On Mountains
Mountains are difficult to traverse through, no matter if
it’s a trek or not. Each time I go, I decide not to come back soon. And yet
every 6 months, I find myself amidst the same slithering roads surrounded by a
treacherous ridge on one side, and a deep valley on the other. A river is
always heard in the distance and waterfalls will obviously mark their way along
the mighty mountains. The hills are covered with age-old trees holding the
mountain soil together. Trees that never seem to wither. As immortal as the
grand hills they make their base on. It is a blessing to be born in a country
with lust green mountains that satiate the soul.
On the Moon
The Moon always seems a lot more closer from the mountains
and the stars brighter. I was lucky enough to have gone during a full-moon
week. The Moon has had important significance in the culture of man since the
beginning of civilization. Actually much before that. The Moon might have been
the first question. It’s so old that we don’t even know when we realized that
it as a celestial body that dances around the Sun with us and we play in its
shadow and it plays in ours. The form-changing Moon would have been the first
God. The first calendar. The first unit of time. Every time I think this is too
much, and I don’t want to come back soon. And every time I come back a little
fuller, a little more richer, and a little in love.
On Goodbyes
What do you do in the moments of separation? Of saying
goodbye? There’s no right way. “Awkward
hug or lame cool guy handshake?” There’s no right way. It’s often one of
the above or all of it or none of it. So much that people sometimes choose to
disappear without saying goodbye. They don’t want to deal with the moment. But
“Life of Pi” taught us that “in the end,
the whole of life becomes an act of letting go, but what always hurts the most
is not taking a moment to say goodbye.” Goodbyes are important. That moment
of incompleteness is important. That moment doesn’t mean much. It’s redundant
compared to all the other moments that came before. But that’s exactly what
makes that redundancy beautiful! That anticipation of not knowing if and when
you’d ever see each other again. Seperation makes even redundancy worthwhile.
As Vision said, “a thing isn't beautiful
because it lasts.”
But what do you do in that moment? When you’re overwrought
with emotion? Do you speak words? But there are no words that could encapsulate
all the memories that came before. It would be reductive. Do you share a song
or a poem or a quote that you remember that encapsulates the moment as well as
it can? But would you rather risk sharing art in a tender moment, when the
other person might not be ready for it? What good are words when you need
shoulders? After all, art may be public; but the perception and appreciation of
art is extremely personal. It would be unfair to expect someone to give it the
same importance as you do. Specially in the moment.
So what do you do? HIMYM offers the answer. To stop the
image of someone walking away, you close your eyes, count, and open your eyes
to a world where you can’t find them anymore. Or here’s another way – you sit
and look into their eyes for as long as possible. Savor the moment. Hold them.
Hug them. And when the time calls for it, walk away. That is right. That is
honest. That is good.
On Memories
You know it’s not really the people that we miss. People
change. We miss the moment. People wake up one day and we think this isn’t the
same person anymore. It has happened before. Someone we have learnt to love and
forget. We can have someone right before our very eyes and miss them. We don’t
miss people. We miss moments. People are the one who might’ve made the moment
beautiful. But there’s no certainty that we can find the same moment with the
same people again. There’s possibility, but no certainty. And when you take out
possibility from certainty, what you are left with is disappointment. Some
people don’t want to risk disappointment. So they don’t risk missing anyone at
all. These are ones who have been disappointed enough times by life. They are
also the ones who never find anything worth holding on to. Because what is love if not to be vulnerable.
And what is life without love?
