It’s really not that I do not want to write. Or that I no longer have anything to say. It’s just that before I know it, it’s been a month since I have last written. It always surprises me how quickly time is passing, because I keep thinking that it’s been just a week or two that I last posted here. We keep thinking that once we settle down life will become calmer and slower, because you know, the words “settle down” kind of implies that. But it’s such a lie. It doesn’t get calmer, but it doesn’t necessarily get crazier either. It gets blurrier. Before you know it, you don’t really know where your days go. They just go somewhere.

I should keep track now. Of the sips of coffee I take in the mornings, and the cookies I bake in the evenings and the flowers I water in the afternoons and the trails I hike on Saturdays and the books I manage to finish in a month (which, sadly, is a very low number). I must keep track or I will have nothing that’ll flash before my eyes when it all ends. I must remember the letter I wrote sitting at dining table this afternoon, and the lemon scented candle I lit this evening, and the friend I spoke to after ages, and the squirrels that came to the patio, and the little sparrows that crowded the street this afternoon eating god knows what on the ground (they even stopped traffic).

If there is anything I am learning, it’s this: If we don’t make conscious efforts to make our lives matter to ourselves, it won’t. It won’t matter to us and it wont matter to anyone else. We must hold on to moments we have, grasp on to life’s little joys while we can. Because if we don’t, we wont even know when a month has passed by, and then another, and then another until there are no more months left.

Sigh. I hope you are with me dear readers. Because I do hope that I write, and I do hope that I come back before the month is over.

Sometimes when I am lying in the bed or on the couch, I stretch as if I am trying to reach for something. But there is nothing there except the wall of my imagination. Have I reached it, I wonder. What if I can’t indulge myself in my fantasies anymore. What if this is it. This life. These early mornings and late nights. These chaotic afternoons and silent evenings.

Sometimes I find myself humming a tune, reliving a moment and feeling a tickle in my heart. Sometimes I wonder if I have just conjured it up and it can’t possibly be real. What I felt and feel and touched was nothing but a figment of my overly dramatic fascination with this life and this love. I waited for something and then something died. It was over but then it begun. It’s a funny game.

This makes no sense - what I wrote above. Just like life sometimes. But you have to witness it and write it as best as you can hoping that someday it will give you an end that you’ll weave into a tapestry you always imagined.

Some people will never "get you." Try not to spend eternity asking why. Sometimes there is just no connection. No matter what you do, you wont find one. Some people will continue to see you differently. So, you must cherish those who lift your soul. And while you are at it, surround yourself with people who lift you higher. There are always a few, you are just not looking around because you are concentrating too much on the people who will never "get you." The world is already filled with the people who want to bring you down.

The most courageous decision you will ever make is to finally let go of whatever is hurting your heart and soul. Make it. Now is the time. Some things are heavy. You must let them go. It is not your burden to bear.

If someone wants you in their life, they'll make room for you. You shouldn't have to fight for a spot. Never, ever insist yourself to someone who continuously overlooks your worth. People will do anything, no matter how absurd, to avoid facing their own souls. Do not be one of those people. It's time to start living the life you always dreamed about.

I have been dreaming again. You know, the forbidden kind. We are quick to blame the world. Someone - something must have done something that this terrible tragedy happened. Someone must have forbidden it on me to not dream. Something must have happened. I wondered about that for so long.

But really, it was me. I don't remember exactly when, but at some point, I forbade myself to dream. I don't know how but I settled for mediocrity. I took off my rose colored glasses and saw the world as it was and decided that dreaming wasn't worth it anymore. Things weren't going to get any better than they were and living in reality means accepting it. Eyes on the road, feet on the ground. Let's follow the path. Let's not make it. Let's not pretend like someday we'll be flown off our feet. Let's not give love too much thought. It is, but a dream. Let's hope that someone will take pity on us and walk with us for a while, and that would be enough.

The magic in life - the magic that makes you breathe and bleed, it is but an illusion. A child's play. A party trick. But God, almighty God, isn't that the most beautiful thing you have ever seen - ever felt? Dreaming about magic, dreaming about the possibility that you could be better than who you are right now, dreaming about a whiff of happiness. Dreaming that your life could matter. 

I Romanticize

Even though it's only August, the sun has been having trouble staying out, and I have been having trouble taking photos with natural light. I have a studio setup, but I’d rather take photos in natural light. I like capturing glimpses of life, as they are when they happen.

I spent the weekend at home after a long time. I started looking at the place I live in, how the walls and the roof has always felt so temporary. I look at small displays of my life here – things gathered, read, and worn – the memories created in this tiny place. I wonder what this place will be remembered as when I leave. Will the next person know that I sat by this window countless evenings eating strawberries? That I have counted all the leaves on the tree in the courtyard by my terrace? I wonder if it matters whether there is a ketchup stain on the carpet, or that there is a tiny hole in the wall above my bed from where the string lights hung for all these years.  I wonder the marks you leave on places – on people – ever matter in the grand scheme of things.

There is no sure way of knowing whether you’ll leave any effect on this world as you experience it, but you can only hope that what you did in this life was remembered and that you changed places to make them prettier, and touched people in a way that made them more human.
For now, I am going to sit here, and eat my strawberries, and hope that I am doing as best as I can in this life, and with this life. Because it is only that belief and hope that will make me do anything good, if at all.

 I love what books do to me. Every time I finish a book, I look different. It's in the glow in my face coupled with utter exhaustion as if I have just gotten off a long flight, but I am about to meet the love of my life. It's in the way I talk, the way I listen, and the way I describe the colors. It's such an exhausting journey but a thoroughly satisfying one. The kind of journey that sticks in the memory and you speak about it for years to come.

I love what I give back to the books. Like memories - memories of the trains and the car rides, I have taken them to. Memories of all the parks, and lakes, and beaches where I've spent so many lonely evenings. Of the countless connecting flights and foreign airports. Memories of a some shy flower petals that found their way into some pages. We deposit little parts of ourselves in the books we read.

I love what books do to me. If happiness truly exists, it's found in books.

This is literally a garage turned into a coffee shop. Unpaved floor, raw walls, peeled bricks, and a rotting, what once was, a fireplace. It even has its garage door in tact that they roll up in the summers. It's metal panes are replaced with glass so that we can see outside during the winters. Different coffee equipments line one wall, and vintage wooden furniture fills in the empty space in the middle. A shelf in the far corner has old vintage cameras lined on it. Perhaps the owner of the shop is fond of photography too. The couches on the far end by the brick wall are the oldest and the comfiest couches I have ever sat on. But I don't sit on the couches very often. Like a cat, I prefer sitting in the far corner of the shop with my back against the wall, the garage door to my side, and the entire coffee shop to my front.

There is an old map on the wall by the restroom, which looks like the map of South America? How in the world does South America fit into this picture? Oh, coffee beans. Right.

As I sip my beautifully crafted cappuccino, a man and a woman enter the shop holding hands, and a story begin to form in my head.   A story waiting to be told, right there.

Writers cannot mind their own business. We live for this kind of adventure. Everything is a story. Everything is worth exploring. Every. Single. Damn. Thing. Can you imagine having so much in your head? Not being able to control making stories out of everything? Seeing meaning behind every single piece of crap you lay your eyes on. Dissecting every relationship, carving out every face your memory can conjure. No wonder we are crazy.  Writers cannot be loyal to anything else but their art. There were so many times I was offered to write for money, but I couldn't do it. It felt as if I was cheating on my lover. Writing is not a job or a career. Authors are not made, they are born. Writers are crazy. The better the writer, the crazier she is. People develop a fascination with a writer they like. But you don't want to really get to know a writer. You can't really know a writer. Because a writer is not one  person.

Ironically, I look up and accidentally glance at the black and white banner by the counter, with the famous Steve Jobs quote: "Here's to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs, the square holes, the ones who see things differently...."

Many read this book growing up. The rest has seen the movie. [If you haven't, please go read it, then watch it.]  Some are swaying to its soundtrack these days. I did all of these.

The beauty of the character Jay Gatsby is that he can be interpreted in many ways. Yet, most of us choose to marvel at the intensity of Gatsby's love for Daisy. He dedicated his whole life, his whole existence to the quest of finding her love - to attaining her. He knew on some level that she did not love him, but he did not want to believe it. If only she would leave her husband, if only they could go back to the past, everything would be just okay. He would be happy again. He would be with Daisy.

We like to live in the past.  If only we could change a few details from our past, we could fix everything. We could be happy again.  But the sad truth is, you can't be happy by yearning for the past because you are yearning for something that does not exist. It's foolishness. It becomes an obsession. Gatsby was border-lined obsessed with the idea of being with Daisy.  He turned his whole life into such a perfect fraud that he even fooled himself. He forgot about love. He forgot about his real  life, or what he could have gotten out of it for the sake of attaining an idea from the past that ceased to exist. Perhaps it never even existed then. If it did, Daisy would have waited for him when she could.

I cannot possibly have respect for anyone like that. No obsessed man ever loved. No obsessed man ever attained his obsession and was happy, and I think that is precisely what Fitzgerald wanted to convey through Gatsby. He wants us to remember the fine line between love and obsession, and the consequences of crossing over.  The "Great" in The Great Gatsby is so ironic.

I want to think of him as a great person, but the more I think about it, the more I can't. He is not great. Fitzgerald's character is great, the way it is written. But if Jay Gatsby was a person, he would not be great.

In a world which is increasingly becoming lonely and miserable, we don't need more Gatsbys. Please don't be a Gatsby. There is no nobility in obsessing over something that does not exist. Desire leaves us heartbroken, it wears us out. Desires can wreck your life.  You deserve to be happy. You deserve a better life than Gatsby's.

I only slept till 12:30pm today. Sometimes you think that if you sleep on something it might make more sense to you. But you are even more disoriented when you wake up. Even though I slept so much longer than normal I feel like I haven't slept at all. It's terrible.

I stayed in bed for another hour before I finally got up. Hunger was to blame for it, or I probably would have stayed under the covers for the rest of the day. After washing my face and grabbing last night's leftover wings, I opened the curtains of my room and the bright sunshine welcomed me. I am usually not a fan of the sun and I haven't seen it in a while because of the recent blizzard, but somehow it is pleasant to have that bright yellow ball back in my life.

And something absolutely wonderful arrived in the mail today - an old book, with a note that said, "I know I haven't been great to you in the past and I am willing to take the blame for everything but I totally blame you for putting me to read for leisure. I would have never found all these hidden treasures if it weren't for you. Thank you."

And just when you think that you are no good, that you might never make anyone happy, that no one might need you anymore, someone out there, somehow reminds you that you are still capable of making a difference.

We just have to hold on to that belief. Because YOU are capable of making a difference, and YOU are special.

The question is not if you can do something  with someone. Sure, you can almost always find something to do with anyone but the question is if you can do nothing  with someone.

All our lives, we try to fill our time and mind with meaningless some things. We believe that if we could fill that void with something, we will be happier. But its not about the something. True happiness comes when you can sit with someone and do absolutely nothing, and not feel like you have to. Happiness is when you don't feel awkward about it, when you don’t have to continuously please someone to get their attention or get their affection because they are already pleased just because you are in the room. Happiness is when you don’t have to plan every single evening. Happiness is when you can be spontaneous, and you can only be spontaneous when you don't fear that you're going to be judged for being silly or downright crazy.

Happiness is simple. Its not what they make it out to be. Happiness is not in expensive gifts and restaurants and crazy amounts of work. Happiness is in holding hands and knowing that you can hold that hand. Happiness is sitting in a hot-dog joint and wiping mustard off of each others collars. Happiness is  when someone kisses your hands - if you haven't tried it, try it. You'll know what I mean.

Some people don’t get it, but happiness really is simple.

Do you think there comes a point where the pain just stops? Or is it never-ending?

Isn’t there a point when you no longer care because you know that it could not possibly hurt anymore? The pain is absolved and the fear is gone because there is nothing left of your soul to be ripped apart. When it happens you sit on the floor, your back to the door, and just stare at the wall. Somehow the emptiness is comforting then. You don’t want to stand up because you know exactly what is waiting for you on the other side of the door. Some people tell me that they see the darkness begin to rise from the floor. They can no longer fight off the darkness. Hence they welcome it inside them.

The light goes out, the soul extinguishes and the pain disappears.

Is that how the pain disappears?
 

Ok, I am no advice columnist, neither a psychologist nor specialized in any way in men’s psychology. I am just another woman who has her opinions.

They say, men and women always end up on the opposite ends. Women complain about how insensitive and “gross” men are and men whine about the cry-babies women can turn into.
Granted, there are differences but we have to learn to live with them, right?

Lets start with relationships. Men are committed. Period. If he is committed to you once probably he will remain committed to you for the rest of his life. But the problem is that you don’t really know when he is really committed. Sometimes women ‘think’ men are serious about the relationship but they are not and then they ‘cheat’ on the women.

Ok Consider this: When a relationship ends, a woman will cry and pour her heart out to her girlfriends, and she will write a poem titled "All Men Are Idiots". Then she will get on with her life. A man has a little more trouble letting go. Six months after the break-up, at 3:00 a.m. on a Saturday night, he will call and say, "I just wanted to let you know you ruined my life, and I’ll never forgive you, and I hate you, and you’re a total floozy. But I want you to know there’s always a chance for us".

Another thing women need to understand and tolerate is that men are big kids (Com’ on guys, accept it!). Deep down, all men are big ol' boys. (This explains why so many grown men wear baseball caps.) Their interests are boy-like, too. Take his obsession with sports. Most men love anything that involves kicking something, throwing things or punching other men. Sounds like 10-year-olds on the playground to you? Does to me. When you put three or more men together, they bond by yelling at the TV and being idiots to each other. Regressing into childlike behavior isn't just a means of amusing themselves — it's their way of escaping real-life pressures and feeling accepted as they are. There's no point in denying guys time to release their juvenile side. And hey, at least they're doing it during boys' night out and not in front of your friends or family!

Another thing I have learnt from my day to day life is that men don’t take hints. Whether its your friend, husband, boyfriend or brother, they just don’t. I think it is because when men are with other men, they don't tiptoe around each other and drop subtle suggestions. That's because hints don't register with guys. Women pride themselves on being able to know intuitively what their friends, husbands and kids are thinking, but men have no interest in reading minds. That's I've learned from men: "If you don't ask, you don't get." In relationships, I don't expect a guy to know exactly what I want — and whenever I do, I'm disappointed. If, for example, you want him to take you out for your birthday, you're wasting your time dropping hints like "Guess what day Friday is? It's someone's birthday!" If you do that, you'll be 80 before he takes you out. And while you're at it, don't hint about wanting a gift that's shiny and lasts forever: To him, you've just described a set of Emeril pots and pans.
But, if you do ask, chances are you will get it. Be it an expensive ring or a loving kiss, don’t hesitate to ask them for it.

Coming down to a more domestic level, women should all know that men don’t do their laundry until they are out of clean clothes. If this happens before then that means someone else is doing their laundry for them. Sometimes, their dirty laundry even comes in several categories: Looks fine/smells fine, Looks fine/smells bad, Looks dirty/smells fine. Unless you intend to wash it, do not try to disrupt piles organized in this manner.

A couple more things to keep in mind:

Don’t make him hold your purse in the mall. It does something to their manhood. Just spare him the misery.

Shopping is not fascinating. Ever.

If he has to sit through “Notting Hill”, you have to sit through “Showgirls”.

If you truly want honesty, don’t ask questions you don’t really want the answer to.

He was not looking at that other girl. Well, okay… maybe a little. Okay, so what! He was looking at her. Big deal. Like you never looked at another guy…

Any sort of injury involving the testicles is not funny. Seriously.

Remember: that Nair bottle looks an awful lot like shampoo if left in the shower.

Any attempt by a man to prepare food, no matter how feeble (ie: Microwaving a burrito, fixing Spaghetti, etc) should be met with roughly the same degree of praise a parent might shower upon their infant when it walks for the first time.

But in the end, remember that men are human. We all are. We are unique and we have our own individuality. You will not go anywhere in understanding someone if you keep on putting them in one stereotypical category or another.

Good luck Ladies! :-)


(Some ideas taken from Cosmopolitan Magazine, Forgot the exact issue)