You wonder.

You wonder about the storm, wonder about the things it may have taken with it when it went away. The dust, the prayers, the hours, the night, the morning. You wonder about roofs, floors, houses. You wonder about children. You wonder about sadness.

You wonder about rain, trickling down glass windows, wonder about rain, whipping at shut doors.

You wonder about overflowing rivers, wonder about books and plastic cups washed away by flood, wonder about wet, shivering skin, about fear, helplessness, loss. You wonder about hope beneath a torrential rain, hope against the wind's merciless lashing, hope despite them.

You wonder about words--do you describe the wind as "howling", "roaring", or "wailing"? You wonder about meaning; you wonder about meaninglessness.

You wonder about the trees: some, uprooted and fallen, streaking the grey streets green; the others, leaning low against the sides of roads, nodding even as the air momentarily keeps still. You wonder about puddles.

You wonder about the blank look on people's faces as they walk under a drizzle, you wonder about their thoughts.

You wonder about darkness and light, wonder about the correct way to strike a match to light a candle, and how there is loveliness in the sound. You wonder how you can think of loveliness at a time like this.

You wonder why the sun shines the way it does right now. You wonder why you wonder.

You wonder what will come next.

Sheltered by this roof

In the wake of the typhoon that has passed our way, the slightest darkening in some patch of sky now brings with it some foreboding of disaster.

The mind's eye conjures an entire city well on its way to being wiped out of the map; the heart remembers the shudders that came with the images flooding the news; a little fist of conscience recalls the shame one felt while digging in to a tub of popcorn to chomp away the fury one felt because the internet connection during the last few days was faulty, when distances away, families may have lost everything they had worked all their lives for, death tolls have come up to alarming heights, psyches have been forever tainted by the trauma of having lost so much, of having been lashed at by winds and rains so merciless, that living will never be the same again, even after the wounds have become scars.

It seems almost a sacrilege to be surrounded by so much warmth and safety, and to still be wanting more than what comfort and luxury there already is, when one has become aware of the loss and devastation that has been gone through by countless others, in one single afternoon, within the stretch of one night. 

If one were to look back at the headlines, one would see the glaringly sorry state that our corner of the world has come to: Trailing the Napoles brouhaha, typhoon Haiyan/Yolanda comes along. Do not mistake me for blaming one for the other; because in the scheme of things--where, after all, there is no scheme--there is no connection, whatsoever. I juxtapose these two events not out of superstition, but merely to illustrate--and highlight--the outrage that the former ought to incite in us, and the contemplation that the other inevitably brings with it.

It is at times like these that one, in spite of oneself, is made to pause, and reflect on the the significance of living: what is it that truly matters? 

This rain, that sky. The weather reports have unanimously decided that the best place to be, right now, is indoors. The pots on the wall are making their presence felt; the dust on the floor cower at the lack of warmth. My mind is an empty room and no, I did not intend for that line to sound like that Death Cab For Cutie song. I guess what this is, is an exercise. Self-imposed and done with much slowness, after what has seemed like an entire ocean of procrastination, of excuses dressed up as reasons, of thinking, and, finally, of over thinking. It's a disease, I surmise, that I will never really get cured of. But a really bad cough is just as bad. In the space between that line and this, several words passed before my eyes: pedantry, decrepit, lucid, distance, meander. Alliteration unintended, attempt at meaning, nil. The order of the words elude me; I merely typed from memory. The perfunctory movement of a curtain's hem has disturbed the stillness, from this shut window, of what storm there is outside. There is cadence in the sound of rain and thunder. Or, maybe not.

These rain-soaked months--

And the moments fall like rain, hungry for pavements to land on, longing for surfaces to find shape in. Most of the time, the dream never materializes, the way raindrops do, and the mind succeeds in containing the chimera of unnamed lines and guises, finding affinity with the lack of symmetry, like how torrents are, when angry winds encroach.

The skies and their sheets of rain. The lonely, stirring their cups of coffee. The waiting, looking through moisture-soaked window glass. The preoccupied, walking on puddles. The others, plodding through the change in weather like they always do, keeping up with the hours as best they can, in boots and raincoats and hot soups and smokes. And the listless, tossing in their beds day, after night, listening to the thunder, cringing at the lightning.

Where are you, these days? Where do your days go? How many times have you sat, indoors, waiting for a downpour to end? What do you do to pass the time, the agonizing wait for a storm to pass? Why are you where you are? Why do you dwell on the thoughts that slip in to your mind? Or, why don't you? And, what do you do, so as not to?

I keep telling myself, this inclement weather will pass, as all things do.

We just have to keep an umbrella nearby.

Blanks and blues

on random things and loneliness

The dust keeps settling too nicely on the floor. And now I need to wipe them off my books. I ask myself how it is that I keep forgetting, when I keep reminding myself to bring that notebook everywhere, but it's a lie. I often forget to remind myself. The thought seldom crosses my mind. But today I will put it in my bag and have it dig a snug space in my bag. 

Later, yes. 

I have just committed the sin of looking back at what I have written. I shouldn't have done it. But what gives, when this space is so tiny, the ceiling, not high enough? No matter, I have enough space inside to put things in, though there isn't much headroom for memories as there is for listlessness. 

Time, I steal--because I have to, because I want to. Twice, during the last eleven seconds, I typed spave, instead of space. 

Let's see:

It's March and yet much rain has already fallen. What is the world coming to? There isn't much to be seen where I am. There never is, but how come I see so much?

How many sunsets more?

Joni Mitchell-ing on this rainy evening..

Oh starbright, starbright
You've got the lovin' that I like, all right...

Up there's a heaven
Down there is a town

Blackness everywhere and little lights shine
Oh, blackness, blackness dragging me down
Come on light the candle in this poor heart of mine...

-This Flight Tonight

The exhaustion brought about by roads and crossroads and detours and highways, the mind's fatigue of housing images of roads and crossroads and detours and highways.

The only thing I want right now is to sit beside you and have that calming, unpretentious talk, of words and lines and stanzas, and the worlds in the words and the lines. Over nice mugs of hot coffee. Sweet. The warmth, tactile.

And your hunger is not for experience
but for understanding, as though it could be had in the abstract.
-Louise Gluck, "Moonbeam"

What are these promises for, if not for breaking?

Steadfast, this loop, that goes round, and round, and round, and arrives, always, to give and take, and take away more than was given to be taken.
Nobody said that wish you wished, once upon a transient star, would ever be more than what it was when it slipped out of some random, fugitive dream.

There is reason to all this naming.

But first, here.

‎"At first I saw you everywhere. 
Now only in certain things, 
at longer intervals." 
— Louise Glück

For no matter how much clarity we tried to outline the expectations with, the beginning still brought us here.

Here.

Where your walls are down, and where my guards lounge with ease, too much ease. And where the course of friendship goes on, undisturbed, except now and then, with questions of what will come next, and where.

But first, here, where speech is low but devoid of sadness, where secrets spill out with the smiles that could not be suppressed, where rain could just as well be sunlight, the way it rolls with so little weight, where rainbows and stars are not strangers to each other, where frowns and facades are read, and construed with kindness and patience, where one takes, and then gives back, where childhoods brighten and dim, and commingle, brightening together, where one life touches the other and leaves little chance of either one staying ever the same again.

Yes, first, here.

Rainy Days and Mondays no longer bring me down

"Each moment is a place you've never been." 
— Mark Strand

It's been a while. The days have gone by, one after the other, in a seemingly perpetual stream of hours and people and places.

But let me start with my dad, and the cherished hours the two of us, once upon a sunny morning, whiled away in music, and talks about melody and lyrics, and performing on stage, and the Beatles and Crystal Gayle and books and writers, and family, and life. Priceless, that's the word that comes to mind. I am lucky to have a father who understands me and whom I understand and with whom I can talk to about things in languages that are familiar to us both.

And, from there, comes everything else that's keeping me on a high these days:

the job I have that's become more than just a job, recently, something more than a reason to get out of bed at a certain hour and drag oneself to start and complain about and finish because one has to, but something that has finally, finally turned into a place where I know I can be (extremely) productive and useful and, yes, happy, at the same time;

the weekend getaways that are proof of the importance of work-life balance, the bouts of conversations and laughter--be it in holes-in-the-wall, or bowling joints, or a cinema where "Transformers" is proof that robots can also wear shawls with flair (hello, Megatron!) or loud music-infested joints, or quiet cafes--that are best shared with well-trusted buddies, or peers with whom one can be comfortable, or new-found friends that one is getting to know better;

and, not least of all, the moments I spend with myself, those few, precious hours that keep my sanity intact and my sense of the world and my reason for being in it, in place, where my only companions could only be either of these: a good book, or a good song. And where the only constant is coffee, with sugar and lots of cream.

As some anonymous someone once said, "Bad weather always looks worse through a window"

Weather forecast for tonight:  dark.  
- George Carlin

Losses, irreversible. Echoed by this wind, magnified by those clouds, brought to glorious visibility by this rain. Lightning, perforating the mind like a rush of unsought memories, and thunder, hobbling into the mind like some rude, uninvited visitor.

Striking sadness chords

All this angry lashing by the rain, all this careless whipping by the wind --

I'm suddenly afflicted with the blues. =(
How was your day?

Let's give this one a shot

A whiff of the air as I stepped outside told me I should look up, which I would have done even without the scent of grey clouds, anyway, because I almost always look up whenever I step outdoors, and which, anyway, I did. And what I saw was a darkened sky, much altered from an hour ago, when I had taken a peek through the white curtains, and when all there was to see were sunshine and brightness.

I looked with regret at the pair of shades I had in my hand, but which I punctually slipped back into the cream-colored canvas bag slung on my right shoulder, the bag being filled with orange cats with black tails (drawings of, that is) and equally teeming, likewise, with the word "cat". I had bought said bag along with another, similar one, which was orange and had a girl and a red apple (drawings of, of course) on it, both bags having been sure lures because of the ridiculously under-priced tags they had on them at the time that I saw them at some perfectly forgettable shop, but which, of course, I had not forgotten yet, just because it was too soon to forget.

For some reason or another (and especially not necessarily any of the details mentioned above), I was reminded of the pain on my left shoulder, which had been giving me the most annoying of discomforts  for quite some time, but which was conspicuously absent at that time and, thankfully, at this time.

Right now, there is no sound of rain to listen to. But the paragraphs above, I will have to end with raindrops. Because by the time I had shut the door behind me, a downpour had already begun.

A long, loud grumble of thunder

from up there. I feel the ground beneath me shake the littlest bit. Such a chilly, windy night, on the heels of a cold, stormy day. These past 24 hours bring to mind Edgar Allan Poe and Wuthering Heights.

How wonderful to be indoors.

The trouble

with weather forecasting is that it's right too often for us to ignore it and wrong too often for us to rely on it.  
-Patrick Young

Brr

Walking in the rain (and I don't mean a drizzle) on a gray morning (and this is not some drama shit, I had simply forgotten to bring an umbrella, is all)

So it's the rain who ushers October in. I forgot who did for September.
It's officially windburn season for me. Time to stack up on lip balms again.

Because this is: an exercise in senselessness

Because a moonbeam falls on the unlikeliest places.
Because a myth is a myth is a myth.
Because it takes time for sand to find itself.
Because eight hours do not make a day.
Because naming things does not mean owning them.
Because nothing can be equal to something.
Because soon or late, hours do go away.
Because not being does not mean disappearing.
Because yesterday has no place here.

Once again,

a tree.
This time, the rain.
This time, the night.

A Visit

Well, what do you know...

It's raining tonight.

Just a tiny thought

I can't believe it's raining and raining hard. It's been extremely dry, lately Thank goodness the December breeze is lending us its presence during certain parts of the day, somehow. If not, the heat would be unbearable.