Bloom

I know this is going to come out as a garbled mess. However, I am going to try.

More than a few times, I have wondered – why blog? What am I trying to say here? What facet of this glorious, shattering, and puzzling breadth of life am I trying to capture? I don’t know. Not yet. And I am still here every time I am profoundly overwhelmed or underwhelmed or just plain confounded. I am also here in times of grief and the expression of it. And then, there are times such as these when I don’t have a definite theme, but trying to plot whatever I know into sentences. Knowing fully well that it will go out into the cosmic void of the Internet, and then get lost, or maybe, I will be able to make sense out of nonsense.

Of all the phases I could have come to, I have come to one of acceptance. I am not bitter or angry anymore. Come to think of it, this acceptance has come after much personal hard work which I could be proud of, but something tells me it would foil the purpose. Having said that, I also know that these days, I cannot get my mind to stay still. You think that all the Serenity prayer, Buddhist/Sufi teachings, and trying to understand that everything is as it should be, would have imparted a radiating sense of calm, right? Wrong. My mind is like one of those birds of Simurg. Not with all the magical prowess, but constantly fluttering. I feel the need to keep doing something. I need to feel occupied so much so that I have to tire myself out enough, or force myself to sleep later in the morning because I stayed awake long enough. I would have been sufficiently alarmed by this if this were causing negative vibrations, but so far that hasn’t happened. To be fully honest, I haven’t even bothered to try and stay calm unless it’s in Yoga class and I need to fully be present there and resist from replaying events in my head. I am not pregnant. I don’t have PMS. And I am sure as hell not contributing to the stereotype of women being driven by hormones. But I can’t make sense of this. Until now, I didn’t even fully articulate it.

It’s all cotton candy and fluff. I kid you not. It’s all one big, happy rainbow in the blue, blue sky. Yes, there’s rain. But then, there’s the big, fat rainbow as well. And underneath this rainbow there are people, homes and lush green trees, bountiful water, characters you love, songs – happy songs, sad songs, country songs, old songs – you name it, poetry, books, the wind going past the windows, dancing in one’s seat and souvenirs. I’m getting the feeling that the country songs started off all this non-drug-induced-high. I love country songs. I have never been near a pickup truck. Nor had the mud soil my skinny jeans and met a rugged guy in a hat. But boy, I love them. I love the whole idea of the wide open spaces and a car or a bar in the middle of nowhere. I love how the guitar sounds and the tears roll. I love all the talk about driving down a dusty street, and songs playing on the radio. It could have started off with the numerous country songs I used to hear. It could also be that I have gone cuckoo, but I haven’t stopped to consider that.

Because there are also tears. When I met AT after the longest time in spite of the fact that we’d spoken to each other every single day. Or when I finally came one step closer to being exactly like foster father. Or when I spoke to Cal after a long time and said all that honest-to-God stuff which I had kept aside for so long. (Is that his character name on this blog? I forget.) I have cried more out of happiness than grief. Under the big, fat rainbow there are all these wonderful people I am related to. Not that I’ve ever taken them for granted, but this seems like coming out of some forsaken tunnel, and then there’s all this blinding light. It’s quite annoying, too. I’m so cloyed by writing all this down. But why not? Why is that bit about being able to create something only when in pain so important? What about kinsutgi? It has taken so long to pick all the pieces and glue them back together. A looney dance is befitting. And chronicling this is just as necessary. Because this will also pass. Just as everything before it.

I don’t know how Cheryl Strayed said that acceptance is a small, quiet room. Mine seems to be a party that just won’t stop.