Silenced by the Night

For D., who first read me this poem on a long-ago wintry night atop a lovely hill, who held my hand when I was too afraid to look down, whose smile always feels like sunshine, and who always keeps a song in his heart. And because I have no other words of my own tonight.

The Waking

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.
I learn by going where I have to go.

We think by feeling. What is there to know?
I hear my being dance from ear to ear. 
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow. 

Of those so close beside me, which are you?
God bless the Ground! I shall walk softly there,
And learn by going where I have to go,

Light takes the Tree; but who can tell us how?
The lowly worm climbs up a winding stair;
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

Great Nature has another thing to do
To you and me, so take the lively air,
And, lovely, learn by going where to go.

This shaking keeps me steady. I should know.
What falls away is always. And is near.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I learn by going where I have to go.

- Theodore Roethke

A Late Goodbye

I used to think it was natural to eventually lose track of people if you had to lead a kind of solitary existence. Not sticking around in one place very long helps, of course. You find it becomes rather easy to end up alone.

There's never a need to make excuses to yourself for not having said a final goodbye to this or that person. There is the hope that your paths will cross again. Some day. And there is the idea that this hope is quite enough. The present becomes bearable, even pleasant, because of the belief that such and such a future exists.

"You can stay in the same place and still find ways to leave people." I kept thinking about his words all night. It must have been such a sad thing I thought at first, but he said it with such serenity that it became a sort of first principle, a self-apparent truth, an axiom really. I didn't think to question it. It must be satisfying - to not have to answer to anyone else. To go it alone. So brave.

It was much later that I sensed the deep melancholy behind the words when I did finally manage to get to sleep. Hovering somewhere in that grey zone between sleep and waking, I thought I heard his voice again. You know, how a recent memory returns, vivid and highly-coloured, just as you're about to relinquish consciousness. And it was then that I realised what I assumed had been serenity, was resignation. I would have forgotten all about it, if it wasn't for those recurring words.

I understand now. It was a surrender, not a choice. I wish I could have reached out and held his hand. Would it have made him feel better? Or would it have been another of those things that lingered in his memory before he decided it was time he left? It's pointless to ponder what could have been when you know for certain what will be. And what I know for certain is that it's too late now.

On Thinking Different

Looking at my facebook homepage last morning, I cudnt help but be overwhelmed by the collective outpouring of tribute for and quotes by Steve Jobs. I had this slight sinking feeling in my stomach, a somewhat delicate sense of loss and it was strange that it was for a man I didn't really know at all. But what he dreamed up changed the daily habits of millions around the world, what he created was what all of us grew up desiring. Atleast, I did. I remember brokering deals with my parents, deals that ran along the lines of 'If I get a Distinction in every subject this year, will you buy me an iPod?' Well, I did get both. The Distinctions and the iPod. It was incredible, the idea that something so small and so elegant cud be kept safe under a pillow at night while Elvis Presley crooned into my ears or V. S. Ramachandran delivered personal lectures about phantom limbs and Capgras syndrome.

It didn't feel like just another consumer product. Even if some people insist that's all it really was.

Whichever side one takes, in all the debating and discussing over Apple and their iPods and iPads and iPhones and Macs and all that, one can't help denying, it is awesome technology, marketed rather effectively. And Steve Jobs, who made most of it possible, is gonna be sorely missed.

I rather liked this quote from the long and lovely list of quotes that flew around in newspapers and forwards and on facebook yesterday.

"Here's to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes.

The ones who see things differently. They're not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify them or vilify them.

About the only thing you can't do is ignore them. Because they change things. They invent. They imagine. They heal. They explore. They create. They inspire. They push the human race forward.

Maybe they have to be crazy.

How else can you stare at an empty canvas and see a work of art? Or sit in silence and hear a song that's never been written? Or gaze at a red planet and see a laboratory on wheels?

We make tools for these kinds of people.

While some see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do."

And cradling my iPod as it plays a rather soulful Rosanne Cash song, it's nice to imagine being one of those people he's talking about so passionately. And that's a feeling you can't quite put a price on.

The day you fly without me

I look out my window tonight as your plane etches a line in the sky

Outside, this mad city recedes from me

with its million teeming hearts in a million sleepy chests

I sit still in the night, you move towards dawn

I remain a fixed point on the map as you consume its longitudes

Our pact to read our farewells

at two in the morning

with you in the air, and me on the earth

weighs unbearably on my mind

While your unopened letter

lies on my desk,

beating.