the answer,

the following.

vegetarian adventurers. naked fat men. alice. carroll. popcorn. airports. hotels. travel. adventures. bookshops. buses. transport. time zones. toronto. vancouver. any other place in canada. chicago. edinburgh. any other place in the u.k. chennai. letters. conversations. company. koshy's. the children's section. beatrix potter. tom kitten. presents. joni mitchell's a case of you. 200 other songs. walks. dogs. rabbit. cat. mathematics. books. english. the word "poetry". the word "egad". the word "agog". squirrels. first names. last names. people. visitors. borrowing. lending. waiting. reading. writing. not writing. babies. blogs. tennis. television.
happy. sad. love.
associations.

sometimes you don't know how much until someone tears you a hole and it all falls out.

small revelations

Ever since I can remember (I would say the eighth grade, actually. It was a sad sap of a piece called Why... or some such stuff. It did not even rhyme.) I have used sad little poems and passages to remove myself from whatever awful things I was feeling at the time. Most of these little awful feelings bordered on one big awful feeling from one direction or the other, so it wasn't very surprising, perhaps, that all my writing tended to be of the "nobody loves me i'm so misunderstood where are *my* true friends" variety.

When I first started the blog, the trend continued for a while until I realized there were people out here in blogland who thought I was funny, or talented, or interesting, or some other mild compliment...and suddenly the world wasn't such a dreary place after all. For a while, happy writing didn't really seem impossible to do.

Lately, though, I haven't been very well. I suppose the regular posts about entertainment on public transport and the joys of getting lost made me forget this, but I realized it again this morning - sometimes there are horrible things that happen to you that you can't really laugh off.
I'm not talking, of course, about horrendous evenings spent in the midst of chain-smoking strangers (did you know that water could smell like smoke?) or about the auto driver who insisted on following me through three signals to try and make me acknowledge his vile insults, or about the fiasco at my University that led to my being failed in my final thesis project. No, these are stories I would have wanted to elaborate on and laugh about and try to make everyone reading this (well, the three or four readers I have, anyway) laugh about as well. I do write a good funny story. :)
But these are the stories I've tried to remember and write down for the last month and a half, but which wouldn't come out no matter how hard I tried. I thought it was because I'd lost my words, or the very mediocre talent I feel I possess... but that wasn't it, was it?

No. The only reason I haven't been able to write about all the little things that made me smile is that I have not allowed myself to write about the one big thing that made me cry.
In time I will. And then I will be okay.

the benefit of third-person narratives

I've lost my voice, and I've lost the T.
The double bereavement has left me utterly disjoint. It's not something I've ever experienced before, and I hate it.

Things have happened. Things have been happening.
I completed my thesis, and submitted it, and had complimentary remarks made about my design even though I'd neglected to draw elevations of my buildings.
I joined a Spanish class that's conducted on the weekends. I like the class. I'm a fabulous student, and the teacher's good at explaining things. I am, however, slowly growing unable to stomach her continuous slurs on Indians as students of language. I predict some unpleasantness.
I've been talking to people about freelance jobs ranging from the construction of the upper storey of a residence to writing articles for a magazine to the interior design of a restaurant to the possibility of working for a place that provides newsletter services for companies. This should make me happy, yes? Multiple possibilities! Sigh.

I've added a morning walk to my daily schedule, and I've had some wonderful pre-dawn strolls in the last few days that had me wish I were still writing. All I have now are some random disjoint memories of the thoughts I had on my walk (in the undead twilight with all the whites white and the snake hole snake hole snake-hole and the smell of dawn over grass) and a disinclination to do anything about it.

Perhaps I should try letting go for a while. ("for a while")
Hopefully I will be able to get myself to miss the writing by not trying to do it at all...

watch this space?

but that's just a euphemism

Sometimes I think people should come right out and say what they really feel, like you broke my heart and now nothing makes sense but I think the fundamental problem with people whose hearts get broken is that they don't really have the courage to say anything that's big enough and true enough to change their world.

The reason I cannot write: I have things I must talk about that I cannot share. Why the sudden reluctance? Perhaps it's because this time it is bigger than anything I've had to handle before. Perhaps this time it's bigger than Across the Universe and Taare Zameen Par and a Mensa quiz and a job offer and another job offer and redesigning our house and completing my thesis and a bright and promising future, and perhaps - perhaps this scares me more than I am willing to admit to.
Perhaps.

Maybe admitting hard things lets you back inside yourself.
:)