Savagely Seeking Solitude

"No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were: any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee. "

So spake John Donne, and everytime I hear that first line, I am tempted to fatuously retort, "Well, what about women?"

I disagree, anyway. Why can't people be islands - solitary and separate? God knows, there are times when I would dearly love to be apart. Some days, I wish wish wish, that I could just burn all the bridges that connect me to people, and be left alone. I even play out the scenarios in my head - exactly how much acid would it take to dissolve the ties that bind? How much bile would I have to produce to get people to leave me be?

But even as I mentally push people away, I know I'll never do it. My spells of solitude-seeking are accompanied by phases where I wish I was less alone - and if that's not the definition of bipolar and disfunctional, then I don't know what is.

I mean, consciously, I know these are people I like, whose company I enjoy, etc - so why would I want to rid myself of them? I think there's something wrong with me, if I see any kind of ties as dependencies that I must rid myself of. I've never been in love, but from where I stand, it seems like the worst kind of dependency - and that seems like a rather unhealthy viewpoint to have, right?

Still, I can't help but wonder how liberating it might be to say, "Fuck off!" to everyone and walk away alone.

*acquires protective clothing & waits for people to throw bricks and stuff*

On a lighter note, people - Apple iPod vs Dell Digital Jukebox? C'mon guys, it's the great question of our time! :D

The Persistence of Memory

I've had this... thing percolating in my brain for ages now - I have to put it into words before it drives me mad. The timing of this post is actually really fortuitous, cause it totally ties into Hem's piece on the evocativeness of smell.

Memory, to me, is a strange beast - a cat, i think - by turns aloof and adoring. I remember the generalities - the way my Grandmother would feed me, shaping rice and curry into bite-sized balls - the cake my other Grandmother always bought for my brother & I cause she knew we liked it - but the specifics are beyond my reach. Details - what was I doing in the summer of 1993 - what my best friend in grade four looked like - are beyond me.

Daily life, however, tends to jog loose fragments of my lost memories. I reach for the stainless steel holding rail on the subway, and i remember grasping the rings on an iron gymnastics bar as I twist into a 360 degree flip. The memory holds me, and I remember the calluses I developed that year from constantly swinging on those rings - the quip flip my stomach would do as i swung upsidedown & back again - the sudden clarity of vision my new glasses gave me - and suddenly, I am back on the subway, and the TTC conductor is telling me we will soon be at Kennedy Station.

These gifts of recollection only serve to underscore how much I cannot remember - but I am glad of them nonetheless, cause they remind me of how much simpler my world used to be. The sound of a subway car pulling into the station always reminds me of the trains in Bombay, when my Mother wouldn't let go of our hands cause she didn't want us to get lost in the crowd. The rain, when it is heavy and persistent, still calls me to hold my hand out a window and revel in it. I always did that when I was younger - as being brought up in a desert country, I thought rain was the most wonderful thing since bread-and-butter. Or the other day, I passed a Tim Hortons, and the smell of the sugar reminded me of tea time at Modern High, when donuts were served, and we'd all go have some - even though I wasn't supposed to, since I brought my lunch from home. I swear, I could taste that donut from more than five years ago - but that was in a different country, and besides, that me is dead.

And what I really want to know is - is it only me who's been abandoned by her memories?

Clear Away The Cobwebs

... swept away by the tide of work, work & more work, i struggle back to find that three months have passed since the last time I updated. wow!

Existential Dilemma #3451: Apple iPod vs Dell Digital Jukebox? The Dell is cheaper, and holds 30 GB to Apple's 20, but it's an iPod, and they're just so... pretty.

I dunno, there is something enormously appealing about the idea of *never* having to delete any songs ever again, don't you think?