Ahhhhhhhhhh. My fingers hit the keyboard for the first time in months, as thoughts slowly poured out instead of sprinting, from my head… to my mouth… to a pen… to a google document… But here tonight, I finally felt every letter of the word, calm.
I could see the shape of my thoughts and ideas; even feel their natural curve. I could close my eyes and have them still be there, waiting for me, when I open them.
Of late, I felt like even when I meditate things generally aren’t this quiet. Now- under the loud tap of my fingers, I could hear a cat nibbling on some kibble and see a candle shedding a golden glow as it vibes in the wind.
“Did you know, Australia doesn’t have seasons?”
“NO!” I said, before thinking about it.
“FUCK- you’re right! It’s either beautiful and pleasant or cold.”
” See- that’s something I miss about the UK. “
” Well you must be feeling right at home with all this rain…” I said as it poured for the 3rd day in a row.
” Hmmmm, it doesn’t really rain in the UK. Moreso it drizzles. No- over there the seasons are amazing as they kind of guide you into different cycles.”
” Cycles?”
“Cycles. You know- like Winter is all about hibernation. I always slept the best in Winter, with a warm cup of cocoa before bed. And of course, a cold Christmas is just magical.”
” I can imagine.”
“And Autumn- the leaves change colour to brown, and all you can hear outside is crunch, crunch, crunch under your feet. And the air tastes sweet, as crisp as a freshly dry-cleaned shirt.”
“Mmmmmmmm.”
“It’s nice- the seasons changing,” my friend said.
“It helps you restore, recover. Here, I feel exhausted and burnt out.”
My friend was going through a rough patch post break-up. I think mentally she was stuck in a Winter somewhere in Norway, where the sun forgets to come out for months at a time.
This was the second break-up she had gone through in the past year. She was coping by fantasising about another place to move to. Like happiness was a destination, and she was a duck that just missed the migration.
I try to tell her ever so lightly that a place doesn’t equal happiness and that we all go through different chapters, some happier than others. And then other times life just keeps chugging along in this weird mid-section, where you can’t complain about anything but you also aren’t excited either.
A more realistic kind of feeling- ‘underrated happiness,’ I think you could call it.
However, since the UK was the current destination in mind, we carried on discussing how UK’s Mother Nature would bandaid-up her broken heart and guide her to happiness.
” It’s like fruit- you know how Mangos are only sold in December? People too are seasonal. We all need time to be still and rest in order to flourish. ”
” I 100% agree. This just happens to not be your month, my dear cantaloupe.” I say, smiling into the phone.
She laughs at this.
“Yeah, yeah. I guess I just miss being… ridiculously happy. Or even mediocre happy.”
” You will be again. Give yourself time.”
A few days later, I was on a date and found myself transfixed with this one flavour of ice-cream that I couldn’t bring myself to order.
It was tangy, creamy, sweet and sour. I wanted to buy a tub of it just for those weird days where life zoomed by so fast, that you couldn’t remember most of it.
(Which of late, resembled most days. If life was a dance, I was definitely not dancing with it, but rather sashaying all around while occasionally stepping on its toes.)
“What’s the flavour again?” my date asked me.
“CHUNKY LEMON!”
” God that flavour was a mess! My tongue is still in knots. ”
“Yes but a memorable mess- no?”
My date laughed at this, he was Canadian. I couldn’t figure out if the reason our dates kept happening was because we just enjoyed laughing, but not really at each other. But rather how crazy the conversations could get from our terrible senses-of-humour.
Either way, things were easy and I liked it that way. Some seasons you don’t want dates that grip your heart or strangle your taste-buds.
You just need to laugh and have things stay simple.
Beyond-curious 