An answer to ‘So what are you upto?’

This is my first shot with google docs. Oh well. Looks good so far. On a broken laptop (but mine) and an internet connection (high speed broadband, mind you), I give this a go.

I get asked about this new life and honestly I don’t know what to say. The onus has been to do things that I have not done before, and indeed this experience is also very new to me. So far so strange, let’s see what else this month has to offer. I have given myself one month – to figure things out – the Eat, Pray, Love kinds – go do whatever I fancy, the weirdest, remotest, or the most lethargic all with the thinking process switched off.

So what have I done so far – cooked aplenty, socialized heaps, joined pottery classes, resumed the much halted yoga lessons (hah – I hear you say), read till my eyes popped out, watched a lot of movies, counted pennies, got paranoid, and well a lot more.

I really have nothing more substantial to say right now – just that I feel fairly redundant. And guilty as I may feel for saying this, but for a change it feels good to be left alone. To not be needed.

Another day, I will think of something clever to put on this blog.

A poem to mark a day gone by

Wish Me Luck

a fresh spiderweb
billowing
like a spinnaker
across the open window
and here he is
the little master
sailing by
on a thread of milk
wish me luck
admiral
I haven’t finished anything
in a long time

– Leonard Cohen

Champagne braised post – the first one

It is a champagne braised evening. Roads, buildings glisten in the soft golden hues just as the sun is about to set. I am at the airport of my favourite city. My eyelids are heavy from medication induced sleep – and the need to stay awake, for the plane will whisk me away on another long haul flight in another couple of hours.

A month from now, it will be over. So in essence, this is the start to the finish of another chapter. I wonder how writers must feel when they are drafting out the last chapter of a book – knowing very well that the end is around the corner. Irksome? Fatigue? Excitement? Tying in all lose ends? The fight till the bitter end? Indeed I feel all of that. So this is a start to the closing. Where every single item of the list gets clinically evaluated and ticked off on completion. All lose ends that need to be tied in together.

RT: But why are you prolonging the period? Why not now?
Me: Because there is so much left to be done! I mean… I don’t want them to say D___ left all this incomplete
RT: They will say that anyway!
Me: Well it gives me the inner satisfaction atleast – my slate remains clean, I don’t want to carry any baggage
RT: You really don’t need to do that you know

I guess I do. I have been feeling pangs of separation already. Leaving behind what was an entire world to me – for long days and longer nights.

***

So why do it in the first place? Because it must be done! It has been long overdue. I don’t know what lies ahead and at times just thinking about the blankness ahead gives me a sense of cool, milky comfort and at the same time, jitters down my spine.

However, when one looks back, one understands how it has been. There is indeed a formula on which we all operate – all calculated, set in place. What you thought was an accidental turn of fate was all a part of the scheme. And you realise how while you thought your entire life was a directionless mess, has actually been folded and packed away in nice little boxes and each box fits in with each of the other boxes too. They are all colour coordinated, shape coordinated and everything makes sense.

With that optimism, I decide to throw away the comfort of what was viewed as a good life and good career. I know that even if it does not make sense now, some time at the end of it, it will all add up.
I am a grown up girl now. I am not scared anymore.

***

What a better way to do a new post than while sitting in the airport lounge of my favourite city, waiting for the next flight.