Beauty Seen is Never Lost

My little sister; she had a too-featureless scrapbook for an 8 years old– one of those with glazed pages that smelled like newly-bought school textbooks and fresh-off-the-stand magazines . She’d stretch its empty pages out on her Dora-imprinted blanket and place her little palms on the surface. “It’s too heavy”, she’d claim, “ I always run out of pages,” ; and the pages knew how to hold the pretense of containing it all ; a twist of her reflection, her always color-coordinated glasses, and that epic toothless grin.
Every time she’s asked about it’s contents, she’d circle her fingers around the borders, and say with utmost confidence,“ But don’t you see it? It’s where I keep them all; the kisses, the hugs, and the ‘well-done’ pats,” She’d take you then back to page one, and guide you all the way to the back cover ; million of off-to-school morning kisses, thousands of I-love-yous crowding unseen margins, and a whole world of smiles : her oldest brother tying her shoes, her dad trying to unscrew her nailpolish bottle, her 2nd grade teacher giving her the largest performance star; she’d take you through them all, until you’re left breathless,
That’s her scrapbook,
Mine, however, had no pages – for I wore it around my neck like a string of impossibly-knotted beads – strung together with such sacredness, such delicacy-that without it, one would easily wilt to the grave.
It’s made of that 8 year old girl, and of them-

Of that 12 year old boy- with his Pikacho Pijama pants and dream-cake cravings- how he chases that lonesome rabbit out of its hole, towards the carrot crumbs; how he sits infront of the barbeque fire with hands copying his English Homework and eyes watching his roasting marshmallows; how he flips on that unguarded trampoline with mischief and undoubted expertise; how he runs with all his might with someone’s gift safely tugged under his arms; how he giggles while reading the latest copy of “ Wimpy Kid”; how his heart is wrapped with an unfound tenderness, how he brings life, to life.

Of those random-outing days with my best friend – with car-filled conversations amidst crumpled cd covers, heavy scents of broken perfume bottles, and university booklets – how we tread topics like equestrians on the run, how we mount to utter joy, fall to complete devastation, and then mount again ; how we outline café visits and embrace papercups; how we condemn trivialities over plates of salted-calamari and mozerella salad ; how we drown in detail; how we drown in music, how we drown in ‘now’, ‘then’, and ‘because’.

Of that trail of memory I leave between the pages of my books – with lines; strands of them, emptying that well of nostalgic indentation within me; how hollow it makes me feel; how beautifully it carves the images of those I’ve grieved, of those who’s loss I’ve never learnt to quell; how it brings forth those long summer days with premium vividness, how it brings forth sidewalk laughter and rainy afternoons.

All of it; all of them- this sacred scrapbook, this personal rosemary beads of mine- had dismantled my nights and left me weeping in the wreckage- this fragileness of it all, this proximity that lies in the slash of Everything/Nothing, takes my breath away so vigorously; I can’t lose sight of it anymore. Not for a moment, No.

Posted by Diddlina at 6:18 PM 2 comments  

I wonder: if we peeled off this stain-smudged blanket and blue swollen walls– if we shook these pillows out of they’re stupor, would they flood the room with an abundance of intricately-fabricated dreams? Would that massive framed Manhattan Bridge photograph ever cease to gape at us with malice and softens instead, at our touch?
One day- we’d wake up to find ourselves under a glass dome that has hinges to it’s sides; we’d find ourselves amidst heaving typewriters, crumpled news clippings, jammed calendars, suitcases and stacks of well-written books. That quote-bearing table would upend itself and we’d carry its scribbled words under our skin.
Promises of a day like this; and million others we left in this room.

Posted by Diddlina at 1:50 PM 3 comments  

To Fajer – with apostrophies, parenthesis, and every sort of emphasis <3

I keep thinking about that protagonist I want to pen out in my futurely-written novel: I try to sew it’s parts together with open eyes and pores; stitch each fiber with a certain preciseness that only an artist with tragedy at his core could possess. I wanted a character; that refracted double-edged intelligence from humanity and spitted out kaleidoscopic beauty into existence; just like light through a prism.
I sifted through the collection I’ve soaked up over the years; characters that inked themselves on my skin, my brain cells, and all over my being.

One of them was Olivia Duhnam, the protagonist of the Sci-fiction series ‘Fringe’. I’d like my character to have her eyes; her daunting eyes that depict a raw unceasing cacophony of memory and notion; the inconceivable cruelty of human suffering that laces everything with sadness; and the intense desire to exorcise it all.

Then there was Zooey Glass, a member of the glass Family, created by the literary phenomena, J.D Salingar. I’d like my character to have his sentimentality and discernment; his cynical perceptions that defiantly shreds human behavior into pieces only he can digest; tiny little tragic truths.

And Jason Gideon, the lead of the fictional BAU team in the criminology series “ Criminal minds”. I’d like my character to have his outlet of ideas; his ability to gather the totality of being alive; being consciously aware of one’s own insignificance in this blob of mystery; and his heartbreaking tendency to behold the rotten parts of the universe and trace out their tenderness.

Rudy Steiner, that lemon-haired German boy in Markus Zusak’s novel “ The book thief”. I’d like my character to have his heart. His beautifully-crafted heart; shelled with a kind of fabric that’s only existent within those who are too sensitive to everything tangible; who feel too deeply; and who’s short life thickens every time someone’s soul is touched by them.

But amongst all, I want my character to be like you.
No,
to simply be- you- .
Your ink is the boldest, for it isn’t tattooed, it’s blood and bones- the fluid that flows within me, the fuel, and the disparity that keeps the term – leaving-, a merely italicized term.
You know, how unbearable it is to feel the burden of living too powerfully; to house within you a complexity of emotions that varies from extreme melancholia to wonderfulness to confusion to brilliance, and to radiate all that through flesh, knowledge music, and ideas. Or at least try to, every single day of our lives.
And by that – you forced me to reconfigure this world as a whole and live it on different terms. The possibilities that stemmed from the newly confounded universe rendered us both jubilant and hopeless at the same time; and just like that; we became tangled, somewhere only we can access ; a place only we can define.
That’s why, my protagonist,
is you
for I can’t possibly write something more True and vivid than that.

Posted by Diddlina at 5:53 AM 1 comments