Weblog

Wednesday, 02 January 2008

  • Isfahani Music Boxes

    I can't sleep. No surprise. I can't believe my insomnia has returned. With a vengeance. It has taken hold of me in the past week. I just returned from a futile search in the kitchen for my melatonin. Couldn't find it. I feel so wretched. I want to just black out for a few hours so I can be functioning later. It's Fazl's return from hajj dinner. Need to cook large amounts of food. I haven't had an appetite either.

    I found a jewelry box my mom bought in Isfahan. It also doubles as a music box. The melody is so haunting and sweet and just a bit nauseating somehow. I've been listening to it for a few minutes now. I'm trying to think of the man or woman who made it. It's breathtaking.

    I think I feel nauseated because it reminds me of my own incapability to finish any painting I have ever started. Before I sat down to write, I attempted to make some more sketches. But I couldn't. Couldn't even conjure up the lonely man standing in still water that I see in my mind's eye. I have finally given up sketching. Too afraid to face the truth that it will never amount to anything more than illegible scratches of charcoal.

    Writing is my therapy. I come to it when I am lost or heartbroken or inspired by the past. Even my writing has been dead to me recently. I keep deleting whatever I write for a thousand lights. It just doesn't seem right. I'm missing something. Some intrinsic elemental quality within me has of late withered and I am not transparent with my words. I'm going to scream into my pillow for a few minutes.

    I want something.

    I'm reminded of the past. Not the past connected to my mother. But after her.

    I am thinking of myself as the lost 18 year old. Haggard in mind body and soul. Engaged to a man completely unknown to me. I am once again angry at my family. The emotional blackmail. What I see as the desire to be rid of me. I need this to be my one truly cathartic rant in relation to this so I can see the words out in front of me and then simply erase them from my memory. But I won't rant, I have already forgotten all the wrongs.

    So delirious. I can see words on the keyboard. WAS. RED. KOP. SAZ. WED. LOK. 

    I was something that I am not now. I was lonely, am lonely. I was young and old and free and caged. I love red. Blood is red. My bed is red. My passion flows red from my fingers and my eyes, and I want you to look in my eyes and see red. Kop a feel. Who will cop a feel next. In the bazaar, maybe on the hot dusty streets of old city on the way to Sartokh ka alawa. The body is just nothing then. The music, the haunting music, the saz, the desire to melt into it and dissolve between your hands. Your hands are so perfect as they are near me and far and not really there but there all the same in my minds eye. Perfect. Wed the man the woman, is there love? Is there love and desire to belong to one another unconditionally and completely and forever and unconditionally? Why can't love be unconditional. I am sorry I am not perfect, but shouldn't you want me regardless. I want you. Your imperfections, fears, loneliness, perversity and hatred and anger, and childishness and pettiness, and your smiles and frowns and tears and fights and disillusion. I want You. Why is there a lok on the door? The door you insist on keeping locked, why can't I enter? I am not your exotic bird to keep here in this cage, locked away for the world to see, but not to be in it. Don't shield me, you are not my keeper. You are not my keeper. Be my equal or be my nothing. In my heart I will always be a little less than you, because you possess me when no one else dares.

    Why does everything come back to love? Having it or not having it. Wanting it but not getting it. Not knowing when you are in it.

    I have seen what love makes a person do. Irrationality. Complete disregard for what is right and wrong and proper. The ability to shun even one's own people for someone you have no reason to trust. Willingness to hurt others to achieve your means; the elusive beloved. Divorce, death, isanity, anger, jealousy, betrayal, hatred. Seen it all.

    Going to take a shower and go cook dahi ki kadi and dum ka kheema. I know sleep won't come for a while. If ever.




  • Another year has come and gone.

    I've been crying since the past 24 hours. I lied. More like 18. Yesterday was just one of those horrid days where I feel like I'm moving through a dense haze. Something is about to happen.

    I spent last night in the basement going through my mothers things. I've been through everything numerous times. But I had to do it again. Touch everything, feel everything, reassure myself it is all still there. It is.

    I realize this has become a ritual for me whenever I'm at home for long periods of time. I go down to the basement, and sift through everything. Her books and jewelry and clothes and sporadic journal entries strewn through various address books and to-do lists.

    The worst is finding her istekhara notes. Pieces of paper on which she'd write down a question she'd want an answer for. The answer provided by the Quran written on the back. The absolute worst. To date all I've found have been vehement negatives. "Should I pretend that this lump will go away?" NO.

    That particular note is what triggered my exile to my room. I haven't cried. Truly cried in so long. I have simply chosen not to think of these things, and so I don't cry.

    I felt sick. But I couldn't erase the image of those words scrawled in my mothers handwriting. I couldn't prevent myself from feeling the dread and disillusion she must have felt. I couldn't fathom what had led her to ignore the signs.

    Anger and empathy. I am so angry, so very angry, that she chose not to do anything. Blind faith. Blind faith. It is simply so irrational. My heart breaks and my mind is tortured when I imagine how she must have suffered inside. The mental anguish, the pain. The pain is the worst. I want to tell her I understand she was afraid, and I am sorry she was alone. That I was unable to share that pain and fear.

    I have nightmares still. They were superbly grotesque and gruesome after she had first died. But they're not nightmares. They are memories. Of what I have seen and heard and felt and done and said. The seeing was the worst, until the hearing became just as unbearable. But if I was so horrified, I can't even imagine what it must have been for her to experience.

    I hate waking up in cold sweats, with my heart pounding out of my chest. I hate having to recall. I can't control my subconscious. I wish someone would just hold me and let me cry and not judge me for being weak. I hate when I'm alone sometimes the past just creeps into my thoughts, and tries to settle itself. Makes me think and remember.

    The far away, lost look in her eyes. Eyes that had been so beautiful always a bit haunted though. Seeing her waste away and being so helpless. I could do nothing. I prayed and begged. I cried in the shower. I cried in the car. I wanted to beat my chest when she'd ask me "I'm going to be fine right?". I dreaded speaking of the future, because I didn't know what to say.

    The night before she died. I knew this was it. She was all ready gone. Gone to her Baba. This was just body, an unrecognizable person that looked like my mother, but I knew was not. She hadn't spoken in days. She hadn't opened her eyes in days. This was not my mother.

    I'd held her hand the night before and talked to her. I knew she heard me. I told her I would always remember her in the yellow and blue salwar kameez she wore so often when I was a little girl. I would always remember her holding my hand and letting me sleep with her when I was sick. I remember that long ago night so clearly. The bed, the room, the lamp, the comfort. I would always always remember her how she had been before she got sick.

    But I can't. I can't forget how I saw her in the last few months of her life. Living with her in the hospital. Feeling her sadness and loss and fear. I can't forget.

    I mourn for her life. I see her pictures as a young woman. She was so beautiful. Her face radiating optimism.

    If only that young woman knew.








Friday, 23 February 2007

Monday, 19 February 2007

  • Sometimes I'll wake up late at night (if I even fall asleep that is), more often right before dawn, feeling like I've been dropped into boiling water. I hate it. I'll just lie there trying to adjust my still-asleep mind to being awake.

    I wonder at how strange life is. The things that happend, the things that didn't happen, the people that I've lost, the people that I've found, the words I wish I'd never said, and the words I wish I'd said more. All the little, seemingly insignificant moments come hurtling back at me.

    I can't think of the long lapses of time. I can't recall an extended period of my life verbatim, but I do remember all the isolated incidents in minute detail. And many times that kills me inside. What have I done? What was I thinking? Why didn't I stop myself? Why Why Why?

    My life is so surreal to me at times. I can't believe what I'm living is my life. I expect to wake up any moment now, and it was all just a dream, and I'm sixteen again. The past four years havn't happend.

    *******************************************

    On a more regular note...

    We had TWO snowdays. Which is quite amazing, considering uiuc hasn't had any in nearly 30 years. I am now a part of history. In addition, I am also an idiot. I had two whole days of nothing to study for my exams, which got postponed, and did I? No of course not. That would have been entirely too productive of me and would go against my genetic make-up. I instead stayed awake and pretty much stared at my notes. Then I proceeded to sleep all of friday and saturday (literally) because I was so sleep deprived. So right now, I pretty much hate myself. Which I've noticed has become a fairly common sentiment as far as my feelings towards myself are concerned.

    I was supposed to go home this weekend, for majlis's and whatnot. But I didn't because my car is surrounded by a fort of snow. I really need to dig it out sometime tomorrow. Or maybe I'll wait until thursday.

    So I made chicken khorma yesterday. I went into my room to do something and when I got back to the kitchen, I couldn't remember if I'd put salt in it or not. Instead of tasting it first to check for salt (as any other person would have), I just dumped in another spoonfull. Needless to say my khorma, though very delicious, was slightly on the salty end of the spectrum. But I was so hungry I ate it anyway.










Sunday, 07 January 2007

  • So I'm in love...

    The voice and music of Shahram Nazeri. I have only one word: haunting. And that's the kind of music I like I guess. Even if you don't know farsi, you will subconsciously understand Rumi's timeless poetry and devotional love towards his Beloved. And we all know who that is. Hopefully.

    Oh and happy new year to those of you who care and celebrate yet another commercial holiday. I personally love all commercial holidays, but as of late, I just havn't been feeling it.

    Other than that, in reality, I have been feeling quite restless, unsatisfied, as if nothing is bright anymore. Everything seems dull and pointless and lackluster. A futility. Waste of time? Perhaps, and most likely a correct deduction.

    To put it simply, it's like someone has smoked up the room, and everything I see is seen through the haze of a sweet smelling fog. Naturally under such conditions I would hold my breath. And that is exacty how I feel. I have been holding my breath. Life has taken on a surreal quality. Everything is moving in slow motion and everyone is speaking in highly exaggerated and deep voices. Their words slurring and melding together. I don't understand anything.

    Everything is in stunted animation. As if it too is waiting for something happen. I'm waiting for something to happen I just realized. Something. Anything.

    Maybe after school starts and I no longer have time to think, I'll be fine. Or maybe something will happen and I'll be in peace. None of this amplified suspense.

     

     

Top Tags - Weblog

[no tags]