Song of the post: Moonlight by AgustD (song and lyrics here)
I like collecting small moments from my ordinary life to store them in a jar in my head, sometimes my heart. I can pull them out when I need inspiration to write. Over the last few weeks, this small collection grew in size because I was having a hard time picking one small moment. So, I thought, what’s better than a small moment? Many small moments!
These are all things I could write about. Maybe a phrase, maybe a few pages, maybe a line or maybe a novel. I could not, cannot pick one, so here’s all of them.
The two-hour train journeys I’ve taken for work, how every time I take, I seem to take the rain with me. How I have to leave before the sun fully wakes up and manage to grab myself an average Maddur vada and elaichi and ginger tea on the train that brightens up my day, even with misty drizzle outside, I don’t shudder with the chill because my heart is warmed up.
Or, how about this driver who picks me up and drops me off at the railway station and as I try to make conversation in my deplorable Telugu, how he nods as he tries to understand my fumbling and mixing of languages to make some semblance of sense but he takes my words seriously anyway and answers his best and that just warms my heart?
I could write to my e-penpal, who has probably been waiting for my email for months now but every time I open up the draft to her reply, there’s so much that I want to tell her but I get distracted by all the things that have happened and end up doing something else, successfully procrastinating.
Do I write about how much I had missed my friends that I finally got to see on vacation a few weeks ago? It will probably be really long and wistful and maybe even a little boring because I would write about how much I had missed holding hands with them in the dark, how with them, sleep was far away and in the darkness of the night, their pretty features only illuminated by the faint, silver moonlight through the curtains, fears spilled out; things that were so hard to experience once were easier to relive through words with their comforting presence. When you feel them squeeze your hand to hold it tighter and you burrow your face in the pillow next to them, you know it’s all okay because you’re with them and this moment is all that matters.
The dark nights seem to be creeping up more and more quickly, with absolutely no warning and under the guise of the rain clouds that seem to have anchored themselves where I am. Why does the approaching winter have hints of doom in it that makes it feel very unreal and every time I shiver, it’s only partly from the cold.
I want to write pages worth of letters to my 12-year-old self and tell her all the amazing things the current me is discovering about herself and her body. I want to hold her tight and tell her how comfortable I am in my body right now that she feels a little at ease that whatever she’s going through won’t be for long. I wish she had that comfort then but she didn’t so even if I have to write to myself to the past and send it through a time machine, I will.
I could rant about Diwali like I used to do but I cannot. All my energy is now spent on trying to survive the three days with my mood swings and arguments and work but the only relief I get is when my friends share pictures with their families. I stopped feeling excited for the festival ages ago but it makes me happy that these people that I care about enjoy it so that is enough for me.
I could definitely spend my time writing and sending postcards to people across the globe in the hopes of reducing the ever-growing pile of unsent postcards but I cannot bring myself to be fake-cheerful and I most definitely don’t want to send them a depressing letter. If I do send it, I hope whoever receives it will be happy with the painting (if it’s a hand-painted card)/photo on the front more than my words.
I could write about how, as I get closer to the city on my train journeys, the night sky seems to lighten, in whatever way it makes sense. It feels like the sky is being illuminated by the lights on the ground and that is an unnerving thought. It also feels like the city is the day itself and with every second I get closer it feels like I’m approaching a brand new day.
I definitely wanted to write about how every time I think of a solid blog post idea, I become so invested that I end up dreaming about how this post will be the One, the one that will blow up and make me famous or some such. It is simply me setting myself up for disappointment every single time but the funny thing is, I don’t end up disappointed at all, so I keep doing it again. And again. After all, it doesn’t cost anything to dream.
I am a bit hesitant but I would like to write about how when my hand hurts, every breath I take is a painful reminder of how much I have to pretend that everything is okay, that everything is normal for people to believe me that I’m in pain once a while. It has gotten to a point where I can fool myself into believing that I’m not in pain for some time if I concentrate on other things hard enough.
There was this one time on the train where I had a headache that could only be cured by fresh filter coffee. And it just so happened that a vendor passed by yelling, “coffee!” I bought myself a cup but it wasn’t. Coffee. It tasted like some sort of black tea, sweet but not exactly like tea and while it was hot and nice, I am still very confused about its true nature, especially after the vendor emphasised that it was coffee. I definitely wanted to write about that.
I want to write and draw and paint a mountain-high pile of things but the thought of picking an idea from the pile makes me feel like the pile might collapse on top of me at any moment so I sit, continue to watch Yumi’s Cells under the guilt and heavy weight of the idea mountain.
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