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To be alive is to marvel — at least occasionally, at least with glimmers of some wonderment ✨

The last night home for this year — Dec 30,2021

MELANCHOLY;

This board is usually where I write my silly filmy notes to Saheb. Often, it’s updated weekly. But one fine day, in between the phase of fostering our third puppy together and before we contracted the virus (yikes), we spoke at lengths about how we’ve been feeling — you know, being home for a stretched period. We were unsure of how we exactly feel but days into the conversation, we came to realise it wasn’t a deep sadness or was it ecstatic, it was melancholia.

Melancholy is not even anger. There was perhaps a giant ‘fuck you’ to the planet somewhere at the outset, but we’ve been on countless lockdowns for a long time. Whatever we felt at the start of all this has long dissipated into something far gentler, more philosophic and more indulgent to the imperfection of everything.

We realised that the scale of the challenges we are up against, is just what happens to averagely flawed humans who have been around for a while. We all have been around long enough — in this pandemic at least. Don’t get me wrong — you and I are still able to take pleasure in small things and to hope that one or two details might – every now and then – go right. But at this point, don’t we just know nothing has been guaranteed?

I guess at the end of the day, what we feel right now, for being long cooped indoors, is an awareness of the imperfection of everything, not this or that unfortunate day, not one or two bad people, but the generally and implacably vast gap between what should ideally be and what actually is, what we want and what we must be ready for.

It’s like being haunted by how short a time there is left in relation to what we might want to do and still need to see and experience. We are suddenly so very aware of how much we are squandering our talents and how little of what is precious about us will ever see the light of day.

Well at least this period has taught us to be receptive to small islands of beauty and goodness in an otherwise fallen world. We can now be more deeply moved by flowers, by a tender moment in a music, by an unexpected gesture of kindness from someone we barely know, by sunlight falling on the side of an old wall at dusk.

Remember in Good Will Hunting, when Robin Williams said, “The bad things in life open your eyes to the good things you weren’t paying attention to before.”

But I hope, above all, to those who made it this far, if you are physically alone enduring these trying times, I hope, instead of the dark pit of loneliness, you gain solitude - and in which way, would allow you to be intimate with your own inner life — which then frees us to reach greater, more dimensional intimacy with others.

#jottings

I miss having you around in the mornings, afternoons, and how we welcome the sunset every evening with some puffs and cold ones. You work right my love, well and right.

Till then, it’ll be back to dating days — calls and videos ♥️

I saw a girl taking a photo of the sunset today (it was later than this photo) — right next door — and I thought, wow, how near are we in distance but worlds apart in the online world. I will most likely never come across the photo if it was ever uploaded. But we shared the same view. And I think that’s all that matters in the end. She gets to share the pleasure to her circle and I get to share with mine.

The are millions of untranslatable words in myriad of languages. When I came across this word -- Hiraeth -- I know its a word that would struck me in just a matter time. In fact, all lives presupposes it. Then I came across a poem by Shirley Lalrinfeli via The Alipore Post and I -- genuinely am lost for words. Someday I will come back to this and hopefully then I would allow myself the radical act of letting things hurt.

A Poem of Hiraeth by Shirley Lalrinfeli

Home is never really home without you.

It's just an empty box of wood and concrete, stones and glass.

The foundation breaks at the slightest wind.

Crack.

It falls apart. Crumbles.

The photograph that used to stand on that mantelpiece, a plethora of hues,

And that smile that goes back seventy years

Is nothing but an empty cardboard frame

With nothing but a sepia-tinted, monochromatic image.

Useless

The Welsh talk of "Hiraeth".

I can't fathom the profundity of it-

A homesickness, a longing,

For a home and for the lost,

For the Departed

That freely roam the Cold Land of the Dead.

They're a sentimental folk, the Welsh.

Always ready to come up with words like that.

So much feeling conveyed in so few syllables.

I could write on paper worth a full forest

And not express even half of my longing,

For this home that can never be.

Which once was.

Which has fallen apart.

The earth keeps on spinning, revolving.

The sun rises, twelve hours crawl by

And there's so much work.

So much to be done. So little time to lose.

Because you only get so many years here.

That's what your life has taught me.T

hen this small wooden box, this structure,

Goes dark.

The fireflies are at it again,

Dancing down by the marsh.

Such show-offs, those tiny creatures.

And they don't realise how insignificant, how fragile they really are.

Paper-winds, paper bodies-Their only redeeming quality is their bioluminescence.

The bed is cold and empty,

Pale clouds drift by.

The moon gradually traverses across the dark sky,

Inch by inch.

In the distance, a rooster crows.

That's how I know morning is approaching.

The sun will rise again in three hours.

It will set again, as always, in twelve.

And the world will go on,

And the fireflies will die one day,

And this house will never be home again.

The person in that photograph I may never see again.

But my life will continue.

ye hanste hu'e phool, ye mehka hu'a gulshan

ye rang mein aur noor mein doobi hu'i raahen,

ye phoolon ka ras pi ke machalte hu'e bhanware

main doon bhi toh kya doon tumhen, ae shokh nazaaron?

le de ke mere pas kuch aansoon hain kuchh aahen

these laughing flowers, this fragrant garden

these paths drenched in light and colour

these bees swaying and intoxicated from freshly-drunk nectar

such beautiful sights -- what could I contribute?

all I have are some tears, some sighs of wonder

—— Sahir Ludhianvi

July 31, 2020 Tambun,Ipoh

I will drift to sleep

with some piece of my body,

softly touching yours.

Insatiable?

What sex is, we don't know, but it must be some sort of fire. For it always communicates a sense of warmth, of glow. And when this glow becomes a pure shine, then we feel the sense of beauty. We all have the fire of sex slumbering or burning inside us. If we live to be ninety, it is still there. Or, if it dies, we become one of those ghastly living corpses which are unfortunately becoming more numerous in the world.

— D.H. Lawrence

Rest forever, tired heart.

Rest forever, tired heart. The final illusion has perished. The one we believed eternal is gone.

Just like that. Out the door desire follows hope. Rest forever.

Enough throbbing. Nothing deserves your attention nor is the earth worth a sigh.

Bitterness and boredom is life, nothing else ever, and the world is mud.

Quiet now. Despair for the last time. Fate gives us dying as a gift.

Now turn from the hills, the ugly hidden power which rules for the common evil and the infinite vanity of it all.

—Giacomo Leopardi

A simple entry -- What I miss

Life pre-pandemic was, for the lack of a better word, good. Don’t get me wrong, its good now, in a different way. I have begun to appreciate things at home more, time spent within my four walls and everything in between.

The point of this post is simple -- I miss the great expanse of my neighborhood pleasures. At this very point, I miss a good cold glass of beer in a bar with some good company, and great music. I heard Mark Morrison’s ‘Return of the Mack’ and I thought man, those hours hearing to this in a nice pub/bar around the corner. Miss!

Exactly my thought. Reminds me of an excerpt I came across sometime ago;

“The gist is that the person you think of as "yourself" exists only for you, and even you don't really know who that is. Every person you meet, have a relationship with or make eye contact on the street with, creates a version of "you" in their heads. You're not the same person to your mom, your dad, your siblings, than you are to your coworkers, your neighbours or your friends. There are a thousand different versions of yourself out there, in people's minds. A "you" exists in each version, and yet your "you", "yourself", isn't really a "someone" at all.”

I felt happy. A simple, pure happiness, the trivial ecstasy that does not trouble the senses but that spirits away the frontiers between body and soul--a transparent intoxication consisting of food, smiles, and the promise of love.

Lockdown muse

Right now, infinite versions of you and I are living their own lives, creating their own crosshatched grid that will spiral off endlessly, and sometimes we will remember. For now, all we can do is choose the option that lets us live like it could all end in half a breath. Treat every moment between now and that inevitable moment it goes dark for those beautiful blinks before the light returns like some perfect gift, leave pleasant memories for some parallel you to feel in their blissful dèjà vu. As for the me, I wouldn’t have endured the last one and a half year sanely and in such excitement at home, if it weren’t for my Parklane homies ✨

Live and love the same

like it could all disappear

at any moment.

Came across two of Earnest Hemingway’s very strong quotes;

“Try to learn to breathe deeply, really to taste food when you eat, and when you sleep, really to sleep. Try as much as possible to be wholly alive with all your might, and when you laugh, laugh like hell. And when you get angry, get good and angry. Try to be alive. You will be dead soon enough.”

“The best people possess a feeling for beauty, the courage to take risks, the discipline to tell the truth, the capacity for sacrifice. Ironically, their virtues make them vulnerable; they are often wounded, sometimes destroyed.”

Dehleez Films

So last weekend, I got my films from one year ago (during the very first MCO) developed. To me, it’s a very special roll, my first attempt in #filmphotography and I’ve been hooked ever since!

These photos taught me something — that if you start living for the smallest reasons, that’s when you know you’re really living. Like you know smell of rain after a thunderstorm, the unspoken competition to win a game amongst your friends, the mediocre midnights and the color of the sunsets, the smell of bakeshops early in the morning, music playing in the background while you go about your routine at home, the smell of new books, new clothes and new things, or a good belly laughter and the silence that comes after. You start looking at things, really really looking, you’ll start living. Because then you’ll understand how it is to really be a human in this world full of people — and that is what we consider magic. These photos are basically the pleasures of being neighbours with your own best friends, that too during a lockdown.

#filmisnotdead #filmcamera

There’s something we’re not taught in middle school health class, not shown in high school relationships, college hook-ups, or even our fumbling twenties. There’s something many of us may have never been taught by our own parents or by those who were to be our guides for what love is, the shape it should take when you find someone worth investing your heart in, when you become someone worth a heart’s investment into you. It is this: Love is forgetful of itself. Love needs to be reminded, and often, who it truly is, the beauty that lives within it. If we become the mirror, love can see itself as it is, as it’s always been, and can come back to itself. Love is forgetful, and if ignored too long begins to fall into some amnesia haze of disbelief and confusion, it can lose its words, lose its strength, it can wither like unwatered plant, it can fade entirely. My advice, take it or leave it as you wish, is to remind love of itself when it finds its way into your life, and remind it often. Fuel its little fire with offerings of your own devotion, simple kindling to the flames that should not be left to go out. Remind it, and remind it often. Love is forgetful, we cannot be.

I still find it fascinating how I’m still so mesmerised by you, and I don’t want it to sound pathetic by adding “even after all those years”, yeah but strangely that’s how I do feel. I would think that as the years passes by, we would eventually feel the same, all the time. But it’s different, sometimes. It feels all so amazing. Sometimes the feeling is so overwhelming, you either squeeze the person you absolutely adore and love, or just simply stare, enjoy the view and presence in silence.

I love you wildly, Sebzy ⚡️

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