tender pt 1

Lord, I need to find someone who can heal my mind

“There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical joke, though the wit thereof he but dimly discerns, and more than suspects that the joke is at nobody's expense but his own.”

— Moby Dick

When Ishmael and I watched The Whale together last March, the initial shyness of getting to know a new person blanketed over us on the narrow bed. That’s when I named him Ishmael in my head. We promised to read Moby Dick together. The length of the book was a way for me to make sure we stayed in each other’s life for a long time. We never got to read it together. This February, I took the book from F-’s room and I am around a hundred pages in. Ishmael and I evaporated over time;  could not stand the test of my temperament. 

Tonight I tried to be brave and word my anxieties and issues to him, about how I feel about things, but it came out half laughter, half sarcastic, because that’s how I have chosen to be perceived by everybody who has chosen to be in contact with me. When will I be able to be real? Myself? How do you ask people to hear you out when you haven’t spoken up? 

How long will I keep saying I am a misunderstood person when I don’t want anybody to understand me and reduce me to something simple and dispensable? 

The love is there, still. But there’s a wedge in between us, and it gets deeper the more we stay in touch. The first lunch we had together this year, in an empty restaurant we frequent was something I knew would happen. But no matter how much you prepare yourself, no matter how much you put in front of you, your heart is still inside of you. 

I moved to California, but it's just a state of mind

It turns out everywhere you go, you take yourself, that's not a lie.

— Lana Del Rey, Fuck It I Love You

The staff could hear our conversation. I felt ashamed enough already, but I sat through it all, pushing food in my mouth. It was like my worst nightmare. I don’t feel things easily, they do not register the way they should. They creep in and find a crack to bloom from, and a week, a month, a few drinks later, they come to the surface. I can never process things, I can’t handle change. 

link

All images will be forgotten.

— Last spring, entering summer, I sat in a room tucked away in the middle of the campus. There was smoke in the room, and music at odd hours. Card games and philosophical questions punctuating affection that flowed through all of us. I thought the string of fate was real, and I thought it radiated my warmth to others for once. 

— Train trips to another city for love. Sleeping on the floor on a mattress that contained everything for me in the moment. My loves, sending me off with promises to wait for me. For once, having people to talk about when I went back to the life I came here from.

— Sleeping on a terrace of a newly constructed building. A site for lovers to find a corner of their own. A- and I, with blankets. That June did not feel like a June, it was too cold, and I felt opened up. The childish wish to freeze time came over me again.

— Bright colored envelopes. Food from home behind the Social Science building. A movie screening. Sticking images on walls that speak to us. Cherry coloured lips. Sarees and earrings and bindis and cigarettes. Movies watched in intervals. Sleeping on a raft made of mattresses and sneaking out in the morning because the feeling of displacement sneaks in even when the proof of love is right next to you. 

— Staying up all night to watch the sun rise. Being the first customer at the chai stall on the other end of campus. Eating breakfast. Walking back, not to my room, but Ishmael’s, only to feel jilted. 

— Smoke. Songs in the background. Sitting in a corner with F- playing songs back and forth, a corner to retreat to in a room already too small. 

— Running barefeet in the rain. Last time I remember Happiness the way it is. 

— A tree struck by lightning possibly, a skeleton stolen from some lab and hung from another tree. Ducks on the water. Making paper boats out of cigarette boxes, and letting them float. A rocky bank to the lake, with reeds and alcohol bottles as a boundary between me and the water. 

— A young girl on a scooter, sitting the wrong way, indulging me and letting me in on a secret.  Children in vans and buses, waving. Old women being kind to me, shooing scary dogs away, making space for me to sit. 

— A squirrel becoming roadkill in front of me. A neighborhood dog killed on the main road, his friends howling in grief, trying to nudge him awake. 

नाम गुम जायेगा, चेहरा ये बदल जायेगा

मेरी आवाज़ ही, पहचान है

गर याद रहे

The name will be lost, this face will change

My voice, is what I am

If you can remember

वक़्त के सितम, कम हसीं नहीं

आज हैं यहाँ, कल कहीं नहीं

वक़्त से परे अगर, मिल गये कहीं

The torments of time, are nothing less than beautiful

Today here, next day nowhere 

If beyond time, we meet somewhere

जो गुज़र गई, कल की बात थी

उम्र तो नहीं, एक रात थी

रात का सिरा अगर, फिर मिले कहीं

What has passed concerned time gone by

It wasn’t the whole life, but merely a night

The end of night, if found again somewhere 

दिन ढले जहाँ, रात पास हो

ज़िंदगी की लौ, ऊँची कर चलो

याद आये गर कभी, जी उदास हो

Where the day goes to rest, and the night is near

The flame of life, increase it’s blaze 

When you remember it all, the heart saddens.

— Naam Ghum Jayega, lyrics by Gulzar

Karlotta Freier

I know you don’t want me to write about you anymore, and today I don’t have it in me either; but just in case you are reading. I don’t know what to say to that. I don’t care? I can do whatever I want? This is not about you? What will sound the least rude but the most honest? How can I not write about things that are fundamental to me? If I can’t talk to you, I can talk through you. I carry my love and grief in my bag everywhere I go. But I am getting better. I talk less about it, I think less about it. I go to places. I feel alone in newer places where you never went with me. I just want you to know I was on your side even when I stood away.

Tomoko Hara

source

this is how it will be, until we leave this place, right?

Here are some books I read this year -

1. Simple Passion, Annie Ernaux

2. Eileen, Ottessa Mosfegh

3. The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo

4. The Years, Annie Ernaux (will be done with it by the time this is published)

5. Aftermath, Rachel Cusk

6. Earthlings, Sayaka Murata

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So much has happened, and I have been through so much on my own this year, and it is only February. I wish you all the best. And I want to practice this newsletter like a routine, but not a job. I wish to come back soon. I have started doing things my way. Reading, staying in my room, walking on my own. I have my adolescent walls coming up again, but with enough grace in me to allow people in when they are willing and have time for me. Things don’t seem to be getting better, but I have been getting better at viewing things I remember being told that I am allowed to grieve the way I want, and it comforted me. However, hope comes in the way. I will forever remain stupid that way. I will keep on hoping that I will open the door and there will be a part of my heart on the other side. My room is cleaner now.

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Next issue - analysing my behaviour towards others, considering the damage I do to situations, how going home this time was different, and something else. Will think of it. Valentine’s?

Thanks for reading. Here is a playlist.

Love,

Heera