Writing

Day 900

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Nine hundred days! 

I didn’t think I would make it this far. I vaguely remember Day 100 in Pondicherry. That seemed like ages already. This is unbelievable. I couldn’t fathom how I carried on at that time. I still can’t. So many days have passed without him. I still hold on. Not one moment has passed without him. I still mourn. 

Making each day count, working through the pain, celebrating the good times. Excavating words to express feelings that can’t be spoken out loud. Dissecting through ‘stuff’ with fine forceps, making sure nothing is damaged. Connecting. Realising that the colour of blood is the same for all humans everywhere. Hunger feels the same for all. Bones are a shade of white for everyone everywhere. Shame, courage and love are experienced in the same way in Lebanon and Syria as in London and New York. The pain of loosing a child is universal too. Indescribable, potentially unsurvivable. Yet, so many of us survive. 

I wonder if he’s counting days too. Does this mean anything to him? I wonder what he would be like at 23. His birthday is coming up soon. I wonder how we would have celebrated it. I wonder how time will mould itself and me as time goes by. I wonder if any of the lessons that need to be learnt from Saagar’s story will ever be properly learnt and implemented. I wonder when my silent inner screaming and constant frantic searching will stop. I wonder if he has an exact duplicate, who will bump into me one day and things will seemlessly go back to being how they were. I wonder how long his friends will want to stay in touch with me and talk about him. I wonder.

Nine hundred days. Unbelievable.

Day 898

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A blank page and me. A bit scary. Not sure what happens next. No distractions of a laptop, a dictionary, a thesaurus, e-mails or facebook messages. Just me and the unruled paper. Both blank.

The click and clap of the cat-flap sounds like a bold red brushstroke on a bleak soundscape. The whirring of the fridge makes for a somber background of magnolia. The crunchy munching of cat food forms clusters of bright yellow daffodils scattered about. The distant low-pitched monotone of an aircraft marks the horizon, half land, half sky. Wonder what the pilot sees and hears at this moment. I look for the word count at the bottom of the page but all there is, is a corner. 

The sweet sound of a smile drips into my ears from the eyes of a black and white picture on the shelf. It’s twinkling and naughty. It’s the life of the canvas. Like a patch of elegant and shy blood red tulips, gently dancing in the wind. Thus I navigate the map of my silence.

“Out of such abysses, from such severe sickness one returns newborn, having shed one’s skin, more ticklish and malicious, with a more delicate taste for joy, with a more tender tongue for all good things, with merrier senses, with a second dangerous innocence in joy, more childhood and yet a hundred times subtler than one has ever seen before.” — Friedrich Nietzsche

Day 876

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The second year I thought was harder than the first. Now, I think this year is harder than the second. As time goes by, the finality of death slaps me harder in the face. It becomes clearer that this is it. “Deal with it. Despite all the help and love in the world, you have to do this on your own for the rest of your life” says the merciless voice in my head, “You will never see him again. Get used to it.”

Each breath strings up a bunch of moments together and one by one they slip and slide away. On some days the seemingly humungous task of getting from the front door of the house to the car takes forever. At other times, hours fly by like weightless nebulous clouds on wings. Seconds linger like sumo wrestlers battling with sleep, yet a week can be gone in a flash.

Red-hot intensity of grief starts to tire and turns to ashes of resignation. Questions know they are unanswerable and yet they incessantly repeat their customary laps round and round the velodrome of headspace. Like a stubborn arrogant squatter, guilt refuses to pack its bags and evict this cold, dilapidated building.

What is better? What is worse?
What is the truth?
Who makes that judgement?
The witness?
Or the witness of the witness?

Day 860

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Surprisingly her train was on time. Today she was careful. She went to the correct platform. It was 12 noon. There were only a few people around, looking lonely. She boarded a quiet coach and was happy to find her favourite, forward-facing-window seat with a table, waiting for her. The only other person there was a young man sitting by the window opposite, immersed in his phone and lost in a world of his own, between the big black and red headphones planted over his ears. Both his feet, with shoes on, were resting on the seat opposite. Her head rankled aloud and she was filled with such severe disapproval that she nearly turned around and left.

But then she stopped. He was only a kid. In a strange way he reminded her of her son, even though he looked nothing like him. She could speak with him. What was the worst that could happen? She approached him gently and got his attention.
“Please would you mind putting your feet down?”
“What’s your problem?”
“Feel free to disregard what I say. I just wanted to share my perspective with you. The grime under your soles gets transferred on to other people’s clean clothes and children’s hands. It can make people sick. That’s all. Thank you.”

She smiled and backed off. She sat at the seat she had ear-marked for herself, just on the other side, across the width of the coach. From the corner of her eye, she saw both his feet descend to the floor. With a nearly imperceptible smile she continued to pretend to be looking out of the window and he continued to do the same and the world went by…

Day 852

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What completes breakfast is marmalade. What enriches it with tradition is marmalade. What makes breakfast wholesome is marmalade, a source of happy, healthy, tangy carbs.

The origins of this exquisite preserve are controversial but date back to the1500s. The name has its roots in the Portuguese language. It is made from sugar and water boiled with the juice and rind of citrus fruits. Sweet oranges, limes, lemons, mandarins, grapefruits, any other such fruits or combinations of them are used.

Apparently the younger generation of today is more inclined towards smoother spreading jams, chocolate spreads and peanut butter as opposed to the bitty orange spread.

What had me hooked was the homemade version, made with Seville oranges by Si’s mum. Dark, with an intensely rich flavor. As most modern mothers have no time to make marmalade at home, it is not surprising that their kids have no taste for it. They are missing out on a delicious piece of their heritage.

For variation, it can be flavoured with ginger and whiskey as seen in farmer’s markets and gift shops at distilleries. I like them all.

It’s official. Without doubt, I am now ‘old’.
Both, The Telegraph and BBC Radio 4 support this view.
I am not just old, but ‘elderly’.

Ref: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/02/23/marmalade-preserve-elderly-data-shows/