The Sense(lessness) of Belonging(s)

Sense of belonging - it is the nth sense. Something akin to umami. It lends the unfathomable flavor to life.  However heartfelt the feeling may be, it is still intangible. It doesn't come from where you are born. It doesn't come from where you live. It comes from where you feel your worth. It is where you feel  liberated to seek your true worth. That is where you belong; the sense of belonging belongs  there. And that is, anywhere and, everywhere!

Belongings  - senseless! Like the dowry people fight over. The manic maniacs who are obsessed with the greed to possess the riches! The possessed! Whose belongings are those anyway? Theirs? Nope!  It is, in fact, much ado about "nothing". In the struggle to usurp anon's belongings, it is easy to crush another's sense of belonging.  The longing to belong starts thence. The self takes a drubbing. Therein lies the rub...rubbing salt into the wound. This hitherto unknown sense becomes conspicuous by its absence!

Remember, you never belonged there, in the first place! So long to belong but never for the belongings! ;)

¡No sé por qué!

No sé por qué... ¿Qué?

No sé por qué siento lo que hago.

No sé por qué no me siento nada, a veces. Y me siento todo, a veces. ¿Por qué siento todo? No sé por qué me siento lo que la otra persona se siente!

¿Porque veo todo? ¿Estoy viendo mucho demasiado? ¡No, no otra vez!

Quiero dejar de ver. Quiero dejar de verlos que me da dolor. Quiero dejar de pensar. 

No sé. Simplemente no quiero saber. 

Quiero paz..paz conmigo mismo. Quiero que todo el mundo contento. 

Voy a ir a pintar ahora. Todo lo que sé es esto. ¡Así es soy!

Not every friend remains a friend

No, not even the best of the lot! I was shocked the first time this truth hit me. And it came in when I was going through the worst upheaval of my life. It was sickening to know what a sadist she turned out to be. 

She coated her chirpy conversations with fine glaze. It was just the icing on the cake. Ignorant of the intentions that lurked beneath the cloak of this supposedly understanding friend, I shared my numerous joys and miniscule doses of unhappiness with her.

She chose to let me soak in my happiness alone but she kept track of me. She pitched in with her efforts to glean every detail of my unhappiness. She shared her happy milestones with me. Yes, milestones they were because otherwise, she didn't surface. It was her self-effacing way to show off. I was genuinely happy for her, as I did even for the faintest acquaintance.

It wasn't that simple. The glaze chipped away once, and I saw through it all.  She repayed a gift with one of similar worth. She didn't have to. So, she was keeping track. Friends don't do that. It wore me down by its weight. Too heavy an emotion to describe! There is so much to read between the lines, which I guess only she would understand. I know she would be  reading this. (I hope you get it, mi amiga! )

She has this uncanny knack of hitting at the most tender spot. Unfortunately for her, that's where my gut feeling arises. N i could see her smirking at what she believed was giving me searing pain. She reads this bit of my (s)crap-space in the virtual world and concocts her own impressions of what is on my mind. So I decided to take the bait and play my own game.  She gets her refills of sadistic amusement and I, mine, whenever she texts me out of the blue.

 It hurt to see that she was waiting all the years to see me lose. Lose, I did, a friend! 

.

The Art Sabbatical at Ann Arbor

Random thoughts on my Art sabbatical @ Ann Arbor ;)

I love weekends and the way I choose to spend it - quiet, unto myself.  Weekends remained pristine  until I finished high school - the Saturdays and Sundays in my possession, Once into medical school, things changed..my idea of weekend took the first beating. Saturdays were meant to work. And so it continued, with no respite.

There came a time when I chose to work even on Sundays. Solitude is a choice but loneliness is not.  Life is an (oxy)moronic irony, isn't it? Unable to bear the pregnant silence of loneliness with the truant mind endlessly bickering unto itself, it was my choice and I had no complaints.

One needs to lose something to appreciate its worth. I have reason to rejoice. I have time to indulge myself. I have the luxury of having my weekends all to myself, again! My work no longer expands to fill the available weekend. I fill my weekends with creativity, weilding the pencil.

There is something magical about holding the pencil - el lapiz! Peace runs in my veins as I hold el lapiz. (Pun unintendedly intended)

What started on the eve of Holi of 2009 as a desperate act to counter my loneliness and to kill time as I sat in my lab, has evolved over the years and grown into a passion. It all started with my sketching isolated eyes, noses, and lips. Then came pairs of eyes. I stopped with sketching the eyes. I was happy and contented. I looked at eyes; so, I sketched eyes. That's what I told people. Honestly, I was just too lazy and unsure of my true potential!

I once tried sketching my friend Ad. It turned out like that of Bhagat Singh - disastrous "A 2 B"  i called it! Didn't have the courage to show him nor the doggedness to attempt again. I was too tired to attempt; was myopic to see beyond and risk a walk in the beauty of the woods. Those were the times when i remained tied to a tree, the family tree.

As I learnt to fall back on this innate passion to soothen my frayed nerves, I took up the pencil a little more often. I had to prove myself to no one. I didn't have to be perfect. I had myself to call my own. I felt more confident about making mistakes, to fumble, to try again. Voila! I could sketch a full face with so much of life!

 Life is full of surprises and I am thankful..one step at a time!

 Now, with the certainty of my weekends, life has become perfect with its own imperfections. Life is always perfect in the artist's imagination, especially with the realisation that I am getting better at it, with regular practice - "The Art Sabbatical at Ann Arbor".

How effacing is self-effacing?

How effacing is self-effacing? Let's face the truth.

Nobody likes to be in the company of someone who constantly blows his or her trumpet. I would not, honestly. Would I like the company of a self-effacing person? Again, nope.

I like to be amidst humble people but definitely not with the consciously modest kind. There is a discerning line betwen being modest and self-efffacing. Or maybe, even a glaring line. Being a trait of the pretentious, it is particularly tiring to keep the person's ego soothed and buttered. One has to blow the trumpet for the other person. Not that I am faced with such a predicament that i chose to pen my thoughts. This thought surfaced on my mind, and took over like a water hyacinth, ever since i talked about it with a friend yesterday.

I use this portal as a scrapbook to jot down my distracting thoughts. And life goes on...Thoughts may come and thoughts may go, but life goes on forever, like the little brook.

Now that the overwhelmingly distracting thought is well on its way to getting itself effaced, it is worth the effort to dwell on "self-effacement", isn't it? ;)