The January Syndrome

Hurt comes in many packages, some of them uncomfortably small. Once the boxes have been sorted according to kith, kin, kindred and the like you start to analyse them, attempting to drum up enough support for your cause. That's when you realise you are a lost cause. The first rude shock came many years ago when I felt I was special and waited for a wedding (number one) to kick me in my shins. I could not imagine whether I had messed up in the perception department or whether I had simply lost out--all for one, one for all. The second wedding had me wary from the word go, so the distraction was less intense and numbing. Wedding three put the final nail in the coffin. Maybe there was a detachment kink that I beamed out that took primary, bragging rights away from me. Or it might have been my sense of expectation that swallowed me whole. Either ways, weddings did me in and put me in my place, slowly and surely.

Today, there is a different kind of hurt edging its way into my family and is built on the knowledge that shared pasts are not enough to guarantee a future. I find them grovelling in the dark, confused, on edge and exceptionally lonely. I want to say I can make it better but honestly I can't. I dream about it and think about it incessantly, knowing that sadness, loneliness and unhappiness are not emotions you should be forced to acknowledge in your 60s.

Please get better I pray. Please

Kati Patang

After swimming in sunshine that warmed my back and kept me foolish and hungry on the first three days of the year, I returned to chilblains, quite literally. My belly sensed a distance and felt diffident; my appetite demanded a voracity I lacked. I flung myself back into 2012 without a glance the moment I came back; regression becoming me without making me succumb to its humility--in fact making me bold and brave. The art of drifting is an exact one and when you find that you can go back and forth between then and now at the mere flip of a switch, part of you is eager to explore yesterday once more.

Coffee in tumblers that are addicted to caffeine play host to my madness evening after mocking evening. The addiction dictum that is espoused over cups of bean is for losers. The cold outside is reflected aptly within as well as I clutch at straws. I am lonely but not unhappy as I forget to have hasty feet, happy or otherwise. I spend my evenings browsing through emotional memorabilia that hangs in the air like stale smoke. On an unusually cold evening which bites me hard enough to hurt, I weave my way through the backlanes of Sarojini Nagar past Satya Marg and into a corner that is home for the moment. I am angry and I detest the arrogance that accompanies emotional cleverness of the kind I am face to face with. Remains of the day, Ishuguro style that would make anyone uncomfortable, even through the slits of nepotism I am forced to acknowledge. The itch is back and this time I want to write full length with a burst of integrity that allows me to string words that are new on my tongue, dissolving all angst and ill humour. This will be the definitive year I urge myself to believe. From Jack Johnson and The Communards to hunted lyrics that lie unused in piles of nostalgia, I pick and choose what needs spinning, what needs the bin. I am back.

Tequila sunrise

The year has turned over when I forgot to look and I find myself welcoming the flip side with utter amazement. The kindness of 2013 is apparent on day one as I sense an ending, Julian Barnes style and look at shadows anew. I spent the last few moments of 2012 being tough on myself as I give up a rather than give in. There are quiet moments as I stand by myself, prosecco in hand and wonder at how far from myself I have come. Yet each time I try and step aside the world conspires and works in mysterious ways to bring me face to face with my agony and ecstasy. I watch the white foam roll around for the nth time, completely at ease with its mundane existence as it stands testimony to emotions that sometimes cloud it's heady judgement. There's a melancholic sweetness to the silence that defines the start of the year. The day is spent in abandonment and I wonder if anything will change at all in the days to come; after all it is just a new number in my daily lexicon. I drink in the goodness of Thalassa and stick to being the sushi slut I am in the last hours of day one. Just another day in paradise before the cold swallows me whole and I fumble again. It should be a beginning but I still sense an ending that is much needed before I embrace the year and break free.

trampolines

It's the end of 2007. Damn the scum.
The year was spent scrambling on trampolines
Whistling through dead air.
Shiny disco balls and glitter-bug traded for
smug solidarity at the stroke of midnight.
Sans the trampolines.
Hurtling through erratica and
clinking our eyeballs as we
say hola to 2008