Finding 'ever after'...

John Nash: Thank you. I've always believed in numbers and the equations and logics that lead to reason. But after a lifetime of such pursuits, I ask, "What truly is logic?" "Who decides reason?"

My quest has taken me through the physical, the metaphysical, the delusional – and back.

And I have made the most important discovery of my career, the most important discovery of my life: It is only in the mysterious equations of love that any logic or reasons can be found.

I'm only here tonight because of you [wife, Alicia]. You are the reason I am. You are all my reasons.

Thank you. (recalled from The Beautiful Mind)

I watched this movie after I made an early move back from my weekend at Khopoli –40+ of us headed there to a holiday home, which belongs to a fellow capoeirista who graciously and generously threw it open to us. I went very reluctantly but also because I wanted to spend alone time with my guy, boyfriend, love… (I hate these terms but 1 gets the gist). A girlfriend later very aptly put it (speaking from experience I gather) that there is no such thing as alone time in capoeira. Tis’ true and I have seen it. He insisted I get there and be there with him and I’m glad that he insisted and literally had to force my mind. Deep down I wanted to go but there was a big part of me that wanted to avoid this weekend because of the mental blocks that I have developed and now seem to grow over me like persistent algae in the deep Amazon. It doesn’t help when the algae is further feeding off nutrition (read rumors and gossips and doubts) and growing at an alarming rate.

The weekend was a blast and just what I needed but there is some I would change, some I would rerun and some I would avoid. These are always such experiences and everyone has some of the 3 feelings even if they denied it. I struggled with trust and opening up. I struggled with dealing with the new. 1 always enjoys the 1^st flush of romance and the honeymoon period of dating someone new. I had been in a 6yrs relationship with my best friend of 5yrs. I knew nothing about dating and anticipating someone unknown; someone I knew barely 6 odd months. I didn’t know how to acknowledge his openness to declaring his love for me, how to reciprocate it appropriately enough that he knows I feel just the same way and to open up my mouth and ACTUALLY say what I felt and thought at the time. Instead my energy was focussed on “…really.. You love me?... really you bought me this and gave me that?”. It was the sweetest gesture by this young guy I have fallen mysteriously for. Possibly my struggle to understand WHY I really loved him and wanted him is my mental block. And even more as to WHY after all that’s been still continued to be fed like IV poison 150mg BID escalating dose. What I really needed were 2 pills called ‘FUKITOL’ and ‘LEAPOFAITH’.

Coming to the movie. I have seen it 6-7 times by now. Eternal hopeless romantic that I am. A true story of the devastating effect of paranoid schizophrenia on a genius mathematician. But I focussed on his faith and HER. Jennifer Connelly portrayed Alicia Nash (nee Lardé) wife of John Nash. She is a beautiful gentle creature who rigorously pursues her love and ends up with a raw deal… not until he comes to terms with his condition and wins the Nobel Prize. It was the age of ‘till death do us apart’ and that’s what Alicia did. She stayed and struggled and graciously took on this ill man she loved and never for 1ce abandoned him or even took advantage of her beauty combined with his disability. It’s a rare possibility today and the fact that your partner is debilitated is a sorry excuse for many cheaters. He, on the other hand, spent most of his adult life in the throes of vulnerability and differentiating the real from the delusion. But he never struggled with his wife. Theirs was a beautiful relationship so pure that you would have to look away if you didn’t live up to that benchmark of love, faith and trust. I know I did. I couldn’t build up half the trust with my partner of the totality that I saw in 135mins of screen time.

I couldn’t even muster the courage to be myself with him. Why do I struggle so much? Where is the leap of faith that I encouraged him to take? 1 of the most important people in my life always assures me he is right there. Anything happens in any aspect of my life, he is right there. Somehow, I feel like his hand too won’t be strong enough to pick up all of me from the low point I am risking crashing into. All that was going on in my life was the equal and opposite of John and Alicia Nash. I wish life were that clearer. Friends who have known me long enough snicker that I struggled to stay single for 2yrs and now this. Apparently, my choices and I just had to be legends. I don’t think of it that way. In the words of Julia Robert’s character in Notting Hill, “I’m also just a girl...standing in front of a boy...asking him to love her.” I don’t think it’s too much to expect especially when you are sure that traffic is indeed flowing both ways. But where is that blind trust? Where is that passion I had in me eons ago when I made a guy giddy with how much I loved him. I don’t advocate nausea and diabetic sweetness but I know when to take a step or 2 back.

I am nervous, unsure and still testing the wool ball like a frightened kitty. Except the wool ball has been kind enough to stay put and not roll off. In an almost subtle yet obstinate way the wool ball is there to stay to unwind slowly to reveal each thread, each hue and each flaw. It’s almost romantic the ties that bind the kitty to the wool ball that she won’t let go and yet will keep tossing round. Occasionally the wool ball rolls off into dark corners and under furniture, which the kitty must retrieve but she takes her time. Eventually she lets off a purr and a sigh, goes, and gets it cuz she knows she is making a fuss over nothing and needs the wool ball… stupid stupid cat.

If only I had half the grace, beauty, poise, patience and gentleness of Alicia Nash and possibly a tinge of her strength and sensibility would I be able to get through this phase of my life… puuurrrr! Then we could be reasons for each other to… well just be!

Smoke, Spirits n a Death Wish

She sat nervous

Cold and emotionally withered

All life drained from her pale face

Hands trembled

A sorry state they made

The crumpled piece of paper

Her death wish as it came

She pulled out a cigarette

Flaky and worn

Yet with disjunction

She lit what was her own

How many days had made this

Breakfast to start and late retreat?

Rocking back and forth

She couldn’t tell apart

The dusk from the dawn

The halo of an arc

How long would this life line run?

How many miles before she succumbs?

 

The warm smell of fresh bake and coffee

Home with the sheets and fresh laundry

The tree tire that hung

Just outside her window

Oh what she would trade

To move from ghosts to the known

She felt like staleness

Ran through her very being

No one pondered

How she became so weary

Her tears bled the wonder of tomorrow

“Oh wait” she flustered

“What day was it now?”

The disease had come

And wrapped her over

Skin and bones were all that defined her

All glow was wiped

From the innocence she grew in

As the smoky weed

Made here shallow within

 

Her thirst ran deep, desperate, pitiful

Her strength could only afford

A scotch nearby full.

R

"There's a fire starting in my heart
Reaching a fever pitch and it's bringin me out the dark...." Adele
We should've had it all... Gata

The 1^st song to play on my ipod on the morning of12 July 2012. Such irony that just the 1^st two lines applied to me but the song in harsh reality applied to the 1 left scarred and broken... why was this day so significant to me. It was my friend Tania's and Preeti's bdays; it was the day after I completed a year to my milestone surgery; day I wld acknowledge the truth in its real light as I see it and the day after I last saw R. I cried bitterly on my way to work and could not make it stop.

There is a storm and u live in its pathway in a small but sturdy hut. However, the door hinges r bad and no matter what u do, the door keeps swinging recklessly with the wind and won't shut. Then u jam it shut with all ur might and are content its shut. Moments after u leave, that door is still ajar and gently swaying with the ever-teasing wind. U notice but u let it go as long as it’s almost closed. Then that 1 darned gust of wind and rain and all it picked up on the way hits ur tiny hut - the door swings wildly open, rusty hinges give way, leaving u bare and defenceless in the path of an unforgettable storm... That hut is my heart. The door is the chapter I thought I closed with R. The swinging was me avoiding a possible reconciliation. The final straw was last night when I realized the biggest mistake of my life when the whole hut and everything with it blew away to shreds.
R was, is and seemingly possibly will remain the love of my life, my soul mate. A soul mate not as my ex-boyfriend, lover, husband et al. Soul mate for simply being present in my life. His soul was enough to make up for his and mine. We were 1 in the truest sense of the word. I did the math and let it become two separate broken pieces.
One could never tell where he or I ended and the other started as 2 separate beings in the flesh. We were the envy of all around us. I loved being his trophy and his arm candy.. His lady love right from the chaatwaala in 2^nd street @ Shastri Nagar to the Marriott and WESTIN. Every laundry shop, grocery store, general store, shops, maintenance etc. identified me as Mrs. Ratish Nair (not even to-be). I was in heaven. A girl couldn’t ask for more love, security, validation and someone who kept her virtually 24x7 on a pedestal. He was to be the best husband and the most doting father I would have ever pictured of him. I knew him and he knew me. I had it all.
But like all fairy tales, this one too had its pitfalls. We were so compartmentalized in our bubble that the bubble became world-resistant. We could not function without each other. Apart from our professional commitments, which were galaxies apart, everything about us screamed identical twins. Yet within our bubble, we balanced each other beautifully. I handled his eccentricities and he my cat-like qualities. I was prissy, moody, childish, childlike, stupid, curious, hyperactive, and always craving his attention. The best part was he loved giving me attention. That he had eyes for me would be an understatement. He was my personal surveillance unit. No one knew me as well as he did to the point of predicting dead-on what was expected of me next. He was prince charming in all his glory and yet he was the humble one who rolled in the mud and cement and tears and my stubbornness. I was the fish and he the bull. Yet I absorbed and reflected all his qualities and he turned into the Piscean. He role played beautifully and knew when my ‘yes’ meant ‘no’ and my ‘no’ meant ‘yes’. In the words of my mother, no one could and would control me like he could. He achieved what my own family couldn’t in the years they tried. He turned me from a tomboyish mess of a blob into a beautiful fairy-tale overnight. I went from unnoticed to straight on the billboard at Times Square, NY. For the 1sttime in my life, I had others envy me for nearly everything including his presence in my life. I felt excessively undeserving of him and in that haste of thought and emotion I did innumerable unbelievable things just to show my love and my dedication… except our tunes were different. I was so handicapped without him that I couldn’t buy a toothbrush without him. This would later become a harsh reality when I broke down 1ce just buying a plain ol’ toothbrush. For me he was the pink diamond in the mines of diamond around the world. The kind that Solomon Vandy would risk his life for and treasure to buy him back his freedom and his family in the face of adversity. R was indeed my rose pink diamond.
Why oh why do I not have him now? Compartmentalization for both and unsensitization for me. I had been bitten by the 6yr itch and how. I wanted to scratch the bubble and just peak out. Following his resistance to what he predicted would be the end of our innocence; I tore a gaping hole and jumped right out into anything and everything. I behaved like a juvenile delinquent, a runaway, a reckless teen on a mindful mission to rebel against the good and bad that R would have thought or projected for me. He cried, he suffered, he regretted the bird in cage syndrome and he paid for it. He forgave, accepted, and moulded himself. But my overexposed mind was no longer kind to this poor unsuspecting soul and he was no longer the charming prince I fell in love with. I tried and tried to bring that feeling back, recreation attempts fell flat like a poorly timed pudding in the oven that looks pretty for but a few seconds and then caves in revealing the gooey mixture that never made it. Around this time, I also got a lot of attn. from the opp. side of the boundary. I knew I couldn’t venture there but the attn. was exhilarating and only reinforced my stubbornness to be out there and not come back. I have to say that 99.99% guys would leave and flee but he stayed on. He believed and prayed and wished and hoped. He worked and worked and chased and worked. Today when I look back I see the most patient man ever. The kind that are shot down only to be valued and appreciated much too late in life. I ran around like a wild cat knowing well I was shadowed and covered from all of life’s harms… until there was no one chasing me i.e. R.
R nearly is a creation from the big guy up there. I always wondered where he gathered all that …. whatever good things he had, from. He almost made me look like a confirmed sinner. I felt that last evening when I asked him to meet me for dinner. From sheer heartbreak, he was leaving the country for good I understand. He wore the shirt that resembled the one I loved most. The brown in his shirt matched his coffee brown skin and I missed his shoulders that had embraced and supported me a countless times in good and ugly. He seemed so sure and yet made the least eye contact (his eyes had the kindest warmest look ever). I stared at him almost to the point of shamelessness. I was so taken in by him and questions and sentences ran helter skelter in my mind like people running from a burning bldg. I knew it was over from the moment he arrived and shook my hand and then reciprocated the awkward hug I gave him. He talked a lot about his work and plans and all. I couldn’t help but watch this new person carefully hiding the being I had loved more than my life. I had dressed up for the dinner. I wanted to look pretty, not attractive. I wanted to make an effort to show that I had thought about this dinner…. Farewell dinner. Midway when he took a call from friends and work I msgd my twin and alter ego Supresa that I just realized what a bloody hell of a mistake I made by letting him go. I fought tears through entré and main course as I pretended to dish out some strange giggles and even take a single picture of him. A picture of US was out of bounds now. I mustered the courage to apologize for the heartache that caused to both him and me and for not having faith in him to continue. He was gracious and awkward and didn’t lash back. He was soooo mature. I shrunk under the table, almost. I felt small and lost and again like the girl who couldn’t buy toothbrush without him around. He was now the one I let go and I am the one that got away. 
I see now that I chose to play the villain where I considered someone else the villain for nearly a year. It takes a lot of heart smashing to admit ur mistakes and contributions to something like this and hope to survive it. I hope I survive it. It’s been the worst night and morning in a while where you feel your heart racing (literally) and feel the need to jump into the ice cold Pacific and swim against all odds to make it to the shore. Possibly the cold would numb every physiological tell-tale sign of my heart break and the adrenaline would give me the strength to get through the mess I contributed to… I love R, always will…

Song playing... Coldplay - every tear is a waterfall...

Obstinate feline...



 She moved and danced. To feel the edge of her hips and the ripples of the belly as they swayed in trance. She took a few steps back and lunged 3 forward because she felt a sense of suffocation in the 1 square tile she initiated this trance. No one was watching or so she thought. But then again she wanted her emotions to be on display. Have someone watch her secretly. Cup her face into his hands large enough to fit in and feel like you could sleep there. Have him breathe ever so gently down her neck almost like letting her know that he was right there but not quite locking her in an unbreakable embrace. Now she was confused. Her mood swayed from wanting the unbreakable embrace to wanting to be free as and when she wanted.

This was the boy the man she wanted. She prayed and swayed and swished her way through for. Now he was here and she second guessed her thoughts. She ran. She was the commitment phobic disease that was spreading to him and not the other way around. She wanted him to make a mistake; make her feel like she could step over him and it was ok to do so. But he was indeed perfect. He was flawed and he was perfect that way. He was a rogue ruffian who had taken to her in the most delicate manner possible and treated her like a rare glass prism with colors and magic streaming through. One slight err and she would crash and break and he wouldn’t be able to forgive himself. That’s what he projected and that’s what he possibly thought of her. She would’ve liked to believe that given the soft kisses and delicate moments. But she impersonated herself as the feline warrior. Walked like she owned it all and that the world was at her feet or should reconsider their stand if they weren’t at her feet. She had the power to have it all and have most of it she did.

She ran. She always ran. Physically, emotionally and hypothetically. She loved the chase and the run. The pulsating beat against the sound of the asphalt under her feet. She ran because that’s where her emotions were on 100% display. She could run through a good cry and behave like nothing happened. She ran most from the ones she loved. She thought she was avoiding being hurt or influenced by them. She didn’t know she was running from herself being whatever they fell in love with. Her running was her excitement, her victory dance and her exaltation that she was loved back by the one she loved. Oh no! its confirmed and its right there in her palm. Now what!!!

Would her love fail her? Would her love make her feel like there was better to love or that she deserved better to love? She was exhausted. She couldn’t save her best for last. After all when does one really know the last is the best. What is the ‘best last’? she started hurting the ones she loved. She fought and picked and nitty-grittied it. She decided distance was far safer than being close enough and making eye contact. She thought it easier to break away from than make a way to paradise. She tried seeing the sense that was being seen by others but it was blind to her. she just couldn’t sketch the outline of what was forward. She could only sketch what she hoped would be forward.

He loved her. He showed her he loved her but didn’t know if she loved him back. He didn’t give up and that irked her. But again if he did give up, he would strengthen her belief that he eventually did. She was a wild one waiting for the right owner to tame her, grace her and sway her. Waiting for the right hand on her firmly holding her down despite the large glassy stare but softening as she knew it was for her best and then rewarding her with some love as she purred back. That kiss so gentle passionate and firmly gripped. Warm flush and glow; forgetting where her body ended and his started.

She still waits and sways and runs and prays. She still walks and talks like she knows the what nots. She is difficult and fire but love is quite plainly her only desire!!