And if the music is good Don’t forget to dance If the music is bad You might as well sing A tad offbeat If you can’t hear any music Sing and dance while writing your… More
Downswing Days
I’ve realised I mostly come on here and write on days I have something happy to report. Be it my physical or mental well-being or a step forward in the right direction, be it any aspect of my life. I do it with the firm belief that sharing is caring, that someone out there might read my pieces and smile, take heart and hustle on. Indeed, your kind comments have proven it to be so.
Yet, on days when I’m not feeling my best, I refrain from writing, either feeling vulnerable at the exposure or feeling like an imposter for having written all those uplifting, self-care advocating posts when I cannot simply gather myself together. Today is one such day. Half of which has passed.
The other half, however, I am committed to change today. I will address you on days that I am down. I will share with you my darkest thoughts, sorrows, fears and words. Why, you ask? Because maybe, just maybe, someone out there might read my pieces and smile, take heart and hustle on in the knowledge that we all have our ups and downs. Our moods have upswings and downswings. And yet, nothing lasts forever. I know I will get back into the right frame of mind soon enough. And you will see the difference. As would someone else who’s currently berating himself for feeling the way he is currently and admonishing himself for not being strong. It doesn’t take strength to plaster a smile on your face and pretend everything is okay, winning accolades and love from everyone around. It does take strength to accept there will be days when you won’t be at your best, that it is okay to take a break, take more than a few moments to be with yourself, accept your feelings and let them live out their life cycle in you in a healthy manner and, most importantly, it takes sheer strength to try and love yourself when you’re on the brink of self-hatred.
So today, I am willing to acknowledge that there will be days when I’ll be an irritable, slobbering, whining, selfish mess. But that is till my mess. I own it and will overcome it. I will live through it to better days. And I will do so without assigning blame to others around me when their behaviour ticks me off just because I’m in a mood. I will heal without damaging another’s mental health. There is a heart big enough in me to love them and myself. I will be real.
What do you say to that?
Perfectly Flawed
From my painstakingly curated feed
To my perfectly manicured nails
From my masterful enunciations
To my skilful paint strokes
From my poetry to my prose
Even my neatly trimmed rose
You won’t find a single flaw
In the facade I never fail to draw
For the world at large
And for my own eyes to see
But I’d like you too look for
The hidden chinks in my armour
And then, having found them, cherish all of me
For perfection is overrated
And perception, too subjective
My chaos is tired of being subliminally muted
Ready to burst out and live
Fresh, blooming mornings
Story-eyed
The stories in my eyes
I like to call them dreams
Span across a myriad different themes
They come to me in full splendour
And technicoloured beams
I struggle to remember them on most days
Holding onto them by their seams
But they’re flighty and ephemeral
And not always what they seem
But today
Today I remember
More than a few snippets
So tell me
Would you like to hear
The stories in my eyes?
Show and Tell
Ask me how deep the ocean is
How many stars cover the vast expanse of the sky
What the first drop of morning dew feels like
How cool and warm (yes, both at the same time) the sun’s rays are
How lonely is the moon
And I’ll show you what love is
Until you dizzyingly swoon
Notes from the Moon
We can take away so much more from the moon
Than romance
Heartbreak
Yearning
And desire
Its phases of waxing and waning
Getting destroyed and building itself up again
Over and over
Is nothing if not perpetually inspirational
Its act of shining bright, yet gentle
In the night, when no one really needs the light
Except for a few lost souls
Shows us to be considerate, even if it only helps just one
To keep doing what you’re meant to do
Even if it goes unnoticed and unappreciated
Till the day you shine in your full glory
When the world comes out to marvel
At the beauty of a full moon
To be always overlooked, overshadowed and outdone by someone bigger, bolder and more privileged
Yet willingly sharing your space with those lesser than you
Nurturing a million twinkling stars
Yes, we can learn so much from the moon while still marvelling at it just so
Most of all to be kind to others and onto ourselves too
Building Dreams?
I’d paint you a dream if I could
Of lines drawn in slumber
With pencils brilliantly hued
Passing onto fragrant mornings
Filled with the aroma of coffee perfectly brewed
Till your dreams become reality
Or reality becomes dreamy
And then
I’d challenge you to tell them apart
The Foremost Love
To be all alone
In the middle of a crowd
Is not what this life
Is meant to be about
To be all worn out
In the midst of gaiety
When striking a simple conversation
Marks the onset of anxiety
To be unsure
Of what others feel for you
Is a disservice to your own feelings
Which define and make you, you
To be high strung even at night
When others seem to rest in delight
Is a very unkind plight
So just follow the light
Of your own heart
And let it guide you home
To centre and ground you
To love and surround you
For above all that in this world may be true
You, yourself, owe it to you
Out of the Box
The only difference between my desires and reality
Is that the former is limited by my own sense of worth, imagination, faith and frailty
Remove these from the equation
And I’d be unparalleled, limitless and undefined like infinity
If you look carefully, there’s a deep profundity in this piece’s brevity
So tell me what you make of it?
Diary Entry #6 : To Love a Mockingbird
Have you ever wondered why is it a sin to kill a mockingbird?
Well, Miss Maudie Atkinson said in the classic novel To Kill a Mockingbird: “Mockingbirds don’t do one thing but make music for us to enjoy. They don’t eat up people’s gardens, don’t nest in corncribs, they don’t do one thing but sing their hearts out for us. That’s why it’s a sin To Kill a Mockingbird.”
I woke up pondering this question today and realised the need to identify all the mockingbirds in my life. The ones that fill it with beautiful melodies not for any reason but just because. The ones that make it a tad easier to plough on with their gentle, guiding hums and their caring flutterings. The ones that love us with no expectations in turn.
Yes, it may well be a sin to kill a mockingbird but if we do not take some time out to appreciate them, we just might slowly by killing their music and that, my friends, would be an unpardonable sin.
So go seek out your mockingbirds today and give them a song to sing!
Diary Entry #5 : Of Denials and Acceptances
At times it takes a while to be able to see something right in front of you. At times people grow on you.
Slowly at first But then quite steadily. Till you end up wondering how come you never noticed them before.
Or an opportunity which you’ve been waiting for since forever comes to you in an unexpected form. And the time you take in recognising it baffles you when you finally do.
It’s amazing, isn’t it?
How we want what we don’t have and how we get those very things in the strangest of ways.
Or maybe we don’t see it because we feel undeserving of it?
We live in denial till the slow acceptance of actually being worthy starts seeping in?
We keep our distance till a sense of security envelops us in its warmth, allowing us to finally let go of our inhibitions and just feel what we want to feel?
I don’t have any answers. Just musings. While I sit around admiring the people and blessings in my life that I resisted for way too long and stupidly, basking in their love and comfort.
