somewhere in 2007

somedays i just feel an urge to write, usually on a scrap of blank white paper [usually torn out of a nearby notebook otherwise even the back of an envelope will do], almost always with a black ink pen. there is a strange comfort in articulating a moment, a funny satisfaction in coherence. sometimes i actually get round to typing it out and saving it someplace, even if it is only a paragraph, or even a sentence. othertimes i am not as successful in following up on the intention to save these efforts. i don't know how many scraps of paper i have lost over the years.

my childhood ambition was to write a book that would be good enough for publication. i think because i loved reading so much, i thought it would mean the world to be a published author. these days, the range and modalities of written works have changed much with the advent of self-publication and the internet. admittedly, my love of books has also suffered from my discovery of magazines and [if i'm being really honest here] mold. i don't think books will ever lose their relevance though, or at least i hope not. because really the only thing that makes us human is the power of thought.

anyway i digress, i was looking through my old files and i found a little paragraph i wrote back in 2007 -

This one is for the wall flowers, for the grass, the average and the quiet, who exist but exist so unnoticeably that you may perhaps notice them for that aspect of their lives, for those who may live rich inner thoughts and animations but cannot fathom public expression and hence cannot inhabit the society of people and presences. For those forgotten or remembered for the wrong things, for the people you never got to know well enough, for the random names you hear and obscure, for the ones who inevitably make themselves easy to ignore, who cry out and argue and scream in a silent voice void of decibel. Those who don’t easily shake the feeling of being strangers and thus viciously make themselves stranger, who are afraid to invite judgement. Which is both the key to condemnation and exaltation. For the Jesus of Somewhere Else who was shy.

And life doesn’t wait for her to play catch-up, it has moved on, solidified, flowed away, eluded and laughed.