Waiting

Remembering from past is somewhat like cleaning up the attic. You catch some thread and dig in and once in, you dust-up all those fond memories tucked therein. Though not all are fond, there are those particularly vicious ones, mixed with the ones you want to keep. You have to keep those because it is impossible to chuck them. They are there for you to live with.

I am quite lucky apropos of this. I should suppose so, for I like most of my memories, and, I am rather sympathetic to the undesirable ones. A puritan might see a certain perversion in me, but honestly, I have made peace with most of those bad ones. I see it as my merit!

Not the past, then, but the present it is that I find myself in conflict with. While the past is harmless and the future is far yet, I am ill at ease tackling the lie of the NOW. But then it is there; I am all the more without help. I struggle to channelise this duality, this almost "to be or not to be" aspect , the - always-on-the-brink-of-commitment-factor - into drawing or painting or writing or playing or chatting. I fill up that huge emptiness with 'nonpaying 'activities.

Gap? Yes, gap. Between the causal proposition and effective action thereupon is this spec-like gap to help reflection. Procrastination stretches it, a prompt action resolves it; a new act for a new cause: thus goes the never ending activity of mind. I watch and wait, not knowing quite what or what for.

***

...And then I catch a silk thread and tug at it. Out comes a bundle along with hopes put on hold and crumpled disappointments, missed opportunities and other bric-a-brac. The parcel has a name ... This is not really a memory but a dormant issue that may bring me back again, for it has that unquestionable karmic feel about it. Vis-a-vis this particular one, I wait, too, and I know what I am waiting for. Or is it who? Then again, this may be dormant in my mind alone; for the rest out there it may be dead!

***