Why we don’t talk much anymore

Did you know that I am inspired by the trees? It broke my heart to leave London not because of the birds, as some believed, but because of the trees. In fact, while waiting to get onto the flight, trees were the first things I wrote about and drew in my diary. If ever they ask me what inspires me the most, I will probably answers trees. Also, I love the smell of mint; it's calming and invigorating. And that’s the only reason why I always drink mint tea whenever we meet. Now you know.

I don’t think college was the best time of my life. It was good while it lasted, but frankly I was glad when it was over. The "golden days" can carry the conversation only this far. Yes, there were friendships and some such, but the status you (by you I mean the generic “you” as used by horoscope writers) and every other tween and teen has posted, sums it up succinctly- forget the people in your past there is a reason they didn't make it to your future. Which brings me to a minor point, do you even believe in what you claim to believe in?

Now we are on facebook. And its friendship in safe mode where “LOL” is considered an appropriate response. And everything else is categorized as “nice”. But then “what is Facebook Friendship, after all, but the unending quest for People Like Me, people who like all of My Favorite Things—a monument to mutually enabling narcissism, disguised as a Place Where Everybody Knows Your Name?)'* However, lets move on from here, in part because I am only writing this as I need to get stuff out of the way before I can get back to things that really matter like a latte and Leonard Cohen. And also in part because there is nothing I can say about facebook that hasn’t already been said.

And that brings us to the question: why we don’t talk much anymore? Because there’s nothing to say that I hasn't already been said before.

*You can read more about ironic appreciation- “liking things,” rather than liking things, haters, lifebox, and other such stuff here.

Of other snows, other continents

A plastic bag hovers behind a garbage truck passing by. A futile attempt that is doomed to end in defeat by the roadside. The snow of yesterday garnishes the sidewalk and the hills beyond. The orange tabby springs from nowhere leaving scars on the pavement. The only birds signing are the crows on the prowl.

Photographs in folders dated and numbered wait to be opened. A year in the life gone by must be browsed through again. In the meantime disheveled thoughts scatter ideas, half-baked and ill-formed. The smoke cloud from the neighbour’s backyard hangs above the conifers undecidedly then moves to the skyscrapers. The person on the 34th floor looks out of the window and watches a fluffy white rabbit scamper by.

The church bells are muffled as it starts to snow again. The sea gull catches a snowflake and takes it past the sugar maples, leafless and forlorn. The cows on the windowsill watch the “herb garden in a pot” in astonishment. The fragrance of spearmint mixes with oregano mocking the whiteness outside. The blue tit carved in wood is pensive contemplating other snows, in other continents. And perhaps will say,
I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster. *

And that brings the mind back to the year gone by. Perhaps one would call it the worst year yet. Or perhaps one would say it was an experiment that went wrong. At least now it is known that this will
not work. But really it wasn’t a disaster?

*One Art by Elizabeth Bishop

In time of roses

  in time of daffodils (who know
the goal of living is to grow)
forgetting why, remember how

in time of lilacs who proclaim
the aim of waking is to dream,
remember so (forgetting seem)

in time of roses (who amaze
our now and here with paradise)
forgetting if, remember yes

in time of all sweet things beyond
whatever mind may comprehend,
remember seek (forgetting find)

and in a mystery to be
(when time from time shall set us free)
forgetting me, remember me
 
in time of daffodils a poem by e.e. cummings