On Attention Starvation

I asked,

“If attention is as oxygen to me, am I not suffocating into oblivion?“

Sanjita told me,

“Its like oxygen is always there, its usual the lungs. Hmm.. guess attention is always there, its usually our perception. “

I could get a lung transplant but how does one replace one’s perceptions?

Dirty (And Clean) Laundry

I’m Sherpa Tenzing atop a mountain of clothes.

Will It Survive The Aftermath?

Writers

Writers are sad people,
stewing in the acrid juices of their own guilt
and frustration and shame and impotence
hoping to turn up a spicy marinade or a fine wine at the end.

Writers are pathetic people,
who put their lives into deep freeze
from fear or distraction or misplaced notions of grandeur
to live vicariously through those who only exist in their imagination.

Writers are difficult people,
often moody, never consistent
flitting forever between the brutal compassion of undivided listening
and the cold precision of collecting material for their stories.

But writers are never lonely,
for who can can have the time to ponder one’s solitude
when the mind is an overflowing warehouse of ideas past sell-by date
and the heart, a valient but failing backup of fermenting emotion?

Those ideas,
Our saviors, our jailers,
our muses, our burdens,
our poison, our panacea,
our steadfast, unshakeable, unbreakable companions,
Oh, those ideas!

Wearing a Superman tee-shirt does not give you nerves of steel.

 

Reverb 10.1: The Year In A Word

Lakshmi points me in the direction of Reverb 10, a daily writing prompt exercise. After the hoohaa over NaNoWriMo, I’ve succeeded in not penning a single word down this year . At least last year, I managed 3 chapters. Oh well, the life of a writer is chaptered in unfinished stories, I suppose. Here goes nothing anyway.

~O~O~O~O~O~O~

December 1 One Word.

Encapsulate the year 2010 in one word. Explain why you’re choosing that word. Now, imagine it’s one year from today, what would you like the word to be that captures 2011 for you?
(Author: Gwen Bell)

Cosinusoid.

I know Sinusoid is a word and it describes a certain wave shape depicted by the sine formula. I also know Cosine is a word and denotes a related formula. Sine waves and cosine waves are almost identical, except that a sine wave begins by going upwards (crest) and then downwards (trough). A cosine wave, on the other hand, starts downward (trough) and then goes upward (crest).

2010 was a year that split into two distinctly different halves for me. It begin with a plummeting of all that was good about the previous year. I hit writer’s block (shudder) and blogger’s block (tremors all over). Grandmother was sick and diagnosed with a deteriorating condition. Mother was sick. And then again. And again. Then I fell sick. That was as far as March (the quarter-year mark) and things still could improve.

But they didn’t. I fell out with a long-time friend. And another. And another. And yet another. And finally out of a social group I’d helped set up. And then another. By June I’d sunk below rock-bottom. And like the graphical representation of a cosine wave, I’d plumbed the depth of my trough.

Things took a sudden turn in June (mid-year, of course). I fell in love. I crossed 31, a milestone I’d been dreading and lived to tell the tale. In September (the start of the last quarter), work suddenly flowed in, all in one week. I wrote an article. And another. Then a column. And then another. Suddenly I could write again! The book has started again too.

I hope to end December 2010 on the high note of writing, career and personal life. That’s why 2010 has been a cosinusoid for me.

How would I like 2011 to go? It would be easy to say I’d just like it to go straight up. But I guess, since I took my three-O sabbatical to break free of the lines, that wouldn’t be it. I’d just like to be able to rise and fall, free of structures and constraints. So I think if I had my way, I’d characterize 2011 by the word,

Flight.

Conversations

Some conversations are traps, some are escapes

Some are tunnels leading into dark corners
Some are treasure hunts turning up duds
Some are potholes ending in pots of gold

Some are mere rituals
Some are verbal dances

But only sometimes, are they communication.

Eemohzuhnn

You know those deep, dark patches of emotion that you could step into and be engulfed in a second so you thought you were actually drowning? Or the ones that explode right next to you and by the time you pick yourself and everyone else in the vicinity, up, there’s a pathetic little blackened wick lying there, so puny, you’re flummoxed. How about the pitchy puddles of memory that leave dirty scars on your fingers, your clothes, your eyes and lungs?

If you have no idea what I’m talking about, you’re either too young or way too old. If it is the former, I get to be smug and protective at the same time, while telling you not to fret, life gets ugly and pretty at the same time and when it gets to you, you call it art. If however, it is the latter, then you have both my envy and my sympathy…and is that a touch of bitter humour? Irony, I think it is called.

I’m old enough to write about emotion and young enough to fumble when identifying one. Just right to write.

Smile

My smile is like a neon light
Lighting up all around
And drowning out all else
Brilliance in person
It says, “I’m happy!”

Yours is like a candle flame
A single flicker in the darkness
Enveloped in a warm embrace of shadows
Gentleness personified
It says, “I make you happy.”

And you do.

Hope

When you’re lost, how do you know you’re on the right track again?

You don’t.

You just keep walking and hope you’ll reach somewhere.
Sometimes you do.