All That I Remember

In the last few months, I have seen visuals that I have only read about in books. Of them all, the one I remember very clearly is of a charred foetus after being removed from a charred mother’s body. The baby was burnt all over and even as I write this, I can visualise that scene. One or two people have asked me why do I care so much about Palestine. One or two people have asked me why do I care so much about everything. I find it hard not to care about charred babies is all I have to say. But I don’t say it. Not anymore. This is a conversation I haven’t had with many people except those who I know are on the same page as me. For others who believe that peace involves dehumanisation of a people, I have come to accept that I am not yoked to their education, and their education of humanity is not on me. It has been freeing in a way.

Writing here took a little bit of courage because I don’t know how to start my self-expression without addressing the horrors I have seen and the grief that has piled up because of it. For a long time, I waited for the visuals to stop coming, but they didn’t. I had to take charge of my own grief, amidst all the other feelings, lug it around and bring it here to take a moment. What is my own faith now? It is borrowed. It is blue. But it exists.

It has been, as though, some of us have been living through two separate realities. One in which life goes on unnoticed, charged with corporate-generated encouragements written on memes and virtual billboards to get you through Monday to Friday. While the other life is a headlong dip into the deep end of the sea where we witness unspeakable horrors and come back up gasping for air every other quarter of a day. The people who live these two lives do not meet. And when they do, they smile, and ask ‘How have you been?’

How have you been?

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I have been punctuated / more sure of myself than I have been in a couple of years / giddy with fear / wanting to decolonize my wardrobe and my mental health education / learning healing from my wandering Jew plant / unsubscribing to any newsletter that doesn’t pick a side / languid / spread out thin / in more ways than one.

But it isn’t as if anyone really asks you. Even if they did, one wonders where to begin. There’s always so much storytelling before one can even get to how one is. Telling your story — having a witness to your life, even if it is only your pet animal — is one way of remembering what happened to you.

I did not write a Blogoversary post this year. I remembered it, of course. However, I struggled with why anything needs celebrating after a point in time. I felt a sense of shame, which I know was completely unwarranted. Maybe this is how when we get older, some people don’t want their birthdays known. But I asked myself why can’t it be a celebration even if it is for one? Why do I need justification for joy? I had no answers. I had no celebration. One of the few ‘wrong’ things I’ve done in the last few days of December.

Every time I come back to writing here after a hiatus, I am scared of finding out who I have become. Unfortunately, I am not one of those who will commit to writing every week or every other week on the blog. I wish, like most people do, at the start of the year I could commit to a resolution, build a streak, track in an app or a Google sheet what one has done or not done. I have never been able to do it consistently. The linearity of it all doesn’t make sense to me. I start and I fail. Sometimes I do the whole — break it into small, sizeable goals. I detest motivational speakers.

I remember when I added the lunar calendar to my Calendar app. I had started seed cycling in an attempt to follow the phases of the female body, of the moon, of knowing that everything ebbs and flows including the shape of our feelings and the make-up of our bodies. I followed it for a while before something swooped me off of my feet. I can’t remember but I hope it was something nice. I hope it was something warm. I feel that it is a lot of work to take care of ourselves and our bodies. Then, someone very sincerely told me that if we didn’t make time for ourselves, who would? That grain of truth lifted a huge burden of living off of me, even if for a moment.

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I have seen a recipe of a chocolate cake made with only two ingredients: apples and bars of plain, dark chocolate. I want to be the kind of woman who makes this chocolate cake in her warmly lit kitchen. However, I am not. I am reminded of a friend who is this kind of a woman. I am a cross road woman now at a fork in the road; there’s a Cheshire Cat perched on a tree. I am a fruit-buyer, by colour, by season and then a stacker, stacking them in the fruit basket. I am turned off by any sermonising that claims individuals can be bigger than the systems they inhabit by mindfulness and the perfect daily routine. I am pale. I am shocked when I witness every day kindness because I’ve observed that the default is to be selfish and scheming. I am unable to make decisions. I am suspicious of every person in a position of power and I am not impressed. I am in search of a good book. I am always in search of a good book. If you have one, please send it across.

As decorum goes, here’s hoping the year is as good as can be and that we rise to the occasion of our own lives. When we can’t, and that might be often, I hope there’s a friend and a cup of tea. Old friends become old friends when you’ve both told each other enough times, ‘things are not as bad as they seem’ and that’s all you need to hear to get by. I wish you an old friend, even if it is a new friend who becomes an old friend. Grey hairs are not a prerequisite. Happy 2024.

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Two Links:

• A song that reminds me of poetry of the past: Na Kehna Tum by Dream Note
• This movie is like a perfectly written short story which makes you warm from the inside: Three of Us Trailer