Thirteen

I wonder if our grief needs space to be fully experienced; on a long distance bus, in a large park, on the terrace, in a maidan. In small spaces maybe it gets constricted by other people, furniture, ideas, and all the hullabaloo of everyday chores. In small or occupied spaces, does grief find itself waiting its turn? I wonder because how do we carry our sadness these days? Surely not in under-sized pockets to the mall with friends or to workplaces where performance is the order of the day. What spaces honour our heavy emotions in today’s day and age?

For me, for the most part, writing has accommodated the heavy emotions and the softer ones, too. Being here on this blog for 13 years now has been akin to have a lie down for a while and ruminate over this and that. Even now, it is a strange sort of pit stop I make in the middle of a period where I have suspended critically analysing my days. What happens, happens. A sort of ebb and flow about the past and future tugs on my mind and I think about it before snapping back to whatever the present holds. More than anything, in the minutes I am lost to the past or future I think of who I will become. I think of how a subscription app told me that though my generosity might be abundant, not everyone deserves it. I think of how much work beckons in the immediate future that might involve administrative tasks and how I’ve not mentally prepared myself for it. I get lost in the labyrinth of my mind speaking aloud to myself and making notes for posterity when I will have to keep answers ready.

Until I can gather some reflections from the past year (because writing is done best in solitude) I want to mark the date of this blogoversary. A lot of this blog is made up from the difficult but definitive act of living in the last 13 years. It is quite something, even if I may say so myself. As one grows older, the celebrations become quieter, people leave, and the days are packed up with a sobering demeanour. It is what it is. I like to keep the porch light on, just in case.