introspection – Young Adult, Old Soul

Interstices of time.

09 May 2019

In the interstices of time, the forgotten minutes of the day, I sneak in a few reflections on my phone. In a corner of one greying office, imagination blooms. It takes over my desk, growing like vines of voluminous flowers all about; every curling vine can be traced back to me, back to my pen where the words flourish and new worlds are born.

But that is all in my head.

In reality, it would be too conspicuous to even draw out a sheath of paper or my white notebook. So I quickly jot down a few thoughts, passing musings like clouds in my head that are inexorably moving away…

Tap.tap.tap.

It’s not quite the same experience though. There’s traditional writing: balancing a pen between my fingers, a notebook laid out before me, anticipating the gush of words, the opening of new otherworlds. Then there’s this, a rectangular black device with a keyboard already filled with letters, where penstrokes give way to tap tap taps on a writing app. It’s useful and practical. Simple, as it should be.

It’s different, though.

It’s less intimidating, for one. Nowadays, my brain stutters before a blank page, feels the weight of expectations before pen touches paper. There have been times when I’ve opened my journal, poised to write and empty my heart out, only to close it moments later, pages still blank, the pen discarded.

Here though, as with anything related to smartphones, there is a sense of urgency (I’m already stealing time away from my work as it is), to pin the slippery idea down asap. The inclination to delve deep stays away. Sometimes it is just the beginning of an idea that makes it to the app. I type it down, and wait for the idea, a sapling, to grow until I can transplant it in my notebook.

And yet, I am so grateful for it. So grateful that thanks to technology, there is no season to writing. No predetermined creative hours. The door to imagination is open at all times of day and night. Even in the business park where I work, the smartphone and writing app lend me this inconspicuousness, making me look like just another head in the crowd.

Polaris.

A blue night suffused with warmth.

There is only me and this Truth I’ve been rubbing shoulders with. It’s been keeping me company, engaging me in conversation — a faithful little light. I don’t know it and yet it feels altogether familiar, like Polaris, the North star: almost swallowed by distance, and yet also home. How can you feel so close to something that is so far away?

Still, still.

A hush falls on the room and I would say that in that moment I grow silent, but rather, it is in silence that I grow. Like leaves leaning towards light, my consciousness reaches for the stars, my inner self grabs for the many secrets the Universe keeps.

Reveal yourself to me, I ask.

Tell me who you are because I suspect that if you do, I’ll know who I am, too.

Note: Just me writing weird, semi-sensical things again 😂 But hey, self-expression.

Self-chosen.

Trigger warning: mentions of wounds and grazes

There is a burning sensation rising from my ribs, a sting keen enough to draw soft hisses each time my curious fingers graze the inflamed skin.

In the shower, I realised I didn’t just get hurt: I actually managed to scratch myself to the point of leaving marks. It’s usually what happens when I let my nails grow out: dotted red lines, like constellations, start meandering across my body.

“Much of your pain is self-chosen.” wrote Kahlil Gibran.

My fingers press a little harder on the swollen skin, stopping at the rigidness of the rib bone. The pain is sharper, but still burning somewhere along the pleasure-pain scale. It is the kind of minor pain that lights your consciousness, that offers a heightened sensitivity to life and to the experience of it.

You know, I chose to like him.

I chose the 5-hour long conversations, the crazed 2 a.m. ramblings, and the delicious warmth of not-quite-friends. I chose my pain when I chose my joy: that is how these things work. But it’s not quite pain, not a devastation; I haven’t cried for him though I’ve sighed into many golden afternoons and blue nights. It is not pain but rather something more faded, subdued.

Newspaper clippings of past moments. Out of focus memories. The smudged ink of this dying story.

It stings but not quite enough to truly hurt, the pinprick of it a proof that I have lived.

Much of your pain is self-chosen. Yes, very much so.

So long, O.

Note:
As always, I hope you’re doing beautifully! I found this interesting little article about the pleasure-pain idea: https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20151001-why-pain-feels-good

Forever ago. (Part 2)

young adult old soul magical realism pascal campion — Art by: Pascal Campion

We are still at the foot of the mountain when the sky clears and the first hints of a sun appear.

And here it is.

The city and the paths of our lives.

Somewhere out there, our lives are unraveling in our absence. The baker is rushing on her feet, carrying out trays of bread for us to buy later. The hyperactive ophthalmologist is probably up already, checking to see that I have an appointment later today. The bank is investing my savings away; light sunrays must now be dancing in the spaces between my thick, bunched up duvet, left in a hurry earlier. Police officers are milling about by the barracks; stray dogs are already wandering the uneven streets of this reckless city in search of a life.

This is where we have been born, where we live, where we will die.

It’s a bizarre experience: to have lived in one place all your life.

Where others might associate a garden to one moment in time, one summer, one person, this whole landscape is a gallimaufry of memories to me, each one piled on top of the other. 24 years spread too thickly over these same buildings and streets. Memories from all the ages and transformations of our lives layer every corner of this city; every park bench, bus stop and hole-in-the-wall restaurant bears a distinct patina of nostalgia.

Out there in this maze of lives are the people we used to be, stored in the minds of people who once knew us. People who don’t know what we’ve become, for whom we slowly stopped existing, erased by absence.

I no longer have the courage to take the road where we walked together, forever ago now, a lifetime back. But there are days when I still have to. Days when I must push past the rush of memories, the thickness in my throat and walk all over my feelings because Life simply calls for it.

It’s never easy to be the one who stays. There is no place to hide, nowhere to run to.

Listening to:

Forever ago. (Part 1)

young adult old soul magic realism writing pascal campion — Art by: Pascal Campion

Trigger warning: death, grief

Here it is, below us: the paths of our lives, the layouts of our existences.

It’s 6 o’clock on a Sunday morning and the city is still blissfully asleep, not yet rubbing its eyes nor tossing in a half-awake state. It is so dark out that we need to measure our steps, to scrutinise the path ahead before advancing onto it.

It’s 6 o’clock on a Sunday and we’re climbing a mountain.

It’s not much of a climb, if I am honest. A long, serpentine path has been carved into the mountain, and asphalt laid smoothly on top of it to see joggers safely to the peak. But still, the way up is steep, the early morning air biting.

There are much better things to do at 6 a.m. on a Sunday. There are warmer places to be.

Yet here we are, hearts stuttering, beating briskly in the misty heights overlooking the capital. A cold drizzle has cut through the air and a smell of molasses is rising from the bushes, concentrated in the textured mass of thick, yellowing vegetation.

Fungi.

Dampness.

The smell of a flooded apartment.

Earthy and pervasive yet so very oddly soothing. There is a reminder enclosed in this scent, tugging at a memory in the far recesses of my mind. Remembering it is akin to pulling at a root buried deeply and firmly in the ground — it is tough and unyielding, refusing to be taken from the comfort of its situation. Then all at once, after rigorous tugging that seems to have done nothing to dislodge it, it loosens traitorously and gives way, sending me reeling.

And as I am reeled back, I fall into the depth of a moment passed, a memory once silenced in the graveyard of memories.

“We will all die.”

His voice is deep and rich; long stretches of silence settle between his words. There has always been something about the way he speaks, the way he delivers his thoughts that draws people in. I have never been able to emulate him in that or in much else, really.

“Young or old, rich or poor, today or tomorrow. We will all die. One day, I will die and—”

And it will all have been for naught. The homes we built. The love we harboured. The traces we left.

We make but ripples in the water — thrown by some mysterious Hand, our lives skim the surface of existence, disturb its deep waters before we run out of whatever magic lights up our eyes. Some of us get in multiple ricochets before falling, the kind that inspires awe, that makes you think there was more to us than flesh and bones. For others, it is the exhilarating feeling of flying, followed by a rapid and unforeseen descent. Most of us, though, make quiet ripples, lost in the herd movements of life. But one way or another, we all end up on the ocean floor, nothing but the fading comments (“This was a good one!”, “It didn’t go very far.”…) accompanying our slow descent into the deep unknown.

“One day, I will die and you will stay. And then one day, you too will die, and your children will stay.”

The smell of freshly-turned earth hung all around us, damp and tangy, so strong it bottled the moment, sealing it with this scent.

One day, this smell will get stronger. One day, I will be wrapped in it, in the stiff white robes, indifference and camphor crystals of death.

Note: So this one is going to be posted in several parts, as every part talks about a different theme and it’s all quite long. About this first part: I am very frank about the idea/topic of death. The way I was raised, death was not something that was hidden from me, it was not seen as something that should not be talked about. Death is a part of life and that’s…that. But it is a heavy theme all the same so I hope it wasn’t too disturbing to read!

As always, sending lots of love and good vibes your way!

Listening to:

A wild thing.

Life is a wild thing.

Though we may have broken it in, reined it in with made-up concepts like Time — though we’ve taught Life manners, dressed it up and studied its unpredictable nature, Life is still wild and hysterical, the same pulsating energy that first exploded in the Universe. It plays our games, obliges our whims for a while and then slams the table, leaving us scrambling for the pieces of our existence.

Let us not make Life out to be something it will never be. Life is not good or bad. It is what it is: a wild thing with no notion of itself, let alone the great, troubled depths of ethics and morality.

So Life will give. Life will take. It will sit with us, a comforting warmth, and give us summers and happiness in the scent of a flower. Life will tickle us in the small hours of morning and make laughter erupt deep from our bellies. Then one day, Life will leave us in despair, wrecked by tragedies we could not have imagined.

Knowing that, how can we think that anything — anyone — belongs to us? We hardly belong to ourselves.

So let us not claim ownership over what is fleeting. Let us not brand the flowers of Life with our names, soon enough, the wind will lift them and carry them away. Let us not try to bottle the wind or contain the tides. Let us instead embrace their coming and going. Let us feel the dizzying heights of happiness and fall apart in the lows. Let us become sublime and more truly ourselves in the pursuit of all that we will hold but never own.

It is in the experience and not in the owning that we find meaning.

Note: Happy New Year to you all! Sending you all the best vibes for this year. It’s funny, when I wrote this, it was just a general reflection on life. And then the very next day, I received news that illustrated the point of this piece with a sort of dreadful, cold accuracy.

Slices of life.

young adult old soul magic realism writing — Art by: Pascal Campion

Picture-perfect silence.

The sound of the world standing still, holding its breath. In a city like mine, a capital city populated with banks and company headquarters, the marble-faced buildings of supreme courts and parliament alike, even the suburbs are no strangers to the constant humdrum of the city. Something or the other is always happening: a huge delivery in China Town, a busy pedestrian crossing, hot milk tea being poured for patrons of hole-in-the-wall places at every time of day, a housewife’s middling day, a workman on site. There are slices of life unraveling all about, all with their own comings and goings. There’s never a boring day, even when there is. If nothing is happening to you, you can just look out your window and imagine someone else’s day.

“What kind of shoes is the cobbler mending today?”

“Did they finally get rid of that pink graffiti on the corner of Ducasse street?”

“Wonder what the cats by the school bridge are up to today.”

If you’re a little bit tired of your own life, you can just step into another. Stories aren’t hard to find, escapes are near, just a conversation away, within the reach of a cloud of thoughts.

There is life everywhere, on rooftops and bus stops, on old, cobbled roads, in craft markets and old Chinese shops, in schools and book stores, at the tailor’s and down the flower shop street. There are more stories out there than there are dropped cents on the streets.

Now though, at 6 in the morning, not even the church bells toll. The mouldy, obscenely red buses don’t hurtle by, leaving clouds of smoke behind. The ~~city,~~ the world, has stilled, coming to a screeching, silent halt. It is as though someone had just flicked a switch off.

Even in the suffocating closeness of suburbia, not even the murmur of a conversation rises in the air. No rustle, no bustle, no sighting of another human being outside of your own household. No old men asserting their views in the streets that once belonged to them, no motorcycles weaving obnoxiously through narrow streets. No stories, no escapes. The city has pricked its finger and fallen deep into sleep, only stirring to catch the current of news at 6 pm sharp.

In the midst of that radio silence, were you to look at the city from above — sloping as it does at the feet of mountains — you might find a head, gleaming black, poking out from a balcony, in the narrow space between two houses.

The wind runs through my hair, its currents silkily gliding through the creases of my mind. I’m out here, as “out” as I can be in these times of quarantines and nation-wide lockdowns, soaking in the light of a pale winter sun.

Take in the silence, the silence of nothingness.

There will come an end to all this, distant and blurry as it may seem. Soon, the world will be shaken rudely from its sleep, startled again into breakneck speeds and imminent burnouts.

Enjoy the silence, and the things you can only enjoy now.

Too soon, this moment will be gone and you will wish you had lived it more ardently and experienced it more fully.

There are slices of life in this, too. Stories, if only you knew to look within yourself, to accept this silence and dive into it. But you’re afraid of the accusations that will rise, belly up. You’re afraid you will look into that water and not see yourself. It was so easy, wasn’t it, jumping from one life to the next, switching timelines, surrendering control of your life to go explore someone else’s. You made imagination into an ivory tower and now that a curse of a spell has fallen on the city, you are stranded in your own life.

Even now, you gaze at the skies and wish you could jump into them.

But there’s no hurry.

Air your thoughts, soak in the sun, catch a break, hum that song. Have this moment, simply.

Turn to the skies, to the double-edged beauty of this passing moment, and lose yourself in the silence of all things.

Note: I hope you are all doing well in spite of everything and are able to find a moment to catch a break and breathe and be.

Watching:

What do you do in your spare time?

magic realism writing young adult old soul kikkujo — Art by : Kikkujo

I woke up to this question today, a remnant of an already-forgotten dream, and it really rattled me.

The idea that there are hours that are valued less or more than others. Does this mean that there is Time that you can afford to waste? To lose like a spare cent or two that you drop on the street, shrugging it off as it is trampled, as it rolls away into the gutter?

Don’t get me wrong, this is something I’ve done countless times: I’ve scrolled my Time away on social media, fed it to algorithms and data structures, and Time has slipped from my fingers, uncaring.

But also, here’s the thing: I’ve loved wasting some of the time I’ve wasted. I have valued “spare” time more than I have other, valuable (working) time. But these are the kinds of societies we are heading towards or live in, already: ones where work is the single most important aspect of our lives, and all our Time is structured around it. Our lives are divided into “Work” and “Non-work” time, where we view everything else in relation to our jobs and take decisions accordingly: meeting up with old friends, dates, romantic relationships, going to an event, dying our hair, getting a piercing.

I don’t think human beings were made for this. For work that takes this big a chunk out of life, that overpowers all its other facets. I don’t think I am cut out for this (and yet, who really is? We are all thrown into it and we cope the best we can. Who really chooses this kind of lifestyle? No, most people just fall into it and never get back up).

Do we truly have “spare” time? Or is it instead that the value of our Time is being decided using criteria we had no choice over — instead imposed by “society”, itself a grey, hulking mass nobody knows the real identity of. There is no such thing to me as spare time. All Time matters. I could not “spare” even one bit of it. I will not let the world define which parts of my life matter. I will choose that for myself, thank you very much.

All Time is valuable, regardless of how you spend it, so long as it enriches your experience of existence.

But at the same time, do not fret (as I did, as I do) once you realise all moments will not be perfect, that you aren’t always able to make every moment worth it. It matters only that you try. That you seize what you can of Time and make it your own.

A true sadness.

young adult old soul magic realism 9jedit writing — Art by: 9jedit

I have been looking into myself this past month.

After a few weeks of dedication to the task, I have come upon something a little troubling: a well of deep sadness. Not a deep well of sadness, either but very much a well of profound sadness.

It’s hard to admit that this is the result of decluttering my heart and clearing my mind.

But I should have known. I have reached here before, I have come across this precipice and turned my back to it, preferring a mellower life and sweet, honeysuckle days. But whatever I do, I ultimately return to it. Whatever paths I take in life, when it matters most, it is this silent force I encounter.

Should I continue running, turning from it ? Perhaps I can avoid it all my life?

Bu really, what else is there to do but accept it?

This sadness, it’s not fun. It’s not exciting and definitely not what I want. But it’s true. It’s authentic.

And so, it deeply characterises me. I’ve been writing about it, scratching its surface, knocking its door for a long time now. And I think it’s time. I have enough strength that now I can choose a true sadness over a distracting joy. I’ve reached a point now where I can accept whatever this sadness says about me.

I suspect it’s a lot of grief for the world, an idealist’s mourning of injustice. But perhaps there is regret too, resentment.

But I must go there. I must face myself, I must accept who I am, whoever that is. It is the only way, the true way.

I would be lying if I said I was unafraid, if I wasn’t clinging onto old joys, onto materialism and comforting clutter— all those things, really, that I turned to so I could avoid facing that sadness.

I am so scared of losing myself. It is so difficult to surrender, to let these waves of change carry me away —or worse yet—to let them wash over me, carrying away the parts of me they want, keeping the parts they want.

And yet,tremulous as my heart is, it feels right. My heart can stand up to this.

Every path has led to this. Every crossroads, every person I have met, every event and non-event, every stranger I have ever wondered about, every 2 a.m, every night I shivered on the balcony.

Every turn in life has led here. If I back out now, I lose myself again. I wander, no, I err again, uncertain to my core. I drown again in shallowness, chasing moments of infinity forever.

All I fear is touching an energy too raw for me to handle, of stumbling on an emotion too close to my heart.

But wells run deep, I tell myself. Their depths do not spring out of nowhere. It means that as long as I follow this sadness, I get closer to myself.

Listening to:

Essentialism.

young-adult-old-soul-magic-realism-pride-nyasha — Art by: Pride Nyasha

The more things I have, the less I want them.

I didn’t grow up rich or poor, but we were always trying to pinch pennies, to make the most of what we had. For one, we’d never been able to go on holidays as a family, it wasn’t even an idea we could entertain. I am aware that as I describe this middle-class setting, I am already more privileged than I can fathom.

I was fortunate enough to have all my basic necessities covered, allowing me to long for more. Still, we had to be careful with our things and would not think to ask the latest things from our parents. So like everyone else, I grew up wishing for things : the newest clothes, cars, holidays.

At some point though, it stopped mattering.

Now that I am able to have these things, I realise I do not really want them, I do not wish to hang on to them. Owning things weighs me down. A little like when you have had a too-heavy meal, and realise you overdid it. My arms hurt from carrying all this…stuff (nameless, characterless objects) and all I want is to go straight to what is essential. Everything else is just add-ons; I wouldn’t, couldn’t be happy with more.

So no, I do not want these markers of “success”, these…accessories. They distract from what is truly important. Like gaudy jewellery and shiny baubles that divert the attention from a simple, elegant dress.

Pare everything down, strip it to the core. I do not want more than what is essential.

Owning things does not fulfil me. It does not make me happy or content. It could never rival the simple things in life that I adore : rain, a worn, comfortable shirt, warmth, time spent with family and friends.

In fact, things come in the way of all that. Material gains make you forget what you were looking for truly, all this time.

And by that, I do not mean I will not buy material goods. It does not mean that I will not own a phone. It means I will not rush headlong into buying the latest iPhone, just because it is the latest iPhone.

I will not listen to what the world says I need in order to be happy. I know what I need. And it is not material possessions bought for the sake of owning them or impressing others.

It is the simple things. Always has been, always will be.

Quote of the day:

« On ne voit bien qu’avec le cœur. L’essentiel est invisible pour les yeux. »

“It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.”

— Antoine de Saint-Exupéry