Solitude

I often wonder what it is. I seem to have it. I'm very content on my own, and I value my me-time. I love my home and my work and you could lock me in here for a month and I probably wouldn't get bored (irritable maybe, once the cigarettes ran out). Sometimes, though, I worry that I "ought" to be wildly social. Sometimes I fear that I am confusing alone and lonely. But that's not often, and usually it is other people who confuse the two and wonder how I can live alone and spend so much time alone without getting bored, scared or depressed.I do - boredom, fear, depression, loneliness: they all come into my life, and are hard to take. But there's a huge difference in my alone moments and my lonely ones. Often my loneliest moments are when I'm surrounded by other people.

Books, music, pen, paint.
Alone is easy for me.
Lonely is harder.

When I'm lonely, it's usually one or two specific special people in my life that I'm missing, not just the presence of other bodies. I guess the reason I find alone easy is because I like my own company just as much as I like the company of those special people. Goodness! I like myself! Hmmm .. I see another haiku noodle in there, but it's time to get back to work. And I've been telling myself that I need to write more authentic haiku instead of just following the syllabic count. But not today.

There must be something to them

It's easy enough to put men down. They're in charge and the world's a mess. They beat wives, rape children, commit most of the crimes, and start wars. BUT.I was reading through a comment on one of my other blogs, where a man said something about men not having anything to be proud of except their arrogance. I find that sad. And though there are many men I have little respect for, I don't lose hope in them entirely. There must be something more to them. They wouldn't be here if that weren't so.I look at women and see how amazing so many of them are. I think it is the struggle that does it. And I also see that those women seem to be more in touch with both their "feminine" and "masculine" qualities, are the ones who seem most completely human. Perhaps this is what men need to find: the balance between yin and yang. All that energy expended in trying to prove manhood in so many ways, when perhaps this is what prevents them from ever really finding the man within?

A man's gift is not
his penis, strength, land, weapons.
It's within, unwrapped.

This is why.

Perhaps the screaming mother is not creating a Hitler or a Stalin or a Saddam, perhaps he will not turn into a shadowy rapist who avenges himself of his childhood injustices with every woman he can. Perhaps he will not keep alive that searing coal within him, perhaps he will not fan it into a full flame one day in a communal riot.

Perhaps he will just be a man who screams at his own children. Who drinks a little too much at office parties, works too hard, drives too fast, smokes too much. Who hits his wife, or maybe just hates his life. Whatever he does do, however, whatever he does become, I will know. And I will know why.

His blanched fist tells me.
His choking rage screams the truth:
His parents failed him.

I am beginning to understand that in every man who raises his arm in violence, who kills, or rages, who seethes and hates, and seeks to destroy, there is something not just to fear, but also to pity. In every violent action, every such man tells us:

My mother failed me. My father failed me.I was scared. I was hurt. I was small, and alone, and fragile. I was afraid then, and I am still afraid.

Easier said than done.

The reason I fail
to recognise false lovers:
First I must love me.

How often I've mistaken need, greed, lust or perhaps simply boredom, for love. When I look back it's obvious, but at the time I'm blinded. No, not blinded by love. Clearly, I don't have much of a clue about what love is. And though I know nothing of it, some part of me is desperate for it, apparently. How foolish of me to yearn and search so intensely without actually knowing what I'm searching for. Of course I won't succeed - how can I find it if I don't know what it looks like?

Perhaps this is why the wise tell us we must love ourselves. It's a practice run. Once we love ourselves, only then can we understand what love is - and what love is NOT. Then when it comes to us, it should be like looking in a mirror - so that the emotion that shines back is one that we can recognise, and greet.

And only when we love ourselves will we respect and believe the inner voice that whispers warnings we choose to ignore.

I'm on the practice run now: learning to love, and perhaps even more important, learning to LIKE myself. I pay attention to that inner voice even when it doesn't say what I want to hear.

I'm not quite sure this thing called love is likely to appear, or even if it really exists, but I want to be ready for it all the same, and be able to say,

"Ah! I know you! It's about bloody time .. what took you so long?"

Easier said than done.

The reason I fail
to recognise false lovers:
First I must love me.

How often I've mistaken need, greed, lust or perhaps simply boredom, for love. When I look back it's obvious, but at the time I'm blinded. No, not blinded by love. Clearly, I don't have much of a clue about what love is. And though I know nothing of it, some part of me is desperate for it, apparently. How foolish of me to yearn and search so intensely without actually knowing what I'm searching for. Of course I won't succeed - how can I find it if I don't know what it looks like?

Perhaps this is why the wise tell us we must love ourselves. It's a practice run. Once we love ourselves, only then can we understand what love is - and what love is NOT. Then when it comes to us, it should be like looking in a mirror - so that the emotion that shines back is one that we can recognise, and greet.

And only when we love ourselves will we respect and believe the inner voice that whispers warnings we choose to ignore.

I'm on the practice run now: learning to love, and perhaps even more important, learning to LIKE myself. I pay attention to that inner voice even when it doesn't say what I want to hear.

I'm not quite sure this thing called love is likely to appear, or even if it really exists, but I want to be ready for it all the same, and be able to say,

"Ah! I know you! It's about bloody time .. what took you so long?"

No more road rage.

I can love you all
if I can see the beauty
that each of you brings.

It isn't as far-fetched as it seems. And it works wonders for me, for my peace of mind, and, no doubt, my blood pressure. Because if I look at every person - no, not just every person, but every animal, every insect, every tree - as God's creations, then I know that He has created them for a reason. And when I know that God loves me, with all my flaws and weaknesses and limitations, He still loves me: even if my love for Him (or Her, as the case may be) is not as pure or whole or constant, He still loves me. Just for being me. Just for BEING. Just as He loves all creation. If I love and respect God, then doesn't it follow that I would treat His creations with love and respect too, for His sake?

I think of this sometimes when I am driving, and it makes me a gentler, kinder, more polite and patient road user, who arrives unruffled and smiling.

Silly cow.

It's the 11th.
I go walking with the moon
and my cigarette.

Of course this makes no sense. Loony, one might think. But there's a full moon out, I'm pre-menstrual, and for some self-sabotaging reason I chose today to quit smoking. Needless to say, that goal wasn't achieved.

I bet that cow jumped over a crescent moon. The full moon is just too damn hard. (But oh so beautiful).

Faith.

It's a funny thing.
I empty myself and now
I'm full, and laughing.

This is what I think faith is about. It's about emptying myself: surrendering to a Higher Power, submitting to the will of Allah, turning my life and trust over to Jesus.

The funny bit is this: I do that emptying, and I suddenly find myself filled, with the last thing I'd have expected -- and this fullness doesn't weigh me down. It leaves me free to live strong and sure, clearly guided AND guided clearly. And it makes me not just smile, but laugh out loud in the sheer joy of it all. It's not just funny. It's fun.

In this call to Faith
the devil will try and try.
But then, so will I.

It's not always easy. In my experience, whenever I've turned to God is when the temptations to turn other ways come strongest. Sometimes they're obvious, but mostly they're well disguised. Some come in the shadow of a well-meaning friend: asking questions, raising doubts, reading palms. Some come from within: from impatience, hunger or loneliness.

Evil tries hardest when that flame of faith is first lit and burns confidently. Evil gets me and makes me waver. But the Good Guys win every time. I may screw up, falter, backtrack, it doesn't matter. I don't succeed outright, but I never stop trying. And that's all it takes.

Boo!

Evil thrives on fear
Like flesh-eating bacteria
Hungry for my soul.

If I am so close to God, if I place all my trust in Him (or Her, as the case may be), then where does all the fear come from? If I love God, why must I cry when someone dies? Why am I afraid of death? No answers right now.

I was watching a Christian preacher, Joyce Meyer, on Z Cafe the other morning. She mentioned how our fears are the way the devil keeps us in bondage. Her words have stayed with me as something to lean on when I feel a fear beginning to overwhelm me.

Tonight there was flesh-eating bacteria on Star World's Medical Investigation - ironically a program which promotes fear. I like to imagine this series is funded by American politicians of Rumsfeldian demeanour who own vast shareholdings with pharmaceutical giants.

Denial.

"Money is the root - "
(Half a quote is a great way
to avoid the truth.)

It sounds so different from the whole quote: "Money is the root of all evil". We do this a lot, editing our truths so that we only have to see what we want to see, hear what we want to hear, and then pat ourselves on the back for getting it all so right. My two favourite examples are from the two religions that most influence my life.

One is the justification of multiple wives in Islam. "Have wives if you can treat them all equally and love them all equally - " is the bit that polygamous men latch on to. They forget that this line continues: BUT YOU WILL NOT BE ABLE TO DO SO (i.e. love and treat them equally). In other words, DON'T. I'm reminded of a colleague who would zoom across junctions saying cheerfully, "What red light, officer?"

The second example is from the Bible. It sounds like a lovely sentiment: "Love thy neighbour - " but it seems to have become a catchphrase for people to justify codependency, and to negate the self, which is so soul-destroying. I think one's soul has to be full, overflowing with lifejoy before one can be a Jesus or a Mother Teresa or a saint. They didn't operate out of obligation or guilt. They were neither satiated nor deprived: they were at peace. Content. Satisfied.

And so when we're busy driving ourselves into the ground trying to play the martyr, we're doing the exact opposite of what that message is trying to tell us - Love thy neighbour AS THYSELF. We deserve as much care and respect as the other people in our life. God knows it, even if we don't.

Dissociation.

Grief's easy to find.
Joy's harder to come across.
Rage plays hide 'n' seek.

I've spent much of my life dodging emotions. The past few years I've been getting in touch with them again. The past few months I've been INUNDATED with them. My little boat floats safely enough, but all around me the seas are rough. It's easier to dissociate than to respond to bad news, but I'm trying to stay around this time, instead of disappearing into my head; I want to be here even though I don't want to be here.

The name on my cell phone read "Chandini"

But it was her husband who spoke to me this afternoon.

By the time my father is discharged from hospital, the skies seem to be weeping with me. I drive my parents home in the pouring, pouring rain, carefully, slowly, and I try to keep my mind on the road, as Pradeep's words rise and fall in my head. Coma. Bleak. Oxygen. Brain. Vital. She is so vital, so brilliant, so important to life. I believe in miracles. I know that God can perform them. I just don't know if He will.

Heaven weeps for her
and so do I, asking: WHY?
God never Replies.

Expectorants bring out the worst in me.

To wheeze or not to...
Do I really have a choice?
Snot is not noble.

Alas. I am ill. This is the best haiku I can produce. It probably does not deserve to be posted, but I feel I must.

I have just discovered another form of Japanese poetry called Tanka, that allows one a couple more syllables than haiku. Well, Tanka you very much.

Role-playing is a tough game.

I won't play Barbie
or Sacrificial Virgin:
Woman's hard enough.

Hmm. It's not really me, but I like it. A bit of porcelain inspiration (i.e. those flashes of wisdom that come to us while seated in tiny tiled rooms). I was thinking of making it "Forty is hard enough" (I just turned 40 two weeks ago!) but I really like being forty and it seems like it could be a fun year so I didn't want to suggest it's something that one needs to survive or struggle through. (But womanhood is? Another Hmm.)