Category: Thoughts uncut

Joy, unexpected

“Happy Wednesday!”

She called out to me, clicking her mobile phone off. We passed each other outside the shopping mall—I was going in, and she out. Her leggings, shirt, braid, and hat mostly comprised of pink—which often is an immediate turnoff for me. However, that bubblegum look did catch my eye, and she caught my eye for a quick second, enough to smile widely and wish me a great day. 

Instinctively, my face broke into a wide smile, and I responded with an enthusiastic “You too!”

This was new to me. And as I turned back to face my path, the smile on my face was fixed, ecstatic for no good reason. Perhaps she sensed it, for “Pass it on!” she waved after me.

“I will!” I meant to say, but it came out as “Thanks!” instead.

Regardless of what I said, for the next few moments I felt elated, as if I’d won a competition and nothing could bring me down. All of a sudden, I wanted to yell at the couple and their two children walking ahead to have a great day. I didn’t, though, because a lot of folks I’ve seen in my neighbourhood aren’t too receptive to strangers addressing them.

That said, my good mood continued throughout the day. I remembered that woman and her flip phone, and imagined her wheeling her travelling bag down the street, cheering up many other people’s lives. 

It was a small gesture, negligible some might say—a smile and a greeting. But it made such a difference to me. And it made me think. 

It costs us nothing to be friendly, and yet so many of us walk the streets with impassive expressions, eyes cast down, afraid to look at the person walking past us. We meet new people and mechanically say “hello” and “how are you,” not even looking at them. As they speak, we nod but don’t listen. We converse and co-exist without knowing or understanding the other person. 

Not everyone’s like this, I admit. However, I have come across a lot of such people. Enough to know that that’s what makes the lady in pink so special. She stood out from the masses—she was bold, and became an encounter I cherish.

It’s nice to be nice. It’s contagious.

Writing is living

I was attending a panel discussion about poetry when someone mentioned how research is a great way to accumulate ideas, facts, and anecdotes, and how during the process of writing a poem, you learn to strip out the unnecessary details and keep only what makes your piece worth reading. 

That got me thinking. Planning for a story, a poem, or a novel is all about collecting random information in one place. It’s essential prep work. And only when you have that massive pile of overwhelming information can you condense it and identify key elements that add value to your work.

Unless we go through that rigorous cutting of the bulk in our work, the piece itself will sag under the weight of too much information. What we once deemed good becomes its downfall. 

Life is like that too. 

We all spend so much time and money acquiring things—books, furniture, clothes, jewellery, bags, shoes, and so much more that take up and over our lives. We don’t realise these things are baggages that can hold us back.

Just as in writing, the solution is to get rid of what we don’t need. 

To live minimally, so we reduce our impact on our surroundings, and be aware of ourselves. Makes for a quick getaway too. To do all that, we need to get rid of the possessions we so lovingly accumulate. It isn’t easy, and to paraphrase Faulkner, it’s like killing your darlings. But if we want the result to be worthy at all, it has to be done.

Of daylight savings

A lot of my friends overseas whine at having to rewind their clocks twice a year. Living in a country where daylight savings wasn’t a thing, I tried my best to sympathise with them and nod along as they apologised for missing meetings, and ranted about how the change was disrupting their lives.

Now though, I live in a country that does have an official system of daylight savings. About three weeks ago, Canberra went from AEST to AEDT, which means we have now turned our clocks an hour late. 

I couldn’t care less about it. 

I understand that people working defined times in a day would be thrown off by the sudden shift. But it didn’t affect me in any way, except giving me an extra hour of sleep every morning.

Aside from that, I don’t understand why the rest of the world gets so upset when the clock turns. It’s a mild, temporary, adjustment that we get used to within a couple of weeks.

I don’t see purpose in physically delaying time. So why complain and make a big deal of it?

When I look through my bedroom window, at 6 pm, it’s bright, sunny, and warm. I’m amazed that I can spend another couple of hours wandering around the lake before it gets too dark to stay out without a flashlight. (It’s not hot yet, and I’m not looking forward to summer.)

My point is, we’re getting so much daylight in a day. When nature herself gives us more than we could ever ask for, we shouldn’t be worrying about petty things like human made clocks.

If we just stop trying to fit time into our constraints, perhaps we’d be happier and notice all the time that we do have in our hands.

Of stories

When we read, we lean into a whole new world. A world full of people, things, and situations that intrigue us, entice us, trigger our agitations, and in the end leaves us in a blissful state of wanting more.

Reading is escaping into a realm that we don’t expect for ourselves. It’s a getaway, if you will, from the harsh realities of our everyday lives. Whether it’s from the kids rattling in their rooms, their joyful squeaks echoing through the thin old walls, wooden floorboards creaking even at the weight of the lightest in the house, or from the pending laundry, unattended work emails, or dirty dishes, we all use stories as a way to avoid facing what we eventually must. 

After all, the imaginary world is so much more interesting than our melting, sweltering real world.

As I marvelled this, I realised that not only readers ignore the piling mound of boring routine. Writers do too. Perhaps that’s why they are writers in the first place. Not only is writing a way to avoid the rest of the world, it’s also an intense form of empowerment to create your own.

When I write a story, I often don’t deviate from the way things are around me. I draw inspiration from people I see every day, from paths I wander, from music I listen to, and the conversations I engage in. However, these references don’t always reflect on the story. Instead, I twist it to my fancy. Even something as simple as the shape of a cup could be wildly incorrect—improper. That doesn’t mean a tea cup could be as impractical as a trophy cup, but it’s still the writer’s choice.

When you think o fit that way, the art of reading and writing stories is an act of going against what humankind has made acceptable and natural. 

It’s a way of rebelling, of protesting against normality, against the agreeable. Sometimes it’s as basic as a black man walking down a white neighbourhood, and sometimes it’s more aggressive as big brother watching you.

Stories are more than just stories.

There’s a process

I’ve always thought poetry was self-expression. And so for a long time, whenever I sat down to write, I let my emotions reverberate through my bones, ebb into my fingers, and onto the screen. 

It seemed like the natural thing to do, and any alliteration, assonance, or metre that came with it was an added advantage—a happy co-incidence. Certainly not a concentrated, contrived effort on my part.

Then I learnt my idea of poetry was total bonkers. 

Sure, I still write when the muse takes over my mind and I don’t have to work as hard to string words into meaning. However, I also met people, actual poets, who’ve published in many esteemed places, talk about the process of writing poetry.

There’s a process?

Indeed, there is. From a couple of panel discussions at the Poetry on the Move festival, and from many observations that dawned on me during the weekend, I’ve realised that poetry doesn’t just hit you like a flash of lightening in a storm-studded sky. 

Instead, it’s a conscious effort to twist memory and wring out emotions within, to recollect and relive life instances, of the time we knocked into a tree, too busy looking at the phone, and of the next time we attempted to consciously sidestep the tree only to realise that was gone—sacrificed, cut down for construction.

A poet I heard recently said she needs at least three hours to write one poem. 

That’s when it hit me. Art, regardless of form, isn’t subconscious. It’s meticulous and deliberately delicate.

The world seldom respects that.