Mania and despair, and then some jasmines

There is an urgency to write all I can, sometimes it is a din and I have to forcibly shut myself out lest I go insane. I find myself scattering thoughts across screens, notepads, journals and letters, blog posts and text messages. I retreat into blank pages and screens and lock myself up in their familiar comfort. Maybe, it’s their sterile emptiness that is comforting.

I fear not being able to expel all those words before I leave. I fear going blind before I’ve read and written all that I have yet to. I fear not being able to look people in the eye and telling them how much their lives have blessed my own. I fear not having given back enough for all that I have been so freely and generously given. So, I scribble furiously and let them loose into the world. All that seems to matter is to let the words stream out. Their reading is incidental.

There are over 20,000 dead people or so the news says. It seems less considering how the invisible agent has been circling the planet, like another moon, dusting a sickness on all that it touches. But a furiously spinning ticker will make the world run amok and destroy itself. It’s better this slow progression on dashboards rather than the raging inferno that is Covid 19. 20,000 odd lives and their leftovers that others may weep over. Who will grieve for those without homes? Who will grieve for those yet to go?

I want to listen to music from different places and let their unfamiliar sounds and tongues wash over me. Today it is Gasparyan, the Armenian artiste. His sound is my mood today. Mania and Despair. It is after all the stuff of living- pain and pleasure, desire and aversion, always the dualities. How would we survive if not for light and dark? And in the midst of all this, wild jasmines bloom and release their fragrance into the night.