I have made a shelf of books that i have read a long time back, say around 6-7 years back. Today i was looking for a book that i could carry on my trip tomorrow and found The Great Gatsby. I bought it in 2005. 16 October, to be precise. I remember it because that is the day my parents got married long time back. And i found this note i had written at the back of the book, it says ' i got this book at barnes and nobles for 12$ and there is no exciting memory, no cherished moment whatsoever about today.'

I don't remember if i really liked that book that time. But i remember being greatly influenced and troubled by it. So i decided to start reading it again. This note at the back page basically made me open my laptop and write something about today. Because like that day, there is nothing exciting about today. It is still a day that is going down in my life, never to return. I might as well write something today. or let me reconstruct that sentence with just 'today' instead of 'about today'.

hmm. I am remembering sad stories of my life that have been left un-ended, dissolving in the stream of time...or is this whole un-happening part of these stories still a part of it? i don't really hope so. no feeling about it. not that there is a value-judgement about it.,,

so one day, long time back, i started running on a beautiful jogging track close to my house. I have been going there on and off for the last 4 years now. When i started off, i remember this guy who wore a yellow jersey and black trousers everyday and ran quite sincerely, as if he intended on doing long distance sometime. I ran quite sincerely too, hoping i run a marathon someday. his presence was quite motivating. we never exchanged a glance even (that is, a glance such that we notice it) the first year. and then the next year, we started smiling after finishing our workout. it was good to have him around, besides the old grumpy people dragging their flesh as if they are forced to do so that particularly lazy gloomy evening. only last year did we speak. he knew by then how much i ran, so one time i stopped quite early and started walking, and he said, 'hey, come on run'. i had cramps in my stomach, but i didn't want to tell him, afterall, this was the first time i heard him speak, and i didn't want to begin a conversation by telling him about my tummy ache. so i smiled and started running. that was quite stupid, now that i think about it...

cutting the story short, we spoke a few more times later...about running and health and fitness. never a word about our personal lives...
i stopped running for a week last month. i forgot all about this guy, got busy with life etc. only last week when i started running, i was told that the guy in yellow, whose name i never found out by the way, was asking for me before he left the country forever. he apparently has found a job somewhere in europe. i miss him on track. not in a romantic way obviously, but it saddens me to think that i will not see him again, forever?

nothing spectacular about this story. but i thought of it today.

To laugh often and much, to win the respect of intelligent people and affection of children, to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends, to appreciate beauty, to find the best in others, to leave the world a bit better whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition, to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived, this is to have succeeded.

-Bessie Anderson Stanley

 My anger overwhelmed me yesterday, the city was ugly, fast, speedy, lusty, loud, poor, rich, full of problems bubbling forth and ignored and suppressed out of insensitivity, or ignorance or speed. Could it ever change? 

It made me restless. And i wished i could get in my running clothes, wear my shoes and run and get rid of the heaviness i felt in my heart. I couldn't. I was in the city, with work to be done. Restlessness often makes you explore, push things to their limits, search desperately...for peace? for self realization? It makes me want to reach out to the ones i love, tell them that they mean everything to me, it makes me want to act, to write, to run, to play music, to read, to live...it makes me want to jump on a trampoline a hundred times. It makes me want to breathe fresh air, unpolluted, wafting from a trembling green jungle or a clean snowy and misty mountain. 

All these desires, haha, when i am sitting in a green and white government bus in the window seat, bearing silently the heat the sun is pouring down and the sweat and a thick lack of sleep in the eyes...

and the news of my dear friend's loss. 

it's better to take refuge in simple pleasures, i realized. and chose to be happy about the fragrance of jasmine flowers that the girl next to me wore in her hair. and the clouds moving silently in the hot sunny sky. and the love in my heart. and the sight of an old man lazing under a blackberry tree flossing his teeth with a small twig. and a mother concentrating on cleaning her daughters hair off lice, separating every strand of hair and looking for the tiny bug. 

it's all still unsolved. do we really find peace? or do we choose it? no matter what, every peaceful moment in surrounded by a lot of chaotic restlessness. and vice-versa. or is it all the same and we change perspectives about that one thing, calling it peace and restlessness? i don't know where this is going...

so i stop. (proves my point exactly) sigh. 

"To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all." 
— Oscar Wilde

when i am jumping from a cliff down in the deep waters, there is this moment of truth that flutters between diving straight in and staying on the ground. the heart beats, shivers, supportless... i am not too ready to dive in but not too boring to stay on the ground. there is a risk there. oh not of losing my life etc, a risk nonetheless, of leaving the comfort behind and exploring the mysterious waters, of being in the air without wings, of experiences unknown.

i understand what they say when they say , what is life without risks. its breaking these walls, these fears, untying unknown knots...being in the discomfort, in search of comfort, but moving away in another discomfort again, persistently, in search of comfort.

we are a funny species.