The Wind Calls, A Worn Tale

Memorial

Sometimes is enough for one wish.

And a walk from the corner

And back under the trees and light

Is often enough for a thought to perish

And a million others to be born

From their graves

The way shells explode

Under the hills of tin men and grass

Long after the blood-bath is but an anecdote

A story for a hot summer's evening on the porch

Or a tale told on idle winters

Through the dislodged teeth of the old ones.

- pollosky-in-blue

“Is it better to be the reed in the spokes of a battle wheel which splinters the chariot of hope, or to be the reed of hope tugging away at the clench of the unrelenting mast of the sunken ship, lost to the world and leave the world to lose? Perhaps it finer to be the reed from which floats the soft and treacherous  note of love, with the feathered footfall of the madman or the angel, and leave it to the mania of insanity to find out which.”

J. Estanislao Lopez, "What the Fingers Do" [transcript in ALT]

I think the human condition is just finding magic in the compositions of people's mundanity. Knowing they love strawberry perfumes and aloe moisturizers, knowing their favourite ice-cream flavours and the song they can sing in their sleep, gosh knowing their sleep schedules and sharing dreams during breakfast. Knowing the motifs of their grief and the childhood stories behind the swings, the joy of knowing how they completed their day with 15 math problems, one incomplete art assignment, a sandwich for breakfast, a kind smile of a stranger who passed them, and not to mention dropping their phone 5 times. The inherent comfort in knowing the stories inside their kitchen, where the glasses are kept with their favorite mug adorning a Studio Ghilbi character and why they eat noodles in a dented red bowl. Their heat/cold tolerance, their spice tolerance, coffee orders and their favourite snack aisle at the grocery store. The art accounts they follow and their comfort youtube videos and their unhinged coping mechanisms. Oh the mortifying ordeal to be known but oh the gratifying relief in being known. Comfort lies in these compositions of mundanity. I think love hides in mundanity and I think magic is just being human, just being unfiltered like toothpaste stains pajamas, just being in the presence of each other

today has been very pleasant

I have come to a conclusion, after mulling it over for a while, that happiness has been been cast off and melancholy embraced perhaps not because of the evil and dark being more beckoning, nor is it because of the naivety associated with joy, though perhaps this might be one, for effervescence is so often confused with gladness that it is no surprise that it is seen to be foolish, but because it has become now that stillness and silence are symbolic of melancholy, while happiness is characterised by permanent high-spirits. Contemplation and reflection are few things that bring inner tranquility, for many it is the source of peace. Thus for some any absence of continuous childlike behaviour becomes sadness and for the others any presence of natural laughter and to not always be lost in a maze of cluttered thoughts becomes immaturity. I’m somehow both of these people.

“you can’t forget your mother tongue” okay but have you considered bilinguals and polyglots whose first language isn’t english and whose development during adolescence was shaped by consuming content and media only in english and have ever since viewed that second language, foreign to their own, as a better outlet for their emotions and thoughts? as Yiyun Li said “it is hard to feel in an adopted language, yet impossible in my native language.”