perston

Saturday, September 17, 2005

Pearls...

Two weeks of work in a row, finding new friends, feeling the classroom after so long, walking along Charles River on a chilly evening of September, reading non stop, missing home and the family, cycling after months and starting to live a whole lot of life...

Words -to me- are like pearls. In search of precious pearls, I have explored the depth of each moment, when moments are surrounding me like an ocean. Sometimes they are so close that I can reach them. At times I need to rescue them from the shell, and at times they just slip away from my fingers. There are times though that I get lucky, when pearls come across, slide and roll over my skin, and I can't help but write.

I have learnt so far, that everything in this world can be taken away from us. In a fraction of a second, we may lose any of those things which we had for long taken for granted. When that devastating earthquake happened in Bam, I was right there. It was then when I came to believe no shelter was ever-safe. When my patients succumbed to the very reality of death, I was right there by the bed, learning how death was walking hand in hand with life through every single moment. It was then when I learnt that every second could be the last one of my life, that I have to live each moment to the end, that I have to leave no room for regret. All it takes is a fraction of a second, to lose something. Not only life, freedom and belongings, but even one's own integrity can be taken away from them, and I have lived in an insane enough world to believe that. It took me a while to realise that nothing actually belongs to us, in real terms nothing actually is “our”. Sometimes we are to suffer from losing things that were not really ours in the first place, but are beloved to us, and that is why we cannot afford to lose them, that is why we fear the loss all time, without actually being able to claim anything. At this very moment, when I look at the big picture, I reckon the only thing which can be mine, is my freedom to dream, is the freedom of the soul, is what I think, what I create. This is why Words are my only asset, and I cannot afford losing them. I will never forget that very day when I watched Iris, a movie based on the life of Iris Murdoch, the writer, thinker and philosopher who had lived and studied in Oxford, in my very own college, some sixty years ago, and had died while suffering from Alzheimer's Disease for long. I could see her when words started to become elusive to her, when she had to suffer and search for them when writing, and her persistent efforts were of no avail. It shook me to the marrow, the movie and later the very last writings of hers. It was then when I realised what big a fear it was to me, loss of Words. For days to come, I thought about how my life had been woven into words, their consoling presence in my world and their magical power in my dreams. I realised how many children I had, that were my poems, my stories, the very creations of love and devotion over time, just like giving birth, with a similar experience of pain and timeliness, yet with the similar nature of responsibility. I also remember that rainy December evening in Oxford, when I tried to imagine myself as a future member of the this real world, in say twenty years time; And there sitting in the quad with closed eyes, did I recognise one image for sure, of a pen, and piles of paper. What I might be doing for a living, what profession will define my career, and where I will be working is of no importance, all I know is that, the real ecstasy of life is in creating a momentum, is in living those dreams that may sound insane, and for sure, in the very moment that all of a sudden, words conquer the territory of my mind in the middle of the night, in a bar or on a bike. They roll and roll vigorously until everywhere is covered with pearls; they urge me not only to express what I think, but also to think in the first place. The more I use them the more they come to me. At times, they look so simple, trying to hide their suffering souls. They are alive though, extremely alive.

Words -with the embedded emotions they carry in heart, with the glow of reality and the shine of enthusiasm to shake the world off the dust of injustice, and with their endless capacity for unimagined meanings- have always taken over my life, of my journey. That is why I am here now. I still believe in dreams, in having them and living them. Life can be such a beautiful dream at times, a dream not lived yet. Every single moment may bring about a miracle, a dream to come true. Life is too short to be left unlived, and that is why I have taken the Third Path, the unknown. This is where you have to thrw yourself into the ocean of Time, and embraced by each moment, will you find a pearl…


O xxx

1 Comments:

At 1:56 PM, Blogger Hercolena Oliver said...

Some moments in life are far more treasured
Such as a precious pearl in the ocean of time
Enhanced only by true friendship measured
As fate doth createth beautiful inspiring rhyme

 

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