:) And thus we meet, and how we meet. As if we were never separated. True, you did not happen to me as a childhood maternal narrative out of books or illustrations, or even grandmotherly narratives of once-upon-a-times. Yet you have always been there. In the un-weaving of personal histories over collective fantasies. And you always made an ordinary aunt a queen, or an even more ordinary uncle a superhero. Regular events at places that known faces visited became kingdoms of original enchantment. Words off real-life conversations sounded parable like. The sound of spices being ground on a mortar and pestle, became an irritant initiation to Sundays of open-eyed, mute story-telling to self. You entered my life with a flair that goes unnoticed for being only too natural. I began living with you.
Walls became my canvas, my playground. I could whip you up at my fancy and not share you. Your colours catered to my monochromatic mind. I remember unending hours of staring at the wall (at least that is how I must have appeared), and no longer seeing a wall. It would often be a green field of little white flowers punctuated by yellows, pinks and purples. And butterflies would speak. As would rivers. Speech, yes, that was something you endowed on everyone. Free speech. Then there were glamorous city streets drowned in dimmed winter lights. Sometimes there was a turbulent sea of food, and a thick mattress of money. At other times palaces waiting to be redone and parallel universes inviting to be visited. You were the best thing, the best friend. You gave me a timid blue sky full of loving companionship.
One day, you left. Suddenly. And the walls stared back. Blankly.
I was dislocated -- rootless and wing-less. The scraping colours off the walls spoke no more than about the demand for a fresh coat. When I facilitated a determined effort, the walls opened in a squeamish manner, swallowing me down to a dark darkness of deep endlessness. The place seemed old and rotting, mossy ugly green. Things would choke me from nowhere, as I clawed back out of the walls. You left me behind a constant enemy.
I stopped looking at walls, I stopped listening to people gurgling out their spirited experience around you. And then, to escape these, I took to the spare page and pen, and began doodling. Ugly crisscrosses of words that went on to form images that began building you back in my life. You returned, in an ordered fancy. You stayed, in an eclectic frenzy. Oh, I adored your recurrence. You were not new, but so new.
Skies are grey, city streets smell of coffee and mountains smile to unveil kingdoms under seas. Words costume you. Colours deck you and rainbows are inked. I feel rooted, even with wings. I am glad you have returned reasonably.
Yours, unabridged,
K.
Walls became my canvas, my playground. I could whip you up at my fancy and not share you. Your colours catered to my monochromatic mind. I remember unending hours of staring at the wall (at least that is how I must have appeared), and no longer seeing a wall. It would often be a green field of little white flowers punctuated by yellows, pinks and purples. And butterflies would speak. As would rivers. Speech, yes, that was something you endowed on everyone. Free speech. Then there were glamorous city streets drowned in dimmed winter lights. Sometimes there was a turbulent sea of food, and a thick mattress of money. At other times palaces waiting to be redone and parallel universes inviting to be visited. You were the best thing, the best friend. You gave me a timid blue sky full of loving companionship.
One day, you left. Suddenly. And the walls stared back. Blankly.
I was dislocated -- rootless and wing-less. The scraping colours off the walls spoke no more than about the demand for a fresh coat. When I facilitated a determined effort, the walls opened in a squeamish manner, swallowing me down to a dark darkness of deep endlessness. The place seemed old and rotting, mossy ugly green. Things would choke me from nowhere, as I clawed back out of the walls. You left me behind a constant enemy.
I stopped looking at walls, I stopped listening to people gurgling out their spirited experience around you. And then, to escape these, I took to the spare page and pen, and began doodling. Ugly crisscrosses of words that went on to form images that began building you back in my life. You returned, in an ordered fancy. You stayed, in an eclectic frenzy. Oh, I adored your recurrence. You were not new, but so new.
Skies are grey, city streets smell of coffee and mountains smile to unveil kingdoms under seas. Words costume you. Colours deck you and rainbows are inked. I feel rooted, even with wings. I am glad you have returned reasonably.
Yours, unabridged,
K.
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