Collage

Start of a new year like any other date based milestone that we celebrate is a curiously eccentric human thing. On closer, sober scrutiny they tend to seem like artificial constructs without any real significance on the journey but they give us occasions to be happy, wish people and reflect, which are all extremely legitimate & critical reasons  to perpetuate the practice.

The only dampener on that logic is that, ideally, if being happy and connecting with friends & people and reflecting on our lives are so very important, we should be doing these all day, every day.

But hey, we are busy.

So take advantage of these artificial constructs, we shall.

I think doing so also lends itself well for that reflecting piece. A new year seems like a good time to take stock - emotionally & psychologically.

Memories have a way of coming up as these random discrete images. It's as if, subconsciously, our brains have decided to precipitate an experience, a continuous linked set of events or an emotional feeling that has grown over time into one or few vivid images; Pinnacles that soar above the cloud of our consciousness to stand out from all the earthy rocky moments of our existence; Snapshots of life that we have subconsciously hash-tagged as worthy of remembrance.

As its wont, memories catch us unawares. When we are about to drift off lying in bed. When we are standing in a crowded metro. When we are walking alone on a chilly evening. When we are dreaming.

If we let that moment sustain, it sometimes feels surreal. It's like how the images fuzz out when we squint our eyes and let the borders dissolve. A kaleidoscope of memories.

2015 has given me a fair share. So a new year seems as good a  moment as any to build the collage of our being as a measure of what the last time period has been. A palette of memories - Joyous, melodious, sorrowful, angry, peaceful, exhilarating, humbling, shameful, prideful memories. Images that are colorful and bright. And images that are grey and dull.

And when this happened to me today morning, I realized I had mostly heartwarming images swirling in my head. Yes, there were sad ones. But such is a human life. And besides, when we really go meta on it, the black & grey pixels are essential for a painting that is meant to be rich and colorful and vibrant to actually be rich and colorful and vibrant.

And while there are many counter views, I believe memories are our only anchor. Memories are what made and is making us, us. Memories are our identity. And when all is said and done, when all superficial trappings of our life have been lost or rendered meaningless, memories are our only possession.

So I wish you and myself, as the new year begins, that we make good memories in the coming year.

To let the images collect in our lives' albums, knowing that some are bound to be black and hoping to have the wisdom to acknowledge that they are enriching the collage.

Here's to a colorful new year. 

Paperbacks

I always smell my books.

Yes, you read that right.

But no, not at the book shop where there are people milling about. That might  be construed as a shameful act. There I only read some comics end-to-end, spend countless hours reading back cover snippets or sometimes prologues to decide on the books, surreptitiously look at the title of the books that other people are evaluating and some such shameless acts.  (I just realized that the words shameless and shameful have very interesting usage. Yeah, sometimes I shamelessly digress like that.)

No. The act of olfactory investigation comes later.

When I go home after the book purchase sojourn and have finished writing my name, date and place of purchase. (I am reminded of a brilliant piece of dialog from "Up in the air" -   "Men get such hardons from putting their names on things. You guys don't grow up. It's like you need to pee on everything.". Touche. And I already confessed that I digress.).

But that's when I do it. When I am lying down snuggly on the sofa with the book in hand. I caress the spine, feel the letter emboss on the title, open a random page and inhale the euphoric fragrance of a newly printed book.

Yes, it is, in a way, sensual I suppose. After all, what we have with a book is a relationship. In all essence of the word. That is probably why the smell of an old book makes one feel embraced with a familiarity that comes with time. That is probably why an old book's fragrance is not only emotive but also hallucinogenic. For me, It always conjures up an image of a medieval time wooden shack in the middle of a rich forest, filled with the sounds of chirpy birds and rustling leaves and a gurgling brook, all in the back drop of a cloudy grey sky with a pleasantly cool breeze.

And my relationships were only with paperbacks. They age less gracefully but I think it adds to their charm. The motley browning of pages, the frayed edges, crinkles on the spine.  Hardcovers were like celebrity crushes. You know what I mean  right? :/

I had moved on to reading ebooks the last couple of years. There were multiple reasons -non availability of some of the titles that I wanted in the local book shops, the price difference, the convenience of carrying multiple books in a small device, so on and so forth.

Technology has made our lives a lot easier and cooler. I forced myself the bitter pill of migrating to ebooks  and now after a couple of years I buy only on Kindle. Now I do feel pretty ok reading on a digital screen. It's pretty handy - I read on the road, in the metro, at lunch, during boring movies, in travel.

But I miss the fragrance. More than anything. Yes, I also miss the feel of paper and the subconscious anticipation of the end by the relative weights in the right & left hands. But I miss the fragrance. It's almost like the smell adds a separate tangible offering in addition to the actual content. Like a personality.

But such is life. Old gives in to new. Tradition gives in to convenience.

But whatever gives in, lives on.

In flashes of nostalgia, in our dreams, in an subliminal yearning.  

While the new can be convenient and cool, the traditional and the old, while existing only in the memories, still warms the soul.

And while I adopt technology in the fast paced world that we live in, making ends meet, saving for the future, working for my career, I still think of that wooden shack to retire in and read paperbacks.

In tribute to all the paperbacks that have given me company, entertainment, thrills, laughs, knowledge, wisdom and ultimately unwavering friendship. 

Loud Silence

I hear that a relative's relative, who was known to be a kind person, passed away. It saddens me. It does.

I see the news of a terrorist beheading a captive, who ironically was an aid worker. It angers me. It does.

I read articles on economic inequalities and poverty. It makes me guilty. It does.

I get to know of a friend losing his job. It pains me. It does.

And along with the above, a new superhero movie excites me, a thrilling novel entertains me, office work preoccupies me, close family matters worries me and the sight of the street pup running around warms me. It does.

The problem? If I had the time, I would have tweeted or posted something about most of the above in exactly the same sequence as I was exposed to the sensory stimuli.

The bigger problem? I might have done that, probably and circumstances enabling, within the same day. Or a week. But you get the point.

Empathy, broadly, is defined as the ability to recognize and/or share the emotions of another sentient being. This ability lets us acknowledge somebody else's pain, albeit in a subdued and mellowed down form. As social beings I suppose this ability gives us the opportunity to respect somebody else's pain, loss and suffering. And usually this respect is shown by being sober and spartan, by being silent and comforting, by avoiding celebrations and overt expressions of joy.

Maintaining a semblance of this respect, empathy and sympathy in the offline world, that is, the only world that was until a few years ago, seemed delicate enough with its own absurdities, uncertainties, amateurish non-qualified explorations of human psychology, pattern analyses and predictions of people's reactions. The avenues where such mind numbing care had to be taken were far and few. We obviously have the sense not to talk about how interesting the national political scene is or how exciting a film is, to or in the presence of a distressed person.

Cut to the social media age, when I sit back and analyze my own expressions of voices on various e forms I feel like I sound like a complete jerk. To scale it to real life it is akin to saying the following at a stretch in a single room filled with all of the people we are talking to in each of the case, fully audible to everyone in the room.

"CANT WAIT FOR AVENGERS2!!!! Oh, I am so sorry for your loss. Enough of this Bedi Kejriwal Modi crap already. Hahaha look at this funny meme. I strongly condemn intimidation against freedom of speech. I really like your facebook photo. India is going to win the match against Pakistan. I empathise with your tragedy, stay strong. Look at my new photo. AWW LOL CAT."

As a related digression, I am reminded of the following brilliant piece of prose by the fascinating author Gaiman. (In case you haven't read him, do yourself a favour and give his book a try. You won't regret you did)

“No man, proclaimed Donne, is an Island, and he was wrong. If we were not islands, we would be lost, drowned in each other's tragedies. We are insulated (a word that means, literally, remember, made into an island) from the tragedy of others, by our island nature, and by the repetitive shape and form of the stories. The shape does not change: there was a human being who was born, lived, and then, by some means or another, died. There. You may fill in the details from your own experience. As unoriginal as any other tale, as unique as any other life. Lives are snowflakes—forming patterns we have seen before, as like one another as peas in a pod (and have you ever looked at peas in a pod? I mean, really looked at them? There's not a chance you'd mistake one for another, after a minute's close inspection), but still unique.”

So I guess the truth is that -while we all are occupied in our own little worlds and feel our own problems, irrespective of how small they are, are bigger than others and exert effort or tangible action primarily only to influence our little circle- the momentary feelings of sadness, anger, pain and frustration felt at the plight of a fellow human being are as sincere as any. But except a select few who are endowed with indomitable spirit and an inexhaustible ability to empathise, the rest of us rarely actually do anything with these feelings we have.

A case can be made that the larger world does care, given the huge droves of sympathies and empathies shared online. But it is rather betrayed by the fact that the number of hashtags is bigger than the message, that the number of message is too loud to be legible and that the sequence of messages ranges from the truly serious to trolls and memes. The acts of emoting online and claiming support to a cause vociferously, while genuine the intentions may be, are probably only useless proxies for a non-existent action, to effect, to alter, to actually influence.

These high pitched and loud voices, perhaps, are then not visible expressions of underlying actions, but that of a deafening silence.

But I don't think there is any reason to sweat it. It's probably part of being human. It's probably part of being islands. Now that I have arrived at that logical point in my head the question is not whether one can feel sympathy for somebody else and yet completely fail to act beyond one's own world or avoid obsessing about one's own life. 

Because we do that. 

No, the question is whether we are right to tweet about these, like these and post these? Is this violating the basic sense of respect that we show in the offline world to those who are suffering? Does it make us insensitive people?

Well, I don't know. I know many people who are completely disconnected from social media. Some who have a presence but rarely post anything. Some who only likes others posts. And heck, we all have been all of these above someone during some phases. But I am sure some wiser and smarter souls than me have realized this conundrum that I am talking about much earlier and thus remain silent or disconnected on social media? Suddenly, I do have a new found respect for these people. But then they can also simply be silent stalkers who just track people's updates online. Who the hell knows anyway.

Now I will post this on my Facebook - An idle mind's ruminations on a fairly interesting but completely useless aspect of an unarguably first world problem - when kind people are passing away, self less people are getting beheaded, a lot of families remain buried in poverty, millions are perishing in war, famine, disease or hunger and millions more suffering under incapacitating, humiliating social structures.

Why? Because I suppose I don't truly give a shit.
...okay...My abject apologies for the foul language.

Oh, but wait, you don't give any shit too.

PS - Now wasn't that a nice Valentine's day post? 

Atom bomb in a Papaya

Diwali was always special when we were kids for it was the only festival that packed the whole deal - school holidays, mom made special sweets, new clothes, new superstar movies and fireworks. Getting up early to burst individual bijilies however monotonous it sounds (that was a good pun eh?) was infinitely more rewarding and more interesting than having to get up early for, say, the Suryan poojai in Pongal. From a purely adrenaline point of view the other festivals were woefully short changed.(Side note - MS Word should get a Desi version. It tried to auto correct "Bijilies" to "Bikinis". Seriously. Abacharam.)

Unlike other festivals, Diwali alone had the unique distinction of getting started at least 10-15 days before the actual day.  

There was an elegant beauty to the sequence.

T minus 15 days - The Tape Gun games are the first. Oh how I miss those! Every year I used to cry, roll on the floor, plead, fight and get a new gun. The big box of "ammo" used to have 10 individual packages and each package used to have 10 rolls. Having one of these gave a deep sense of protection akin to Calvin making numerous snow balls.  Running around in the neighborhood with your friends,  shooting each other was a deeply satisfying and immensely enjoyable simulation of tactical urban warfare.

T minus 10 days - Then came the bijilies. These were cheap and numerous. So like the pawns on a chess game, these were the first to go without any remorse. The other "big" stuff had to be saved for the last. But Bijilies were my first experience with compounding items - tying up two or three or sometimes four of them together. Many of the bijilies also tended to fizzle out and so at the end of the day will be the paper-mat ritual where all dud ones are put on a paper and the paper is lit on fire. Nothing can go to waste after all, now can it?

T minus 6 days - Next in line were the slightly bigger crackers - the Kuruvis and the Krishnas. These were not the big guns but big enough to be treated with some consideration. These are taken out  5 -6 days before  Diwali.

T minus 3 days - Then it was time for the badass'es. The Lakshmis, the Netajis and the atom bombs. These were on limited supply, especially the atom bombs. Probably had only one pack of those. So these were carefully used and with utmost respect. Each pack of five was meticulously accounted for in the memorized stock list and every one of it made to burst. Duds were unacceptable - so every possible trick was use to ensure we get the bang for the buck. (that was a good pun too isn't it?)

T minus 1 day - The Eve! very special day as the first "night" crackers were burst that night. The night crackers are like the desserts of a meal. Expensive, exotic, available in limited quantity and saved for the last. The sparklers, flowerpots, chakras, snakes and pencils were all debuted that day.

T - the big day at last. This is the day for the exquisite ones - rock forts, double sounds and the one big lar/wala that was bought. It used to be a 200 or 300X one and it commanded the reverence of a nuclear warhead. It was special. very special. The entire family would bear witness to  this one. This was the Diwali highlight. The chief guest. The night was the eventful home stretch with the rest of the night stuff culminating with the rockets and a couple of exotic ones - like 5 bursts or parachute or butterflies.

It is fascinating to realize how Diwali, the most awaited days of my childhood has merely become just another festival.  It still retains the meaningful aspects of a festival of course  - about greeting people, catching the patti manram on TV, watching a new movie and spending time with family& friends. But I miss the Diwali high, the excitement, the glee and the joy of bursting crackers. The things adulthood finds itself handicapped to grasp. I guess age tempers itself with what we believe as acceptable behavior and this conditioning  is so subliminal that we don't realize that we are growing old and boring.

One of our favorite Diwali time custom activity was to take papayas (from the trees in the playground), drill a hole, squeeze an atom bomb, light it, run, hide behind the walls and trees and wait in anticipation with bated breath for the "frag grenade" to blow. When the bomb goes off in a glorious and colorful spray of papaya, my friends and I will be clapping, giggling and high fiving.

I certainly don't see myself or my friends doing that now.

The joy of childhood comes from equal parts of innocence and irreverence.

Diwali will always be special for no other festival lends itself so well for these childhood qualities  to be expressed, enjoyed and celebrated.

Diwali will always be special for no other festival reminds us of our childhood and the joy of childhood. And there, in the midst of this remembrance, lies our motivation to live & love like a child and hence our redemption.

Happy Diwali folks.

PS - While I did concede that I don't see myself putting an atom bomb in a papaya now, I have to be honest and confess that I still find the idea brilliantly fascinating. 

The Motley Pill - Origin Story

More often than not, I have judged my own hobbies. This erroneous tendency, growing in influence with age, akin to any of the small voices at the back of my head that tell me it is wrong to pick noses in public or that I shouldn't nibble my Tshirt, unfortunately has the uncanny ability to smell like wisdom and hence nurture itself with whatever scant resources available in the barren land of my mind.

A detour now. Astral trips or out of body experiences, while a subject matter of neuroscience and psychology, is, in a mild form, very easily achieved. Ever tried saying your name continuously for a few times? After a few seconds the name and the concept of self seems very alien, something that is terrifyingly liberating. It's too tempting to delineate what we are with what our name signifies - which is actually a lot, including our life, our career, our person as such. Pause at this moment. Try it out. Go stand before a mirror (if it helps), blank your mind and repeat your own name.  See what I mean? May be it doesn't work all the time. But I am sure each of us have gone through these moments of extreme lucidity, however short lived it may be, where we transcendentally realise and experience the insignificance of our lives. 

Carl Sagan's Pale Blue dot quote hits the spot like nothing else though his intention of the statement might have been different. No, you don't have to Google it. I like you. So here you go, the quote diligently copy pasted.

“Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there-on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam. -Carl Sagan.

and the point of this digression? the point is that there is no point in anything anybody does. So we should probably take ourselves a little less seriously. The pervasiveness of competition  in our lives is so complete and absolute that we don't even realize how our actions and thoughts are molded by it. 

It is sad that many of us aren't even comfortable talking about our hobbies. I realized this when I caught myself one day that I usually say "I read" when people ask me what I do with my time. It's not that I don't read, I do, but truth be told I should always say "I read and I watch movies and I play video games". It's just that subconsciously I have relegated watching movies to a "lesser" grade of a hobby.  It was stupid. So I have consciously corrected that in the last few days and this post is a continuation of that correction.

I love movies.

If I spend my hard earned money for something and/or my precious time and feel satisfied, contended and happy by doing so, it means I love it right? 

So as a record of my romance with movies I am starting my first movie blog. Your feedback and suggestions are sincerely solicited. :)

www.motleypill.blogspot.com

Our hobbies aren't what should make us cool or help us woo or make us social celebrities. Our hobbies simply have to make us happy. Our hobbies should give us an avenue to independently and harmlessly rejuvenate ourselves. Our hobbies should give us an sanctuary to hide from life's grind and turmoil. And it doesn't matter what it is. Some travel, some dance, some sing, some play, some cook, some talk, some sleep, some read, some watch, some browse...doesn't matter.  

We are, after all,a mote of dust on a mote of dust.

Should take pride in what gives us happiness. As Nicolas Cage once wisely said... ..."that's the secret to survival. Never go to war. Especially with yourself."

Orkut

Haven't written in a long while now.  Why, I ask myself and find the other part of me scratching its head in an unabashed display of denial and sham.

Here I was, in the gambling-void Las Vegas of Middle east, killing time browsing, having already eaten my fabulously delicious and unhealthy ready-to-eat dinner, when in a sudden burst of nostalgia, decided to check out Orkut as I vaguely remembered a news article mentioning that the service is being discontinued.

As much as I hate to admit it, it was simultaneously a feeling of joy and depression, not unlike a dark comedy from the Coen brothers. And why do I hate to admit it? Because I didn't think Orkut of all things can evoke such strong emotions. The voice inside my head went "duh..really?".

It is so because it made me realize that the old life, the college days, the feeling of innocence and arrogance and self righteousness that lend itself only to youth, the age of camaraderie, the  joy of friendships unadulterated with any kind of anxiety and the gut wrenching laughter are things of the past. It  made all of it seem distant and surreal, like the pictures found on a long lost photo album, like the memory of a mostly forgotten story that we made our mom tell us when we were 5 years old, like the vague remembrance of our childhood house and....like Orkut.

yeah. I used "youth" in the past tense. Well I feel old and those days seem long gone.

Going through the photos and "scraps" and "testimonials" was actually a very poignant experience. . I saved the archive in fear of losing  this. I suggest you do it as well. (Well, if you are actually reading this, you are probably a good friend of mine and that is probably the only reason you are reading this. So consider this my request).

In fact, once I finish writing this, I will put this in Facebook. And that's what Facebook has become - a news feed. I actually miss Orkut or rather the age it symbolises for me. The countless arguments and discussions and long chats and longer mails that I have had with some of the most wonderful people seem like exorbitant luxuries considering the dearth of fun, carefree moments where I am myself and there is no more agenda other than the simple enjoyment of conversation, in the last few years. I have grown up and so have my friends. Each mired in what we call our lives.

But I also recognize that the warmth and bond is pretty much undiminished when I get to meet or talk to these people on these rare celestial events. That is very heartening to realise though. The wit, the banter and the jokes flow freely when amongst them. It's almost like that part of me is still alive. Probably within all of us. And it feels good to revisit that self.

and why didn't I write? Why haven't I  been able to keep in touch with the people I would want to? why I talk to my best friends on freaking Whatsap once in a blue moon?  Why don't I write a beautiful handwritten letter to my loved ones? Why don't I do the things that I really like? I guess it's partly because I meekly accept defeat to what I make up to be my life, partly because I assume everyone is very busy  including myself, partly because of the feeling that everybody has their own lives now and partly because all of these reasons are actually true.

Then why am I suddenly writing now? I guess it's that optimistic rebellious part of me expressing itself -reaching out to the unreachable past, attempting to relish this life, feeling joy for what has been good, showing respect to what has been tough, vowing to live in my terms and being thankful for all the people & memories that I have known & made and doing what I like,  in spite of knowing full well that this part of me will smother itself to death by probably tomorrow morning in a glorious display of shortsightedness, fallacious setting of priorities and a spectacular inability to distinguish between what is important and what seems important,

Well, what can I say..it still feels good, while momentary and ethereal it may be.

But then, what is not?

Reminders

I was late.

I was supposed to get up at 530am. I got up at 6. The call with my colleagues went longer than expected. I tried to cook for the first time, of all days, today. (Not much – Boiled some frozen veggies, toasted two slices of bread, added chilli flakes, oregano, the veggies and ketchup and made a sandwich Tada! – That’s one step for a cook and a giant leap for me.)

First difference – Why in the Kailasam doesn’t this place have these small dosa parotta stalls that are so common back home? There was one right up in my street. Huh. And why can’t the cute things called chillies be used in something in some form? Why this partiality against a vegetable class? My heart goes out to the neglected family.

So anyway, I was late. And I had to catch a bus.

Second difference – I don’t have my bike here. My adorable old green bike. You know the feeling that one gets when he/she has broken up (well I don’t know that feeling but I am guessing how it would be) with his/her whatever-the-appropriate-noun. Well anyway, I have that feeling about my bike. It’s like I broke my relationship with her, abandoning her with wanton hard heartedness but still longing for her. I am sorry my bikey. I now know your value. Sobs. Hope you will accept me back. Give me one more chance. I will be a better person. Sobs.

Third difference – There are no autos. Not even shared ones. Seriously. Can you believe that? No taxis. No rickshaws. Nothing. You know the feeling when you are completely, and I mean completely, at the mercy of someone that we feel paranoid and uncomfortable even though there are no warranted reasons to feel so but just because we are completely dependent on the thing? That is what I feel about the public transport system.

Fourth difference – The buses are fascinatingly infrequent. For the first time in my life I have taken a print out of a public transport bus service schedule, stuck it to the wall and go by it. In fact I am collecting data about this everyday – times of services, the variance and standard deviation of arrival times, walking speed etc. I am hoping to optimize my waiting time at the bus stop. Typical operations research exercise. I am actually excited about it. Wheeee! If the sarcasm was lost on you, I am merely pointing to the irony of a common man needing to do operations research to use the bus service.

Fifth difference – Quarters! No no...not whiskey or rum. Coins. Every satandamned machine here needs quarters. And the bus will eat only one dollar bills or quarters. Where in Osama’s beard am I supposed to get so many quarters? (and the washing machine and drier compete for your precious quarters as well). So I am hurriedly collecting coins from my purse and bag and stuff and every other silly stupid coin is there. What am I supposed to do with these pennies and dimes anyway?

Sixth difference – The pavements to walk on? They are just awesome. And almost all the houses have well maintained lawns AND so many people walk their dogs and the dogs are just lovely. The houses? They look so adorable. You know like a baby boy decked up in a suit with a bow? Or the strip in which Calvin has his hair combed for a picture? And somehow many of the houses have a fairy tale-ish quality to them.

So I was walking briskly down the pavement to the bus stop. There is a bus at 8.27 am. Time on my watch was 8.23. It would take one more minute for me to reach the end of my street where it joins a main road on which the stop is located. And I know the bus would come in between 820 to 835. And I was hoping that the bus hadn’t come early. I was almost running now. I was able to see the road. Just a few seconds away. And the bus passed my street. CRAP. I was running now. There was a chance that I can still catch it. And I turned the corner and I was running and I was a few steps away when the bus just started (which means the doors were already closed) and I was running out flat now but I knew I have missed it. As I stopped and sighed, cursing and wishing that maybe I could have gotten up one min earlier, I saw the bus stop (that was not a pun. I meant that the bus stopped and not the bus-stopJ)!!! I went up to the bus and the door opened and the driver, an African American middle aged woman who always gives a big smile and says a warm good morning every day, was smiling at me (Think she recognizes me because I am the only one who gets on at this stop and I had taken her bus -the 8.27am one- without fail for some days). She said “I was wondering where you were and then saw you running”.

I don’t know why or how but it did feel really happy. Then she was talking with me all the way till the stop I get down. Irrespective of the country or city, there are always some nice people, there are always things to feel good about, and there are always reasons to smile.

Aaaand I missed home so much that day. I missed my city. I missed my people.

It’s not the sad things, the irritation of not understanding the new system, the inconvenience of not having my bike or the lack of spicy food that makes me miss home. Many of these things feel good in retrospect and its nice enjoying the differences.

It’s the love, affection and warmth shown by people here that makes me miss home more. Because in that moment, in that elation of feeling happy and safe as I stand basking in somebody’s caring gesture, my mind tells me how exponentially more gratifying and meaningful I would feel when I am reveling in the affection of my own loved ones.

In that fleeting trance, mind gallops across the sweeping landscape of memories, stirring up, like dust under the hooves of an unicorn, images and words and laughs and hugs and smiles, all of which swirl and entwine in a psychedelic union that reveals itself in a simple unrevealing long silent longing sigh.

Love reminds us of love like nothing else.

I miss you guys.

All of you.