Writings on the wall

Words I read recently and noted down for self-reflection:

• You can go travelling not only to the outside world, but also inside your mind. Walk around the neighbourhood, the nearest park, and see the leaves fall.
• If books had to replicate our exact experience of the world to be useful, the only books worth reading would be written by ourselves.
• We’re all going to die, all of us, what a circus! That alone should make us love each other, but it doesn’t. We’re terrorized and flattened by our trivialities, we’re eaten up by nothing.
• I suppose, in the absence of universal uncertainties, we are our own best laboratory.
• It’s life. Activities available. Just add meaning. Try again tomorrow.

Photo by Reuben Juarez on Unsplash.

2021 Playlist

Dandelion | Jealous of the Birds

A Horse With No Name | America, George Martin

Smoke On The Water | Deep Purple

Ahead By A Century | The Tragically Hip

Lost For Words | Pink Floyd

Dil Beparwah | Prateek Kuhad, The Dewarists

Phantoms And Friends | Old Man Canyon

Song For Someone | U2

Waves | Fiji Blue

free love | HONNE

This Must Be The Place | Iron & Wine

2020 Playlist

Starman | David Bowie
Midnight Moon | Oh Wonder
Fenn | Tom Rosenthal
April Come She Will | Simon & Garfunkel
Pale Blue Eyes | Velvet Underground
Hate Dah | Super Silly
I Just Wasn’t Made for These times | The Beach Boys
Wiser | Old Man Canyon
Waterloo Sunset | The Kinks
Rivers and Roads | The Head and The Heart
Kyon | Papon
Maahi Ve | A.R. Rahman
Blackbird | The Beatles
Can’t Go On Without You | Kaleo
Light Was Worth The Candle | Eric Bibb
Wandering Star, Come on Outside | Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds

Understand

“If there’s any magic in the world, it must be in the understanding of the world, sharing something.”

-Before Sunrise (1995)

Cantril ladder

Sinking, gasping,
coming up for air
Rising, riding,
Flitting without care
Raking, sorting,
Walking the divide
Trying to reach that
Goldilocks point.

Awaken

“He who looks outside dreams. He who looks inside awakens.”

-Carl Jung

Companion

Jhajjar, Haryana

Thud! The wind hurled my bedroom door close as I sat in the balcony, thinking of a rare form of happiness that I’d experienced only alone. When I felt boundless, with no walls around me…as if an unfettered version of my soul was oozing out and becoming one with the wind.

My thoughts trailed to that day in my early childhood when I could see the symmetry in the blue blazers of the smiling school children, hear it in the mountains that stood close by, and feel it in the curves of the flowers that flitted slightly with the breeze. The trees drooped, wholesome and familiar, as if they were approaching to hug me. That day, I was lifted up from the mundane, the routine, and saw beauty in the little things. This link was not synthetic, this tether did not constrict me in any way. It was cool and flowing like the winds, smooth and easy like the rainbows in the sky.  Maybe I wasn’t alone, after all.

Was it the nature that was so giving? Or was it just me who was open to receive the gifts in its bounty? Maybe I’ll go back to oil the lamp once again. But until then, I will remember that time when my rhythm matched with the air, when breathing wasn’t hard or slow…when it was just the little tingle beneath the nose, apprising me that I am present.

Courage

“You, with the sad smile,

Don’t lose your courage.”

–Midnight Moon, Oh Wonder

Dear Icarus

The clouds have parted
What is in sight
Is just the big bulb of light
Dear Icarus,
Remember this roof
Remember the grind
Take off, go on
But keep in mind
That if you get too close
You’ll lose your flight

Memories

Memories

They are so vivid

Yet so inaccurate

So distant

Yet so easy to recapitulate.

I am thankful for the knowledge

That they aren’t always facts

What worked out or what didn’t

It isn’t a sum of parts.

And when I go back to reminisce

I do not wish to go back

Or live them again

But only to appreciate

That they shaped who I am today.