced to start thinking “out of the box” by this novel “the martian” and it is fantastique. it gives a brand new perspective about what to do or what not to do when you find yourself all alone.

and i’ve made a great friend at work and she is awesome and keeps questioning my thoughts when we meet with each other once a month and thus keeps me on my toes. we keep pushing and teaching each other to excel in our careers.

also my former boss paula wasn’t pleased when i told her i wanted to do mba as she still wants me to finish off my ph.d. and start a biologics company. but i need time for that as i’m just now getting stronger. and so for now, i shelved the mba idea to see where my lateral moves would take me.

sandalwood got me an engagement ring and i am like “dude, did you see me wearing any jewelry except for my belly button ring and occasionally a nose ring”. he said he bought it for more of a traditional reason and i was like on your knees please.  i never wore my wedding band except on my wedding day and jace never wore it as well.  and i don’t think, i will start now. or may be i will wear just that one piece and i will totally be naked. i keep telling sandalwood “please sit back and watch me fall in love with you”

i told him i may not be in love with him right this minute, but before i love him again, i will make sure i will carry the same heart as his and even though mine is broken, i will stitch them together with his kind words. he told me that we should recreate the pheromone that moths use to attract other moths. and how if we touched that chemical it would stay in our bodies for ten years. when i teared up and became small, he told me that we would go somewhere quiet and let the moths turn us into dust.

every time i visit him and if the weather is nice, we would sit on  the step of his fire escape, and he sipping his wine. across the streets through the thick of  leaves and then the cracks in the branches, you could hear music playing. some soft and sad songs. the place always felt a little too far away. one night we went inside, and the bassist was a boy who i think about often, who knows what kind of music i like. he smiled baby smiles at me while he played and i thought about magic, about coincidences, about how sometimes the most important place in the world is somewhere you dream about from a fire escape across the street.

sandalwood is back on the road and i miss him. i miss the american boy somedays as well. this irritates me to no end to find feelings lurking in my heart for him. i know it’s hard to choke and kill your feelings no matter how pissed you are with someone and i’m trying to wean myself off him. it’s a bit hard as well, because we both are on the same floor and for my part, i’ve mastered the art of avoiding him…

i guess eventually i’ll get better at goodbyes, but this time and sometimes i’m finding them in parts, in fragments, in some nights saying too much with words that spiral and others spending too much time understanding different ways to communicate. so many words tonight, beautiful little fragments of all that is before and after

what turns to stone is inside you and too often we carry these weights within us.

wicked

/ mycatisafrenchspy / Leave a comment

when i walked into my home this evening, i was greeted by this very beautiful fragrance of glade’s enchanted garden which perfumes my home in a most glorious way…. i walked in with a handful of cat food as usual. i was thinking as i walked into the house that i’ve taken myself out of the context recently; like my family and poetry and stripped myself out of everything. stripping myself down to bare skin and coming to a new place in my life and i can actually say, i’ve started growing into a new skin, a new myself really; i keep taking selfies of myself and i can see my eyes are definitely tired, but excited and there’s a new glow in them… my shoulders are curled-in with exhaustion, but i’m arriving at a new place. i even started introducing myself to myself, laughing and there’s a new bounce in my steps and i keep humming and dancing while waiting at the printers and copiers and in front of elevators…

all i want to do these days is the opposite of everything that i have been doing. touching-and going. climbing mountains, breathless in the rain. i’m disappearing into the folds of my blankets as soon as i come home (well after i feed my kids of course) and sometimes i go for a drive through the woods.

i’ve started becoming restless again. restless feet and restless hands. and i keep exhaling and exhaling. march is difficult you know. i’m almost afraid to remember. it’s difficult and it’s still so close. i come here to write but raking through my memories which induce pain and panic attacks, and later spending hours incapacitated, face-down on my woolly rug touching the tiny ridges of the wool of it to make sure that i’m still here, that i have a body to remember to return to.

i feel brave and then suddenly i don’t feel brave at all. i want to call sandalwood and say “let’s go for a walk” and maybe we go for a walk, and treading beneath a canopy of blank branches and endless fallen leaves, and talking about the importance of the smell of dark-green to someone who will let me forget without asking too many questions.

all i want to do is sit in my room and smell the beautiful fragrance and listen to the rain coming from above. hear the rushing noise of the cars outside of my home, the pitter patter sounds of my kids’ feet on the hardwood…  my kids fill me up with warmth. there is no warmth in the memories of what has hurt, anywhere in this little space of mine. even the old letters that have been written to me are stuffed somewhere in a box. the whole of this week i kept ouching and my back still huts and i thought it’s because i pulled my back muscle while exercising but that coupled with lungs hurting as a result of flared up asthma made my life miserable.

i am trying to understand a lot of things about home-making. today i was chatting with a colleague of mine and i was telling her that i am not domestic at all. i am looking for a man who would make me a cup of coffee in the morning and do my laundry; like jace used to. she laughed and i told her that i’m a card carrying feminist. she later emailed me a few webinars from women.

recently i came very close to telling off american boy and that he can go fuck himself. i also would have drawn a diagram of the same. but i didn’t and i swallowed my anger and grew more patient. sandalwood laughed and made fun of me and asked me when i finally tell him off, i should record it on my iphone and that he would provide me the newest version possible.

he is looking to buy an apartment in downtown philly so we can split time between city and country and i’m looking to buy an investment property but not sure if i could afford but i must. but it’s sure is fun though to go and look for houses. he is good to me you know. he keeps me stable and this scares me. i’m a wild child and i’m used to getting hurt and i don’t want to hurt him.

yesterday i was completely pissed and furious, as i was hungry and went to café and that had no decent food and it just pushed all my buttons.. my cafeteria has increasingly became unfriendly towards vegetarians and i see the same stuff day in day out and man, if i have to describe myself as a cartoon, i would be having steam coming out of my reddened ears, eyes and nose, etc. and when i came back to my office, i wrote a very nasty feedback and so, when i went downstairs to get food this afternoon, there were more vegetarian dishes ! squeaky wheel and grease and all that good stuff !

oh here’s an annoying detail of my life. i had a big argument with tom from my work re. pull ups (chin-ups) v pull downs and boy, he just doesn’t seem to understand the difference. he kept telling me that it’s the same motion and i kept explaining the science and i even sent him an article. all this came about as i was bleating to him about my inability to do pull ups and how i would like to be able to do at least one respectable pull-up. i think he was just trying to annoy me.

and here’s a funny detail. today my boss was trying to mail an infant girl dress to someone and i was helping her and she is like, you can’t have that one as you won’t fully fit into it and so i told her, “sometimes you don’t want to fully get covered by anything” and i winked at her while giving her my most wicked and naughtiest smile you could imagine. she laughed so hard at that. she has this belief that i’m very nice and i don’t curse, and the worst curse to come out of my mouth would be shucks etc etc. and gosh if only she knew. to be fair i keep warning her about me that i’m not that nice or innocent and that i’m a total bitch; but she doesn’t believe me.

all my life has been fascinating to me. maybe i should explain, all this learning i do and learning how to live safely and comfortably in a space i designed for myself. i keep picturing open windows and doors in a house with wooden floors and somewhere set in a mountain and the curtains gently swinging with the breeze.

that’s what i want to achieve this summer. i have started a memorial garden you know, for jace… i want to build again this summer and put in a water fountain or may be a koi pond. i  want to plant all kinds of colorful plants with beautiful flowers and i want to romp on the grass with my cats or have a picnic in my front yard with sandalwood and i want to read a bunch of books while listening to the birds sing. looking forward to my june monsoons and july summers.

i want to make vegetable stew and homemade banana bread. last night i took down a piece of fabric i pinned into my wall. i’m planning to fill my house with vases of flowers sandalwood keeps bringing me and i made food. for two ! i took photos. a signifier of my home-making. of my ability to settle. i am not a runner, but i hid before. not anymore. all i want to do is stay, to stay and to have that be okay.

all i want is this smallness, the gentle, tender thing of chopping a potatos and peppers. and preparing something, something small and savory to eat with our hands afterwards. i fantasize about the warm lighting, about the cold rain falling outside, of someone i love looking at me and knowing that he loves me too.

i feel simple and fragile and very small. maybe my dreams have always been leading me to this. to a place that resembles home. safety. where i’m myself, first and foremost, before i’m a daughter, a sibling, a lover and a friend. i’ve got no money. only a mortgage on a good house, nestled in a good neighborhood. nobody knows what i went through to get here. mostly falling, crawling and terrified. hiding a lot. picking myself up, dusting and shaking off loose scales and i’m emerging tho. and in all this i must remember to thank god over and over again; and i think my cats and i (and may be sandalwood) can build happiness and a world with roses, rainbows and glitter… a lot of glitter and, i think my kitties and i are gonna be okay ! i really really think so.

reflections….

/ mycatisafrenchspy / Leave a comment

shout out to god for protecting me & my kitties from really bad storm and to my kids who have been champions thru all this. since friday evening we have had no power and it was below 40f in our house (yes, we are cold & we have sniffles & we are bundled up & probably it’s warmer outside than our home) and we all piled up into our bed and i felt sorry  for myself and my kids but gathered a profound understanding and respect for nature. i had my house full of candles & it’s beautiful to look at and i had fireplace which did nothing to the cold. falling snow was positively breath taking but only if you have a warm place.

friday i was at work and tim and i were joking about the commute home as snow already started falling and sure enough in spite the fact that i left early and took train, i got home two hours later and majority of that i spent in waiting for the trains to move due to fallen trees and stuff. and also i am fucking thankful for my bmw x5 because that car is marvelous in snow…

sandalwood wanted to come back when he heard we have no power. he is traveling and is somewhere in idaho. his work (he is a vp of tech for a fortune 500 company) demands he travel. a lot.

i am thankful for his emails tho. he discusses what he is reading currently (condoleeza rice’s autobiography; apparently she gave it to him when he met her) and we are doing wall street journal cross words and i must say my understanding of american english has considerably improved as now a days i can fill in the cross word in pen !! what does that say about my intelligence ! i positively preened when i first did it and except for one i had them all filled in correctly.

i was at jack’s on sunday evening as i had to shower & do my laundry and he hurriedly invited his accountant who also goes to the same gym as apparently jon told j (jack) that he would give him a discount in fees if j invites me as well because jon has hots for me… i haven’t been to gym (where j & i workout) lately even tho it’s gonna change soon. so for j’s sake, i chatted with jon a bit but i don’t like jocks one bit; as far as i’m concern they are morons as they don’t read to save themselves and i hate people who don’t read as i like conversation and discussing things intelligently and philosophically and what do i do after sex with someone who doesn’t read ? i may have to take up smoking & i already got asthma. jon may be nice but he is into sports like playing hockey, he let that tidbit come into the conversation and i agree, i haven’t asked him about his reading habits but the way someone speaks with me is enough of an indicator. i expect people to understand me by the way i glance at them or say something without a whole preamble; i have this habit of starting a conversation with a particular person in my head and by the time i actually meet that person, my conversation is in full swing & i may just end up saying like ‘so we should do this’ or ‘we should have dinner’etc and i know, it’s really not right to expect a logical response to this from others, but well…. if you know me, you know what i’m talking about.

all the dark nights with nothing to do and i kept reflecting on piece of my life.

reflection pieces are very important to me and that’s all i do here… but i’ve spent so much time reflecting & i don’t want to do it anymore. i’m channel my eyes forward. no more lingering. no more dipping my toes back into old memory-pools. no more saying, ‘what about from this angle ?’ and then analyzing a situation until i’m down to nothing but dust and cob webs and dryer lint. 2017 was like sticking my hand into a lion’s mouth again and again and pretending that i wasn’t afraid. i did a lot of running. i know that now. but i also did a lot of growing up. also cried in a lot of beautiful places—which is such an annoying sentence.  change is never easy, and i did not—did not at all—allow myself a proper and healthy adjustment. distanced myself from world because i could not bear to see the ways; catastrophic anxieties and fears….

i’m going to work on tenderness this year. tenderness towards myself; tenderness towards my environment; tenderness towards the people who actually care for me. i will allow someone to take care of me and i will allow my grief to overwhelm me. so this year i’m going to be more tender. not let my fear of failure keep me from creating— from creating nourishing, tender pieces. from exploring different mediums. i will begin to trust my hands more—use them to make, for others. to cook, for others. i want to teach myself and allow others to teach me about myself, about themselves, of new ways to translate and understand the earth. there is so much inside of me that needs to be translated, transformed, transfigured. alchemized.

i’ve got to let go of control as well but not sure if i could. can’t control what’s already happened. can’t control loss or losing or grief or longing; i can, though. breathe. i can breathe. not consume and make another limb of my trauma. i can try to understand it and be a better, kinder person because of it. there is so much softness, so much gentle light in this world. in many ways, by the end of this year, i have become angry at that softness. at tenderness. at opening and vulnerability and anything becoming and flowing. i have lost my balance this year; some large ways because of others, in many everyday ways because of myself. but that is not who i am. this is not who i’m. i’m angry sometimes and bitter; but i’m also a child with an uneven heart. i’m trying, in this year, for more tenderness towards myself.

and the world is kind and cruel and full of poetry. i trust my heart enough to hold me & keep me warm.

things i’m afraid to admit…. 1

/ mycatisafrenchspy / Leave a comment

yes, i’m still attached to you and i look for you. and it brings me a passion and it feeds my addiction and a need for your approval.  there is a strong attachment but i remove you like bullets with my hands… pain carries souls and stories and hurt is one longest memory.

and it hurts, you know. because you were my favorite part of every day. i made you my sun and moon and every star in my hazy dreamy world. but it just doesn’t matter now. isn’t that bizarre ? you put your heart and soul into someone else’s hands and then it just ends and you have to take everything back. but you can’t take everything back. but you want to. but you don’t. and you can’t. that’s the worst part, you can’t. you make them the air that you breathe and then they’re gone and you have to keep breathing whatever toxicity is left behind, and it hurts. my lungs hurt. but no one is going to save me, and that’s the worst part too. you just want someone to take the hurt away for a minute, just a second, but they can’t. you have to keep living until the pain gets dull. you don’t want to because they were the best part of this life and now they aren’t here anymore and you can hardly bear it. but you have to keep living anyways. and it hurts.

but then your compassion doubles. and you learn that you give your love to those who have proven themselves worthy of it. someone who empathizes and like you, who looks at life through a dreamy set of rose colored glasses, and you lie under the bare sky and full moon (not today as it’s raining) and you both solve love related dilemmas with poise and style and all the way you giggle in a silly manner.

for the boy with the backpack, i told you today what you wanted to hear. for a person who craves directness, you weren’t direct or truthful. it’s a shame really as you won’t know heaven till you know me. all i wanted you to do is fight for me.

we both are bad actors and we are waiting for someone to ask the questions we skillfully avoid with passion and purpose.

and my darling, i take photographs, and i’ll make a handful of u-turns and that’s just what life is all about sometimes; taking chances on strangers and not worrying about getting lost along the way. there is always a way out, but that doesn’t mean i can’t make a graceful exit.

little things

/ mycatisafrenchspy / Leave a comment

my heart is ripe like a juicy mango – full of nauseatingly sweet smell of over-ripened things – and i’m exceedingly tired and i wondered about it on the train ride to home and then it hit me. i was in the gym and instead of weights, i put the ballet workout for half hour and gosh it tired me out.

these days have been full and brimming and chaotic but deeply, deeply beautiful. i have never felt so chaotic yet so beautiful. i have been running for miles and miles and miles in my mind.  while walking to my car the other day from my trolley station i saw the budding bulbs on the ground and they made me so happy and i smiled at them and whispered “hello, i have been waiting for you”. sandalwood gave me two small daisey plants with flowers in them one is kind of deep red or maroon and the other a bright yellow (and he said because yellow reminds him of my smile).

i could index my days; love, age, my cat horus, sandalwood’s fisherman’s hat, peeling my entire dress off and down to just cami and panties, so i can pee in the woods when we went hiking after church (side note: he didn’t come into the church and so i can honestly say, this is a deal breaker and he knows it and said he will try but till he sets foot into the church, there won’t be any ding or a dong of wedding bells), and this day when a little girl held my hand on the train ride home till my stop.

oh this happened this week. i’ve asked tim, my mentor, for a reference letter for mba program and because we were busy at work he didn’t yet get to it and i’m pretty sure he wants to write me a good one and so i wasn’t expecting them to proceed with my app till they finished and curiouser and curiouser, monday i got an email asking me for an interview and i went to tim to say thank you and he was like i didn’t do it yet and but i’m happy anyway because this also means that they may be considering me for a scholarship of sorts which is based on merit and i’m floating in the clouds. and i’m doing a program that i’m so excited. and the other perk of being in school is i will have a student id and i could go to philly orchestra and opera and theater for cheap ! how great is that !

i’m blissful, in learning. in learning around these people like sandalwood and we hold each other so tender. yesterday in the tender night he moved his fingers down my spine, gently pressing the bones one by one while i laid on the floor; his hands so gentle like feathers and i forgot he was actually touching me and i kept seeing these chinese winter yellow jasmine flowers. and he told me that that when he reached the bottom of my spine, he felt this surge – this overwhelming feeling of love and protection.

in stillness, my body stops ringing and i remember i’m full of grief and longing & this has always, always been the case. but when i think of the fact that i’m loved i feel like i’m bursting… and i feel myself being reterraformed and like sometimes it’s too much… and i feel like a bottle and i’m i am sloshing with these memories of laughter & rooms where i have been held gently and being caressed carefully and was spoken with the softest voices we usually reserve for each other on a warm, quiet nights; voices which brim with love.

there are little schools of fishies swimming through my eyes all day and all night.

for someone who feels important, i’m all tangled up in the magic of things…

small reminders

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for the past few days rain rolled through our little town and now cold winter air is drifting through the open window once again. i’ve been keeping my words quiet because i’m unsure of many things right now.

i’m slowly getting into the meat of things again and i’ve been accomplishing things, all the while fighting through uncertainty and unsuredness and half the battle is to quiet my brain which is screaming fearfully. i keep lecturing myself to breathe and take baby steps.

on friday i had a chat with horus’ doc regarding removing his feeding tube. he asked me to bring him in if my primary vet doesn’t do it. i already checked with my vet but she was unsure of it as she didn’t do it for a while and i was reluctant to drive a screaming and stressed out kitty over 2 hours just to get his stitches out. so i got home and watched a you tube video on how to remove a feeding tube and as i am a scientist and i thought how hard could this be as i have dissected out the brains of fruit flies. so i proceeded to remove horus’ stitches after properly sterilizing my eyebrow scissors and removed the goddamn feeding tube and cleansed the area and put a collar back around his neck so he won’t scratch it. after i removed the tube, he pouted for an hour but he came back to my bed and slept. i checked the wound site on sat morning and it’s healing nicely and i am keeping an eye on it till it’s completely healed. the biggest problem was to keep him steady while i was trying to get at the stitches as he kept moving. i wasn’t sure but i think, he pulled it out himself the moment i snipped the last stitch as he jumped off of the counter and all i saw was this tube flying in the air after him.

my friend jack keeps asking me to go running with him around 5 am on sundays and excuse me ! what’s with white people and running ? it’s well and good for you, as you have flat chest but have you seen me ? my boobs are like halves of a pineapple and there is no sports bra on this planet which would contain them tight enough so they won’t jiggle and move when i run ! even when i was thin as a rake, i had them and i used to look like a stick figure with boobs ! and not to speak of the time jack was proposing ! 5 goddamn a.m. !! is he crazy ? i ain’t getting out of my bed (even tho i am awake for all intents and purposes) at that ungodly hour, on a sunday, unless my house is on fire…. scratch that, unless i’m on fire.

at work one of my colleagues also asked me if i would consider walking from down town to amtrak station which is a few block and i laughed and said, may be ! walking isn’t bad but the humidity in my city is intense and it plays a number on my lungs.

i’ve jump started on my spring cleaning as my kids were home all the winter and quite frankly the air is getting a bit stale. and oh, this weekend an indian movie actress died at a young age (54) and i think it’s a shame. not a very big fan of her’s as she always acted similar to lucille ball you know how bimboish she acted and trying to give an impression of a complete airhead and i don’t like such people and frankly it takes my all to not slap them on their face and say “use your fucking brains”. and oh, i also read somewhere that marilyn monroe put that kind of show in spite of being very smart because that’s what men like; a complete moron who flutters their eye lashes and coyly say “oh sir, aren’t you a genius”. how ridiculous ! it’s just not them who flutter their lashes and at least they have an excuse, but once i was watching an interview with katie couric and she was fluttering her eye lashes like there is no tomorrow and i was super angry. i know men are weaker sex but i would never take advantage of that. i would rather stroke a man’s dick rather than a man’s ego to please him if he isn’t deserving. some men are intelligent and i would genuinely compliment them.

well, this weekend my friend and i made plans for his visit in march and he wanted me to return with him to new zealand for a few days and it’s appealing to me. the traveler in me had to take a hiatus due to my panic attacks which i developed after i lost my child but i am hoping i would be able to travel to all these gorgeous places i have maps for and i keep marking the routes for the same.

i keep wandering off to all these faroff places with the boy i am in love with and keep telling him all these things i haven’t said. being in love with someone from this distance feels more bittersweet than i expected and i keep pressing my fingers to my heart. i think it is okay if you get quiet at the wrong times because i do that as well.  and it is okay if you get wrapped up in moment, tangled in what should have been said, if you tie knots around the word you don’t have courage to say.

i don’t know if i would be able to leave or if he would stop me. for all those faded friendships… i have a fire in my finger tips and i want to believe in this, in me and in you and the way your eyes burn when you look at me….. why won’t you believe in us ?

for still being here, and i’m not ready to give up the fight

all the stars

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IMG_2658 (1)

an excerpt from our night. anubis et moi, rocking to “all the stars – kendrick lamar”

i’ve finally submitted my application y’all for an mba and i’m chatting up people so i can move ahead and use my intelligence appropriately. i’m excited to learn something new but i’m already tightly scheduled with no time left for myself but my circumstances have made me work harder so i can’t relax yet but i keep reminding myself that this is only temporary and yes, one of these days i too shall enjoy crème brûlée cheese cakes, and pastel sunsets and hopefully it will be with sandalwood or on my own as “places are so much lovelier when one is alone – du maurier”

sandalwood appeared on my doorstep with a guacamole grilled cheese sandwich and i must say, for a pretentious person, i love grilled cheese sandwich and i ate it for the first time when i came to america and julien and i were visiting one of our friends and she lived on a farm and the sandwich her mum made was yummy and it was julien’s first as well and it was a tremendous joy; but i can’t cook one even if someone put a gun to my head and oh i tried to cook it numerous times but i think i suck in a most brilliant way. but the boy scored again with his brilliant guacamole grilled cheese sandwich feat.

i’ve been spending time plotting my future (mostly financial as i’m broke) but it’s fun though. you know. to earn money and multiply it and invest etc. i dated millionaires before i got married to jace (and after julien) but they all bored me and mocked me because here i was working hard to get a degree and there they are high school drop outs but millionaires. and i actually admired them but they were boring because they wanted a trophy wife, unintelligent and without an opinion, blonde, lounging by the poolside, sipping something alcoholic and having no opinion except for the temperature of the water. and i’m not that person you know. the only way anyone can grab my attention or respect is by challenging my intelligence and they were desperate and i was like no thank you !

julien was an aristocrat but he was as humble as he was wealthy and jace worked hard for his money and i admired his intelligence.

i have so many things still up in the air and some days i just want to give up and curl up in a corner and go to sleep and not wage wars but when i see my pretty little babies faces, adrenaline bursts into my veins.

i got sick on sunday with flu thanks to one of my colleagues who was at work on friday in spite of him going through flu and coughed a lot and i knew in 48 hours i’ll come down with flu (viral incubation is 48 hrs) and so monday i informed my boss i’ll come and collect my laptop and leave and she was like stay put. i spent monday fading in and out.

and there is this girl who kept emailing me all day long with honey dripping right through my laptop screen and who i can’t stand as she is so goddamn fake (and dangerous if you don’t watch out) and once she realized that i’m on a solid ground with my boss (there was a futile attempt to make my life miserable and for a while they were successful till my boss figured out the truth as i refused to talk to her about my pain but just ground up my teeth) and so she is now all lovey dovey and i’m now gagging and wanting to throw up because i’m not fake but i’m polite and i give minimum respect they deserve as a human being in spite of my personal feelings. the most incredulous thing for me is that people underestimate me and my intelligence. and i assess a person’s intelligence by talking to someone for a couple of seconds. i’ve a good mind to photocopy my resume and rent a crop duster or a drone and make these copies rain in my office !

but all is well that ends well… and meanwhile i’m plotting my success in the company and i’ll bulldoze anyone who would stand in my way while charming the pants off of the right people.

an update on the reasons for my existence and the joy and happiness of my life aka my kitty babies. horus has started eating on his own and halle-fucking-leuiah and i’m floating in the nebula with happiness and i’m thinking i would bring him to the vet sometime this weekend to get his feeding tube removed. skittles, my kid with ruptured third eyelid, as i predicted completely recovered and she still has a bit of healing to happen, but she is happy and her eye looks fine and i’m sure her vision is normal. the rest of my children and doing well by god’s grace.

my friend will be visiting me in march and he lives in new zealand and i’m seeing him after many moons and so i’m i thrilled to bits. i am putting together a fun day or two with him.

i’m planning to get acupuncture for my asthma and ugh.. not too thrilled about needles as i would cry shamelessly. and i’ve scheduled a full body massage (which includes massaging tits and tummy, and bum) so i could detox. i try and get this done once every six months but it has been over a year.

i’m miserable slightly as i am trying to move on and as much as i would like to forget ze american boy, it’s hard as i still see him around. but i’m getting better and i scribbled a few lines for him for his birthday.

as usual, this does not belong here, it is not poetic, it is personal and it hurts but i just need to say this before i forget.

it’s your birthday, so i bought you a cake, i would have baked you a cake, a towering one with three layers of raspberry infused chocolate mousse cake.

i met you at a very strange time in my life. i felt a little sad and nostalgic for new years where i was ready for so much and so little all at once. if life went the way i wanted, i probably would have hung out with you, laughing and may be shared a bag of chips with you; i have a love affair with bottles and i would have given you a blue bottle from an antique store.

i loved you yesterday and i loved you today. i loved you in a complicated and compromising and confusing way that made me uncomfortable and unapologetic for my actions. i loved you and i was stupid, so stupid in a confusing way, stupid in the way i’d never be able to keep my hands off of you, stupid in the way i had spilled my secrets i never knew i had, stupid in the way i’d cry every time i thought of letting you go, stupid in the way i would have been reckless and bold. but i loved you. i am sure of that, no matter how many silences, awkward half-conversations, nights when i  soaked the sheets with hot salt water tears.

i was careless and consumed, you know.

but happy birthday my darling !

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