The life and times of nuttymeg

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2011-09-10T00:18:00.002-04:00

Sitting in my tiny, red apartment I feel strangely melancholy. If I could, I would mix my own paint: a blue so deep and so inky that it would remind you of a bottomless, starry, moonless, winter sky. And then I would splash this blue over a brilliantly white canvas in a shape so imperfect, so small and so uncommonly solitary that it would remind me of me.

But I can’t paint. I can’t draw. I can’t sing. I can’t write. I can’t even cry any more, not really, not like I used to- with complete abandon in guttural sobs. I just sit here, on this red couch, staring about my red room, feeling melancholy.

I want so desperately to be happy, to feel a moment’s peace, a sliver of satisfaction. Maybe I must always be ecstatic and hopelessly heartbroken; ugly and wickedly sensual; angry and on top of the world; all of it, all at once, and always discontent. Maybe there is no respite from this pain, this constant emptiness inside me, from this endless search for perfection inside myself, this futile fool’s quest for a superlative second that will make me feel special, make me feel complete, make me feel something other than high or disconsolate, red or utterly inky blue.

And then I remember being with you. In your arms, I am alive, the world is full of colours, you sing for me, and I can cry again, on your shoulder, while you wipe my tears and kiss me.

If you’ll have me darling, I am coming home, to you.

Megha-Day

2011-01-23T12:06:00.003-05:00

It's 7 a.m. and I am awake! And not because I haven't been to bed yet. No, I am awake because I am going to a class at the athletics centre; my first attempt at formal exercise in over a decade, unless you count two random aerobics classes I went to in 2002.

It's now 10.15 a.m. I missed class :( I got there late. So I ended up wasting 5$ on the subway:( Not wanting to waste the trip, I decided to stop at Dundas west Station and pick up some Lebanese food from my favourite place. Wait, there's a complicated back story. So my favourite food place in Toronto is now this place called Ali Baba. It's a cheapie takeout place that has the BEST fishie. I discovered them when I moved back here and kept getting in the subway or walking out of my way in the cold every time I was downtown or coming home from downtown, in order to stop by at one of their many branches. Then in November they opened a branch 3 mins walking distance from my apartment. Imagine my joy! I go there all the time now. However, the problem is, their hot sauce isn't quite as good as the by sauce at their Landsowne, Dundas west and Wellesley locations :( So today, I decided to get out of the subway at Dundas West- which is 3 subway stops before my apartment, in order to get the fishie with the superior sauce. I figured I could then walk home and get some exercise too. Here's problem number 1 with my great plan- it's 10.30 here, the blasted restaurant isn't open. Problem number 2- the temperature outside. Because I live so close to the subway ive stopped noticig how cold it is. It takes me literally a minute to cross the road once i get out of my building and I am in the subway station. Anyway, it's -20 Celsius and -33 if you consider wind-chill! Sigh.

So I am now in a Starbucks eating a spinach and feta cheese wrap that's yuckie. I had a Giant cookie from Timothy's (the coffee shop I live above of) this morning that was good. I got one here now, that's crap. So overall, I missed the class, spent 5 $ etc, got no fishie and will either be getting pneumonia or spending another 2.50 to get home. To make matters worse I am now 2 giant cookies and a yuckie spinach and feta cheese wrap fatter.

Boo!

It's noon and I am finally home, sitting on my red couch, chatting with my BFF who is in the peace corps in Panama. I suddenly realized nutty people attract nutty people. She has access to internet for a change because this morning she left her 80- person village, crossed a river with a friendly neighborhood man-eating gator and took a one hour bus ride to Panama city for a Mexican Omelette. I think she just showed me up in terms of the ridiculous lengths people can go to for good food.

Anyhow, I need a nap.

Ugly-mad

2010-11-16T20:41:00.001-05:00

I looked into the mirror, make-up-less, teary-eyed and tired. For the first time in a long time I was beautiful. Really beautiful.

I started to cry because I was unhappy. Unhappy in my relationship, unhappy in this country, unhappy with my work, even unhappy in this body, for in this moment I might be beautiful, but I knew I was ugly. Tomorrow, sane and rational, how could I see myself as beautiful, with all my scars, my unseemly hips and bulging belly, the dark puffy bags under my eyes, my gigantic bulbous nose, my body hair? I am beautiful now because I am mad, stark raving mad.

I wanted to look away, because I was crying, more than a little. But I forced myself to look, to stare at myself while I screamed silently and wept and wept. I looked crazy. “But look at yourself”, I told myself. “This is who you are, who you have to live with, the only one, with the exception of your parents and perhaps the infamous one, who cares.” And so I looked.

I am weird, an anomaly. I’ve said it before, but I never really believed it. I look at myself and I know it now. I lack an instinct of self-preservation and find most everything boring and most motivations un-compelling. I am acutely rational and utterly emotional in the very same instant, self aware and self absorbed, assertive and yet overly sensitive, reduced to tears by mere abruptness on someone’s part. Most importantly, I believe in nothing. Not love, not god, not good nor bad, not even beauty.

I have been like this for a long while. But this boredom with myself is new. So is this loneliness. That I am alone, is a fairly basic fact and realization. I was never aware of it though, not really, not until now. “Alone”, it’s liberating and frightening. Once my parents die I can really live. I’ll do what I want and slit my wrists when my thinking and crying gets tiresome.

It’s all pathetic and unoriginal, I know. I feel like a tawdry re-interpretation of Holden, Patch and Gloria all mixed into one. It is real though. This fear is real, so is this fascination I have with loss of control. I’ve lived my entire life on the brink of madness, my always-alert rationality and logic keeping me self aware, analytical and in control, safe from the throes of un-reason. But it’s tiring walking on the edge, always having to fight the force that seems to not pull, but rather mesmerize me into diving into the abyss.

But for now, this path makes perfect sense. I believe in nothing, and this makes me equally curious and skeptical about both sanity and insanity. I should explore the depths of rational thought and then go mad, for there is no way out of madness it would seem, and reason on the other hand will lead me, circuitously but inevitably, over to the other side.

Giant, fantastical chin pimples

2010-03-29T03:28:00.001-04:00

Yaaaaaaaaawn. I HAVE to go to bed. I was up most of Saturday night and woke up at half 8 to work on two assignments due yesterday. Have a giant pimple on my chin, that is looming larger and larger by the minute. It hurts when I touch it. I keep touching it. Its oddly compelling. I am overwhelmed with sheer disbelief every time I touch it. Disbelief over its size. Sigh.

Beloved

2010-03-19T04:04:00.001-04:00

I feel like I’ve become afraid.

Most of my life I was fearless. I was lazy, stubborn, pushy, arrogant. But I was all of these things because I was not afraid of anything. I was never scared of the world, the future, or of consequences. I knew I wouldn’t be poor. I knew I would always get what I wanted. The world wouldn’t deny me. My father, my friends, kept me safe. But mostly, it was my lovers- Ralph and then the infamous one.

Now, for the first time in my life, I am completely alone. My father and my friends are far away. But more than anything, I am afraid because I am no longer a girl-woman in the arms of the infamous one. In his arms I was beautiful, special, beloved. I left him because I realized I only loved how he made me feel. I was not in love with him, not nearly enough. I used to stare into his eyes seeking my own reflections in them. I left because I loved him, so very much.

Sometimes, in the middle of the night, I dress up in front of the mirror. I put on a dress and pretend that I am beautiful, special, beloved. I put on the diamonds and sapphires he gave me and feel like a heroine.

In his absence, I am just a woman, a not unattractive, somewhat charming ordinary woman with an unusual mind. But just a woman. I am only happy when I go back in time and remember the way he looked at me; recall the words he wrote about my eyes, my lips, my smile, my body; relive his rapture at my beauty- the beauty that only he could see.

And now the sun is fading and I am sitting by the window, waiting for the middle of the night. Waiting for the moment when I can put on my costume and play make-believe, pretending to be the girl I used to be. Waiting and crying my heart out.

White Neurosis

2009-12-20T00:28:00.000-05:00

In a clearing, surrounded by bare leafless trees, lying in the soft snow, you will find me. My hair strewn around my head, arms wide open, staring wide-eyed at the sparkling moonlit sky. Everything around me is white, beautiful and frozen. It is peaceful and quiet. I have never been here before, and there are no memories of moments past lurking amongst the trees. I am completely alone. It is is a magical night. I think this is what people call solitude.

The cold wind makes the snow flakes in the air swirl and spiral and the trees seem to be whispering my secrets as they sway. It was only when we made love, that I felt like I belonged, to this world, to anyone, to myself. So many things and ideas excited me. I wanted, so badly, to write a great novel. I loved deeply, no one as much as my father. I was always having epiphanies, forever on the brink of love, adventure or heartbreak. I was impatient, self-centered and lazy. When I cried, I cried big round tears and I cried even when I laughed.

The truth is, I could have rescued myself, if I'd tried.

But this whiteness, this silence, this cold, perfect beauty and the emptiness of my heart, this utter merciless solitude, that you left me in; it was new, all new, and it drove me out of my mind. Completely out of my mind. I once was a wild, garish streak of red, tempting, warm and dangerous, but I am here now, in this most beautiful and magical of places with its skeletal trees and eerie silence. A dramatic rendition that will bring you to tears, lying in the soft snow, you will find me. My hair strewn around my head, my arms wide open like a snow-angel, staring wide-eyed at the sparkling moonlit sky, frozen, unmoving, my masterpiece awaits you.

Dènouement

2009-11-04T14:28:00.000-05:00

The time seems right to write this. It has been a few weeks since we decided to give up on this pretend love-affair. We love each other, know each other, really see each other, but it simply isn’t enough. Separated by oceans, continents and my own hesitation and emotional infidelity, our love is a tortured one. The elaborate dance we were dancing had to end, to reveal we never could or even should belong to each other.

The end of the phone call, where all was decided and laid to rest, brought on no onslaught of tears, no waves of loneliness, no breathtakingly magnificent moment of loss. None of what I anticipated came to be. Rather, a sense of resignation and even peace overwhelmed me. I felt no doubt this time, it all made perfect sense.

I wasn’t aware of the sadness that has quietly embraced me, seeping under my very skin. Not until this very moment, as I stand looking out of my window, watching the rain incessantly, crawling down the glass. I feel simultaneously exposed to and separated from the world outside. He protected me, simply by being my interpreter, my confidante, the mirror I saw myself in. Now I must wander about wide-eyed and confused, seeking glimpses of myself in passing interactions- none so naked, brutal and liberating as the most everyday exchange of glances I shared with him. Forever wearing a mask of charming eccentricity, my intensity and imbalance lurking dangerously close to the surface, I must chain myself to myself so as not to say too much, know too much, ask too much, give too much, for I run the risk of letting myself out and frightening the world away.

When really, all I want is to be and be loved, at the same time.

Super Star

2009-06-18T18:54:00.000-04:00

A friend of mine spoke to me once of the sense of utter loneliness that he is overwhelmed by. It seems he is forever and irretrievably submerged in it. I thought I didn’t know what he meant by this, since I have hardly ever felt lonely. But today, as I walked home at dawn, I saw the sun rise, and everything changed. It was frightening. The sheer beauty of the sight caused the strangest feeling in me. I felt this sense of incompleteness, not just an inert emptiness, but a dangerous throbbing loneliness in the pit of my stomach and I felt like I was falling into it. In that moment I realized that love is all I want in life, from life. Sparkling and full of wonder, the beauty of the world brings me to my knees, and the only way that I can answer it, respond to it, is by being in love. Hackneyed as this may sound, it is the truth. Like music, art, or story-telling, love is a fitting answer to the otherwise humbling and even oppressive beauty and magnificence of all that is around us. To touch him and have him caress me, to fall into his arms, to confess our thought-crimes and our arrogant dreams, to feel our hearts race together as we take a walk amongst the stars, hand in hand: to be in love, is the only way for me to feel special and the only answer to the why of my existence, that doesn’t beg another question.

It is this drama of love- desperate desire, reckless abandon, continuous, consistent intellectual, emotional and sexual engagement and ultimately shared experience- that I seek.

As the painter who cannot give form to her mad visions and the writer who struggles, so desperately, to expose her mind and justify her inexplicable spontaneous tears at the sight of a sunrise, love is the only avenue open to me. Without it, I must weep until I am drowned, embrace until I am torn apart, explode like a supernova and simply wilt under the vicious light of self-analysis.

Of Human Empathy

2008-11-02T20:18:00.001-05:00

I saw the most terrifying of movies this evening. Called ‘An American Crime’, the movie was based on a real case from Indiana. A young girl Sylvia Likens was brutally and cruelly, tortured, mutilated and eventually murdered. Primarily, the justice system found the mother and head of the family a woman called Gertrude, guilty of her murder. Some of Gertrude’s children and some neighbourhood children were also found guilty of lesser crimes. I found and read copies of the judgements against Gertrude and her eldest daughter as also various accounts of the series of incidents that led up to Sylvia’s death, available on in the internet. It seems to me that some of the children, including Gertrude’s two eldest daughters and two neighbourhood boys were guilty of far greater crimes than they ended up being held accountable for.

Normally, I am a fairly non-violent person and I do not believe in the death penalty. This case however, has me drowning in violent uncontrollable rage. I am shaking even now as I type. I was, am so angry, upset and deeply disturbed by the story of this young girl. It is only one of so many, I know this too.

After watching the movie I couldn’t do much all evening. I was to meet some friends, but I ended up cancelling. I could not eat. I could not sleep. When I finally did fall asleep earlier tonight, I woke up in a sweat with images of the beaten, vulnerable young girl in my mind. While I am a highly empathetic and emotional individual who cries through most emotional scenes in movies, I am also the sort of person who watches twisted movies about serial killers and their deviant ways with great interest, without flinching. The key, I have come to realize, is that to me serial killers aren’t real people. They aren’t average everyday people. So while I feel terrible for their victims and families, serial killer movies don’t disturb me like this movie did. I rationalize serial killer stories by telling myself that some people are just capable of inhuman cruelty, they lack empathy and can and may even enjoy inflicting pain on others unjustly and needlessly. But in this movie, it wasn’t just one crazy woman who killed this girl in a fit of insanity or rage. No, in fact Sylvia died as a result of continuous tormenting, starvation and torture by children and young adolescents as well as this grown woman. So many people, who led ostensibly ‘normal lives’, knew about what was happening to this girl, and even participated in it and enjoyed it. Who were these people? Could it be that this small community in Indiana, by some bizarre coincidence, had so many ‘crazy’ people capable of such heinous acts in it midst? Or were they just like you and me?

I don’t want to become a misogynist. I want, need an explanation for Sylvia’s tragic story. One that accounts for how a bunch of children and young adolescents can burn, kick, beat, brand and commit other unspeakable acts of torture upon a young girl, who was essentially just like them. Somewhere they must have completely disassociated themselves from her, so that her pain did not even make them uncomfortable. This does not explain why they enjoyed it though. I realize some people enjoy inflicting pain. But how was it that all Gertrude’s children and all the neighbourhood children who knew about what was happening to Sylvia were willing participants? Coincidence? I am not foolish enough to imagine that insane minds think like mine. But these people couldn’t have all been insane. It seems improbable.

More than anything, as cruel and selfish as this may sound, I want to forget her story. I have spent the last few hours involuntarily imagining what it must have been like for her. I realize of course that I probably haven’t even an inkling of what it was like. I have never felt even an iota of the pain that she must have gone through, or the humiliation. But when I am imagining myself as her, it seems as though the physical pain and even the humiliation eventually becomes unimportant, when compared to the debilitating impact of what was happening, on her spirit. Was the most horrifying part of the experience watching this family she lived with and the neighbourhood kids she hung out with devolve into these monsters? Did she realize they were monsters, or did she wonder if she did something to deserve it? She was only a child after-all. These people did everything they possibly could to make her feel as though she was not human. I believe and hope that Sylvia never felt they succeeded. They caused her incredible pain, but I believe and hope she knew they couldn’t take away her humanity from her. It is said that the weekend before she died, she refused food offered to her by Gertrude, suggesting the dog needed the food more than she did. Was this defiance a sign that though she was nearing the end of her physical strength, her spirit was unbroken?

I feel terrible anger against all those who were involved. Not just those who participated, but also those who knew and those who could have known but chose to wilfully ignore clear signs that something was wrong. If they were before me right now, I am not honestly certain that I wouldn’t kill them. I certainly wouldn’t beat or torture them. But I am tempted by the idea of a clean shot through the heart. It is said that we don’t really know what we are capable of until we are in a situation that tests our limits and our beleifs. Deeper reflection leads me to realize however that I wouldn’t kill them. What purpose would it serve? Appeasing my anger? I only hope they are not in a position to do something like this again. As for dissuading others from taking this path, that presumes the potential criminal you are trying to warn is a rational actor. An assumption that makes sense when the crime sought to be prevented is burglary, kidnapping, straightforward murder etc. It is clearly flawed when the crime you seek to prevent is as heinous and inexplicable as this.

The unhappy truth is that there is no resolution to this. No happy ending possible. No way to feel ok about this and go snuggle up to a loved one in bed. I feel a terrible guilt on my shoulders. It seems irrational to me, since I was barely 3 when all this happened and suffering my own personal tragedy at that age. I feel guilty simply because I am a human being. Because ironically I cannot disassociate myself from the perpetrators of this terrible tragedy. Their story is as much a part of our shared history and shame as Sylvia’s story is a part of our shared experience and pain, as human beings. How can we forget or run away from this story, from these images of ourselves? We cannot and probably should not. In not being able to forget and brush aside this story, perhaps we affirm our inherent humanity best characterized, I believe, by our involuntary capacity for empathy.

A day such as this

2008-08-14T20:15:00.000-04:00

Walking home after cocktails with some friends, I realized that the evening had left me very dissatisfied and strangely melancholy. I suppose I use the term “friends” loosely. Only one amongst them was really a friend. I’ve only met him a few times and at first I thought him quite mad. I still do. Each time I have spent time with him however, I have found him more and more amusing, intelligent and most importantly, novel. His mind is uncluttered and curious and his approach brutally honest and almost childlike in its inoffensive irreverence. I enjoyed my conversation with him this evening, as I do most evenings, but everyone and everything else made me sad.

The truth is though that I wouldn’t have walked away this dissatisfied or disappointed if this was another night. But on some days I am deeply hopeful, or no perhaps more than that, extremely demanding. Filled with a sense of wonder not only about the whole world, but about people as well, I walk out on days such as this one and feel like I am in a movie from the future where colours are richer, sounds more resonant and the viewer’s perspective is both wider and more detailed simultaneously. Everything vibrates with life and intrigue. It is difficult for me, on days such as this, to not just fall to the ground and sit cross-legged on the cobblestoned sidewalk, looking this way and that, like a child or a pothead, fascinated by rain drops, snow, shadows, billboards and just about everything. On a day such as this, I walk out ecstatic and come home melancholy, because invariably I encounter real live people who, in my Technicolor world, look like water colour splotches on a canvas left out in the rain; faded and strangely without form.

I met the infamous one on a day such as this one. I met him for the first time when he showed up at my door. We went for a walk in the monsoon rain and sat on a bench. This was in India, so of course everything was bustling and muddy around us. In my brilliantly coloured world he stood there etched in black and white and it was symbolic really of all that he was to stand for in my life; night and day, ecstasy and the most gut-wrenching pain, safety and utter vulnerability. On that evening, borne of a day such as this, when I walked in from the rain, my housemate came rushing out into the living room with a towel and we both stood there staring at my feet in a greyish puddle, and well he was clearly gone.

And now, now he is the distant land that seeks me when I float formless in my self-created ocean of melancholy blue.

The real nuttymeg

2008-08-10T15:03:00.000-04:00

So this is going to be rushed. It isn’t one of my usual long-winded philosophical entries. Nope. It’s quick and in bullet form. Although, to tell you the truth I absolutely hate bullet points- they’re very abrupt and incomplete (which isn’t always a bad thing) and surrounded by a sense of finality, as though whatever is stated in the bullet point is the author’s last word on the matter. But I do so love my ifs and buts and “then again”s. There’s something about a long confusing paragraph-argument that grapples with many different perspectives and answers no questions but raises a million new ones- that I love. But if you’ve been reading me, you already know that.

So how then do I put down these thoughts, without going through the pains that real writing involves? How do I eat the proverbial cake and have it too? I am going to try disconnected ramblings.

Here’s the one thought paramount in my head this minute; I’ve read and heard about egg yolk being very good for your hair and I decided to try it out the other day. And well, here’s something I can put in bullet form:

It most definitely works
But I smell awful.

Also, I was in Rome last week and I have to say the highlights were most definitely the food (because of which I am depressed now, since I cannot find anything even half as good here!) and our escapades in the Vatican. My friend and travelling companion began to snooze indelicately in the Sistine Chapel! But I must report that in all honesty a certain someone outdid him entirely. I would speak more plainly if I weren’t afraid that, as my other friend and travelling companion suggested, the Swiss Guards may be scouring Europe looking for a certain splinter. Here again I shall use bullet points- you connect the dots:

Lot’s of pizza, cheese and gelato
Calories
Weight gain?
Vatican washroom
Toilet seat made of some sort of wood coated with some water-proof material
Cracking noise
Jumping up in shock
Splinter
Bum

On this note, I should go and shower, this entry has been entirely out of character for this blog, but this silliness is a part of me too. Honestly.

Of time

2008-07-16T22:24:00.000-04:00

One concept I’ve always had great trouble with, since high school, is time. I remember my father trying very hard to explain the theory of relativity to me. I simply couldn’t understand it. I am sure every single person in the world has felt unpleasant things drag on interminably and happy events simply rush by. This is often used as an analogy to illustrate the relativity of time. And yet I myself, knowing absolutely nothing about physics, wonder if this is entirely accurate. What does this analogy actually say about time? Human beings possess a rudimentary ability to estimate distances, weights, sizes dimensions and also the amount of time that has elapsed between two determinate events. To me the analogy merely illustrates that this ability is particularly subjective and impaired when it comes to time and events that bore, excite, upset us or give us joy. Am I missing something or was Einstein merely being flip?

Years ago, when I was young and still capable of simple answers, I asked myself what time was and the first answer that came to me was, “time is how long it takes to do something or for something to happen”. It was fairly obvious to me that time is measured relative to something just as distance is. However, when one is measuring distance, say the distance from my apartment to the subway station, one can easily imagine taking a measuring tape and running it along the ground and reading the numbers off the tape when one arrives at the subway station. When one measures time what exactly is one measuring? My simplistic understanding of the concept was and is that when an event repeats itself with precision one can define the duration between each occurrence and its repetition as an arbitrary unit of time. But this is merely an understanding of the measure of time, not of time itself. I could and possibly should do some research and find a somewhat comprehensible physicist/author such as Feynman and read him on time as a concept in physics. What I also find myself fascinated by right now is the question of whether and how you and I experience time?

The concept of time begins to make sense and fit into my unfortunate mind’s categories and boxes when I see it in the context of rhythm and death. When the sun rises each morning one knows a day has passed, when the mechanical clock ticks persistently one knows seconds and minutes and then hours are slipping away. Time is intrinsically linked to repetition and therefore rhythm, because what is rhythm if not a series of events repeated? The body has its mysterious cycles, but when survival (food shelter, clothing that sort of thing) is no longer a struggle, without the imposed order of seconds and minutes; what happens? Will the mind become lost in a maze of thoughts without direction? I am fairly convinced that my mind cannot feel time passing by. The chiming of a clock, the sky bursting into flames, the sun drowning itself in the ocean; these events mark the passing of time in my mind. Without the expectation and knowledge of a certain event that will occur, time becomes meaningless. I could fall asleep and dream a lifelong love affair and wake-up five minutes later. Without the measure of time, would I feel like I’d lived a lifetime? What have I gained and what have I lost when I look up at the clock on the wall and realize it lasted all of five minutes.

And how does the knowledge of a definite end to one’s consciousness brought about by impending death, affect one’s understanding of time?

Original Sin?: Law and domestic violence in India

2008-07-10T21:39:00.000-04:00

Some of my friends would most certainly be in jail if they lived in India!!

Despite being a lawyer and an Indian woman I admit that I am no expert on this subject, simply because I have never really been in a “domestic relationship” with a man. In any case I’d imagine if I were to ever be in a “domestic relationship”, I’d most likely be the respondent/accused in such a case. That being said, I was so irked by this Bill (now an Act) that I simply had to write my two cents worth.

It’s probably not going to be a fun read, but I simply must express my thoughts on this subject, I cannot hold my peace. A lot of this has probably been said, but that doesn’t mean that people have heard it, and in any case it makes me feel better, a little less disappointed and upset, to write about it.

So what has me so hot and bothered you ask? The Indian Domestic Violence Act is incredibly badly drafted and to be honest I think it will be counterproductive in the long run. Gandhi once said that means are more important than the end, and I believe this to be especially true of legislative and judicial processes. It is a fact that no one disputes that a very large number of women are abused, physically and mentally, sometimes to the point of death, in India. Neither I nor anyone else takes issue with the decision of the Executive and Legislature to do something about this. What I am criticising is the means, the instrument that the Indian Government is employing in order to achieve this undoubtedly noble end. Might I also point out at this stage that I am not going to be providing exhaustive quotes from the legislation. I am only picking and choosing those provisions, even parts of provisions that I find problematic.

Stop being pusillanimous you say, get to the point. Well here’s the meat of my argument. To begin with the Act’s definition of domestic violence covers a very wide range of the spouse’s conduct and includes verbal, emotional and economic abuse. Verbal and emotional abuse includes ridicule, name calling and insults. As Karan Thapar pointed out in his interview with Renuka Chaudhary, this means that sarcasm or calling someone an ass could be interpreted as abuse. Obviously, not every ridiculous scenario that I or anyone else can come up with will stand up in Court or even be entertained by the relevant authorities, but what I am concerned about is the very real potential for abuse that some provisions of this law create. If a woman wishes to harass a man, or even mistakenly but in earnest considers herself a victim, these provisions leave the man vulnerable to being prosecuted at least, which brings with it ignominy and great expense.

Economic abuse includes any alienation of assets in which the aggrieved person has an interest or is entitled to use by virtue of the domestic relationship. Let’s say that a married couple live in relative disharmony. They simply don’t get along. This is common enough and a believable hypothesis so far. Now let’s say the woman does not concern herself too much with her spouse’s handling of his business. He finds himself desperately strapped for cash and so mortgages the family home he bought with his life savings in order to save his business and source of livelihood. If he defaults and the house is foreclosed on, could his wife have him arrested?

Oh and boys beware, if you should move-in with a girlfriend you could find yourself in one tight spot if things should go south. The Act also gives a woman in a domestic relationship the right to reside in the shared household, even when she has no legal right, interest or title in it!! And what do you think a “domestic relationship” means under this law?

“a relationship between two persons who live or have, at any point of time, lived together in a shared household, when they are related by consanguinity, marriage, or through a relationship in the nature of marriage, adoption or are family members living together as a joint family;” (Italics mine)

This includes your live-in girlfriend as also perhaps your roommate who you may have casually dated!!!

I am not suggesting that women who have not been trained in any profession or even those who have been but have given up their careers to run their households should be left homeless. But it is one thing to require the man to provide for her until the matter is resolved (and also perhaps thereafter) and quite another to insist that he must live under the same roof with her or leave his own home. In the case of a man and woman who have been married or are common-law partners, even where the woman might not have any legal interest in the shared home, one could argue that it is her home by virtue of her having supported her partner and shared a life with him in it. But this provision applies equally to girlfriends of yesteryear without regard to the duration of time that a couple shares a residence. It is a difficult subjective question to determine, but the Act should at least require that the couple must have lived together for a reasonable length of time before this section applies!

Some provisions of this Act make it simply too wide in its scope and while I appreciate the very serious concerns that the legislators had in mind when they framed it, I believe that this law is unjust, imbalanced, unequal and unfair. It even presumes that men cannot be victims of domestic abuse, since aggrieved persons under the Act are peremptorily defined as women who claim to have suffered violence. While one or the other of these provisions might by themselves seem relatively innocuous or at least excusable given the circumstances, their combination along with the cherry on top; the fact that once a woman makes an allegation, the burden is upon the man to disprove it”, make the entire concoction dangerous and if not that, then at least discriminatory.

Some will probably call me an elitist for saying this, but I believe that the Act itself along with the Dowry Prohibition Act while motivated by the best of intentions and greatest social need, seem to codify a reversed tyranny of sorts. This never was a part of my dream of a free, fair and equal India. It disappoints me.

The insomniac who couldn't paint: A Triptych

2008-06-18T23:37:00.000-04:00

Tonight I feel like I am suspended in a liquid and viscous world. Despite my skin’s increasing translucence and the clearness of these four walls, my isolation and insulation ensure failed communication. People walk by without even noticing me.

Night after night my mind battles tiredness until in the lilac light of every morning I finally surrender and drift off. My sleeping eyes and troubled mind are then filled with colours vivid and images deranged of myself. In every portrait, so alone am I, that even absence the ghost of presence, himself eludes me. I feel him not, know him not, fear him not. So many artists have spoken of pain, this agony of existence that fired their passions and guided their genius. I think this pain is rooted in loneliness, in feeling misunderstood. But can loneliness be felt by one who has never really known another. By one who bears not even the illusion, the fantasy of a half to make her whole.

I had a dream in the hot late morning sun and I awoke with a cry, my blood beating a manic rhythm in my ears. I fell in my dream. Fell and fell towards the floor. I wasn’t afraid until the moment I hit the ground. I did not miss him; neither my father nor my lover; nor her; my future or my past. What did I lose? My memories, possibilities, all that I could become or feel, had been or felt, every image, every tear and sparkle of my eye. I was falling while still erect, my feet pointing towards the ground. I fell through the floor, towards another floor and then I felt mindless primal terror, absolute fear. No sky, no windows and no restraint; not even the ground beneath my feet wanted to hold me up. Again and again I fell, because every plane was the same plane. Through floor after floor of an endless superstructure, neither pushed nor pulled, just simply not belonging. Alone, so utterly alone, but never lonely, this morning I fell into infinity.

Blue Neurosis

2008-06-11T00:00:00.000-04:00

I am unable to sleep. This isn’t an entirely new feeling. It happens to me often enough, almost every night in fact for the past few years. For three hours now, I have tossed and turned, read, tried to dream, watched television and given up, only to start trying again. I felt my youth slipping away as I lay between the sheets, sweaty, my heart beating faster and faster. I wanted; want, so desperately to rest. Unproductive as I am all day, neglecting my work, physically entirely inactive, I am always thinking, worrying, pondering.

I don’t know the first thing about jazz, I don’t know much about music at all in fact, but there is this piece by Miles Davis that particularly appeals to me; “All Blues”. It begins with what sounds to a novice like the strumming of a guitar, and this continues to play in the background as other instruments join in. The rhythm makes me edgy, as though the strummers fingers were releasing my nervousness, excitement, anticipation and fears, goading them on as they begin to dance around me. Like blue flames of alcohol or gasoline, shining through my closed lids, they burn my sleep and dreams. They surround me and spin around and around me, swaying sinuously.

The strumming fades out. I feel a sense of relief. The mad fire flickers, becomes less and less real and I become engrossed in the trumpet and drums, ignoring the piano for the most part. I am all alone once again, fallen to the floor, my chest and belly rising and falling to the music. For a while I can just listen to the music and I am filled with a peaceful sadness and finally some detachment; towards ageing, towards my future plans past December, towards my own sense of disappointment over my meagre achievements, my mind is as close as it has ever been to contemplating nothing.

Happiness is elusive to most of us isn’t it? But the closest I’ve ever come to it has been while eating something delicious, snuggling up to the infamous one who appears so frequently in my blog and last but not least whilst writing.

The beautiful, cruel irony is that the piece closes with a reopening of that skilful strumming while the trumpet moans gently in the foreground, awakening in me again, a wide-eyed madness that only my father’s hand upon my forehead or my lover's kiss upon my eyelids will tame.

Going Ditsy

2008-02-24T22:16:00.000-05:00

Walking about the streets of Munich in the winter sunshine, it struck me. With great music in my ears, a wonderful pair of new shoes on my feet that give me blisters and weighing 4 kilos less than I did a month ago, I am so very happy.

So what would I change? I’d like to be slimmer, but I don’t want to lose the curves I just woke up with one day at 23. I’d like to be richer, so I could buy more clothes and visit my parents, Mick, Ralph and Shivani more often. Also, I wish I had a sexy sultry voice.

Seriously though, my career is completely within my control, I have great friends and the best family. Maybe that explains why this blog is largely about men and my romantic relationships. It’s the only area of my life that I cannot complete control and direct. Given my impatient and spoilt nature, this isn’t entirely easy for me to cope with. A friend told me tonight, “Go ditsy Megha, you’re much too complicated.” I do know he was joking, but he is right. I want to be with someone who doesn’t just get my ‘levels’ and contradictions, but loves them. It’s an entirely different matter that I’ve already met “him” and these very complications have caused me to drown myself in my own confusion and to walk away from what was in fact a perfect relationship, for me anyway. Read his blog and you’ll see I drove him up the wall. But I am digressing.

The point of this entry is really to ask myself this question- “what’s the matter with me?” Why am I so very complex and analytical? When I have what seems to be a great package deal on life so to speak, why must I make life more difficult for myself? When I read “The Alchemist” it annoyed me so much I practically developed an ulcer. One of the main reasons for this was this one scene in the book when the protagonist meets Fatima (I think that was her name) and falls in love with her, having seen her only once (he actually only sees her eyes, the rest of her is all covered since she’s in hijab). Why did it annoy me so much? For one, I was a crazy overly passionate teenager, but also because I think I secretly envied this boy. How could he fall in love like that? I think I suspected then, what I am almost convinced of now. To really love you have to be a little naïve and simplicity is enviable and impossible to acquire.

So am I now condemned to a life full of labyrinths of logic that only I can traverse? Why did I walk away from the man who was willing to hold my hand and walk with me?

The answer seems obvious really. “It was just that the time was wrong”. I suppose I want to be alone. I want to dwell on things. I don’t take anything as a given. I am consumed by doubt. I am acutely conscious of the infinite choices I have before me and the infinite consequences that each one leads to. I do everything for a reason and presume everyone else does too. And I want to understand their reasons, because I find people interesting. Well not all people, but those I choose to interact with anyway.

That’s why I am so bloody complicated. That’s the matter with me.

But I do need to change; I have to learn to be more patient.

I suppose my life will be more like a weird French movie than a Walt Disney one. I may never have a fairytale love story, but whoever said those were the best kind. Ralph’s grandmother and grandfather fell in love during the war when he was a soldier passing through her village, he left, she realized she was pregnant with his child, they married other people, their respective partners died, they met again by chance decades later, and married. A few years later, he died of cancer. Best love story I ever heard. It wasn’t a very happy one though.

Eventually I think I’ll go running back to “him”, because I love him and I can talk to him for hours and even Montréal couldn’t tempt us out of a 5 day long cuddle.

Until then, I’ll have a lot of complicated babble for this blog.

Weightless

2008-01-24T21:23:00.000-05:00

Weightless

All my life I’ve been trying not to confuse impatience with desire, love with fear of impending isolation. Now, I think I might have turned this fear on its head. I find myself sitting here wondering nervously, if I've already met 'Him' and just won’t let myself believe in "Him".

Wait! Here he walks into my life, lighting candles, writing ballads, placing soft kisses upon my lips, fingertips and eyelashes.And there I am, on my knees, at his feet, while he worships me.
But that was yesterday.

Today, like Wednesday, I am fleeing from the men who love me with suffocating, redeeming passion. Tomorrow I will be drawn to an idea, a construct of a man I will find flickering in the eyes of a passing stranger.

I do not, cannot, have not, done justice to his love. This I know. I wish there were more moments in my life that made me shut up. I think, I think too much. Only the sight of the ocean and snow can quiet me.

When I was younger all I wanted was someone to watch me, an eternal audience. But now I can finally dance with music in my ears, in the dark, alone. It isn't forgiveness, acceptance, warmth, diamonds or love that I seek. All I want is one absolute. To be pulled back into his orbit. I want nothing more than to just simply, absolutely know. All I want is for him to look into my murky eyes and tell me, “My love, love is big and love is simple.” Like cholera, like music, like the woody smell of whisky, like lust, I want him to overpower me.

He told me once, that I was the sound that drowned out the world. But thinking, questioning, anxious, unpredictable, un-still, I have begun to flit from one state to another. He tried but he just couldn’t find me. I was no-where and all his love became beautiful, slow sadness.

And I just floated.

29 January 2008

Drunken love note

2008-01-17T21:33:00.000-05:00

Being with you is like dying and going to heaven. It's perfect. I feel loved, happy, understood and satisfied. How then am I to live, when there is nothing more to want, desire, achieve, attempt...there's nothing left but to be with you, in heaven. But I still want to live darling. Do you understand?

Love

Of Human Bondage

2007-11-23T06:18:00.000-05:00

This is one of Maugham’s best in my opinion. But this piece isn’t about his book. Rather it is about my own take on human interaction in North America, in Canada to be precise. When I first arrived, I waited expectantly for that first wave of culture shock. But it never came. In 2 days I felt completely at home, and in a week or two it felt like I’d been living in Toronto all along. But the subtle differences began to sink in very slowly. On a day like today, cloudy, wet and cold, as I walk down Yonge Street, I realize I miss home intensely. The simple honesty and warmth of human interaction in India is perhaps what I miss the most. People aren’t simpler back home, but I do believe relationships are. Because people seem unabashed to express their emotions. Often Indians may strike one as rude, tactless, invasive even, but they’re just not pretending. So many people who have moved to North America from India tell me how they feel free, liberated and more able to be themselves. In my case though, I feel more restricted here. I feel I must think before I respond emotionally to a person or a situation, because people don’t give emotion free reign. What strikes me as strange is that while one’s sexuality has the freedom to bloom and express itself in any way it wants to, I feel as though one’s emotions are repressed. It is fairly common and acceptable for people to meet strangers or people they don’t know so well and end up going home with them, and yet it is uncommon and even ‘weird’ to attempt to create intimacy with friends or lovers ‘prematurely’. What I mean by this, is that it takes time before people here let their emotional guard down and tell you what they are really thinking. You could be lying in someone’s arms kissing them, and not have a clue what he/she is thinking or feeling about you, this moment or the relationship you share, if any at all.

Time is precious here and so is money. In my world people are the greatest asset of all. Not only because they’ll take you in when you’re in trouble, lend you money when you’re broke or look after you when you’re sick, but also because they will hold you when you need to be held and make you feel loved. In India not only your best friends or family, but people you hardly know will be perfectly willing to do all these things. Perhaps, it is a form of social security in a society that offers little health care, unemployment benefits or financial support to the elderly and disabled. In Canada everyone is independent, financially and emotionally.

I think independence is completely overrated. Yes it is an awfully stifling feeling sometimes, to know that someone depends on you, needs you and cannot manage without you. But, does not being independent automatically imply I am dependent. Is there no middle path? Take my case, when I am low, upset, hysterical etc., I tend to telephone my friends. They cheer me up and/or make me see that I am overreacting and that my problem can be resolved. In the event no one is available at the time, I play some music, cry it out, sit in the Jacuzzi, eat ice-cream and cheer up.

Speaking of middle-paths, I realize I might be painting a somewhat dismal and exaggerated picture of life here. First, this is based entirely on my personal experiences and those of people I know. Second, not every person I met here fits this description. In fact most of my friends don’t- which might be the reason they are my friends! This is just my generalized perception of the culture here.

When intimacy is seen as a liability- either because it makes one vulnerable to being hurt or because it opens the door to dependence on either parties’ part- relationships become difficult and complicated. A person like me, who is particularly blasé about everything; my thoughts, emotions, what I want from people, life or situations, such a dynamic can be particularly bewildering and alienating. It can be likened to walking down a street full of people bundled up in down jackets and winter paraphernalia, in nothing but socks!

In a sense most people here live life richly, they enjoy it. They try to do as much as they can and experience as much as they can. I’ve never been bungee jumping, sky-diving, travelling in rural Vietnam or flown off to Cuba on a whim. They celebrate their sexuality, cater to their intellectual curiosity and experience cultural diversity. They choose, through of all this, to protect themselves emotionally to a certain extent. This is a dangerous generalization, I realize that. But perhaps I am trying to make a point in a relative context. People here protect themselves more than people back home. In India, we are dramatic, expressive and emotional, childish even. I feel however, that as a result of how I’ve lived my life, I’ve taken emotional risks and experienced such intense intimacy- intimacy that has made me feel refreshed, elevated, loved, protected, rescued, accepted, beautiful and strangely enough free; to be myself, as crazy and kooky as I want to be. This, in varying degrees, is what I seek from every interaction that moves beyond polite niceties.

I am a human being, with a story, contradictions, eccentricities, ugly sides and redeeming qualities. And the person across me has a history too. During so many interactions, inside my mind an oft repeated monologue plays: “And yet here we are talking about the weather and newest movie, making inane jokes. Religion, politics, you and I are all off limits. If you really are not interested in me as a person, then why pretend to talk at all? It isn’t as though we are related or work together. We need never see each other again.”

It is a deeply dehumanizing experience to sit across from a person for a sustained period of time, thinking aloud- only to have him/her walk away from you leaving nothing but confusion in their wake. Suddenly you realize they gave you nothing of themselves and you, naïve and so very excitable, gave them a glimpse of your mad mind.

Of Mad Love

2007-11-15T23:05:00.000-05:00

I walked into my room and felt happy again. My hair smelt like sandalwood and lavender, my skin like chocolate and Brazil-nut butter. My ear lobes, neck and wrists had the gentle fragrance of Satsuma oil. Music played in my ears, rhythmic, feminine and seductive. My room was dark except for the raspberry and sage candle I lit before I left. The flame flickered and a gentle warm pink-red glow pranced about on the wall. I started to move. My hips swaying in a slow fluid motion, my hands caressing the air. I opened my eyes, ever so slightly and watched myself in the narrow mirror on my wall. I realized then that I miss you.

I’ve been sitting here all day and all night, listing the little things. The winter, the gray sunlight, the roughness of my bed-sheets, my inability to work, when all the while it was just that I missed you.

I miss finding myself in your eyes. Without you watching me, I can feel myself dissolving. I have your voice, with me all day, and it’s true I am never alone, because I know I can pick up my phone and simply call. We share everything my darling. But remember when you told me that the city lights and mountains only make your heart heavier, because you miss me by your side, adding my sight to yours? My voice isn’t enough is it? When I wake up every morning and you aren’t sitting by me, looking down at me, as I stretch and yawn, smile, grumble and rub my eyes, I don’t just feel lonely. I have nothing but platitudes to offer, I am sorry. I feel the morning, the day, the world, my life, everything, lacks colour, sparkle, drama. You know what it is? Without me your world fades, without you I am fading, cell by cell, molecule by molecule, I can see bits of me falling off, darling. And I don’t know what to do. Help me.

And now that I have walked into this room with the candlelit dim darkness, and slipped into this silken robe you so lovingly gave me, I stand before the mirror. I am looking at my eyes, my mouth, my cheek bones, my brow, my hair, the back of my neck, the swell of my breasts, the slight bulge of my belly under the robe, the silhouette of my legs on the wall behind me. I look away shyly with the slightest smile. For an instant there, I saw myself through your eyes, and all that uncertainty just fell away. I am beautiful. I am loved. I know these things.

I love the way you dream darling. I sleep more deeply in your arms. I don’t come to you for a safe haven; I could have that in other beds and other arms. I come to you for excitement, because with you, the world is more, bigger, better, brighter, darker, spicier, richer, more sensual. I am filled with excitement and hunger, I walk faster. My skin tingles when I feel your breath on it, and it almost hurts when your lips touchmine, ever so slightly and my eyes fill with tears.

A secret? I invent whims just to see you smile with a knowing look because you anticipated my inventions.

We will play games of courtship with each other all our lives, my love. Ours is a mad love. And it makes me happy.

The Eternal Striptease

2007-11-15T13:00:00.000-05:00

So here's my plan. Why not let everyone do as they please and perhaps try instead to look inwards and explore our own sexuality. That goes not only for those who seek to regulate what goes on inside the privacy of our bedrooms and tell us who and how many we may sleep with or marry, but also for those who will box us in, define us as ‘normal’ or ‘abnormal’, ‘kinky’ or ‘vanilla’, ‘straight’, ‘gay’ or ‘bi’, as though all these definitions were complete, final and mutually exclusive.

And that brings me to something else which puzzles me, while sex in this society can mean nothing, we seem very inclined to assume we know a person based on how they dress, how they look and a few conversations. We all play different roles and assume different identities. All of these characters are part of who we are, but none of them encompass all of who we are. In my view, the most wonderful feeling of all is not feeling loved but feeling free to flit from one persona to another in the presence of the one I love. I believe and hope that I can never reveal myself completely to him or her or anyone for that matter, that I can never be known by anyone. Not because I am shy, but because I am constantly discovering new facets and layers to myself. It is the process of revealing myself at will, a lifelong striptease as it were, that I call a love affair. To be known would be to be ‘grown-up’, ‘done’ as it were, like a steak! But I don’t think I ever will be. A few years ago I never thought I would believe in free markets, today I do (subject to innumerable caveats). Even 3 years ago, I was a difficult, demanding, emotional friend to most, who had the tendency to back people into corners when I felt they were in the wrong. Last month, even my best friend expressed surprise when I let her breathe and let the whole thing cool over, although in this case it froze over! To everyone I know I am an emotionally expressive person. But last year, when one of my closest friends decided to simply walk away from me, I reacted by simply getting on with my life. Perhaps, I will write about it one day, but so far I seem to have dealt with it in a balanced and undramatic fashion. And then sometimes we surprise people not by being contrary to what they expect, but by being exactly what they anticipated, but in such an extreme or intense manner that they are still taken aback. An example; the cat threw up on the carpet and I had to clean it up myself. I ended up crying, literally, as I did it, because I was so grossed out by the way it smelled, looked and felt through the gloves! I was on the phone with Mick while I did this, and he is still shocked by the fact that I did. It also still makes him crack up. Whether it is our political views, reactions to situations, how we feel about friends, our self image, our dreams, however it is that we choose to define ourselves, a large portion of these change as circumstances and situations change.

And then of course there are those aspects of our selves that lie at the core that will never change. My father will always be empathetic, my best girl-friend imaginative, Ralph's love will always calm, heal and empower and Mick will always love with passion, abandon and paternity.

In either case, it makes absolutely no sense to make any assumptions about a person at the end of fleeting interactions. Intimacy, emotional, intellectual and physical, is a privilege. It takes time and communication before a person can at best make an intelligent and general guess as to the sort of person you are. It seems sometimes people tend to forget that.

Of Bored Hearts

2007-11-13T18:15:00.000-05:00

This time in my life reminds me of what is rumoured to be a Chinese curse- “may you live in interesting times”. I feel like I could be anywhere or anyone in a few months– a teacher, a policy analyst, a post-graduate fellow, in Europe, Asia, India or maybe right here in Toronto. Sometimes I feel unsteady not knowing what’s coming around the corner, and it is frustrating not being able to make plans of any sort. People, from back home and here, ask me what I am going to do next, and they seem completely taken aback when I don’t have an answer. I think they would be less incredulous if I gave them something- even if it was only that I planned to go back-packing in eastern Europe, or sign up for a profile on Shaadi.com (marriage.com an Indian match-making website)- anything- “I don’t know yet” simply doesn’t seem to satisfy them. “I know what I won’t do”, I add feebly. “But you must have some idea” they insist.

Oh but I do. When I wake up every morning, I want to be excited about the day to come. I realize this is a bit idealistic. Every job has aspects that one doesn’t like. So I suppose I mean this in a more general sense. I need an emotional kick from whatever I do because I am chronically lazy. I fear I will never get out of bed otherwise and just end up a rich fat housewife who watches CSI reruns! This excitement I speak of, it isn’t only intellectual. I do so dearly want a job that makes my brow crinkle and my head hurt sometimes, but also, I want to do something meaningful. Now I know, sceptics keep your shirts on, this fairly smacks of self importance and self righteousness. But in all honesty it is what I think will make me happy, even ohne recognition or appreciation of any sort.

I blame my highly dramatic nature and overactive imagination.

When I walk about in India, or travel through the countryside, I am awestruck by the country’s beauty and intensity. But what really moves me, is how raw we are in India. The human experience, in all its breadth and complexity, played out as if on a stage.

Scenes from my youth-

-One Friday afternoon, on a platform in a train station, as two scruffy urchins, in torn shirts, fight and wrestle each other- I watch on indulgently, smiling at how cute they are- suddenly one of them takes a brick and smacks the other with it over the head- I intervene and broken sentences punctuated with shocking expletives reveal they were fighting over a concoction of prescription medicines.

- As a young girl I travel with my mother to a village and live there for a week. I make friends with the village girls and one of them takes me home to her hut. Her mother offers me lunch and it is surprisingly good. I eat my fill and go home. Not realizing I’d casually eaten the family’s lunch and dinner!

It is an old, old land. So very rich and so very poor. And yes I love it. It isn’t an unconditional love. I’d love it if I’d been born somewhere else. So very generous, hypocritical, loud, warm, invasive, prejudiced and resigned- India haunts me. I cannot help who I am. I am Indian. So yes sometimes I find myself noticing my marginally lighter or darker skin tone when I walk past a person (it’s my Grandmother’s fault!), I take pride in not having had too many partners (I hope my parents are not reading this!), I take it for granted that the system will bend over backwards for me because of my father, I don’t trust policeman, I call all older women ‘Auntie’ and all older men ‘Uncle’ and I expect the men in my life to pamper me. These are just some of the ridiculous things that can come with being from the sub-continent.

As my hips sway gently to the sound of a flute, and I swirl about my room, I realise I have no choice but to go back.

Some people, right from when they were children, enjoy taking things apart, to figure out how they work- just because. I’ve never really had the gift of purely intellectual curiosity. My blasted heart keeps running interference.

So no, I don’t think I will save the world. I seriously doubt that girl and her mum who fed me so very generously, need saving. The incident with the boys left me shaking and sobbing for hours, and my very loving partner patiently held me and consoled me through it all, and the two boys- well they got on with pick-pocketing and polishing people’s shoes.

Perchance- I am the one who needs saving. Those children have the power to give me something to feel strongly about, so I can keep that vulnerable and raw part of me alive and aching. For my mind you see I can keep occupied- with books and ideas, but my heart, my heart I must keep from becoming bored.