Becoming a Jackal

Whenever I make myself something to eat, something from scratch, I always wish that there was someone to share it with. Not because I am the sort of person who always needs someone to share something with. On the contrary, I love my own company just fine. But in this fantasy of mine, the person who eats the miracle that I have created gets to tell me in minute details how the food tastes like. They have an uncanny ability to describe the specific texture of [rice] as they put a spoonful into their mouth, how this texture changes as they chew, how various flavours burst into their mouth and how they finally realise it is time to swallow. I want to compare their description to my experience and if there are discrepancies, where do they come from? Could it be that our saliva are different, in taste and smell? In real life, I think that would be a weird thing to ask someone.

I have narcissistic tendencies. I don't know if this is a bad thing. But I dedicate my favourite love songs to myself. I am attracted to people like me. I want my future partner to be a reader, an avid reader. I want them to read and reply to everything I send them -that's a minimum of five articles and short stories per day. I want them to read everything I write. I want them to have an opinion on everything, because I am very opinionated. I want them to be self aware, like I am, or aspire to be. I want them to find and appreciate the underrated joys of window shopping. I want them to be a story teller -to tell me about that poster they saw while in transit and what memories it brought back, that specific line in a book that made them cry, that line in a song they always wait to hear, to tell me that point while eavesdropping in a conversation they stop and think, 'if I were the one telling this story, would I have used those exact words? if not, what would be different, the word order, different words altogether?' This is a very specific list, I realise. A list that specifies my attributes, attributes that I find attractive in myself and want to find them in someone else.

Some time back,  I went to the Immigration's office to run an errand. I sat listening to one of the immigration officers explaining to a middle aged man why his passport application had not followed through. Apparently, he had written in his application that he was married to a woman who had written in her application that she was divorced to this same man. As I sat there pretending not to listen, I thought to myself, 'how can something that looks straightforward to me, that should be straightforward, elicit such different responses to the people it concerns? surely, both parties in a marriage should be able to know if and when they got a divorce.' But I was an outsider, with a little bit of contract law knowledge (in which marriage is defined as a contract). Then, all of a sudden, my fantasy of someone telling me how exactly the food we are both eating tastes to them isn't weird at all. In a whole new light, I saw the need to question (again and again), to be answered in black and white, to never make assumptions, to (sometimes) listen through silence.

The title of this post is from the Villagers' album Becoming a Jackal (and the song from which the album gets its name)

Memories

A few years ago there was this girl who, for a whole semester, sat behind me in Ethics class. Or it could have been Theology class. My memories of this class and what I learnt are blurry, but I remember the lecturer was a Spanish priest who (and this is where my memory becomes particularly unclear) we called Father Juan because of his uncanny resemblance to the character of Father Juan in the most popular Mexican soap opera at the time. Other times though, I remember the lecturer not as Father Juan but another younger priest, who was also Spanish. To this day, every time I think about a priest, the picture that comes to mind is of those Spanish priests. I don't know why this is the case. For instance, in my last semester in university, I took Sociology of Mass Communication and this was taught by a priest, who despite having an African name, who despite being the Dean of Students, who despite me having seen him before I registered for the class still surprised me with his being African, with him coming to class in jeans instead of those priestly garments. So one day in this Theology class that might have been an Ethics class, the lecturer who might or might not have been Father Juan showed us a video of this disabled woman who did her own chores. The woman couldn't use her hands but did everything using her legs. There was this part where the woman was preparing an omelette and this girl who always sat behind me whispered to the person she was sitting next to, 'Don't tell me the omelette won't break. My omelette always breaks,' a little bit too loudly that I could hear it.

Now every time I make an omelette,  I remember that girl. And every time I turn my omelette over without it breaking, I hate myself for the missed opportunity of sharing my technique with her.

Are We There

Sharon Van Etten and I have a very interesting relationship. I dislike her for indulging (and enabling?) me in my feelings while at the exact same time I love her because she gives words to my feelings, those feelings that are buried so deep inside me that on good days, I convince myself that I don't have them. She is my go to person when caffeine and alcohol (and sometimes nicotine) have failed to calm me down. She is the one I go to when I want a good cry, the kind of cry that makes me feel better when I am done. She reminds me every night when I am up at 2 am, when everyone else has gone to sleep that I am not alone in my feelings, that she feels them too. She creates a good kind of background noise when I am deep in my own creations.

Sharon and I started our relationship about a year and half ago, we are nearing our second year anniversary (yay!) which we have to celebrate. Have you ever met someone and knew right away that you guys would be in each others lives forever, whether in a platonic or romantic capacity? She came into my life at precisely the moment I needed her the most. I know that sounds cliché, but I believe for a relationship to work, time plays a big role. Two people could be perfect for each other but if they meet at the wrong time, then the relationship can't work. Won't work. That said, I still think that it doesn't really matter when we were meant to meet, Sharon and I. But I have the mind to realise the concept that everyone thinks they are different is the one at work here. Our -seemingly- humble introduction was by the song  All I Can from her 2012 album Tramp. But really, there was nothing humble about our introduction. She told me then, 'we all make mistakes, we all try to free the sighs of the past. We don't wanna last.' And my first thought was, "Who is this new person?" There is a special kind of connection I have with the people with whom our first interaction is not small talk, but a kind of bonding that, in normal polite company, is not meant for strangers. When the conversation is about our deepest desires, our worst mistakes, our broken hopes, the regrets that we lie to ourselves that we don't have, then small talk is not only unnecessary, small talk is criminal. It was then that I decided to get to know (and own) all of her songs.

And so began my quest. I started with sampling a few songs here and there and then decided to go big or go home. 2009's Because I was in Love was first in line and my favourites from the album are Same Dream and Consolation Prize. Then there was the 2010 album Epic in which I couldn't get enough of A Crime. With Tramp, I loved Give Out, We are Fine, All I Can and Serpents.  And so last year when she released Are We There, I was beyond excited. Every time I say Are We There, I am tempted to add 'Yet' not because Are We There is lacking but because it speaks to me, to my life. I have talked before about how I am in this constant state of waiting for something(s) that I can't quite describe even to myself. I am in a sort of journey to an unfamiliar place. I'll know it when I get it, I'll know when I have arrived, but that doesn't stop me from hoping that every new thing I try, every time something happens to me is 'it' is 'there'. I can't help but ask myself, 'is this it? am I there yet?'

In Tarifa, Sharon says 'Tell me I am not a child.' I mull over this particular line everyday in my quest to be the adult that I think I should be, that I ought to be, but I feel like a fraud taking and using the word 'adult' to describe myself while deep down the term feels like a misnomer especially since I feel like a child. In I Know, she says 'I cannot tell the poet eye apart from mine.....I sing about my fear and love and what it brings.....I know it's hard to find out what I am not.' I can't tell you how many times I have had this song on repeat. Partly because it reminds me of a person I used to know, but mostly because this song speaks so truthfully of the relationship I have with myself.

I could go on and on about Sharon (and me). But since everyday for me is a different version of 'am I there, yet?' I'll just leave this here.

Sharon Van Etten - Are We There (full album): https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZqsyBiYZFQ2xCvI-HaocJOOUAGhV7MN-

on beginnings

ours was a messy beginning: a convoluted nonbeginning of starts and stops. of starry friday nights. of melancholy late saturday evenings. of glorious early sunday mornings. of trying to read each other. of looking at each other for clues. of saying no but meaning yes. of embracing each other. of pushing each other away. of getting mixed signals.

our beginning was full of (un)ending frustrations. full of wanting. something, anything. that only begot more wanting. and then realising -finally!- that we hated what we are not. that we could and couldn't be.

ours was a passionate beginning. of not getting enough of each other. of wanting to get inside of each other. of wanting to exist in each other only. of existing only for each other. of needing only each other. of wanting to be seen. of not wanting to be seen. of being seen. of getting only disapproval and judgement. of being together because of the disapproving looks. of being together in spite of the judgement.

our beginning was different. one in which we could see the end as it began. one in which we could see the end on the horizon, but the horizon kept moving further as we approached. one in which we had our doubts as we began. one in which our hope for a future nodding acquaintanceship was the only thing that kept us going. one in which we persisted despite knowing that one day soon, we would (will) part.

The Strange and Twisted and Deranged

Whenever I am sad,  I find that all I want is to steadfastly hold on to this feeling of sadness because I fear that I won't have it for too long. Sadness, unlike happiness, is a familiar emotion. An emotion that I crave. I like myself more when I am sad. So to satisfy this craving, I project sadness onto things that don't have anything to do with melancholy. Like how alone, even in the company of others, the stars seem. Sadness, for me, represents several things: the need to be alone; the packing, unpacking, shelving, reshelving, arranging and rearranging of dreams; the repairing of broken hopes that I never knew I still kept; and as unoriginal as it may sound, the motivation and inspiration to create something, anything. And so I hold on to sadness for however long it chooses to stay. But with the impermanent nature of emotions, it is hard to hold on to it. So in the absence of my own melancholy, I seek it in literature, in music and in films.

While I have spent a huge part of my life trying, with fervour, again and again, to chase happiness, I have never been certain that I have ever fully attained it. And so in the privacy of my own thoughts, in the dark recesses of my mind, several questions sit unanswered: how does happiness feel like? What does happy look like? To appease my inquiring mind, I've settled on the absence of misery. It's not sadness. And it's not quite happiness either. But every so often, I'll experience something resembling happiness. But I rarely enjoy this fleeting emotion. I merely pause to revel in this feeling, to try and understand it and before I put it into words, it rolls off to the edge and my reflexes are never fast enough to grasp it before it tumbles over the precipice and into the free fall. It's the sudden disappointment that quickly replaces that happiness, however fleeting,  that keeps me from falling over. These are the times that I am acutely aware of the ephemerality of life. Nothing lasts forever. Even happiness. Especially happiness.

The title of this post is from the song Crying Lightning by Arctic Monkeys.

I Wanna Live Like Common People Like You

There is a game that I love playing every night. It is a mindless game and that's partly the reason I haven't given it a name, yet. I always lose in this game. Which is sad because I invented it. The main rule of the game is that I try to stay as long as I can without wearing socks. That sounds like a silly game. But here is the thing: my hands and feet are usually very cold. The reason is because of poor circulation but I tell myself and whoever asks it's because I have a warm heart (whatever that means). I can't fall asleep until my feet are warm enough. And to speed up this warming process, I wear socks. Except that I don't like speeding up that process. There are just so many books that I need to read with so little time. And so I read until I can't and I am forced to wear the damn socks because I am too exhausted to stay awake.

The title of this post is from the song Common People by Pulp.

Old Age is Just Around the Bend

As I inch closer, ever so slowly, to the half century mark, am in awe of how little things add up to being something big, in the grand scheme of things. The sound of the ticking clock, the ticking being representative of the seconds that pass, a collection of seconds turn into minutes which turn into hours which accumulate into days then months then years. It's a whole cycle yet things change so subtly that I barely notice until a whole metamorphosis has taken place.

The concept of time has always been elusive to me, hard to grasp because every time I try, it slips through my fingers. And I mourn the hours that pass without being productive; the days that I lose seemingly busy but achieving nothing; the months that go by that I only realise because life demands that I pay bills monthly; the years that fly at the end of which I take notice because there is the pressure of looking back and seeing if I have achieved my expectations of the said year and making new resolutions. Some years are good, while others I spend trying so desperately to keep my hopes unbroken.

Time is fickle. My youth is fleeting. I am accumulating days and years at a very fast rate. And I realise that today is the oldest I have ever been and the youngest I will ever be.

The title of this post is from the song The Sound of Settling by Death Cab for Cutie.

Exile on Mainstream

My introduction to, or more precisely, my stumbling upon- because when it comes to music, I seem to stumble upon rather than being introduced to- Matchbox Twenty was by this album, Exile on Mainstream. This is how I remember it: it was in 2010 (3 years after this wonderful collection had come into existence), a couple of months after I was done with my high school career, a time when I had so much time with myself, a time filled with hope, too much hope that has with time turned to tentative hope (but that deserves a whole different post). So I was home listening to the radio, and it was during this mid morning show that was also a request show and a woman texted in to request Unwell. And this is what she said, "Please play for me Unwell by Matchbox Twenty because I am not feeling so well today." I knew this song, I had heard it being played numerous times before, but it was that day that I actually listened to the lyrics. And maybe I cried. And maybe I didn't. But I was moved by this song. And I wanted to know more about Matchbox Twenty. So I went ahead and got myself Exile on Mainstream, and for reasons I couldn't explain, I loved this album. But as it is with things that we obsess about (over), other songs, other albums from other artists and bands flirted shamelessly with me, and I am human, I fell into their charms and I stopped the obsession with Exile on Mainstream or maybe the obsession stopped.

Flash forward, five years later, I am finding myself listening to this album, on repeat. Only that now, I am five years older and wiser(?) I have changed, I have grown, my taste, surprisingly, has become both more and less defined. Taking a peek at my music collection, an observer might find it a little bit messy, a little bit all over the place; it's as if I start on something and I don't see it to completion, there is a lot of incompleteness in my life, and this, I realise, is manifest in the music I listen to.

It's therefore not a coincidence that just as I was listening to Exile on Mainstream after I finished high school, I am going back to it now that I am done with my undergraduate studies. But this time around, I understand why I love this album. This time around I know it's because of the meaning of this compilation and how I completely relate to every song. Or maybe it's because I now like to attach meanings to things, to dig deeper into my psyche and the reasons behind why I love certain things.

Right now, I find myself, or rather life has thrust me into the Mainstream, where I feel unprepared, unbalanced, everything seems strange and unfamiliar as if am in exile. Exile on Mainstream as a title to a whole collection couldn't be more apropos of my life right now. I am hovering in this point of transition, a place that I've been, a place that I keep returning to, a place that's kept me on edge: I am waiting for something only that I don't know what it is I am waiting for.

Matchbox Twenty- Exile on Mainstream

All This Feels Strange and Untrue

My primary school maths teacher taught us what I found to be key in solving all unknowns in the equations. That we start from the known going to the unknown. I didn't know I took that as a life lesson until I typed the sentence, 'l don't sleep much' as the opening to this post. The fact that I don't sleep much is a badly kept secret. Anyway, I slept early today,  just after midnight and I congratulated myself for going to sleep at a decent hour. It is in this state of semi-conscious self congratulatory speech giving that I drifted to a peaceful sleep and all of a sudden I was experiencing a turn of events that my conscious self figured as unreal but I was unable, and perhaps unwilling, to stop them. Not because this dream was pleasant. Quite the contrary, it was unpeaceful, quite a departure from the state I drifted to sleep in. And I observed this turn of events, as if on a screen that was being slid after each scene. And then slowly, I regained full consciousness but that semi conscious dream has left me with this weird feeling that I am trying to shake out, with little success.

The title of this post is from the song Open your Eyes by Snow Patrol.

Just don't ever make me Promises

Under the heading New and Noteworthy, my kindle has the book Bliss and the Art of Forever by Alison Kent and it has been under this heading for the past several weeks and it makes me wonder if the Amazon people don't have other books to advertise to me. I have never clicked the link to the book to see what the book is about, so maybe my distaste, based solely on the title, of the book could be premature. I might read it and find it very interesting. I don't believe in forevers. Especially blissful forevers. And this could be the reason why the presence of the book and the fact that Amazon has decided to put it there makes me resent them.

Now, you may think I am very cynical. I am not. I don't believe in forever. That doesn't mean I don't believe in the longevity of love. I do. I also believe in the uncertainty of tomorrows. This is what makes life worth living. Looking forward to a tomorrow in which you don't know what might happen. True, sometimes all we do is breath, sometimes we meet people we never knew existed, sometimes our tomorrow is just a replica of our today and yesterday. But in all these, there is always an element of surprise invisible to those who don't look closely. That is why I believe the concept of forever as a destination is a misguided one. The heart, with which we trust our love and decisions of our future love lives, is very fickle, it changes it's mind for reasons we might never understand- if you can explain the human heart, maybe we should be friends. I am usually very wary of people who promise each other forevers, and forever being nearly not long enough for them to be together.

Forever as a journey, though, is a concept I am willing to explore. Taking each day in stride, acknowledging that sometimes when we talk about our dreams for the future, what we are doing is not necessarily crafting a lifetime together, or trying to accommodate each other in the dreams we had before our paths crossed.  What we are doing may be preparing ourselves for our eventual parting. But that doesn't have to mean that we shouldn't enjoy the present. The present that has brought us together and which prepares us for the future that may or may not include each other. So when I say don't ever make me promises, it doesn't mean that I don't want a future with you. What it means is that I am enjoying you today, with the hope that I will still enjoy you tomorrow, but I am taking each day as it comes.

The title of this post is from the song Promises Promises by Incubus.

Get into My Ear: Mess is Mine by Vance Joy

https://youtu.be/1C816p-KTNk

Ever since I heard Vance Joy's Mess is Mine playing on the radio, I knew it was a special song, but I couldn't point out what made this song particularly special. Until last night. I was trying to clear the mess that had piled up, dirty clothes, folding up the clean laundry, taking the books from my bed and floor when this song came on the radio. I had to stop for the entire time the song played and was awed by the absolute perfection of this song.

I always tell myself that the reason I am single, and the reason my past relationships haven't worked is because I haven't met someone who when I invite them to my house, and attempt an embarrassed laugh telling them sorry for the mess just to seem as a good hostess (yet in real sense I am not sorry, I am never sorry for the state of my room, whether it is neat or the opposite of neat) they will look at me so lovingly and tell me that my mess is theirs. I think that is what true romance is about- claiming my mess as yours.

Favourite Lyrics

Do you like walking in the rain?
When you think of love, do you think of pain?
You can tell me what you see
I will choose what I believe

Bring me to your house
And tell me, "Sorry for the mess"
Hey, I don't mind
You're talking in your sleep
All the time
Well, you still make sense to me
Your mess is mine

Hold on, darling
This body is yours,
This body is yours and mine
Hold on, my darling
This mess was yours,
Now your mess is mine
Your mess is mine

My Imagination's Taking Me Away

I had my last class today. A class that was four hours long. I am not exaggerating, the class started at 11 and went on till 3. On my way to the said class, I met one of my professors who told me that he couldn't believe that we were finally completing our Bachelors. I had to indulge him in his disbelief that I couldn't imagine it either. What I should have told him, instead, is that I have been imagining this day since my freshman year. I should have told him that I have spent four calender years waiting for this day. I should have told him that I have imagined several different scenarios about how this ending was going to shape out and none of those imagined scenarios are shaping out as I imagined. But. I have lived this moment over and over, albeit in my head. No one can take those moments away from me. And right now, when it's physically here, so close I can almost taste it, I don't feel different. It's just another opportunity for me to relive this phase through, only now, other people are involved. People who keep asking me how I feel, to finally finish school, to finally grow up, to finally have a life. And I wonder, what does it mean to live?

I have talked about my strong dislike for beginnings before. Losing the sights of the familiar ground and having my eyes set on the unknown, every step I take feels uncertain. My legs are wobbly, either that or the ground I am walking on is not strong enough. I feel myself drifting from this side, this familiar side to the other side, the unknown side. Throughout this process of transition, I am buoyed around; and this buoyancy leaves me with a pleasant feeling. Every time I feel like I am sinking, I am pushed upwards by this buoyant force. It's not happiness. No, not really. Though I can't rule it out. It's more of a hopeful feeling, a hope so strong I can barely stand it. I want to get inside this feeling, crawl inside it and never come out. I want to tell everyone I meet about it, but words fail me, because what would I say?

I imagine the possibilities, the myriad of opportunities. I imagine my own place, to finally make Virginia Woolf proud by getting a room of my own. Sidebar, I must have talked about my posthumous love for Woolf? Oh, and travel. I know, a job would hinder how much I travel. But I am happy to no longer have to have my years characterised by semesters, my social activities will not be planned around classes. And friends. I know the challenge of making friends outside of a school institution especially for a person with introverted tendencies, but I am looking forward to see how other people's perspectives towards life affect their opinions.

I feel like a little wild bird. And wild things are free.

The title of this post is from the song Alligator Sky by Owl City.

Take me to Church

Church has been on my mind lately. Not going to church, no not really. It's hard to see myself as part of a congregation anyway. That thought alone leaves an uncomfortable ache at the pit of my stomach. I have been thinking of church, the building. This started on Friday morning. Because I had a late morning, I slept in. By sleeping in, I mean I woke up at eight. That's not exactly sleeping in to some people but that's extremely late for me. Anyway, I had a lot of time to prepare myself to face the day so I put the radio on to a station that I like mostly because of the music they play. They had a game on where they had listeners call in and guess where they had hidden a microphone. The clue to this guessing game was that they played a church bell and people had to guess which church that was. I am not an expert at Catholic churches, hell, I am not an expert at churches, simple. But I didn't know different churches had different bells and that some people had this unique ability to discern the sounds; or maybe they had a different clue that I wasn't aware of.

Later that day, I was having a conversation with an acquaintance who told me that it had been long since he attended Lunch Hour. Lunch Hour is the coming together of members of the Christian Union at campus who get together to sing and pray and whatever else they do at one every weekday. He then casually mentioned that they (the Christian Union) had an event that night and he, casually, extended an invitation. Of course, I politely declined this, I am assuming, well intentioned invitation. And immediately my thoughts on church crept in. The fact that these people who got together for Lunch Hour met in a lecture theatre, and for 60 minutes, that room ceased being a lecture theatre but an, apparently, holy place.

Later that night, I was busy working quietly on my laptop when I heard this sudden singing. It was very sudden, no microphone preparations or the sound of a piano or a guitar. No, it was this sudden off-pitched singing that annoyed me to no end and I had to put music on and listened to it on my earphones. Well, I have been living here for three years now and for these three years, I have been consciously aware that there is a church somewhere behind my bedroom's vicinity, but I have never seen it. You could say that one of the reasons is that I am rarely in that room during the day. You could also say that I just don't like exploring the area where I live. But I never really think about this church other than on Sundays and the last Friday of every month when they have this all night session. Like this past Friday. And whenever I think about it, it's with varying levels of irritation.

My first memory of church is a building structure which was a nursery school. This I gathered from the alphabet and number charts and other nauseatingly colourful drawings all over the walls. Even right now, when I think of church, I think about that first memory. I have been to several churches throughout the years. And almost all of them were not churches in their own right. That nursery school with colourful drawings that distracted me from listening to the sermon. Under that tree next to a bridge and road and people who were selling flowers and all these, needless to say, stole my attention from the pastor. In one of the city's public primary schools and whenever I was there, I couldn't help thinking of myself, not as a congregant, but as a pupil who attended the interpublic primary schools debates and public speaking competitions in that very same hall. That high school dining hall where every once in a while you could hear a spoon falling in the silence of the hall, and where I struggled to stay upright since I couldn't help but fall asleep during the sermon, and the smoke coming from the kitchen near the end of the service. That recreational hall in high school (adjacent to the basketball court) where all I did was think about the previous evening when we had danced to secular music and watched not so very holy movies with girls screaming over unattainable Holywood men. The most recent was just a tent and I am glad I was never there when it rained.

Anyway, I don't know why I am going on and on about this, but I want to go to church. Not to pray or listen to sermons. But I want to visit a church and look at the building, and replace my memory of church from walls adorned with charts specifically meant for kids who are learning to read to walls that inspire meditation and hope through their art (not Bible verses, and surely to God, not photos of the pastor and their partner).

The title of this post is from the song Take me to Church by Hozier.

I'm Jealous of the Wind

I love sitting by my window and looking outside at night, like I am doing now. I know I have said it a million times before, but I figure one more time won't hurt -given the fact that this is my night time ritual. As a nocturnal, any excuse to stay up at night is a good excuse. Tonight, my mind is a jumbled mess of thoughts: from thinking about the collection of stories that I finally finished reading today; to the book that I finished in one sitting; to the wind. I am watching the trees dance and sway to the silent music of the wind. The trees in turn make their own sound, the leaves move against each other, producing a rattling sound, but it grows on me, and I find myself anticipating the next wave of wind, just to hear this sound. And in the dead of the night, the sound is heard loud and clear because sound travels faster at night -I learnt this in high school Physics. And maybe that's why I write at night; not because I focus better, as I have been telling myself, but because I know my voice (writing) will travel faster.

The wind is a powerful force. I wore a dress a fortnight ago. This choice of outfit was influenced by the very embarrassing fact that I hadn't done my laundry and all my pairs of dress pants and jeans were dirty. So I had to hold my dress down while the wind tried to take it up. It was awkward and tiring and I vowed not to wear a dress or skirt until the wind stops.

As I stare outside right now, this jolt of jealousy hits me hard. Weird, I know. I am jealous of the wind. Because the wind has the ability to make me feel awkward and attract unnecessary attention to my hands and legs from strangers. I am jealous of the wind because it has the ability to make the trees sing, and for me to actually enjoy the song. I am jealous of the wind, because of it's ability to make my hair an unruly mess after I have spent a bit of time trying to give it a semblance of perfection. I want to hate it but I can't. The only emotion I can summon is jealousy. I am jealous of the wind, and damn it, I don't want to be.

The title of this post is from the song Jealous by Labrinth

Get into My Ear: Allergic to Water by Ani DiFranco

Ani DiFranco - Allergic To Water (audio WXPN: Free At Noon): https://youtu.be/08m5Re7xWf0

It's a little past midnight and I am sitting in bed, sipping tea (because heaven knows I can't survive without caffeine) with no intention of going to sleep soon. There is a voice that's telling me that I should get some sleep, because tomorrow might bring something good. But this voice, this annoying little voice, is ever present, always whispering and I always choose to ignore it. Today, I feel like I have too much to do, yet I don't know where to start. I have three papers that are due in the next few weeks, the most urgent one being due on Monday. I also have a presentation to prepare for. But I can't bring myself to research and write these papers. I bought Jamaica Kincaid's Lucy today and I am itching to start reading it. My mind is telling me that I am reading so many books at any given time and I should at least finish one before starting Lucy. I also have Ani DiFranco's Allergic to Water on repeat. And each time the song starts, I decide on what to do just after the song ends: it started with deciding on researching on Monday's paper; then I switched to reading Lucy; then I switched to reading Susan Sontag's Regarding the Pain of Others- one of the books I am reading to Roxane Gay's an Untamed State- yet another book that I am halfway through. But towards the end of every repetition,  I tell myself that I should listen to it just one more time. Oh, how I am an expert at procrastinating.

Perhaps I should have started with my declaration of love for the awesome Ani DiFranco. But I feel that love isn't quiet the right word. I am beyond love, this is full blown obsession. An obsession that could as well be an infliction, but I don't care. I have to listen to Ani. Ani grounds me, every song she sings, I believe, is about me, because how could every song she sings be what I am needing? How could she be the one I go to whenever I am happy, or sad, or numb? From Grey to Not a Pretty Girl to Soft Shoulder to Shameless to School Night. Right now, and for the past several months, I am obsessed with her 2014 album Allergic to Water. There are several songs that are my favourite: Careless Words, Dithering, Rainy Parade. But it is Allergic to Water, the single, that I keep coming back to.

Favourite Lyrics

You can't even imagine
The torturous state I have been existing in
I am allergic to water
It itches my throat and blisters my skin Still I drink coz I have to, I bathe coz I have to
But boy it's a pain

You may wonder
What would possess someone like me to go on
You may wonder how it's possible something so basic could go wrong
All I can say is if you stretch your mind all the way as far as it goes
There's someone out there who lives farther than that in a place you can never know

So right now
If you are looking at me
You can't assume that I am thirsty

And I don't want your sympathy
I am just telling you so you'll understand
This is me, sincerely, doing the best that I can

If I haven't said that Ani's lyrics move me, then I will say it again. This song is about empathy, it's about not making assumptions, it's about embracing my otherness. I don't like it when people make assumptions about me, simply because other people are that way. Is it too much to ask that when someone approaches me, they come with a blank slate, so that whatever they learn about me doesn't surprise them?

I Rode a Different Road and Sang a Different Song

When asked to describe me, a friend recently said and I quote, "Lina is the type of person you'll tell, 'I like water', and she'll tell you reasons why she doesn't like water. In short, Lina has her own way of thinking which is completely different from other people's." Another friend of mine said that these days she finds herself thinking about my warped opinions while going through her days. Today, a group of my friends were talking about how much they had to do tonight when one of them said, "You guys will be working your asses off while Lina will be doing her nocturnal reading." They then proceeded to ask me which book I am currently reading, and I told them Wife of the Gods by Kwei Quartey and A Constellation of Vital Phenomena by Anthony Marra. One of them commented that I am always reading queer- no pun-  books that none of them has read. You might think that I found these observations insulting. Quite the contrary, I took them as a complement, because in a world where everyone seems to be coming from a duplicating machine, I am proud of the fact that I have chosen a different path, a different song and I am dancing my way through this path listening to my own song.

I don't see myself as weird. I just don't do things or think a certain way just because other people think that way or because it's the conventional way of thinking. My thought process originates from my own way of looking at life. My opinions (I am very opinionated, but then again, who isn't?) are shaped by my experiences and where my empathy lies. I don't let other people influence my decisions, because I believe being self sufficient starts with independence of thought, of mind and renunciation of what is deemed acceptable,  conventional or proper. I read what I find interesting and what stimulates my mind, not what other people are reading; I'll choose reading over watching a movie any day, even if it's a popular movie; I'll choose one on one conversations over a group of people anytime, even if it's a momentous occasion that requires my input;  I'll choose staying up at night even when doing nothing over going to sleep any day.

One of the reasons I started this blog was that I had been called weird enough times so I thought that a blog called Idiosyncratic Hedonist would document my 'weird attributes'. I don't know how it transitioned into personal musings, intentional living and whatever else I write about. But I am always in a perpetual transitional state. I don't know what this blog will transition to, but I am sure it will continue to be true to my thoughts, my mental meanderings and wanderings that translate to the simultaneous complexities and simplicities that make up my life.

The title of this post is from the song Angel in Blue Jeans by Train.

The Broken Clock is a Comfort

I woke up yesterday and, unbeknownst to me, was the time I normally wake up on Saturdays, which is seven. But the clock on my bedroom wall read ten minutes past two. For a delicious moment, in the midst of the disorientation brought about by suddenly waking up from deep slumber, I felt an unexplainable happiness; that happiness that you feel when you wake up in the middle of the night and realize it's still hours before you have to get up; that happiness that only those who go to sleep past midnight can understand and truly appreciate; that happiness that gives you comfort and reassures you that good things still happen; that happiness that restores your faith in a higher being. I then realised that there was light coming through my window, and suddenly, I could not reconcile the two facts -the light outside and the time on the clock. I checked my phone and then my watch and both showed seven, and I felt like a child whose candy had been taken away from her!

The title of this post is from the song Broken by Lifehouse.

I'm Killing Loneliness that Turned my Heart into a Tomb

A couple of weeks ago, I forgot my phone at home. I left the house at seven in the morning, and the traffic was horrendous, a rare occurence on my side of town. After observing all the people in the matatu with me, trying to figure out what they were thinking, guessing what they did for a living, how they spent their weekend (it was on a Monday) and what motivated them to choose their outfits, I got bored and thought I could send good morning texts to my friends -the few that I have and those who reply to texts. It was then that I realised that I left my phone at home. My first instinct was to panic, then I realised that as much as I always have my phone with me, it's not something that I can't do without for  the 12 hours or possibly more that I would be outside the house. I had my Kindle so I read the whole way to town and the one and half hours felt like my usual thirty minute commute.

Last week, an acquaintance of mine asked yet another acquaintance for her phone so she could send a text. I asked her where her phone was and she said she had forgotten it at home. I then asked her if the text she wanted to send was very important, she said no. She just wanted to tell people that she had left her phone at home so they wouldn't bother calling or texting her until she got home later. I should add it was two in the afternoon and she had left her place at one.

I thought to myself that maybe it's because I have a few people with whom I communicate on a daily basis that I didn't see the need to borrow someone's phone. I sometimes leave my phone in my bedroom when I am at home. Sometimes it takes me more than 12 hours to check my emails and my WhatsApp messages. My phone is usually either on vibrate or silent, so it is possible that I would be having my phone with me but I wouldn't hear it ringing.

Sometime last week, I read a blog post (I am a lazy blogger, also I read so many blogs that I can't quite remember where exactly I read it; but believe me I would have provided a link) where the blogger was talking about loneliness and our need to kill loneliness by constantly wanting to talk to people and the convenience of a cell phone gives us the illusion that we are not lonely. I thought that there was some truth in that. I remember a friend telling me how a friend of hers was complaining how it was 10 in the morning and no one had sent her a message.

I don't know when I stopped wishing and staying by my phone waiting for people to call me. But it could have been the time when I stopped being interested in empty conversations. This is the time I started craving personal and meaningful conversations. Don't get me wrong, I love frivolous conversations, I love funny stories, I like reminiscing about fond memories or embarrassing stories, I love looking at funny photos and gifs, but I can't stand pretentious conversations. This is also the time I had had enough of bad grammar and people replacing s with x and I had a hard time trying to decipher what the message was. I became proactive and I started initiating conversations with the people I wanted to talk to: people whom I genuinely cared for; people who when I asked how their day was answered with something more than fine or good; people who when we haven't talked for sometime would not text me 'hi stranger' but would send me a funny photo, a link to a story that they think I maybe interested in and we would reconnect by discussing our thoughts regarding what it is they have sent; people whom when I send a link to something, they create time to read and give me feedback; people who would send me songs or movies they are watching and from these, I would get to know more about them; people whose opinion I love, even if it differs significantly from my own. These are the people who are not just telling me facts about themselves, but people that I am able to see their thought process and I see them as people with feelings and not just people I know things about.

Blogs then became something that I liked reading. Unlike other social media platforms like Facebook where you are asked what you are thinking and when you answer, you are asked to add a location, blogs are places where I see what someone thinks, their opinion, and when I comment, it doesn't matter that this is someone I don't know, I might not recognise them when I meet them on the street, but the sharing of ideas is something that is profound, something close to surreal. That is something that I am looking for in my everyday interaction, which also means that I don't have to constantly have my cell with me every waking second of the day. I don't have to seek my cell to kill the void that is loneliness. I am very comfortable without my phone ringing every single minute of the day. Because to kill loneliness, I don't wait for people to tell me a few facts about themselves, facts that don't inspire a need to know more about them or become better friends. To kill loneliness, I seek genuine and meaningful interactions that leave me knowing more about the person I am interacting with and myself while am at it.

The title of this post is from the song Killing Loneliness by HIM.

Give me a Quiet Mind

In an attempt to tame my monkey mind (that's what the Buddhists call the mind that cannot stay still) I attended a guided meditation session yesterday afternoon. A meditation session led by a monk! I had expectations for the class, like being able to tune out everything in my mind and just being in the moment even when  there is so much going on around me. But the monk lowered the expectation for me when he said that it takes practice and patience and time.

I have a problem getting my mind to stay still. Someone that I used to know used to find this hard to believe because on the outside I am this cool, calm and collected being, someone who can sit still for long periods of time and only get up when it's absolutely necessary. Also I am not shy, but I only talk when I have something to say, which, come to think of it, is a lot especially with people that I know. But I am also comfortable letting other people around me talk without feeling the need to say anything. These are the times when whatever is being talked about does not concern me at all, or I don't really care about the subject, in which case my silence communicates just that. I believe in voicing my opinion and I do have opinions on everything. I have talked about marrying the person who can quiet my mind, but I now see how heavy such a burden is to load on a person I purport to share my life with, oh and the impossibility of it all!

Anyway, my calm exterior betrays my internal meanderings. Hundreds of thoughts bombard me from every possible  direction,  each thought demanding my absolute attention. Which I give for a few seconds and before I come to a conclusion, another thought demands my time. Of course, there are moments when my mind is still, but this is when I am on my yoga mat but still these moments require my attention in form of my muscles burning and pulling. So yesterday, with the monk guiding my meditation, I sat still for a prolonged period of time. Of course, there were a few times that my mind would wander and I tried to put it to focus. I was shocked when I realised the meditation was forty(!) minutes long, because it felt like ten. People talked about seeing colours, imagining the sun or the moon above their heads and then floating inside them. I didn't feel any of that. What I felt was a few moments, because I am quite sure they were a few seconds, of stillness. No colours, no moon, no sun, not the voice of the monk, not the mantra that I was repeating.

I left there wanting to relieve that feeling. But I got into a noisy matatu, talked to a friend over coffee then went to watch a film then back to a noisy matatu. I wanted to relieve it today, and in yoga class during shavasana, that moment totally eluded me. The rest of the day hasn't been any different from yesterday. Oh, but how I want to quiet everything down even for a little while.

The title of this post is from the song A Quiet Mind by Blue October.

I've Closed Enough Windows to Know you can Never Look Back

It is the beginning of the year, that time when people make resolutions to change their lives. I think hate is a pretty strong word but I very much dislike beginnings. This strong dislike is probably because beginnings are usually preceded by anticipation which leads to expectations and when my expectations are not met then I get disappointed. Plant an expectation and you are sure to reap a disappointment, so the cliché goes. Having been perpetually disappointed, beginnings have become something that I don't look forward to, something that I dread. I prefer a seamless transition of things with no clearcut markings of the beginning or the ending. I like a continuous flow of events where one activity leads to another which leads to another which leads to... 

But beginnings and endings are inevitable, it is but the nature of things. The law of evolution, therefore, dictates that I have to adapt or be miserable. So I wonder, is it a little immature for me to hope for the wonderful gift of foresight this year? Is it wishful thinking to hope that the world will bend to my whims this year? Is it disengaging from reality to hope that my expectations (because God knows I can't help but have them) will be met?

I am good at introspection. Sitting at the end of each day to record my reflections. I always look back with 20-20 hindsight at the things that I did and what probably motivated my decisions or choices. Hindsight at the end of the year is at its best. I am unflinchingly honest with my reflections, because I am aware of how subjective memory is and so in an effort to be objective sometimes I berate myself for the things that I did. It is said that history always has a point of view,  and there is no exception with my past; I judge myself harshly, too harshly. I want something different this year. To look forward, to think long and hard before making life changing decisions in which future retrospection will reveal an evidence of good judgement. To have a future illuminated by foresight.

The title of this post is from the song Carry On by Fun.