If I could remember how and when it all started, it might just help me put the pieces together. But then again, my memory fails me these days; not sure if it's age or simply that I have become careless with this closet that I carry in my skull. It's become this leaky bucket; things just don't stay put. And all that is there, just slips out slowly and something new comes and takes the place of all that has been displaced. I have realized that for all the 'exactness' that people attach with memory, it's actually very fluid. You can not attach a shape to it, can you? More often than not, it bends and twists and takes the shape you want it to.. and when that happens, it's not memory, is it? It's fiction; and in all that we reproduce from memory or claim to produce from memory is a work of imagination, aspirations and well, if I may venture to add, exclamations. Memory is like clay, you see- give it shape, let it bake for a while, color it, and then maybe preserve it; the possibilities are endless...
So now you understand my quandary, don't you? You see, for all those attributes that memory, alright, let's be specific, my memory has, it'd be difficult for me to recall and recount, exactly how and when it happened. It could have been that Monday morning, when I saw you for the first time, looking lost, squinting at the sun, too shy to approach a stranger, too proud to admit your ignorance.Or was it that rainy Friday in August, when you were looking out of the window, and perhaps wishing that they hadn't told you how dancing in the rain in your formal dress, is not an acceptable behavior. Oh, you were so disappointed... But that's the point; I'm not very sure about the precision of my own recollection.So what I write here can be a memoir, or it can be a story, I leave that to you to decide. For now, I'll just proceed and get on with things.
Of late, I have woken up to very cognizant mornings..I have stared out of the window in my room to clear white light and a feeling of floating in the dreams I have dreamed of, in the night gone by. I can always put names to all the people I come across in my dreams. I can even sense their presence in my room... very sublime, ethereal even. I can almost feel my lips moving to start a conversation with them, but something always stops me.. and it's at this moment that I think of you. Why? I don't know.. if I could explain myself to me, your reason for existence in my consciousness would be lost, no? So let's keep it that way, shall we? For all that is gossamer and ephemeral, I'll take you for granted and submit you to permanence. That's how I want it to be... it can not be any other way, you see.
I can not sing, I can not dance, I can not play any instrument. Talent-less, that's what I call myself and laugh it off. You laugh with me, when I do that. You are not didactic or preachy and you do not use 'should' in excess.... I can live with that. 'But you can listen... and you can observe', you tell me. 'And you can tell stories..', then you pause.. it's that moment when you see me staring at you.... you catch me red handed, and my gaze falls down from your face... still, I'm replaying the twitch of your lips as you spoke.. all in my head. I look up and I see you smiling..'And I like listening to your stories', you say, as I am mesmerized by the glaze of shining diamonds that only I can see at the corner of your eyes. 'All is well with the world', I think...
I want a canvas and some colors and a paint brush. Let's turn all of this in a magnum opus, shall we? For when you are gone, I'd extract my quantum of solace by hanging this masterpiece in my bedroom and make critiques- Oh! I wish we'd have painted the butterflies purple and not orange... and how the chateau should have had graffiti on its walls... and why the wine should have been of sanguine temperament... If only you could realize that as you detach yourself from the world that I dwell in, the colors somewhat fade away.. and I hope, that like me, you also realize that we can always add a few magnolia flowers near the window... and a few nebulous clouds wouldn't harm anyone, would they? And that adding a few sparrows against the sun stained horizon might just complete the picture..And oh! how about a rainbow- one with an all-encompassing spectrum, that makes you and I believe that the possibilities are endless....
