MY diary of EXPERIENCE

After walking through the twilight and leaving my shadow to the darkness when one night I will sit, I will write this, ask me no reason, no whys to suffice your curiosity just take that, that one day I was tired of walking and felt like strangled by some invisible intertwined self of mine. Some cobwebs that made my sight go hassled up and pushed me into a bamboozled state which made me sit like that. I was not howling, I was not crying I was just sitting silent looking at the droplets which had dried up on my cheeks and some on my fist, some on my desk and still some which remained intact to the book I kept my hand lingering onto. Everything had settled, everything, the things that triggered the flood were just under scrutiny after the wash. I was still and I let a push of wind play with my disheveled locks. One day I compared my ‘self’, my ‘hunger’ of coming first and every time finding myself at the last reserved rung for me. Time kept fleeting away from my hands and my grip over it getting loose, but still I thought to give it a push and let it pass to let me look at the void I made the things around me to create. Life is simple, but things were complicated and I kept oscillating between the two; life and things. They say be the first, the best or different and I didn’t know how to be any of it, I remained what I was for every time I did so I was restless to catch a bus bound to simplicity, things are complex. If only on the day when they asked me my opinion I had remained mum or had closed my eyes and had heard my heart which said to believe on simplicity and not on the complexity, I bet you, things would have become simple but alas! I silenced my heart and spoke and now do I regret? They say one should never have regrets and so I don’t have any regrets with the way I lead my life but still the very thought of regretting asks you to love you, to hold you even tighter and tell you that, ‘you are perfect’, so sometimes it’s even good to regret to love yourself again. If only I had known and realized murky water is the elixir to my road I am telling you I would have never asked you to imagine me like this but alas! You do imagine me like this and mourn for me, but the road is still open my dear friends and don’t imagine me any further, don’t imagine me as a stoop down lady, I am still agile and dexterous and I still dream and hope. But when I say that ‘if only I had known” mark that time for at that time this lady is not regretting but making a note in her diary of experience, but still when one night after the twilight you see me walking with unpredictable steps, take it for granted that I have loosened my grip on time and is just watching few things for me to note.

country woman has matured

Sitting the way, in a usual way , eyes close to dive into a surreal world, where the walls seem smothered with the beauty of the morning light, of the dew on grass, and then a woman paves her way, not sure if she has matured enough to be a woman or is she still a country girl. A girl, with oodles of laughter on her little face, with mischief sparkling in her eyes, a kitty holding the strength and hopes for once lifetime; a woman walked. She left a trail behind her, many jumped to follow her, others let a sigh and wished to stop her and clinch her in their tiny palms, alas! Wishes were wishes. Some were still who didn’t follow and didn’t wish they rather stood stolidly in her path, stopped her and interrogated her. “A country girl has matured” she answered, they looked back at her in awe, she smiled and moved away. She took the wind with her, leaves sang the song of glory, birds choired, and the rain perfumed her way. She walked and didn’t look back at the mob that followed. As she stooped, people raised eyes, but she, as an oblivion flower of north looked least bothered. And this even squeezed the last drop of curiosity left in the people around her. She was a ‘babe’ some said and joked, but not at her face, some just scoffed, but ‘country girl has matured’, she didn’t seem to oblige them. She was the centre of their afternoon talks, of their good night verses, she was she, she was the talk, she was a blaze, and she walked leaving behind a trail. Followers queued to be her followers, her disciples, but this woman didn’t speak, she seemed to be in a reverie, some said, a fool given the status of ‘miss buzz’, but her buzz was buzzing their consciousness of solitude, they were becoming she, with every sip of her. She was walking her way, with days passing by, nights turning darker, cats purring, dogs barking, torrents flooding, but her feet forgot the mark of ‘stop’. She walked leaving somersaulting people in curiosity.

Finally, the day came when the marathon came to a halt, and this was the day, when everyone thought that the secret would be unveiled, people thronged at the stopping place, with kids hanging at the side waist, urchins making the usual noise and so came the time when the woman spoke, ‘well, i was on my way” , saying this she shrugged and walked again leaving a trail behind, with people still left curious and buzzing all the while and there were some who realized that they still needed some time to mature!

P.S. the picture is the photograph named “Florence, Italy” by Ruth Orkin, which depicts a woman walking down the street facing a gauntlet of men whistling and gaping at her. Her eyes are cast down, terrified, as she clutches her shawl to her bare shoulder. though still, the woman in my text is not a terrified one but a matured and confident one(didn't get a better picture)

ending did fumble, but i hope the picture gives you the idea. else you can speculate!...:)

How long can u see her smiling
When you see that the road that she is treading
Is a dark drooping alley
That she soon would fade and will mingle in the dust of obscurity
She soon will forget to smile
And soon she would look back
With emptiness

How long can you?
Wondered my heart and then I saw her smile again
Saw the life brimming at her lips
Her eyes bubbling out the joy
Her cheers just rejuvenating even the slightest slumber

And then I asked myself
Was I wrong in what I perceived?
‘cause life was what mattered to her
And to live in present was her forte
Tomorrow as said was an unsolved mystery
She seemed least interested in
And then I shifted and blinked

I let my lips stretch and she said
Laughing all the way round
“love you!” and so did my heart.

P.S. the picture was taken for a different purpose, for a different piece of writing but finally it scribbled this way.

a little girl whose name i forgot soon after meeting her and sharing some laughters, but her pictures reminded me of her and so strange are the ways sometimes that soon after certain things you read something that leaves you stirred, i hope you might too see something in these lines

"it's a terrible thing to know that you gon be poor all yuh life, no matter how hard you work. you does stop trying after a time. people does see you so and call you lazy. but it ain laziness. it just that you just give up. you does kind of die inside...".......lines fom the novel, 'Brown Girl, Brownstones', by Paule Marshall

i just wish the little girl never give up.:)