Lists

Its been a whirlwind 4 months now and I haven't had the time to sit and think about it. And it doesn't promise to stop for another month. Life has relentlessly dished out event after event. And suddenly without warning she threw a week into my lap. A week to sit and think and do as I would 'ideally have done it'. And that's just it.. I don't know what to do it the moment the road ahead is clear and unhurried. I am so used to running off into what-could-have-beens that when I actually get the chance to do it, I'm lost. And no it's not because 'I'm happiest when I'm whiny' as some cynics would like to believe.

This sudden expansion of time into an unbounded, lazily meandering, weightless thing of sorts makes my mind explode with the possibilities. Suddenly things that seemed like they belonged to a different time and space, and to the different person I was, seem awfully close enough to be touched. Time decided to stop rapping on my knuckles and stopped to stand next to me. And so, this has turned into a barmy, deliciously lazy indulgence. And it seems criminal to load it with another set of chores, another set of duties and timelines.

Lists. Those delightfully back-breaking creatures women love to load themselves with. Helping us find our feet, telling us that we can actually let out our desires on endlessly repeated uncurling of 5 unmanicured fingers on each hand, and put them out there. On a piece of paper, cyberspace or phone conversation. Giving us the chance to allow ourselves this very moment of utter helplessness against the machinery of the everyday.

A list is a testimonial to all that is womanly about us. Especially those who make themselves strong enough to bring multiple worlds together. Its not a search for perfection, its the sound of our endless hunger for life. Letting us live out our daily sexual hunger for life, helping us pepper it with things to look forward to, so that the immediate doesn't seem so bad.

And so, what I do with this sudden bounty of time, is make lists of all the things I want for my next 'sudden bounty of time'. For when life will proceed without my intervention, and yet leave me sated enough to want to look outside. I like living too much to not get affected by the disharmony I currently reside in. Ironically enough, I want to be grounded enough to allow myself to scatter. That is why running out of a list of things undone seems like such a pitiful situation to be in.

What we 'independent free thinking women' of today want is in reality to not be calm, to not be serene and sated. Its criminal to have come this far to sit back and 'settle down'. When things are made permanent it just means there is one thing out of our way, so we can move on to the next. That's why shiny happy people scare me. Not because they aren't dark or 'twisted' enough to be cynical. Not because they are simple or stupid. I envy their mental simplicity. But I'm afraid that if i ever get there it would mark the beginning of the end of my hunger.

So the point-and-smirk-ers may please stand aside and glue their mouths shut.. I have a list to rewrite.

That elusive bitch

It's 1.27am as I sit down to write. I've got my trusty cup of tea, some music from the playlist I call 'mellow' and 4 pieces of something I dare not mention. And the music is speaking to me again.. that heartless bastard of a thing - refuses to come to me unless I get to it first. I am not and have never been the kind of person who could break into song at the drop of a hat - or had songs suddenly play in my head because of a mood or a setting or a conversation. Somehow she always makes me go to her, never comes over willingly.

For the last 7 years of my life it's been bothering me that I have lost the ability to put a song writer, song name and piece of music together. I know all of them and yet I know none. Similarly with authors and their work. Or other artists for that matter. I don't know how I manage to consume different parts of one piece of work at different points of time. Its bizarre and infinitely annoying. Someone gave me a fancy sounding name for this problem, but that just makes me even more uncomfortable.

I spend hours, days even 'sorting' out my music. I spend long auto rides pondering this unsettling phenomenon. Why do I simultaneously know and not know something I love so dearly - what does it make me? There have been instances where I've opened my mouth and heard myself confidently declare things that are wrong.

..

And suddenly like that, I forgot what I wanted to say next.