She ordered some coffee and sat down at a table in her hotel room, it was already past five when she had left the conference. But she oddly felt more energetic now than she did in the morning. The scent of the room and the crepuscular scenery from her window were both, salubrious to her.

Her phone rings as she starts working on her laptop. She is indifferent at first, but after a moment’s hesitation, she picks it up.

“You left your pen with me.” The voice at the other end says.

“I lend you one? That’s unlike me.” She said, playing along, relaxing in her seat, her face slowly contorting into a smile.

“I’m happy to be an exception.” He said, in a calm mellifluous voice. She rolled her eyes when he said this, biting her lip. He was relaxing on his bed, with his laptop by his side. And the first thing that he did when he freshened up was call her. She imagined it all, and couldn’t help but feel important. And in thinking that, she felt that somewhere he was important too.

It was impossible for her to get out of the habit of attaching certain thoughts to everything, she was consistent. A part of her wanted to be polite, yet a part of her would always commensurate politeness with something else.

“I would need that back though.” She said, and got up from her seat when she heard that the waiter had brought her coffee.

“You’re at the hotel?” He asked when he heard the bell, sounding curious, as if she could be anywhere else than at the hotel.

“Of course I am, where else would I be?” carrying her coffee with her, she lay down on the bed. She was amused at herself, and shook her head in disbelief. This time, she rolled her eyes at herself.

“I thought you went to the ice cream shop you were telling me about, the one with the longest queue?” He chuckled.

Oh, she thought. She remembered that she did tell him that she wanted to go there, and might go right after the conference. She wondered if he had figured that she implicitly suggested that she wanted him to come with her. But he never said anything about it.

She felt her chest tighten, flushing at her irrational wish to spend her night with this man whom she lend her pen to. Truly an exception as he had realized.

“Did you think that’s why I left early?” She laughed, like it was not a big deal, trying to act cool, like she didn’t want to roam the streets of this strange city with him.

He laughed, running his hands through his hair, and turning on his stomach as he took the phone in his other hand. “No, I was wondering, um, if you want to go now?” He asked, biting his lip.

She smiled, but she was confused. She thought about why he hadn’t responded when she’d told him that she would go. So before she could answer him, she asked him.

“You never asked me. I didn’t want to force myself upon you.” He answered, sitting up on his bed, feeling a light abrasion from this friction, yet, feeling as if he was becoming a part of something.

“That’s right,” she laughed, of course that is why, she thought, “I’m in room number 203, you’ll come?” She asked him, getting up from her bed. She realized that she was still in the same clothes from the conference, an emerald green dress with a jacket. She looked at herself in the mirror as she waited for his answer.

“I’ll be outside of your door when you’re ready.” He said, as he got up from his bed, hastily running his hands through his hair, making a few strands to fall on his forehead.

She heard him rushing, as she said ok. And smiled at the thought of him being eager to meet her, when all this while it seemed as if he was the cool indifferent guy she’d never talk to. She eyed the conference brochure which sat on the side table, and wondered, what were the odds of her meeting all these people, just to feel a connection with one. It was a conditional probability of some sort.

He took his wallet and got out of the room. In his white crumpled shirt and Levi’s, he looked more like a teenage boy than a man of twenty seven.

She didn’t want him to wait, so she got rid of the jacket and washed her face. She put on some lip balm, took her wallet, and got out of the room as well.

“Hey.” He said. He was leaning on the wall opposite to her room, and sprang forwards when he saw her. His green eyes were glinting under the yellow light of the hotel corridor.

“Hey.” She said, smiling broadly at him, but nervous at seeing him outside of work. She felt reckless, and confused, at the sudden eruption of butterflies in her stomach. Not knowing whether it was out of fear, or something else, she thought that maybe he was slightly more than a crush. 

She only just noticed that he had green eyes, and that he oddly smelled like coffee. Like he had drunk enough to keep him awake all night.

He came forwards; his eyes never leaving her face, and then pulled something out of his pocket. She was confused at his sudden movements, and then laughed when she saw what was in his hands.

“Here’s your pen,” she took it from his hand, he smiled, leaning in to say thanks, then he motioned with his other hand, saying “Let’s go on our ice cream date.”

Shocked at his forwardness, she gave him a disapproving look. He shrugged his shoulders, scratching the back of his head, a sheepish grin forming across his face. But it was a date she had definitely said yes to, she thought, and then she smiled to herself.

 

A few lesson I've learnt

1.       

1.       Don’t trouble your mind with some knowledge that is based on assumptions.

2.       Don’t perplex others or dispute about things which are beyond your comprehension, let it go.

3.       Be cautious of meddling.

4.       Have knowledge of your capacity, and then don’t do anything which disturbs your peace.

5.       Remember that you can miss someone, and still not want them back in your life.

6.       Remember that you can love someone, and still part with them.

7.       Remember the good that others have done for you, not the good you have done for them.

8.       Don’t repeat patterns.

9.       The happy and good life are not one and the same, you can feel good without getting what you want.

10.   Making the best choice isn’t always about getting the best result.

11.   We can still love people, and not judge their moral presuppositions which contradict with ours.

12.   Always prioritize. Shift in one sphere, leads to shift in others.

13.   Take care of yourself first, then save the world. 

Our First Dance

Do you remember our first dance?

Far away from the bustling town,

Moving slowly, as if we were in a trance,

You lead me around.

You stretched your hand out in front of me,

Still moving backwards as if you couldn’t stop,

I remember turning bright red when I took your hand,

And you looked like a kid in a candy shop.

It all felt like a crime to me,

Yet the night, it seemed so grand,

We moved our feet to the sweet faint music,

While the ground beneath me sank.

Then you twirled me around in my little black dress,

And I gazed upward at the sky,

All the stars moved closer to our little space,

I was so happy I could die.

We just stood there under the unquiet sky,

While your eyes shimmered like a moonlit lake,

My heart was beating out of my chest,

So many miles to go, there was so much at stake.

Then we walked back around to your car,

You were smiling all the way,

So carefree, you taught me to be so unbound,

I’ll always remember that day.

When the Heart-Shaped box broke

Love stretched the fibers within me taut, pulling me back to the center of this fixed diameter circle. This feeling was a deep transcendental experience, for a girl for whom love was the principal desideratum to happiness. These emotions of fear and wonder were so often concomitant with my silence. Because I was unconsciously drowning where I couldn’t be heard, or saved.

It was like a pitiful boondoggle, its phantasmagorical vision being the cornerstone of my heart, the sole motivation for my mind to realize it. I played the game of choices, and it was like trying to solve a puzzle with all the pieces laid face down. No direction, no plan.

Incontrovertible to say, the vision obscured my rationality, and like mildew, it flourished where it couldn’t be touched. But then I felt its guise disintegrating within my veins, collecting at my heart as heavy dregs of a terrible drink. Its bitter after-taste left on my tongue being the only alarm to jolt me from my drowse.

It was as if a pianissimo had recrudesced into a fortissimo, so abrupt were these emotions. Yet, it was a passionate andante in the middle, and a largo in the end. Now, the heart-shaped box has broken. The music stopped playing a long time ago. My heart is swimming in the clear water, as the broken pieces settle on the ocean floor. 

My wings.

We try so hard, to fill the empty gulfs of our minds with something seemingly exemplary, something glorious. It’s as if the tiniest crack in the glass will never strain, as if the wax on my wounds will never melt, as if I’ll forget; and that you’ll let me, that I should?

Slow down, accept, transform.

Wondering if I should paint the glass; paint over my memories, some vivid, some dull? Or clean the dirt instead?  What should it be, an emotional color palette or a clear nightly sky?

We can never understand why we feel what we feel. They say that it’s all from experience, and that what we feel now has already been felt by us before; in tiny little droplets, of raging emotions. And now the feelings have become so nuanced and conflated that it’s hard not to feel anything.

So, get out of that pool of emotions, and append the opposite.

I wonder if the tangible can be commensurate with the intangible, meaning that I can always change the way I think about things, precisely because I can’t forget. Because it is the sheer physicality, the fact that my experience casts shadow on the earth, that makes emotions so well cemented and relevant. And it is this relevancy that I want to spurn.  

Stop being relevant, become.

That is why, I want to feel like the sea, calm and serene, in every sense of that word. It is so grand, reachable, yet unreachable. Accepting, yet rejecting, raging and transforming – it’s all I want to be. Listen closely; the wrath of the Sea is a crescendo of its silence, it is still calm, yet intractable. What a paradox the sea is, and how balanced. So, I want the calm to feel like the calm, and the heavy to sink and drown. Not the other way around.

Maybe human beings are not perfect, that is why we learn from the nature, to be as balanced yet never as much.

I want to feel like a sepia filter on a colorful picture, not hiding anything, nor subduing, and nor supplicating for anything. Just existing under the translucent mask of a wonderful reality, where I am living, and loving - in slow motion. Forever reaching, arching, curling up, laying down, standing up; not because I have to, but because every damn cell in my body is willing to.

These pages are slipping away from my fingers, whether I crave what had been or what would be, and what it is that I crave, I do not know.  All I know, is that at present, these fluttering pages are taking me somewhere, where, I do not know. But for the most part, there is satisfaction in simplicity, peace in purity, and dignity in walking away from trouble. Maybe the Sea has its own anodyne, and I may never know what. But this is one of mine. My wings. :)