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I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
so I love you because I know no other way

that this: where I do not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.
-I do not love you by Pablo Neruda

midnight musings

My week of having the place to myself has come to an end. But it was fun while it lasted...catching movies at odd hours of the night, having sleepovers, stocking up on all sorts of snacks, playing my old cds (well, not that old) that haven't received much attention in recent years. I've always felt ambivalent about being alone. Enjoying my own space, but missing having people around. But this time it was different. I could be by myself without overthinking, overanalyzing every little thing. Without worry about the future, without regrets that sometimes bear too heavy from the distant past. Midnight hours flipping through an old book while curled up in bed, songs by The Corrs and Jewel playing softly in the background, it's a rare sense of stillness I feel. An old comfort telling me that everything is going to be ok. And all those grey thoughts looming in my head seem so small, so insignificant. Tracing my finger over the corner of my bookshelf, filled with quotes scribbled over the years, some have faded, others are barely legible. The oldest one, about tenacity by Louis Pasteur, tucked in the corner, an impulsive scribble while preparing for o-levels. Random words such as Sputnik that hold more meaning to me than one would guess just by looking at it. The constant need for answers and meaning sometimes overshadows the process of finding them. It's in these lines, this stream of words that, at that time, moved me, motivated me, made me laugh out loud or brought out the smallest smile, that I see the beauty that can be in randomness. Maybe it's ok if life gets a little messy sometimes, if reason and purpose evades us at some turns. Maybe it's supposed to. I know this feeling wouldn't last long, and tomorrow the old worries will creep back once again. But I'll remember what it was like, these hours of contentment to myself, and remember to be still every once in a while.

What's left unsaid

My sweet song
In a language I don’t understand
Familiar shades of sadness
In the baritone I’ve yet to forget
Hesitation of uncertainty
Laced with old promises and regret

My sweet song
The gentle murmur of your voice
Faded memories fall around me
Furtive whispers in the night
Warm breath against the ear
In your words I did delight

My sweet song
More a reflection of you than me
Hidden in every inflection
Meaning held within their confine
It seems so often we fail to see
The ones we try to define

My sweet song
The meaning I may never know
Poignant and distant
Even when you are so near
Growing spaces lie between us
Yet your voice, I hear

My sweet song
In a language you may not understand
Though now there are no words
It’s only silences that you find
There’s so much left unsaid
And I hope you read between the lines

amor fati

Hope is the thing with feathers-
That perches in the soul-
And sings the tune without the words-
And never stops at all-

And sweetest -in the Gale- is heard-
And sore must be the storm-
That could abash the little Bird-
That kept so many warm-

I've heard it in the chillest land-
And on the strangest Sea-
Yet, never, in Extremity-
It asked a crumb – of Me-

~Hope Is The Thing With Feathers
by Emily Dickinson

Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night

Old age should burn and rave at close of day;

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light. -by Dylan Thomas

The woods are lovely, dark and deep

She felt very young; at the same time unspeakably aged. She sliced like a knife through everything; at the same time was outside, looking on. . . .far out to sea and alone; she always had the feeling that it was very, very dangerous to live even one day.- Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf

but I have promises to keep

Only life as we have, within our hazard-given abilities, made it ourselves, life as Marx defined it-the actions of men(and of women) in pursuit of their ends.

The river of life, of mysterious laws and mysterious choice, flows past a deserted embankment; and along that other deserted embankment Charles now begins to pace, a man behind the invisible gun-carriage on which rests his own corpse. He walks towards an imminent, self-given death? I think not; for he has at last found an atom of faith in himself, a true uniqueness, on which to build; has already begun, though he would bitterly deny it, though there are tears in his eyes to support his denial, to realize that life is not a symbol, is not one riddle and one failure to guess it, is not to inhabit one face alone or to be given up after the losing throw of the dice but is to be, however inadequately, emptily, hopelessly into the city's iron heart, endured. And out again, upon the unplumb'd, salt, estranging sea.- closing paragraph of The French Lieutenant's Woman by John Fowles

...and miles to go before I sleep

I do believe it's true
That there are roads left in both of our shoes
If the silence takes you
Then I hope it takes me too
So brown eyes I hold you near
Cause you're the only song I want to hear
A melody softly soaring through my atmosphere
- Soul meets Body by Death cab for Cutie

A walk by the beach

A walk by the beach today, sipping our drinks, talking about everything and nothing. Slightly over 2 years ago, we were at a beach far away from here, sitting in silence, occasionally talking about turning 20..how it felt too soon, and we wondered how we would change. I don’t know how much we have changed, maybe we are less self-conscious, less hesitant, more rational. Maybe we are the same two girls running to the oceanside in the early hours of the mornings in our ghastly pink jackets to catch the sunrise, feeling so removed from reality, living in the moment. I don’t know. Today you said you do feel 22, and that realization is tinged with sadness and relief. A part of you wanting to go back and do it all over again, another part of you never wanting to step back into those tumultuous years again. Guess we are slowly learning to embrace our age.
As for change, I think we are always changing, through circumstance or choice, but the core of us remains more or less unchanged. At least that is what I think for now. I can say with much certainty that I’m no longer an introspective and idealistic teen. No, I’ve grown…I’m now an introspective and idealistic 22 year old. Looking back at my early journal entries, I can recognize my own voice in my questioning tone, tendency to overanalyze the most insignificant of things and in my musings about life. Yet, I’ve changed so much since then, in other ways. And I wonder about the changes the future will bring. Wonder what we’ll say about change when we are sixty, watching the sun rise over the horizon by the beach, sipping our drinks... talking about everything and nothing.

We do not grow absolutely, chronologically. We grow sometimes in one dimension, and not in another; unevenly. We grow partially. We are relative. We are mature in one realm, childish in another. The past, present, and future mingle and pull us backward, forward, or fix us in the present. We are made up of layers, cells,
constellations.- Anais Nin