Learning...

I've missed blogging, what with all the writing and editing and living that's been happening. Also, a lot of learning for me in this new year. I'm just learning that strawberry yogurt is an excellent (and guilt-free) quencher when you have the munchies at just past 1am, as is now the case.
I've also made note, that some of us weren't born to be pawns, and if we're treated that way, then we will leave the chess game and make our own way across the board games of life until we find our own space to breathe, to grow, to be.
And of course, even though I believe that everything in life happens for some or other reason (often not immediately understood), we have to pay attention to how life seems somewhat randomized, that we will collide as atoms do and that's one of the most beautiful realities about this whole business of living.
PS: This is a one a.m ramble. And at second read (I refuse to edit this!) it does sound a bit heavy and vent-worthy. But. I'm looking forward to an exciting year and a string of new projects and opportunities. More learning. More being me. More of this and that. More writing! And endless love.

Belly of Fire, the anthology that waited patiently for me to pick it up from the shelf of 2010's busy schedule, is on the road to being born. Yes, like a pregnancy. Speaking of which, I will be an aunt sometime soon.
And as of this week, I will be lecturing the Feminist Theory course for Hons students in Sociology at Wits University with Daughters are Diamonds as core text alongside Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex. Accompanied to this is an exciting reader of fabulous material to be discussed in the seminars. The possibility of a play (if the department agrees) and a film to be reviewed by students. It's strangely satisfying, being back at my alma mater. And surreal at the same time, walking around the old haunts, remembering things I may have inadvertently forgotten.
I'm all set for an interesting year ahead.
That's the certainty that is my companion for now.
Good night, blogmites.
xoxo

For Rabiya: Becoming

The face in the mirror is haggard.
Restless. Not myself.
It needs a shift. I know.

I want to learn to be more like me,
and less like him...

Him, who turns me into a ball of foil
and uncreases me,
and crumples me;
he does this a few times
before throwing me into the distance.

I want to learn to be less like that,
and more like this.

This inside. This promise of a new dawn.

That is me.

A million days of hope...

A million stars,
A million promises,
A million days of hope.

Days of sunshine,
follow
Nights of rain.

There can only be
good to
come
of
this.

a drumbeat signals the end

Some people say that soul mates are arranged in heaven, separated on earth, and evolve over time to discover each other again at some stage in their lives. So, they conquer the trials set before them and emerge to be replenished by the lessons learned, and are duly rewarded by the advent of 'the soulmate'. I find the story somewhat biased for a whole number of reasons. From an analysts point of view, it turns out to be a shaky hypothesis, and leaves out a whole bunch if variables; time of marriage, propensity of someone in New Zealand to ever make it out to Mount Kilimanjaro and Budapest and Vancouver in their lifetime to meet potentially, 'the one'. And various stages of life growth, and how that might be measured. So,needless to say, the vastness is not at all taken into account.

As a spiritual being, I am somewhat stymied. Fate decides. Gods will prevails, to make lesser sense to mere mortals until in retrospect, that Eureka moment might be dispensed to us, now thirsty for some reprieve from the discontent, or the numbing acceptance.

Even then, some of it makes sense. And sometimes, it really doesn't.
We continue to grasp for clues.

I am all for feeling blessed at the ability to dodge a bullet or two.
But the lesson for waking up from a dream to find myself standing on a battlefield is lost on me. Life does tend to have a drier sense of humour on some days.

The silence engulfs me. Darkness doesn't console as it should. I'm searching for sunshine, thirsting for it even.
Every step forward feels like an uphill drag. Standing still, the ground caves in.
But even the ground won't take me like this.

What else is there?

Another year. Yet another goodbye.
Repetition resonates.
A steady drumbeat signals the end.

Inertia, Utopia, CHaOs

I cannot recall a year that went by so quickly, it felt like it had barely begun. Not for lack of having accomplished anything, though. In fact, precisely because of the years adrenalin-filled happenings, do I feel that sense of inertia still making me reel to and fro, and for the most part, vivid images meld into a belligerent blur.

This is a reflection. Not quite the customary year-end ramble.
Which is probably why I cannot find the words to express the stop-start feeling.
And, as luck and fate and the powers that be might have it,
its not over yet.

Do I sound like I'm complaining?

Hardly that.
I'm reading yet another visa script as I type; ready to set off to a desert rendezvous for a week of partying and festivity to round up the year that was.
While Dubai World crashes around us left to the folly of the markets and wanton players, some with tails between their legs, our lot might do the economy a small boost in our lavish outpourings for the next week. Shamelessly said, I know.
Such is the bane and the boon of the clad and shackled.

Ah, its been a year of abundance.
Words flow.
Joy bursts at the seams.
The trickles of sadness, loss and illness linger; keeping a necessary humility in place.
And the mirage of a brighter future looms at eye level.
2010 will be a year of togetherness.
A year of partnering on an equal ground; the dust on the battlefields will settle.
And it will be yet another year to reflect on, to learn from, and to celebrate for its lavish layers of utopia and chaos, in similar measures that maintain our humanity; that sustain all but a crass sanity.

Its not quite goodbye, yet.
But its almost there...

Love and Light,
Shafs

http://shafinaaz.com

Copyright Shafinaaz Hassim (C) 2009

Different, and the same...

Silence is barely empty when you punctuate it with so many things that can mean more than all those thousand worded delusions that I have been chasing all my life.

It is, full. And it is empty.

I think I have all the answers to that one question.

I think I know.

I know that days will still run as an open tap; that years will flow as running water from therein. Years flow from days. That's what I have come to know.

I know that words will get stuck like that log in that dream, causing dams to form of muck and grime and sand and silt.

I also know that I will change. And I will remain the same.

And the running thread will always be that place of Silence on the
piece of green mat; my earth. My knees stuck there; different, and yet, the same.

I know that certainty will falter, and be sturdy in its affirmations;
that it will give birth to new confidence,
and bludgeon some assurance to an unnatural death.

And after all is said and done,
I know,
that I will be
as I have been;
And you will be
as you have been.

Different. And then, too, the very same.

intermittent sadness

intermittent sadness
overcomes me

like the soft soap suds from the washing trough,
clean and uninhibited,
but the detergent
sneaks through
nostrils
with a warning label:

'unfit for consumption'

intermittent sadness
overwhelms me
it is. and it is not.

little more can be said
in that space between
what is safe
and what is not.

intermittent it may be
but this sadness even frightens me.

this, that
something scattered
can be felt so deeply

while something untethered
can be made so devastatingly
tangible.

i ask again.
what is safe?
and what is not?

intermittent sadness follows at my heels now,
unattended,
lurking,
searching still,
between
the is
and the
is not.

TeXTure

I met a woman who makes moleskins for a living. What an amazing way to celebrate words, I thought. And the recording of history, of course. But it's to be appreciated that this is a craft of scarcity; and more importantly, the most seasoned artisans are a rare breed.

We feel life in texture. So whether the words we read are made tangible in their way of evoking emotion, or whether it is that life grazes and grabs a hold of you, enticing you to in turn hold on tightly, we are meant to be aware of it's every moment.
Armchair travel rules the world. I believe that, firmly. Via kindle or good-ol-fashioned print runs that leave their ink on your fingers and your mind; the written word will forever stretch out into the Soul of the world and inspire in us things we may never dream of, even.

It's in wanting to feel life that life is felt out for us.

I am threading along with my beads of choice and happy to see the precious moments adding up to a worthy adornment. Life can be pretty thrilling, in it's ordinariness if we just take the time to stand back and admire it :)

S

99c

It would have been an easy celebration today; but then it's all just a whirrr of pictures and colour and emotions through my fingers when you think of it all. Now distant memories of way back then when carefree was a state of being, and forever raspberry on my lips: 99c gloss from Mr Price, a 3-door car to the Symphony of Fire and some jeans ripped up on the unforgiving tarmac. Laughter our eternal companion. Or was it all those other times: a late night phone call because your electric blue spray-can spilled its guts over the beach in tribute to me. Vanity inflated then. I can only imagine it still, seeing as this was all before MMS evidence became crucial to our existence. Or the sacred spliff on a couch in the middle of who-knows-where was a reason to barricade our shared life with all that deadly silence. Then the giggles in tandum to really nothing. Promises? You always had a knack for those. And the moments of greatest tests when we questioned each other. And you blew it all up in smoke when you shouted my name at the top of your lungs in the crowd. Often. What about that offish day; my birthday? Midnight. A long story for the guardians of the night. An empty suitcase. And a can of my favourite fizz with priceless slice-of-cake simplicity did the trick that engraved itself on this feeble mind. Unstilted.

Sigh.

You would have been worth the celebration today, if you were. I should have said goodbye when you left here. I should have. I wish I said it then. I didn't. I think I'll say it now. Ghosts of the past have no future, don't you know? Mortal presence can't keep up with that much glamour. Thanks, really. This cots getting tiny. You have to go. I can barely breathe. Still, it was fun. And you're gone, and you're here, like you said you'd always be. I know I know, a promise is a promise. But please, just go.

bringing me 'home'

Waves
crash over reason

my deepest anxieties
uncovered
by the movements not of water
and moon dancing wanton,
but of shifting tectonic plates
far below the
usual realm of
consciousness.

Waves crash
over anything remotely
reasonable

I am. And I am no more.

Content confusion a sacred state almost.
Confused contention a place to
sit and twiddle thumbs
on a fancy laptop
with no
mouse for company.

Just a burning wrist
fit for the chiropractors
skilled
wringing of his own two;
wrists and palms
and teeth, one ivory and one gold.

Spontaneity drowned
in that exchange.
Only more to contend with,
oceans of reason and un-reason
and some pain;
a meddlers chair to sit in
while wrists do their work
on my own.

And a ream of paper waiting
to be branded with
ink and words and someone elses dreams, dashed.

More waves, crashing on the shore
of newer contemplations...

Bringing me home
to simple content
and the space of knowing
that there is
no coincidence...

Only Plan.

For He is the Best;
the Planner.

I can take rest.

deep down i know

Dear Diary...

Life is strange. So very strange. I am sitting with a box of smarties and I don't know what to do with it. Everything's smooth sailing with good views and no sea-sickness. If I want to touch the sky, it steps down on one knee and gives me a hand, asking me to dance. If I want to plant roses, the seeds are scattered on the wind. And if I want to feel the wind in my hair, tree's cradle boughs into make-shift swings these days.

Hallucination or not, it's a truly blessed space to be in.

I still don't really know what to do. But I also have a feeling that that's just a conscious and superficial unknown. Deep down, I think I got it all figured out. I have just got to wait till it surfaces. That's all. :)

The End...

Some of the most imaginative stories are begun with the words "Once Upon a Time".

Even Coelho's 'Eleven Minutes' does this. But then, the idea of beginning at the begin, is a nominal and conventional route as far as story-telling goes.

I like the idea of beginning at the end. It has that something in it that suggests we (at least a part) are permanently frozen in our every moment; that everyone moment of NOW has a nostalgic before and an inevitable after.

I have written a goodbye post to every year since I began blogging in 2005. Each time I said goodbye to a year of things and happenings; sometimes gladly, mostly reluctant... but then I never bid farewell to the memories or feelings or lessons. And mostly, I never ever said goodbye to the experiences that indulged my craving for wholeness. These were my highlights; my essential milestones... They were the products of my often limited supply of enthusiasm. And this limitation had to be pointed out to me; for a long time I deluded myself into believing that enthusiasm existed in endless supply. Then I heard not. It was like discovering that Santa doesn't exist. Or worse still, the Tooth Fairy! Imagine that?!

They happen every single year, of course. These milestones of discovery. And they're not always easy to acknowledge or recognise. Oh, but they sure do take place. Angels in disguise tend to present them in the most creative ways. Those same angels in disguise both force and entice the inner demons out on a scant spring-cleaning effort. And they tease the inner angels too, encouraging a romance of sorts between them for a time.

It's the End again. Candles have melted, and taps have run dry. There's no more squeezing that toothpaste tube. 2008 is done; save for a few pernicious scraps of dark poetry scribbled across the draft of that thing called a novel, and other's published here and there and elsewhere, it was another eventful and evolutionary year. That I can say, without so much as a drop of doubt.

A year ago, I yearned for newness. I got it in torrents. The storm replenished me, insatiated me... and then washed me ashore to yet another beach of newness. This ebb and flow is what life is all about. At least that what it is to me... part of that tidal wave of evolutionary relationships, personal growth and discovery... and a longer list of reasons to feel an overwhelming gratitude for riding the crest of the wave every so often, after a time of drowning in the confusion of the greater depths of salty water.

The ebb and flow... the circularity of reason... the evolution of life and being...
And the thrilling realisation that ends are really beginnings...

Here's wishing everyone a gregarious and enthusiastic new year 2009!


With love and appreciation

Shafinaaz

just like that

i am feeling an overwhelming sadness tonight. and i dnt know what to do about it.
im typing these words. and feeling a sense of relief in seeing them on screen. pretending that this way, the sadness will dissolve. but its not.
i still dnt know what to do about it.

im drenched. i dnt think i can afford to lose more salt right now.
but its all not always easy to find answers to everything.

maybe sad is healthy. i dnt know.
i dnt know if anyone knows.
but i know that i dnt.

one last dance

This last dance,
Is all it takes
for a mind to say good bye.

This last dance,
when the roses have long dried
and leaves once green
are ready for their bronzing.

Just one last dance,
so i can feel that memory
of your breath
on my skin,
and that signature whisper
that you almost didn't utter
forever branding me
as your silent love.

This last dance,
is all i need to
remember that it wasn't
just a dream,
and then to
forget eyes
that smiled once,
just for me.

This last dance, in appreciation,
because you showed me
that eternity
exists.

Yes, I'm savouring this one last dance,
because you always are
and never will be.

A last dance,
is all a heart needs
to finally let you go.