Reasons to be happy
Their casings tarnished by wind and snow, their glass panels splattered with dirt, the lamps perched gallantly on either side of the bridge pointing skyward as the unfortunate stump of the stadium's manly glory rose over the horizon. A flock of birds dispersing overhead, snow blowing off the top of piles off the roadside, dusting the passing cars with wet confetti. The pale grey morning indecisive about what weather to wear; the day pregnant with possibilities.
Hours spent in good company cooking good food. It never fails to surprise me how the simplest of things brought together with care can give birth to miracles. The scantiest of words to craft a poem, the most uncomplicated of ingredients to make a meal, the most sparing of sounds to weave a song.
Between snatches of Mozart I have neglected for too long, my fingers struggle to remember how to make the piano sing the song that is in the air, music that I will never remember later. I used to think of this as playing "the song of now", the song that has no place in the world other than this very moment — not later today, not tomorrow.
It's odd to think that we've never really been taught how to deal with pain, that somehow we were just expected to find our own way out of our own madnesses, or to swallow it as if it were what we duly deserved. On the other hand, we were never taught how to deal with pleasure, how to enjoy the mere act of living, to cherish the ability to breathe. Yet under the storms of insignificant daily struggles, we lose sight of the finiteness and fragility of our own existence, one with which we were never comfortable from the moment we came squalling out of the womb.
I am here, and you are too. I might not be here tomorrow, you might not be here later today. Later becomes now very soon. If I do not extend my hand to you and show a little care, and if you do not reach out to stop my fire from extinguishing under the fury of the wind, who takes care of us?
The birds have begun to sing in the morning. A green glass bowl of kuih lapis chilling on the window sill, a taste of the tropics sitting snugly on a cloud of snow. The hope in your eyes, the tears in mine.
Posted by sniffles at February 02, 2004 01:31 PM