journal.coffee

The stubborn artist—I am sure this is what they all thought at dinner when I declared I would rather have ten people read my work religiously than change a single word for the market. Only good artists make for the market. The great ones have other, often more important, things to do. Greatness is the fortunate situation of the market being ready to accept what you can naturally, almost instinctively put out. It is also the tenacity to stand your ground waiting for the market to come around, patiently.

But, of course, merely being out of touch, out of step with the market and the zeitgeist does not a good artist make, and to claim greatness before you are in the vicinity of such a title would be a rather stupid thing to do. But then, it bodes well for those of us who are adamant about what we want to make, and more, how we want to be consumed. That is, I reckon, a sign of what may come. But again, not all omens are worth mulling over, and so, the only course of action I have—to the dismay of people who consider these words too long, too roundabout—is to keep treading the path I am walking on. And if it leads me to some great hall, the proverbial Valhalla, I will walk through the gates and I will take my seat earnestly. And if it does not lead me anywhere, and becomes but a path I have walked like how we all walk on a path or another, my steps will have remained true to themselves, and my words will have stayed mine. I reckon it is but achievement in a different order of magnitude, but it is achievement nonetheless. And so, I sit alone in this cafe and I write another one of these endless pieces with my eyes shutting like some broken blind on an old, dilapidated window. There is little else to say or claim tonight. The day is over. I have written something. Tomorrow I will write again.

As we drove around in a packed car last night, a song came on, and it reminded me of a friend I have not met in years. Not because the song was notable in particular but because of how my friend who was driving was bopping to it. And it was so eerily similar that all I could think of for the next ten minutes was how all our friends are a glimpse of all others and how we are drawn to the same kind of people, often with the same, absurdly specific quirks, and this happens by no additional effort by us. Most of it is just an uncanny coincidence, and yet, it is true, and then, I went through a mental list of all my friends—those in the car, those back in the city I left a month ago, those in cities all over the world. What a confusingly wonderful thing it is to be a person, I wondered, and now, eighteen hours later, I am still wondering.

But I have found a weight off my shoulders lately, despite the heavy lifting of work last week, the never-ending series of chores, the urban loneliness you often feel when you’re combing back home in a cab from streets you do not fully recognise, despite all of it, I have felt belonged because of these pockets of time. The banter and laughter flow along the river of beer and whiskey endlessly. The days feel long, and it would have been frustrating once, but now, as if by some big magic, I welcome them with open arms. To come back home late in the night or early in the morning, given how you put it, has sparked indescribable joy in my heart. I have never been more glad to pack my bags and leave as I am in this first fortnight here. This new life seems unnervingly promising. Hope has trickled into my days and built a fortress around my life more than ever. So much hope, so much joy, what can you do about it but smile like an idiot as you write a few words down? I will keep my fingers crossed and my heart light with humility. A lot has happened, I believe, but something tells me a lot might happen just yet. For the first time in a long time, it is not merely my saying it. This life feels, truly feels like it is just getting started.

Ah, a Saturday with no fires to put out, only words to write, only streets to walk on, only films to watch and books to read. This is precisely what I was looking forward to, like a child looking forward to the ice cream truck appearing from the far end of the street after hearing the first jingle in the distance. But of course, there is always something to do, and if it is not something that chips at your mind like a thousand miners slamming their pickaxes at a stubborn rock, then it is something that exhausts you for no reason other than that you are one person who can only do so much. I reckon my life is an oscillation between greater things to do—not to strive for greatness, but for some stubborn writ, imaginary, in my head, and unwritten, of course, but with strict instructions telling me to never pass up on a chance to do something, anything—and the banal trifle of being a person—the laundry, the cooking, the dishes, the cleaning, what have you. And then, there are days—no, hours—like the ones I am in right now when I am, like the pendulum on an old clock, right in the middle. And then, of course, like the same pendulum that experiences this joy for a second or so before it swings, out of its volition, to the other end, and to and fro, and to and fro, it moves until it gives out or the clock gives out, running it out of time, like that pendulum, my fate, the course of my life is sealed, too. And I shall forever look for that temporary suspension in the middle, like today, like the early hours of a bland Saturday, like the hour between three-thirty and four when the sun is out and about but is on the precipice of diving headfirst into all the nothingness we could ever imagine with a fading amber glow, like the moment your destination is arriving as you notice the car slowing down, and how you wish with all your heart that it would break down right before, a few steps away so you get a moment for free, without paying in mind or body, without anything at all, only the natural luck of it all, like that extra day on a leap year because we could never find a neat, logical way to wrap the quarter left hanging on all the others.

How you move about your day with sublime grace and finesse I would dare not try to put into words, and yet, you asked if I could write you a note.

It was less of an ask, more of a demand, of course. As it should be, and it is a privilege to have been asked to do such a thing. Now, I could write a handwritten note, and I could scribble my words with the legibility of the terms on a crucial document where the slightest ambiguity would be a matter of life and death. I could do that and do it right. But I must insist that I am at my most honest when my fingers glide over this keyboard, over its keys with smudges of where I hit them the most and hit them often. I reckon you have to take my word for it. I bow in front of you and ask for this reservation.

For reasons beyond what I can possibly articulate, for all my obsession over finding the right word or two for every feeling and situation, lying to you, even in accident is out of the question. To do something as performative as writing a note in today’s world, when it is reduced to a message in a gift hamper sent overseas to a friend you have met twice, or stuck to the expensive paper bag with an even more expensive bottle of wine in it, is simply a risk I am not willing to take, not when it is about you. So, you must bear with me and take these words as best I can give them to you. And now, it is best I make good use of the lines left; yet, I wonder if I have already said the most essential parts.

To know you is a privilege, to laugh with you for hours on end is a delight, and to talk to you and tell you about the pointless ludicrous thoughts I have is a luxury. To be able to sometimes share even a minute with you makes me ecstatic, and to get to share the simple gift of a song with you is often the most important thing I do all day. Now, all of this may appear, as my words often do, like some self-indulgent, back-handed way of talking about myself, at first; it is but only about you. It is about you like how light is about the Sun; that it is cast on any of us is what makes us look up. But I wonder if you will have to take my honest word for it again. Come to think of it, it is the only thing I know to give.

Once again tonight, like many nights before, I sit face to face with the silence and the obsessive spirit in my heart to get things done. I do not know where it comes from, this disease-like presence that engulfs me when something sits undone, when I can think of nothing but checking it off, when I forget to sleep, to eat or drink, when I do not know if any time has even passed. How ugly this looks when it is happening, and they tell me how they wish they, too, could be as unbothered by distractions, as absurdly motivated as I tend to become, and I do not know what to tell them. It is not something for the faint-hearted, not that I had any say in being the way I am; only I know it is not the end all. If there is any good in it, it is in the minute right after, the first sixty seconds of completing some undertaking. It is all you get. It is all that stands between relentless effort and the ever-present pointlessness of life.

Now that things are done, what can I do but sleep? I have finished myself and exhausted every ounce of energy in me. It will take me a week to even get out of bed properly. I will linger under the duvet and pretend I still need to sleep for most mornings that will follow now. And what came out of it? Probably nothing; satisfaction for a little bit, I reckon, but that is all. And now, I sit here writing, which is yet another instance of this precarious nature, a glorious banging of my head on the wall as the letters from this keyboard fade away, having been struck over and over, over and over. I only wanted to sleep, but I had to write, and so, having no spark of energy in me, I lay on the couch gathering enough so I could pass muster, so I could finish one piece. And what will come out of it? Nothing. Thirty more minutes of shut-eye would have been a better trade, as is always the case, and yet, my mind refuses to succumb to common sense. I am a prisoner of my own body and mind.

I wish, with all my heart, that I could just let things be, but it behoves me to act on what is undone, what is broken, what seems ajar or awry, let sleep, let hunger, let thirst, let all go to hell.

Before I lose this train of thought and get dragged down by the ins and outs of the general life, be bogged down with the things I had to do that remain undone, I have to write this down: in this moment, I am nothing but happy. There is good reason for this, of course, and some of it is like happiness always is: inexplicable and sudden. For the parts that have reasons behind them, I must try to softly list them on this page like you move a sleeping puppy from one corner to the other to not wake it up. I must carry this feeling, this joy, in my heart in the same way to not disturb or shake it off. I must preserve it as I write about it.

Now that I have attempted thrice to list things down, I realise there is an uncountability to it. The moment I list down walking down the street peppered and glazed with neon lights, cafes, and groups of people here and there, I think of something else. When I write that down, I think of the consistent burst of laughter spread through these past two hours. How can you list down joy? How can you measure it? I am happy. It trickles into my cup of coffee like an accidental cube of sugar I did not intend to put in. It is an attempt sabotaged from the get-go, a pointless exercise to even try, a botched attempt to begin listing down that there is so much beauty all around me, in the middle of the day, in the middle of every moment. It is almost as if I have lived my life again and found the secret to doing it correctly but have forgotten this absurd knowledge either by circumstance or time, or by choice, for I imagine if someone could relive their life vouching to pay more attention to things, they would want to forget that very decision after a while, not as some sort of test, but because to be in the moment, they would have to let go of their self-imposed instruction, too. Perhaps this has happened to me. Maybe this is some sort of rewrite, a redo, a second wind. Who could be sure? I would not know about it.

But I know my nature, and I know that if it were in my means to be able to do this, and if I did it, I would surely want to be rid of the knowledge, too. Yes, that is how it would go, I am sure. Perhaps this is a second chance.

To be a little bit kind is all I want to do in this life. A little bit kinder than I was yesterday, and if I find in me the boiling and broiling of unsuited emotion, to be patient enough to stay my tongue. And why am I thinking of kindness at the banal time of thirty minutes past noon? Because it occurred to me how people have been kind to me innumerable times before and that this life would not be half of what it is if someone was not patient with me when it counted, if they did not lend a hand when they could, if they did not stop their words from shredding me entirely. We are at the behest of the kindness of others, and so, we owe the world our hearts not because it is the right thing to do but only so we do not break the chain. That is all this is, a long chain of events, of favours pushed forward for millennia until it somehow reaches someone today—like us. Kindness is then a moral responsibility for no reason besides that it is a story bigger, much bigger than we will ever be. There is nothing else to it. We ought to be kind because others have been kind before, and if not to us directly, we must hold the fort still. Who knows what a little detour to help a person might lead to? Doesn’t it make you a little bit curious? Doesn’t it spark a little joy?

For all my wishes for all things in the world, I wish for patience the most, and I would be lying if I said it has not been granted to me. Granted, the methods were not favourable. They were, dare I say, heartbreaking and extreme. Milder attempts could have achieved the same results, and if not precisely the same ones, then similar still. Regardless, not to dwell on it now, I feel I have still gotten the long end of the stick when it comes to blessings and curses. Things do tend to get worse for a lot of people, and I wish, with all my heart, that I do not, on accident, even in error, make them worse for them. Of all the terrible things there are, owning the hands that accidentally break a resolve, a belief, or a heart is the most terrible of all.

Does it feel like home yet? A friend asked me this morning, and I did not have an answer at first, so I did not respond to their message. Then, as I got out of bed and walked to the desk with a cup of coffee, I replied, “Beginning to.” The idea of a home is so confusing. I am states away from my family, so a part of this will never feel like home, no matter how soft the rug is and no matter how sturdy the mugs are and regardless of how energetic the life is, and yet, all of those things add up and make it a home nonetheless. I often remark how we have homes in all cities where we know people, and no, I do not mean this as the friend who shows up unannounced and expects lodging in those places. It is a crude and cruel thing to do to people who, as we often forget, have their own lives to live, but mainly deal with. I simply mean a place where you can share some grub and some drink with someone is a home. That is all I mean.

It is an interesting time in this life, I reckon. Change is afoot in the most wonderful of ways, and I could not know what my life will look like a few months from now even if I tried. This unnerves me and excites me in equal measure. This is a far cry from my consistent and ever-growing demand for certainty. These are uncharted waters where there is no surety, not an ounce of it. There is no plan. There is no reason for this abrupt shifting of the sand beneath my feet, and yet, something about it feels astutely correct. Perhaps, I will have more to say about it in a few months from now. I truly hope the hope remains till then. That is the only thing I can expect. Often, things are well and good, and if they are not well and good, they are tolerable, but hope is the ringmaster. The amount of hope in us changes how we look at things. I have seen it recede into the shadows firsthand, so I know the colour of days when it is not by my side anymore, when it leaves without any note on the table telling why or where it has gone. So, if I were to do a thing as foolish as making a wish, I would wish for the hope to stay. It is up to it, after all, how this circus unfolds.

It is a quiet Sunday, and I am waiting for a truck to arrive with the odds and ends that will make this flat a home. And not much, no, but what is a home without a few mildly unnecessary things? And as I wait, the music is playing, and it is soft and compassionate, like a friendly stranger in your new apartment building who tells you their name and then says it twice, knowing all too well how people often need repetition for things like these, especially when they are on their way up in the elevator with boxes in their hands and things on their mind. All in all, the morning treads along to become afternoon, and the truck is not here yet. How long will this day remain in this state of actionless limbo? All I know is to wait, of course. For all our flailing and crying, some of us are attuned to indescribable levels of patience. I believe it is something latent, and the only role of experience is to bring it out and activate it, like the right measure of heat needed to get the test tubes gurgling with activity in some chemist’s lab. And if I am wrong, and if this is but some inaccurate and somewhat forced metaphor, thinking of it is still an effective way to pass the time.

There is so much to do, and yet, often, one thing blocks the flow of your day like a pebble in the pipeline, stuck and struggling to pass through but preventing everything else from moving, too. Regardless, I believe this is a pointless problem to dwell on, but between things you ought to think about but do not want to and things that are easy pickings but do not matter, the latter seems more enticing on most days. And today is a day like that, so instead of spending the day worrying over things out of my sheer control, I shall worry about the truck bringing the rug, the towels, the racks, the trays, the mugs, the cutlery, the sheets, the curtains, the duvet, the many things between and around all of them. To new beginnings, I guess, whatever that may turn into.

There is little I can fix in this life; most things I can but watch unfold. And yet, in the first ten things I bought for this new life, I bought a toolkit, too.

Decided to catch up with some old friends in a new city, and what better place is there than a bar? The three of us left the bar at around one in the night and came home talking about things that led to talking about other things. Then, we walked around the neighbourhood in our drunken haze, and we talked with the pints of stout still fresh on our breaths. It was precisely the buzz I wanted to walk off, frankly, and the weather was not particularly the walking kind, not that it was any bad.

It was alright, as was the stout, and as was the conversation, but then, it is not clear who said it, but we went from talking about nothing to a conversation that turned into an argument, and it was not until the morning at around five when I realised there had been a window. Not that the argument remained. All my friendships are contentious ones, and most, if not all, conversations end somewhere near the middle ground. But all I had to do was keep my mouth shut for a few minutes; that is all it would have taken for things to take a different direction. But then, confrontational as I am, I said something before it passed.

Regardless, it was alright, and then, I went to sleep and woke up with the glaring sun and a throbbing head. There is rarely any feeling more debilitating than a hangover, after all, and so I spent the day only lazing around this new flat, without curtains, without cushions on the couch, without any detail that makes it a home, makes it lived in. And so, without much to do except watch some TV and drink coffee, I kept looking out the window, thinking about how I tend to miss it in all things.

I thought of all the women who had told me I had been utterly clueless, that there was a time when all I had to do was say the word, and I thought of how it did not occur to me until years later when I heard them say it. With nothing to do and a mild headache, I thought of all the conversations in this short life, of arguments big and small.

I did this until the sun went down. Like some accountant who only points the errors out, I kept thinking about this and this only: of how aloof I have been, of how there is always a window with things—for love, for opportunity, for quiet—and how I have missed it over and over, always waiting too little, and mostly, too much.

This piece is a part of the The Soaring Twenties Social Club (STSC) Symposium on Windows, written a few hours before the deadline ended, finished haphazardly, and perhaps, poorly, in fear of missing yet another window in life.

I have learned there are certain peculiarities in the way I live myself, in the way I carry myself through my days, and it is about time I think of trying to put them down. Of course, I will fail at this somewhat vain task since I can, not in my own voice, capture the absurdity of my decisions, but that there is an absurdity is true because I can often see it on the faces of people—those I know and strangers alike. But what I have learned about myself is that there are two parts to it all. The first is an obsession to be completely, absolutely and entirely ready. The second is a supreme resistance to the inner friction of waiting. These two traits make up about a third of my entire personality, and they are unequivocally responsible for everything I do, big and small.

That it takes me two days to build a semblance of a life, all with a routine and music to go along with it, is but a tiny yet significant example of this nature. That I obsess over being in a position to pay what price it costs, that it may be a little obsession over always being capable (barring a few which we do not talk about), and that by the last hour of the second day, I have already taken enough walks in the unfamiliar neighbourhood to not use that adjective anymore, that I know by midnight on the third day where I will go for coffee, what streets will I frequent, and what my day would look like before I shut my eyes to wake up into a routine I do not remember building is but this nature in all its glory—that I am ready for everything, and that nothing holds me back when I have my eyes set.

This is not gloating by any means; this is but a description of it all; it is but an admittance that I see the eyes that look at me and think, “Where is the hesitation?”

What hesitation? It is all a farce, anyway. We always know what we want. The bottom line is being ready for it, prepared for everything that has the capacity to hold us back; what else is there? What use is even waiting if time continues to tick? Time ran out. It ran out before we made a wish. We are all running late. Get up; we might as well pick up the slack; we might as well still make it.

There is nothing more urgent than this.

When you begin building a new life, you consider everything from the colour of the curtains to where the keys will be kept, and this makes me absurdly ecstatic, that change is this simple and within our reach: not a mountain to scale, it is but doing things differently. But alas, it is exhausting, especially when parts of your life are ongoing, when the things to do increase tenfold, and now I sit here having spent my wits along with the money I spent today. A payment here, a delivery there, and that is when you realise everything costs money. But it is but a minor setback in a long life. This image I get to carry with me is forever. Moments like sleeping on the couch because your mattress has not arrived yet carry no price tags, and sharing your penchant for the aesthetics when a friend points the miserly attitude out is precisely why this attitude is a gift that keeps giving. So many stories out of a single moment—what good could a hotel room have done?

We must go out of our way for these paintings of time; the easel of life awaits us. All the stories we get to tell others are written in the moment. And if you have nothing to tell when someone asks how your life has been, it is because you did not seize the opportunity to create a memory worth sharing. The trick is to knit the strands of time, to nudge it all into the right place, to play God for the little things.

It was a lesson given to me by life in the most insulting way, but a lesson is a lesson and, once given, must be upheld forever, that in the deepest valley between right and wrong, a garden burgeons, and that most life is there, and that most of it is colourful, vibrant and worth telling someone about, that it is not in our myriad beliefs but the stories we tell that most lives are realised, and so, I made it a point to sprinkle it all with some paint, and since I forbid myself from lying, I made it a point to go out of my way to make sure I wrote it all the way I would tell it, that the days are how I write about them, that the life is how I will share it when I share it.

Not the easiest of pursuits, but would you look at that? What a life it has been so far!

It is funny how you feel hesitation not when deciding things, not when they have begun, not days before them, not at all more often than not, but right at the precipice, when you could lean in for the first kiss, when you could book that ticket, when you could punch someone in the face, when you still could make a decision that goes either way, almost as if it was the universe telling you one last time choosing will change things, and that not choosing is choosing, too. I have almost always chosen to avoid complications, to not leave where I am, to not go in for the punch, but I reckon it is high time I ought to change some of that, that I should gamble with fate a little bit more, roll the bones a bit more. I reckon that is the only thing I can think of today, that and some troubles, big and small.

What a beautiful morning today, I reckon. I am glad the sun has begun its conquest over the sky these past few days. It would have been awfully depressing to leave through a fog-filled town. The hills, consistently at a beeline from this balcony otherwise still hide, though. Well, we cannot have it all now, can we? But then, I want to have it all. Is it a crime, I wonder. Perhaps I have ostracised the idea so much that it has started to feel evil to want. Maybe that is now, but it is something I must change. I must learn to grab what I can. I must, at least, be open to wanting. A constant meditation now, I must put this into action, too. So much I have wanted, and so often I have told myself no citing morality, citing ethics, citing caution, citing risk, but now, I want to want. Enough years on the sidelines, I will now be proud and loud for my share in this world, and I will be kind enough to know to quiet down when it cannot be given to me, but then, I will learn to ask regardless. Too much has been lost in this complacency, this self-imposed restraint.

What is a little bit of risk, after all? The worst that can happen is that my world could end. It is nothing I have not seen before for all my talk of safety.

At eighteen minutes past two on a surprisingly warm winter night, I stand outside on the balcony, staring at the nebulous, almost invisible hills that I have looked at time and again for the past three and a half years.

I stand here wondering what makes a person, well, a person. And I do not have any conclusion, so I will not pretend to know the answer. But I know that there are some non-negotiables, parts of the whole, if you may, and I will try to write them down, and to do this, I will simply pose questions for I have exhausted all my wits to form an answer, and which is more, I have spent this last day questioning things.

What makes a person? Is it the clothes hung behind the door which is bare now? Is it the unread books that have bent the shelf under their weight? Is it all the frivolities someone might need in today’s world and a few things they would want when need is too poor a word to describe them? Is it the pictures, the paintings on the walls, which shall gather dust in the absence of anyone to wipe it off with the first sight of it? Is it the plants they take care of, that will inevitably die in the dearth of anyone who notices them wilting? Is it the near-empty refrigerator, buzzing for months on end, keeping three packs of juice and a box of milk safe and ready on the off chance? What is a person, if not where they live—what they call home? What is a person, if not their insistence on having a meal with the people they love on a Saturday morning, whether it rains or shines on the city they call their dearest, or their compulsion to walk to the nearby patio cafe to sit and think over a cup of coffee.

All I know is that everything will wait for me in its right place, and that is all I can think of as I get ready to turn this lamp off for the last time for some time. That this life I have built will wait as long as I can keep the rent flowing, the lights on. There is this haunting feeling of this apartment without me in it. What an absurd decision, in hindsight, to want to go away but keep a foot in the door. But I swear I could not move anything away from here, from where it found its place, and trust me, I tried. God, I tried.

I did not get anything written yesterday, and even today, I am cutting it close, but then, such were the days, and what can you do when the days are such. Regardless, this is not the end of it. The next few days do not look too promising. Last night, I needed to think, and so I needed to walk. I did that, and I did not have any answers, although I had a little hope and some inspiration. A few sentences followed back home like stray dogs you befriend on the streets you walk through often, too. But then, there is nothing else to say, and I do not know where the sentences fit, not right now, not today. But there, I have noted them down in my trusty notes. I will get to them when I get to them.

Today, I can think of nothing else but people—those in my life, the problems they tell me of and the ones they never mention. And I can think of how my deadlines mean so little today. And I can think of how obnoxious the truly crucial things are in life, how they jump the line like those pesky people at the grocery store or when you’re out at the office getting some paperwork done and when someone cuts in front of you when you have already been waiting for long enough that the hours begin to feel like years, and when you, tired as you are, assert yourself and tell them to fall back. It does feel like that today, when I want to tell life to take a step back, when I want to tell it to take its place, that I have been waiting for years, that I have been waiting for so long. But I can think of all this like how we only ever think of tapping the intruder of the queue on their shoulder when, in reality, we simply let them do their thing. This is how it will be today, too. I will let life do what it does, and “it will all be fine” is all I will say to those in my life. That is all we can do, after all.

Things happen, and then we learn to live around them. Things happen and we write haphazard pieces, no proper train of thought connecting the many different bits which could, in theory, shine if used later. But sometimes, we need to put it all down as it is and walk to the bed a few words lighter. Sometimes, that is all we ought to do, too.

And now, after a day painted brown with cups of coffee, I have time to write. Alas, it’s already about to end, and yet, I still have work to do. But then, there is always work to do. If I have learned anything from this practice in the few years I have written day after day, or at least tried to, it is this that there are always things to do, always life to live, always a task or a chore undone, delayed perpetually like a promise unkept. There are always things like these, but what of it?

I reckon all lives are filled with the never-ending stream of opportunity regardless of the industriousness of the person living said life. And you have two ways to go about this. You could cry all of us a river about how it never ends, or you could sit with your head down, with your eyes peeled, with your hands aching, and do the damn thing. I am one of the strongest believers in the latter. And I take my life as seriously as my work, and my writing as seriously as my life. And each request, each chore is also carried with the same seriousness as I would something a manager would ask me to do. After all, what are relationships, if not jobs? And I mean that with utmost respect and sheer seriousness.

When we are asked to get a loaf of bread on our way to somewhere, we must pay this task its due attention and do it. We must get the bread. We must also listen when a friend wants to talk. We must always be there in all possible ways. Anything less than this is the blatant disregard of the potential imbibed in all of us simply by the virtue of being alive. There is absolutely no excuse if one is of adequate fitness both mentally and physically, and only in severe debilitation of one or the other should we let ourselves fall short of the glorious responsibility of being a person. Everything else, when I notice it in others, is the unabashed frittering away of figurative gold. Shameful. At least, this is what I believe in.

And I carry this thought with me at all times, like a pocket watch reminding someone to be on time, ticking away reliably and ceasing only when their life has ceased.

If I have sat here and begun writing, I have done this with the confidence of a fool. There is nothing to say today, and I will now attempt to make meaning out of nothing, pretend I know anything about anything. What can you say when it is but a day out of many in a life so vividly interesting that it always keeps you on your toes? In this wintry dry air in a rainless January, I find myself handing my heart to every person who walks my way. Absurd for many, this freeness in being able to let people in has returned to me like a friend whose name you forget not because you want to but for it has been too many years since you last saw them. But like all good things, good friends and good memories, this, too, has returned to me. And now, I find in myself not just the freedom to live but one to love.

What else could matter? To be honest, nothing. There is so much of everything, so much abundance, so much meaning, so much warmth, and so much love here. I cannot contain this contentment. It leaks into the smile on my face. All this hope, all this potential, I do not know what to do but squander it. And I am not afraid, no, but you cannot capture all the rain in the world, no matter how many buckets you have handy. This is but a foregone conclusion. There will be so much hope; I am bound to waste some of it. There will be so much opportunity; I will never be able to use it all. That is how it will all transpire. I know this because despite my believing the opposite, this is how it all has happened.

Nothing else to think about except this, that there will be good in this life, more than that has been so far, more than I could ever imagine or count, my ability for painstaking inventory notwithstanding. And what is more? I feel I can smile again. That in itself has stirred every string of my heart and shook it to its core, shedding all the dust it had gathered in all these years. There is nothing else to say today so a simple sentence would do: I am happy, I am happy, and you who reads these words, I hope you are too.

Most of the day today was spent in the frivolities that become part and parcel of an adult life, but then, in the evening, I found a poem. The poem was what one would term childish if they were entirely in touch with their morbid adulthood. Fortunately for me, I am not so old at heart, and often, I find in myself what one would term immaturity, but I owe my ability to effortlessly enjoy the little things to it. I read the poem, and then I read it again. Then, I shared it with a friend and my brother, and then, I read it again like you read the copy of a letter you sent someone, only to tell yourself what you sent was worth sending, and often, pause in awe at a good sentence or two. While I am not as skilled to have written a poem so simple, reading it gave me some kind of second-hand pride. And that it was still possible for me to enjoy the levity in it stirred and shook all the smog of adulthood away. Now, I sit here, and I am full of hope again. And now, I am in my bed, and when I am done writing and working some more, I will find it in me to read it again, and then I will go to sleep.

I am tired, too, and there is nothing but cold, cold air around. The repetition is intentional for this is how we talk lately. The first time we say it softly for the air takes our breath away, and then, we say it louder. The news says the rainfall is all but disrupted thanks to the tropical storm far away from the hills parched in this fog flurry. Of course, it is the things of science that rule the world. That, and hard logic. Those two things are all that matter to us as we grow up. But then, I reckon other things count, too, if you let them.

When science fails to explain your days away, perhaps smudging your paint-dipped fingers on a white canvas comes in clutch, and when logic fails to inform you well, then I reckon a poem swoops in and saves you. They say we all should remember where we came from, but so many of us forget. Not me, no. I am as much a child as I am an adult. If there is one thing I am fully aware of, it is that simple is often better than right. Tell me, is there anything simpler than the eyes of a child?

In the evening, I met a friend and after that took a walk and for some reason and no intention, I found myself in a very popular square of the city. I stood there for a bit and watched the vehicles appear out of thin air from the streets on one end and then disappear into the nothingness of the night. This, too, I did not intend on, but I looked up, and there I was, caught in the moment. I want to say, for the sake of powerful imagery, that I could see all the moments from my life unfolding in it, for there could have been a million times I have walked over those familiar streets, but it would be a lie and you, clever reader, would catch on to it. This is a relationship of honesty, after all. And so, I have to tell you that the moment was as ordinary as it could have been, and that is solely why it felt crucial, why I had to hold my gaze at it. There are times like these, too, I reckon—the unimportant times, the parts that fall through the cracks of memory. I looked at it, and I remember it now, and this seems erroneous to me. Almost as if I were never meant to watch it, that I was never meant to see how even something we call “nothing” can look so wonderful and inspiring, too.

And now, this is all I will remember from this day. Perhaps, a few things more—knick-knacks of the human condition, I reckon—but mostly just that moment in the evening as I stood there in the nippy air of an evening in January with an insurmountable surety in my heart. What has made me so steadfast about myself? What has made me so worriless? There are, of course, always things to fix, but lately, nothing has worried me. Everything happens, and if we find something is not to our liking, then, we need not fret. We only ought to wait. Things are always happening. It is the only thing that can be counted on. And since things are always happening, eventually, they find their way to be just how we prefer them, not too hot, not too cold. And sure, vital, life-or-death things remain undone, and of course, my search for love remains incomplete, and yes, there is the unanswerable question of purpose. All in due time, I say. One day at a time, I say. Today, we celebrate the middle.

It is eleven thirty in the morning, and the sun hasn’t broken through the sky yet. The fog still covers the buildings like a memory you remember in parts. The incomplete trees appear intermittently all over the scene like a canvas on the easel while the painter has gone out to lunch. The coffee got colder before I had half of it, and now, icy cold, black liquid remains in the cup. It does not matter, but this day has this frigid cover over it. This sort of coldness never goes away until the sun breaks, but the sky, too, is uncooperative today. Yet, the chilly air has brought quiet comfort along. I stood on the balcony for a good thirty minutes and stared at the makeshift, nebulous horizon and felt the breeze go by, tracing every exposed part of my skin with the softest of touches. And I stood there, completely alive, completely aware of who I have been, who I am, who I am meant to be. It was an important yet vacant moment. Perhaps it was all the more important because it was vacant. Then, I walked back in, slid the balcony door shut, and sat to write again. I reckon there is not much to say today. If these past few days have taught me anything, it is that the wicked games of fate are beyond my understanding, but for all the fogginess in how things happen to us, good things occur, too.

Parts of my life are blessed as if I were God’s favourite child, albeit the rebellious one, the runt of the litter, for I refuse to believe in the existence of such an entity, and perhaps, this is why, or maybe for no reason at all, the other parts are cursed to the point of a personal vendetta, where I can only sit in and look at yet another impossible situation unfold in the middle of the fanciest bar as they confirm five times before opening the expensive bottle of champagne, and I can look at my hands and think, “I made this life happen,” and I can look at you and think, “yet for all the times I have met you, it has been a day too early or a year too late.” So there I sat, under the burgeoning cover of the same fog that has remained till now, laughing and oscillating between looking at my hands and looking at you, cursing a God I do not believe in under my breath.