Tuesday, March 06, 2007

The kiss of memory

I was seized by nostalgia at breakfast. The constant chatter of the Filipino-American family on the next table took me back to that time, oh it feels like a dream, when I had sat in similar buffets with my family, happy about the sausages, smugly sipping black coffee, looking out of the picture windows at the city outside waiting to be explored by me. Many, many years later, I sit on a similar cane chair, looking out of a similar picture window onto a strange city. I am alone, there’s no chatter. Instead, there’s the morning paper and my glass of apple juice and my thoughts on how I will plan my day. Somewhere in the corner is heartache, which I ignore as I don’t want it to color my day. The heartache is kept for twilight hours.

How silly we are to try and visualize the future. How can we presume to think that we can predict the events fate can throw at us or the decisions that we will take? Life is not an algorithm, much to the dismay of control freaks like me. The variables can change mid way and the course of life can often be unalterably deviated in moments. And sometimes we don’t even know what these variables are. Do I know how I landed up here? Do I know how some people entered my life? Do I know why I did some things I did? I look back with surprise - I don’t know! All I know is that I am here. Carrying the past with me, a past filled with memories that come to greet me at the oddest of moments., plunging me into inexplicable sadness And hoping for the future. For love, for peace. And if not that, then faith and courage.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Interesting to know.