My Saturday morning post Friday hang over runs have been replaced by walks. I’ve given up running because my knee and back are giving me too much pain. This week was also plagued by rough nights of troubled sleep.
It is full blown Autumn now. Some trees in the park are bare. Others have turned that tangy shade of orange. I did something out of character again. I stood on top of a pile of orange leaves and ruined my knee some more by stomping up and down on them like I was on a trampoline, just so I could hear the leaves crackling under my feet. When I was still a little girl in Australia, I use to run through piles of autumn leaves in the playground near my school. I was tiny then, and the leaves rode up to my knees. I still remember being afraid that the boogy monster would jump right out from under the leaves. Even so, I liked to swim through them running diagonally along the tall line of giant birch trees like a regular bollywood movie with the sunlight filtering through the glow of orange and yellow leaves above. I was the princess of the world and daughter of the queen of elves. I was at an age where nothing mattered but playing and being free. I do not have a lot of childhood memories because as many of my friends will attest I have at best the memory of a goldfish, but the image of that autumn scene, the faint scent of degenerating leaves, the sound of leaves crackling under my feet and the sunshine as my playmate is something I can still recall even today. Yes, for this image and feeling alone, Autumn is my favourite season except I do not remember it ever being this freaking cold.
As I walked through the park, I conjured up the image of a bleak Scottish landscape. There is a storm brewing among dark clouds in the sky overhead. Perched on a precarious cliff edge with grey rolling fields behind is a small regular shaped wooden shack. There is a door on one side and a large window on another. The window faces the crashing waves at the cliff edge outside. The scene is always set in the evening which is the time of day I like most. Inside that house, there is a fireplace where a warm fire is burning, a low table with cheese, crackers, wine and shortbread and English rose tea on the sides. Molton Brown Lemon scented candles are burning and seated on a well worn sofa and armchairs around the fire wrapped in cashmere blankets are 5 people and a golden Shetland sheepdog. One of those people inside is me, my mostest favourite Shetland on the face of the earth, Chopin and my four most important friends.
In recent days, I have been thinking a lot about my friends. Maybe because one of my few friends in London who I can feel at ease with has left and another of my closes and most trusted friends just flew off this week, setting off a string of melancholy in me. In a movie I watched recently called ‘The Banquet’, the character played by Daniel Wu said a person only feels lonely when no one understands them and I guess that is how I have been feeling. It is not physical loneliness that I fear most, but emotional and mental alienation. This image of a warm room amidst a stormy landscape is my comfort zone- thumb sucker image just like that image of an Autumn day in my childhood.
L_
I met you when I was 19. We were just kids then you keep telling me now.
You stood out from the rest because you were as tall as a giraffe. How you grew to be so tall still eludes me especially after meeting your family. No one in your family came close. That shows you were somewhat of a brilliant anomaly from the start.
We became good friends quite quickly. There was even a time when you use to draw circles with your finger tip on my palm. We spent so many hours doing nothing but engaging in conversation about life and architecture. That time passed quickly, but the memory lingered on for so long.
It takes me a momentus amount of effort to talk to people. Yet with you, even with my disjointed sentences and descriptions and going round in circles and not knowing what I am trying to say myself or having them come out the exact opposite of what I am trying to say because the thoughts in that head of mine knows only how to process things as imagery, emotions and feeling but not spoken words, you are always able to understand what I am trying to describe to you. In fact, you are able to reprocess these floating thoughts as words. You are my thought and word funnel. Most importantly, I feel that I can trust you. Amidst bleak landscapes, to be able to let down your guard and baggage is a big relief. Thank you!
You told me recently that there are some friends where if you fail to put effort to keep in contact with, meeting up with again after a period of time becomes awkward. For others, you need not put in any effort at all, yet, even 10 years on, that level of comfort remains. You said I was one of those friends and I was really glad.
Yes, 10 year on, when I look at you now, you are no longer the lanky philosopher who wore the same t-shirts, bermudas and flip flops to school but the Bally bag swinging, narrow jacket, ripped jeans, 60 pound Notting Hill Japanese sytlist cut, effortlessly scruffled hair dude with even more potent philosophies then ever. You have come a long way, but ever so often, you are still that boy who drew circles with his finger in my palm. We may change, but friendship never does, just like you said.
Your decision to leave London surprised me, but knowing you, you must have put in many hours of intense thought into it, just like you do for everything else. I am proud of you and as always, I wish you the very best.
Next stop, Jean Georges Shanghai for champagne brunch. See you soon bud!
G_
We have said our hellos and goodbyes so many times and spent so many hours watching the sunset on that air-con condenser filled rooftop. It will still be the same, well sort of, I hope. When I am home next.
Full Moon aka C_
This blog exists because of you. You beat me to it. You fumble in life but you always pick yourself up. I would not have been able to do the same if I were in your position. I’m a big cry baby compared to you. You know I adore you to bits for being you but most of all, for being real and unpretentious.
XY_
You are always the first to send me postcards, the first to send me CDs and oh how I love the anticipation of receiving letters and packages just for the rush of childlike excitement when tearing open a package. I listen to that CD when I take walks in the park. You possess the quiet strength and perseverance of a saint already but remember our promise…..
These supernatural friends of mine all possess level headed, inquisitive minds on their shoulders and always aspire to be better people everyday. You are who you surround yourself with and I am glad to have friends who I can positively compare myself with. They have all had an important influence on me. I thank them for their patience, understanding and kindness to me. Above all, I thank them for truly caring for me despite my numerous flaws.
In my coldest moments, I will recall this warm image of silent bliss in a wooden shack and I will no longer be alone or feel cold.
There are others who I have met in London, some who make me laugh and some who make me feel at ease. I do not easily draw people into my space and very often, friendship is something grown through shared pain conceived through time, of which, these friendships have not had the advantage to be nurtured from. Time will tell.
W_
You haven’t made it to the list just yet, but thank you for your recent letter and your best wishes for me. It takes superhuman effort to not like you because it is so easy to be with you. Your brooding writer stance is just a façade, you are pure and untainted because your heart still longs for innocence and goodness in the world like I do. For this, I can feel akin to you. I still remember the colour of the sky on that evening I wrote my first letter to you with Chopin sleeping at my feet and that warm cup of tea I had in my hand. I was happy then. Like you said in your letter, so many things were wrong timing. Maybe as my weakened constitution grows stronger, we will make better friends. You called me a muse, but really, it was the other way round. Continue writing, send the reviews, the poems and remember me when you become the editor of Rolling Stones magazine!
There is so much space left in that shack. It is a magic infinitive shack. Everyone is free to come by sometime. All you have to do is knock and well, brave the storm.
_
Chopin_
There are so many dogs in the park and they are so cute that it pains me to look at them. Just writing about you brings a lump to my throat. Sometimes when I use to watch you sleeping, you would move all four of your paws back and forth while twitching your nose agitatedly, almost as if you were running in your sleep. What were you dreaming of? It pained me then to think that you were dreaming of running free with the family you could not remember somewhere in your Scottish hometown. Maybe you never knew it, but I would pat your tummy over and over to soothe you every time I caught you space jogging. It pains me even more to think that you are dreaming of me now. What I would do to tussel your soft golden coat again. What I would do to run in those fields with you. Wait for me…
On Player_’Hejira’_By Joni Mitchell
