One Year with Kinder ~

I write these words after a surprising discovery: I don't know how to deal with Loss .. 
I keep thinking about the healthiest way to grieve, is it crying about it, distracting myself from it ? I found myself writing about it, I can't think of any other way ..

Some of the few people who may read this, might think that I'm a drama queen who cries over the loss of an insignificant pet. However, the loss of a pet is no less important than the loss of a human being, sometimes even harder .. 

As you go out into the world, you meet people by obligation, you deal with them with logic and diplomacy .. But you live with a pet by choice, you do it with your heart, it becomes a part of your day .. Everything you do is spontaneous, uncalculated, even childish and no one can judge you. 

You grieve a pet not only because you miss it, but also because it teaches unexpected lessons and fills your heart with unmeasured warmth ..

At the beginning, I fell in love with Kinder because he is unbelievably cute and fluffy, a chubby little guy with character .. I feed him every day as any pet owner would do, but as days went by, I discover that he was feeding my inner power .. 

When you come to love a pet, the selfish part of you weakens, without you noticing .. When your pet is sick or hungry, the warmth of your bed doesn't matter anymore .. You actually move your lazy arse to check on him and you do it happily and lovingly, you actually sacrifice your comfort for the well-being of another creature. 

As he crawls under the sheets, he occupies the center of the bed and you don't mind sleeping stuck to the wall .. He unwillingly brings out motherly instincts as they are nocturnal animals, they voice their every need at night and you're happy to respond. You forget you're tired as soon as he jumps on your lap, purrs softly and rubs his wet nose against your cheek ..

Your clothes are full of cat hair, you clean twice as much, you shop for salami and fish around the clock, but you don't complain because you love them unconditionally, as I loved my Kinder and will always remember him . ♡

Nature is an Arrogant Lady ~

Nature is an arrogant lady
She wouldn't let your eyes penetrate her beauty unless you stop and stare
Humans usually behold Nature while engrossed in another activity, never really devoting all senses to study her in her full blossom 

We throw glances from the window of a train, through the pauses of a book, along chattering promenades, during a family picnic on a spring day ... 

These short, unintentional, absent-minded looks do not satisfy a lady.
If you unplug from all beings and all matters, she will allow you to savor its splendor ..

You won't be able to see the clouds traveling through the sky, the stream of a river pouring furtively and purposefully into oceans beyond the horizon, or flowers swaying in the breeze unless you halt all motion and thinking and just stare ..

Like a lady making her entrance into a ballroom , all ceases to speak, all eyes shift to one being, one scene .
Nature is a proud lady emerging through the fascinated crowds, braggingly making her way among the captivated silence ..

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Time is The Image of a Heartbeat ~

     Time is not linear. Time is the image of a human heartbeat. Human hopes spark at random points during its course. It usually runs silent and tedious, even lazy on a Monday. Then, by a Friday, it climaxes with excitement over the promising possibilities of an eventful weekend. 

Time is the image of a heartbeat because it portrays how the idea of New Beginnings gives humans unexpected and unfathomable readiness to aspire for high achievements, collective ecsatic doses of energy that remain virtual, and for many, delusional. 

New Beginnings remain, for manyof us, just beginnings. Everything is exalted at a random moment in Time, then, it all quickly subsides .. just like the image of a heartbeat. 

January 1st, many of us start hitting the gym, announcing impossible book challenges, celebrating a new version of their selves. However, reinventing their selves is a process that requires constistency and perseverance. 

We cannot expect the inevitable continuum of Time to bring us instant magic .. Time is a tool, we are the operators. We can start up the engine and swiftly loosen our grip, or we can launch it with the intention, will and plan to carry it on with unfaded energies till we reach what's most dear to us. 

Happy New Year ♡

[ 20 days into the new year, I hope you're persisting, dreaming, creating little personal wonders each day .. ]

 

Chopin’s Tristesse is « Everything »

There is a song that shakes your limbs from sleep, a song that wakes up the drummer in you, a song that plays a rusty childhood tape and flashes it before your eyes, a song that makes you aware of your pain ..A song that happens without our consent and makes us relive, feel, understand and move on .. And then, there’s this song, or piece, a wordless piece that tickles your ears and settles there, with no apparent reason.

I have always been an ardent lover of Bach, but I have always had an unspoken weakness for Chopin. The moment I discovered his “Tristesse”, I fell in love with its poignant simplicity, so I had to learn to play it on the violin. A while later, I found myself humming it as a lullaby to my agitated little cousin. I never understood why it got to me, you never do with classical music ..

One day, as I traveled so many a time, I was gazing into the boundless greenness of God’s earth, it resurfaced before my mind’s eye. “Tristesse”, a name so unfair for a piece so telling ..

It starts with long notes slowly played, beautifully extended. Between the notes, you feel serenity, by the edge of a note, you sense calmness, and as silence starts clouding the last note, you feel nostalgia .. almost instantly. 

It begins with subtle yet powerful tone, lazy notes furtively escalating their way to a heart-wrenching climax, like a chest heaving a deep breath, ready to say something, but doesn't ...

At first, one is eased into a beguiling state of rest, gentle soothing notes conciliate the listener and take him by storm in a matter of seconds. However, the storm quickly subsides into calmness again. 

This circle-like pattern of the piece is reminiscent of life's most precious and devastating moments. Every soul born in this earth rejoices a state of eventless carelessness, then adulthood sweeps the human being off that fluffy carpet and thrusts him in the throas of life. Eventually, it grants him that initial calmness, a calmness no more carefree ..Wise, perhaps wounded, possibly lonely ...

In Death too, we perceive that inescapable cycle .. Before exhaling the last breath, an old soul lives a phase of peace, of sweet nostalgia, of slowly-weaved words of wisdom. Then, heart beats accelerate, the chest lifts itself wih quick desperate half-breaths to reach a scary non-human spot, only to be subdued into stillness again, Death.

Even in Love, the same cycle repeats itself. It starts with a shy phase of attempts to understand and penetrate the other Significant soul. A slow episode marked by hesitation and carefully-studied little steps. Soon after, the couple is taken into a whirlwind of romantic feelings and sweet excitement. Familiarity, by the end, leads the pair to solid ground again, to tranquility.

Everytime, the cycle comes to end, but the feeling of it does not, it leaves something behind .. Like the end of a last note, like in "Tristesse" .. The note stops existing, but the following note amplifies it as it amplifies and valorises itself .. With "Tristesse", we learn that there is no real end. The end never ends .. It leaves a trail of accumulated knowledges, memories that makes it everlasting ..

Love is a Classical Symphony ~

  Music is a lot like Love. This may seem like a pretty cheesy statement, perhaps because most of people would assume beauty like a common ground. It is, but it's not the sole denominator ..
In the midst of one of my day-dreaming compulsory sessions that populate my weekly travels, I get a lot of random ideas, some are frivolous, others are somewhat legitimate .. 
Anyway, I think I was listening to some Mendelssohn when, out of nowhere, this idea popped into my head; Music, specifically a Classical symphony is a lot like Love ..in its rhythms, variations and alternations .. 

When in love, at the very start, everything happens inexplicably quickly .. That spark, that rush, emotions building up at the pit of the stomach, racing up towards the heart in a pace unknown to Man .. Those emotions that get pounded and infused inside the veins running inside those vital tubes and reaching finger-tips.. That initial spark works its magic and human being here asks: "When did this happen to me ?" 
It happens so swiftly, as swift as the first movement of a Classical symphony: Allegro. 
Hearts pounding, limbs shivering, mild fever going up and down the body, operating in a beautiful synchronism with the crazy fast tempo of an Allegro movement .. Musicians sweating over quick and continuous sounds like two lovers overwhelmed by the excited, once regular beats of their own hearts. 

The second movement of a Classical symphony is an Adagio. 
After that sweet wave of new feelings, after that fast and melodious cardiac dance, lovers begin to slowly settle in .. 
This stage is marked by beautiful familiarity, hearts start to ease each other into one another, they start to confide and word their insides in an utmost serenity .. hands gliding into one another, warmth slowly forming in their midst, two beings savoring the beauty of the moment, wishing to expand the life of it, wishing to stretch seconds into an eternity 
.. Like the spell of a heart-warming Adagio, the two previously-new lovers, unknowingly engage in a internal slow dance, and the heart whispers:"I know you now, and I don't want this to end.."

And if we "don't want this to end", the human heart unawaringly, starts to feast on each love-episode. A lover hopes that seconds multiply amid the romantic maze, that excitement lingers .. A lover, like a Scherzo movement, lives, feels and celebrates Love. Music inhabits the soul and ushers it to evolve .. touched by music, smeared by music, it progresses through music to reach Music .. It becomes the journey and the destination; to feel something, to reach it, and to still want to persue it, that is the ultimate celebration of Love .. 
Two lovers, extending a Scherzo dance, rejoicing in rhythmic living, wallowing in musical celebratory beats that know no end .. 

The last movement of a Classical symphony is an Allegro again. There is a return to the beginning, a new sort of beginning .. It's no longer that quick-paced rush of new feelings, it's the odd and sad impression that days burn out ever so swiftly ..that the longevity of shared moments is never enough, even if we celebrate each day, savor each sunset, feast on every rosy afternoon, get drunk on each blue moon, or honey-colored sunrise, we can't help but feel the brevity of days in the company of loved ones, days that go by in Allegro just like the last movement of a Classical symphony .. 
What remains is the pile of memories that we create, mental images that extend the lives of past days with a power that defeats the Allegro patterns that govern our earthly stay ..

Existential Ruminations ~

A frustrated middle-aged youth
A disgusted new-born adult
A young lady with little disperesed grey hairs
Coming out of her scarf
Shadows of wrinkles upon her forehead
Half smiling to the awkward being before her.
A still figure behind the dusty spots on her mirror
Her eyes staring back at her
Her eyelashes foggy under her heavy monotonous breathing
She clutches her heart with a sweaty palm
She tilts her head mocking that strange reflection
Ever so strange !
Do I know you ?
Yes !
I'm 5 years old
I'm a chubby little girl
Running with my boyish hair
With my tiny sticky thighs
My hands smeared with candy and cheap chocolate
Biting lollipops with my crooked teeth
I was happy
I didn't know Regret.

I'm 8 years old
I'm a left-handed little rebel
Designing dresses for my headless barbies
Drawing shapeless forms in my coloring book
Writing nonsensical animal short stories
Proud of my sweet nothings
I didn't know Reward.

I'm 11 years old
I'm a nasty mischievous pre-adolescent
Petting stray "Arab" bony dogs
Throwing grapes on evil neighbors
Sheltering dirty kittens in a small box
Sharing my Aid meat with my dog

I didn't know Unkindness
I didn't know Indifference
I didn't heed consequences
I didn't care for "accepted" girly behavior
Pretty little girls didn't like me
The rough girl with an attitude
The pet hoarder
The still-chubby kid with a weird sense of fashion
Book-sniffing in a distant corner
I didn't know Conformity

I'm 17 years old
Eyes shining behind twisted glasses
Wearing over-sized T-shirts
Dancing to senseless Bollywood songs
Fascinated by stupid rom-coms
Roses and rainbows and never-ending loves
I didn't know masked affections
and loveless "I love you's"

I'm 20 years old
I'm an odd lady in the making
With angry black curls
Humming classical music tunes
Noone hums them with me
Cause they're old and uncool
Just wordless music and me ..
I did know Art
That Art is free
And so is me.

I'm 25 years old
Sleep-walking through adulthood
Thrust into these repeated patterns of existence
Bumpy journeys into sameness, unpaid bills,
Scattered papers on a rusty desk
Adulthood is marked by papers ..
By reluctant compromises
By scary normality

The little carefree self is entrapped
The wicked rebel is tamed
The adult wins the battle of souls
Walking drowsily down a common path
Drooling over trivialities
Treading on his sweet peculiarities
And his secret dear-diary, unrecognized
Most intimate passions ..

The Influence of Anxiety ~

Writers are continuously seized by a throbbing urge to write; weather abruptly by a sudden touch of inspiration, or deliberately upon an important event in their lives, or .. upon an aching unfathomable feeling that needs to be worded. Perchance it is love or sadness .. or both. Writers can relate to these fits of the heart.

However, this inward tumult does not always result in writing as it is expected.  The past cripples their drives and harness their artistic flow. It is a concept called “The Anxiety of Influence”; the fear that everything we write or experience has been written and experienced before, and this fear takes over a writer’s soul and filter his\her ideas.

In my writing experience, insignificant as it is, I recall many times when I felt stifled in front of my computer at night; was this idea mentioned before ? Is this image illustration trivial or mainstream ? Are these lines ridiculously worn out ?

The Anxiety of Influence feeds on these internal wonderings and the idea that past literary glories are present failures if repeated.

I came to realize, however, that there is no such thing as repetition in literature or any form of Art for that matter.

Writing is the fruit of intimate feelings, of personal ponderings .. And because words can never wholly describe what we experience as human beings, ideas and images can never be reiterated. Texts may hold some resemblance to each other, but the feelings that culminated in their production are so wonderfully and subtly different.

It is what I like to call the Influence of Anxiety. The soul of any writer creates and annihilates, chases an evanescent idea, struggles to depict an eerie landscape, a scent, the touch of a hand, the taste of a kiss, the eyes of a stranger … The head  is a battlefield of words, disordered ideas and piled-up images .. The heart speaks conflicting emotions and inexplicable perplexities. His entire being agonizes to produce “The truest sentence” of it all.

What I want to say is that the journey that any writer goes through to give birth to his text is what makes it eternally unique. The palpitations of his heart, his uncertainties, his frustration, his constant un-creation of words are what renders very original and very specific to its creator.

The text, like Love, is a feeling .. Perhaps the most sincere feeling ever so nakedly and fearlessly exposed .. And like all feelings, we try to capture it albeit we know that it’s uncatchable. We think that we are able to see similarities between texts, but our eyes deceive us so …  a metaphor can recall another, an image can summon its root in other writings, that is true .. 

However the experience of the pre-word, the struggle of the pre-idea, the musings of the pre-image can never be repeated, translated or truly detected.

That is the reason why I believe that each text is enigmatically singular .. Diverse and particular like Human feelings, like Human loves ..

To partially employ F.Scott Fitzgerald’s words:” There are all kinds of “texts” in this world, but never the same “text” twice ..”