Waiting for the muse....

I waited for you all day. I searched amidst the strings of lights hanging from the ceiling of this large atrium, that keeps the world outside, and I searched through the faux streams, bridges, waterfalls, koi ponds and equatorial and tropical simulations, but you were nowhere to be found. Even as I stared wide-eyed at this fantastic creation, a part of me absorbing the placid alligator slithering underneath the tiny wooden bridge on which we stood, while Christmas music streamed in from somewhere and while red poinsettias charmed our senses, I kept thinking about Tolstoy's description of an opera:

"The floor of the stage consisted of smooth boards, at the sides was some painted cardboard representing trees, and at the back was a cloth stretched over boards. In the center of the stage sat some girls in red bodices and white skirts. One very fat girl in a white silk dress sat apart on a low bench, to the back of which a piece of green cardboard was glued. They all sang something. When they had finished their song the girl in white went up to the prompter's box and a man with tight silk trousers over his stout legs, and holding a plume and a dagger, went up to her and began singing, waving his arms about.

First the man in the tight trousers sang alone, then she sang, then they both paused while the orchestra played and the man fingered the hand of the girl in white, obviously awaiting the beat to start singing with her. They sang together and everyone in the theater began clapping and shouting, while the man and woman on the stage- who represented lovers- began smiling, spreading out their arms, and bowing.

After her life in the country, and in her present serious mood, all this seemed grotesque and amazing to Natasha. She could not follow the opera nor even listen to the music; she saw only the painted cardboard and the queerly dressed men and women who moved, spoke, and sang so strangely in that brilliant light. She knew what it was all meant to represent, but it was so pretentiously false and unnatural that she first felt ashamed for the actors and then amused at them. She looked at the faces of the audience, seeking in them the same sense of ridicule and perplexity she herself experienced, but they all seemed attentive to what was happening on the stage, and expressed delight which to Natasha seemed feigned."

Perhaps you elude me because my thoughts involuntarily move toward an underscoring of my jaded viewpoint. You might seek an innocence, a freshness or someone who still thrills to the sight of rainbows, hearts and flowers and still sees shapes in clouds. Those are the things that in some ways add meaning to the cardboard cut-outs and fat girls in white silk dresses and people waiting to jump in at the beat. I know that's what you seek I have glimpsed your presence in a face that takes my breath away. You laugh there and you sing and you transform yourself into a radiance that blinds me and binds me in a hypnotic trance.

Entranced, yet sentient, I claw at the looming abyss and I fill my days with attempts at newness. I seek answers to questions I never had before and I lose myself in unclear answers and circular references that keep me standing, flailing at the same place. And through it all people come and go, smile a few smiles, that never reach the eyes where I've tried to search for your elusive presence; falsely believing that the promise of a connection would provide the enrichment and fecundity you seek for your prosperity.

But it is getting late here and I must end the search today, convinced of the sterility of this space where every surface has been wiped clean of all that brings you pleasure. I'll think about letting folks in here without scrubs and with shoes and we'll try again tomorrow-for hope lives on even as all else dies.

Whistle while we work...or hum

We’ve finally crossed over from the ridiculous to the sublime. I miss those days of yore when deadlines used to go hand in hand with deliverables. Now deadlines loom ominously over a weekend and threaten equanimity while we wonder what the deliverables are.

There’s uncertainty about when the break came, crept up like most things in life. Like a Pavlovian schedule where the dog starts salivating merely at the sound of a bell we are now required to scroll down and across a spreadsheet and back again with an earth-shattering intensity; it isn’t important enough for anyone to enlighten us about the mysterious thing that is due on a certain date, all we need know is that ‘a’ thing is due, that we might be working nights, days, dusks and dawns since the time crunch is IMMENSE.

The immensity of the time crunch will no doubt prompt required inanities from boss to subordinate and will sound like, “How is it coming?” A question that may be answered with a naively sarcastic “How’s what coming?” leading inevitably to a situation tantamount to an escort out the front door, coffee mugs, shoes, jackets and miscellaneously expropriated goodies stuffed in a little brown box...

...It's conceivable...or perhaps avoidable with a stoic approach to spreadsheet scrolling and trawling to the accompaniment of the slave song a certain six year old insists we hum as we do her bidding around the house.

Bring it on, je suis prêt!

Why Old?

But the rhythm makes a basic lattice on which the melody can rest -- it's a bit like a trellis on which a vine can grow. – David Israel

Here I am, once again, pondering the underlying structure of things; their basic framework. All current deliberations end up at the same place – what’s within?

I often wonder about the American fascination with the old, the ancient, which in this country is rarely more than 300 years old. But there is a certain segment of Americans, the ones whose great-great grandparents were perhaps the first to arrive at these shores. They like old homes, nay, they are fascinated with old homes. They are the polar opposites of people like me whose parents and grandparents were born elsewhere, perhaps in a country with a history that goes back thousands of years, in countries where a national identity can be summed up, according to some authors, in one all-encompassing word like husun (Orhan Pamuk in Istanbul) or saudade (a Portuguese word describing a collective feeling of something akin to nostalgia but not quite...nostalgia may refer to things long gone but saudade perhaps refers to things that appear to be long gone but there's hope of their return). It seems we get tired of carrying around these national identities and come to America to find newness. We like new homes in new developments and we can’t understand the fascination with the old. We listen in amazement as co-workers talk about resurfacing this, wainscoting that, stripping this, remodeling that and we take our deliberations to the next level of thought where it appears to not be just about owning something old; ones own piece of history, but it is also a desire to change old things to ones own specifications, to modify and recreate and make it over into modernity trapped within antiquity.

Questioning co-workers and friends about this fascination yields answers that range from the subjective – “I like old things, they have character” to “You don’t understand, it’s the structure…you’ve got to see the beams in this place, they don’t have the same eye for detail anymore, those structures were solid”. This latter statement brings my mind back to the rhythm, melody and trellis, vine analogy put forth by my eloquent friend David.

Perhaps it is the structure that is of the essence, it’s the rhythmic basis, if you will, of the melodies that a present day American homeowner wants to weave.

But even that may not be all. There is the element of back story, the fact that we believe older things possess character, a rather universal feeling. Most people believe age adds character. But what is it about age that adds character? It must be the back story. It must be about the crow's feet around the eyes that might hint at how much one has laughed over the years and the tiny frown lines telling of the storms weathered, should one care to listen, each etching marking a phase in ones life, a lesson learnt, a rite of passage or a badge of honor.

These are the elusive and irreplaceable elements in a person or a thing that often lend "soul" to it. The lived in, settled in feeling that one doesn't get in a squeaky clean and new place with sheet rock walls and Corian kitchen counters...like the music one would hear from a keyboard synthesizer rather than the rich tones of a real piano.

This is the settled in feeling I crave everytime I feel each day swept clean behind me; leaving no etchings, no cave wall drawings behind at all. It may be why I feel mild annoyance at the pride in a voice thrilled at having acquired something old. It may even describe the twinge or spasm (depending on my mood) at the lack of traditions in our fledgling lives, the lack of routines or rituals of any kind. It is an unstructured existence, and we often declare its nature with pride and with a hint of rebellion stating, "Oh that's not us at all!" A friend, a newlywed is ecstatic at having started a Diwali tradition and keepsake ornaments are the bestselling items at my employer's corporate parent...keepsakes and heirlooms and things passed down through generations...Christmas trees decorated with antique earrings, for a lark one year, and then ever since...while I lament the absence of a trellis around which I can try and weave some melodies. The presence of said trellis or lattice that eludes me in all things I venture as I resign myself to the notion that invertebrates live a life as well.

I am at the end of this free-flowing stream of thought that acknowledges no framework of thought, or beginnings or ends. It started as a questioning and a wondering and is ending with an attempt at understanding the initial question and the consequential angst as understanding dawns at a permanence that I continue to fail to create.

Everyone needs to settle in.
That lived-in feeling, a must.
The rust, the dent in the couch,
the scratches on the door,
the wrinkles and,
the chipped mug,
all quite indispensable.

Like water, like melting ice,
seeping through every
cranny, every
nook
from first sight
to last look,

Everyone needs to settle in

to new shoes - old shoes
until they caress, stretch, give,
or perhaps lose
their prime condition, replaced
with comfort

and adjust to constant change,
invention
specks of dirt and layers of nacre,
that leave
nestled
nurtured
naked
settled

...a pearl.

Sunday, November 4th

Woke up this morning wondering how to anchor this day and to not let it vanish wordlessly and soundlessly in the long chain of Sundays of the past that have been folding up on themselves behind me.

The answer soon came in the form of the little lady waking up, freshening up and then proceeding to preen before the dresser for a very long time, trying different hairstyles and different clothes on and asking how she looked. Mommy's lipsticks were surreptitiously retrieved and applied and the hair was artfully moussed with an excess of mousse. Then the pretty face smiled up at me and asked how much it would hurt to get her ears pierced.

Now the hubby and I have something against piercings and are horrified daily by cashiers in book and music stores, baristas at the bookstore cafes whose every facial feature is studded with something and we had decided a long time ago that if we ever encounter a daughter who wants something pierced we'll deny the request with vehemence and then concede to each ear being pierced. We had imagined this would happen sometime during the teen years, not at six.

But the young lady wanted to start wearing earrings and my heart went "awwwww". So we headed for the mall today and got the ears pierced. She looks like a beautiful young lady now and I hear the dinging alarm in the back of my head at how precious and ephemeral these moments really are.

Well, the preening in front of the mirror has temporarily abated as the bed started looking appealingly trampoline like to our princess and now she's airborne, and falling backwards and forwards, screaming how she feels like a yo-yo!