Spools of Thread

I have a hundred thoughts in my mind. A thousand, if you will. It’s a shame I can’t point one out from another. My mind that was once a neat room decked with colourful spools of threads. Threads of all kinds. Now, those spools of threads have fallen off their places, and have entangled in such a way that I don’t know where one begins and where one leaves off. The threads have intertwined in such a way that it would be almost impossible for one to pick where the dark blue thread of sadness meets the pink thread of friendship. And you won’t be able to separate the white thread of faith meets the red one of love. It could even be daunting to pull apart the black thread of sorrow from the blue one of calmness. It’s a colourful mess. In my head.

While one could look from afar and see a lot of colour, if one comes close you’ll be able to see an entanglement that could make you throw up your hands in air and say, “I can’t fix this.” Well, I’m pretty close to saying that, but I’m not there yet. But as I wander through my head in leisure, as my tiny self in a room full of crisscrossed strings, I feel like Alice in Wonderland. I see a familiar fibre in purple—the thread of my existence.

Along this amaranthine cotton string, I see a lot of other threads tied in knots and fleetingly meeting on irregular intervals. I follow the purple line and see the numerous threads attached into it. I pull myself out of the brown thread of duty. I walk through green knots, formed into balls of peace. I jump over them and find meshes of pink, gossamer nets of friendships nurtured over time. I look at them with a fond eye, I circle the meshes and see that they still haven’t gathered dust. A little entreating into my room, and I see how the strong, off-white thread of family keeps the purple thread steady and doesn’t let it slack in any place. In the distance, I see how the black thread of sorrow has been twisting itself around the blue one of calmness. As much as I’d like to think it doesn’t exist, it does. In a small corner, yet it is there. A ting of sadness falls upon me when I see a diaphanous crochet that the black thread has formed just next to the blue spool. How did I let it fester, I think to myself. I take my eyes off it to see where the black thread begins. I can’t find it, but I can see light going straight through it. There is hope, after all.

I dodge the hanging clumps of many colours of threads jumbled in such a manner that I can’t make out one colour from another, let alone one feeling from another. I find such clumps in odd places and I find the purple thread right in the middle of this clump. Those are when I don’t know how I’m feeling.

Upon walking further, I see how the fine silver threads of my dreams go round the room and stay there as guards from the outside world. I walk towards the center of the room expecting to find the origin of the purple thread. To my surprise, I find the red thread of love and the white string of faith snuggling each other. It doesn’t seem like much of a fight, more like an accepted way of living. And I think to myself, that is what the origin of all existence is, even mine—faith and love. It’s why I am standing here in spite of all the colourful mess inside me. It’s why we are all here.

– Sameen