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Ce soir, je me suis rendu compte d'une chose.
Days go by, and I seem to have a desire to enjoy most.
Mais, je m'attends aux jours que je sais que je ne les aimerai pas.
And such a cycle goes on and on and on and on.
Jusqu'à je le remarque.
I wonder if it is my thinking that causes such fluctuation.
On serait d'accord avec moi.
There are thoughts which work their way around my consciousness.
Elles viennent de mon passé.
But is it really my own past?
Je ne vois que les choses qui n'existent plus.
The possibility of this seems to be rather null.
Cependant, je peux la reconnaître comme un paradoxe.
I see all things around me and know them to only be imprints upon my mind.
J'ai appris.
For usage in need.
J'ai essayé d'oublier.
But it is not the way.
Je dois désapprendre.
And I must make the journey back.
The light at the end of the tunnel is most certainly not an oncoming train, lest I somehow believe it is. No, the light is a reminder. Of what I am, of who I am. My journey through the tunnel is ephemeral, for soon I am to realise that I am here, light, and that the tunnel was merely an illusion, never having been there.
From here, they look like tiny Lego pieces, all the same off-white colour with a faded orange stripe. These apartment buildings, home to a slew of people that I never knew, rise up in ordered lines. The rectangular windows are equidistant from each other and as they dot each storey of these homes, it becomes a message in Morse, a cry for help. With my two eight-year old feet planted on a grassy descent, facing away from civilisation, I look at the camera, hands on hips. My childish smile – unaware of the truth behind me – turns into a smirk that I see now, some ten years later, to be a question: what happened?
Today, there are cracks in the walls that used to be my home. The security that they once provided, the warmth during winter and the shelter during storms, remain but memories of a place I know does not exist anymore. The process of leaving Romania, leaving childhood, leaving my home and learning about the “real” world in New Zealand shattered the window through which I looked out and put a filter in its place. Romania was not a comfortable place to live in with its corruption, its disorganised system of government, its apathetic politicians, its victimised mindset and its overall squalor. Blame the communist dictator Ceausescu for his totalitarian regime. Blame the gypsies who are marginalised and look for food in the rubbish dumps. Blame the people emigrating for not loving the country enough. Spit on the ground in frustration at the wretch of a life you live – no one is going to clean it up. Blame every single other person, except yourself.
I sometimes wonder what would have happened if I had stayed in Romania. How much would my family and friends have changed? Would my mind be as open as it is today? I don’t like to dwell on the ‘what if’s because they inevitably distract me from the reality that I do enjoy and appreciate life. But I imagine that, when seen from an unlike perspective, my experience of the world would have differed quite dramatically.
Romania – a simple place when viewed from the curious gaze of a little boy with eyelashes girls would kill for and a face that looks a little bit too much like his mother’s. A boy with a happy childhood, because what else would you call it when his grandmother ties both ends of a rope to two branches of a tree to make a swing because the metal ones in the nearby kindergarten were vandalised and broken past the point of repair; or when his brother builds a tower of bricks around him so that he only has enough room to poke his head out and smile as his mum takes a photo on his eighth birthday, the same day he would witness a solar eclipse at 1pm. These snapshots are not few in quantity, because they fill about ten photo albums of family history. But their quality, their ability to preserve a reminder of childhood joy for a teen to revisit as he matures, is what really indicates their value to me.
I find myself looking back at these photos to relive the emotion of the tale they tell. I used to feel nostalgic within the first few years of living in New Zealand as I was still reluctant to accept that the reason we moved was because it was better for us here. My childhood ended on arrival in this foreign place with palm trees, clean roads in good condition and personalised houses, as opposed to small unkempt streets between copy-pasted apartment buildings that Ceausescu had built in an attempt to attract workers to the cities. The contrast was and still is quite stark.
My coming of age story thus has elements of adjusting to a whole new culture and keeping from being absorbed into it. I’m not a Kiwi. I’m not a Romanian either, despite my saying that I am when asked because although I empathise with what is going on back home, I do not share the survivalist view that the world is cruel and unfair. And yes, Romania is still home, because so much of what I knew to be happiness originated from that place and those people there that were close to me. You can tell this from the number of smiles in the photos, and the amount of smiling they in turn cause.
Growing up is magical for any child, for they cannot see the cracks in the walls. So much of society is built upon righting past wrongs and realising a world better for the next generation. Children only find the present, and what a gift it is to them. What can we say about ourselves then, as humans, when we take that away because we lost ours, too?
Whereabouts would
Would wishes be
Wishes be
Without someone to grant them
When we need
Nothing.
There is no need.
Because none of us are imperfect. No one is so.
We are one. And this means that my being who I am is the same as you. I'm you. Your face is not mine just as much as it is not thine. You are whole, and you know this, because I do, and I am whole. And knowledge is universal - true - and therefore it is shared.
And I have nothing to say for it. I live joyfully. Joy, fully. What do you feel?
I am nothing
I am no one
Yet we are one
I am one
I am all
And it is thus that I express, so that I can become aware, so that I can learn that I cannot learn for there is nothing that I do not know. But I have become lost, and only now do I see the path that I am walking on, illuminated by the light of God.
Among people
I am none.
I am one.
I would like some advice, if you wish to impart it.
The question - what is the feeling I am about to describe?
I meet a person, I feel strongly about them, I hold on to them because I respect their person, I respect what they say to me, even though it is not always serious, it is always with kindness, even if disguised through the façade of a joke. I get the impression that they care for me strongly, like there is a pull. A certain respect of this kind makes me feel like they are my brother. I can depend on them with anything, even if they don't outwardly show this loyalty, this sweet fidelity that is such a blessed feeling, a feeling of belonging. How do I know I can do this? I feel it. I have not tested it, and I do not feel the need currently to discover any of these limits. In my mind it might have taken a certain imaginative appeal, a desire that replaces a lack? A lack of what? Of brotherhood? Of respect? I enjoy when others are kind to me, when they care and they openly wish to defend me - despite the attack never actually occurring.
Opened up, I have, to them, in the past. This liberty has allowed me to reflect my inner feelings. Those sentiments. Those whose life they do not dissect but present, in a way, for pursuit. Is this one of those? Quite possibly.
My feelings are strong, they are of peace. Where does this feeling come from? This feeling that I have just tried to express without truly revealing its light? How can I do this in words? What is the essence of this?
Could it be love? Full acceptance?
Could it be that the person that I feel this feeling for is but a reflection of myself? A me that wants to connect with me? Why are they in this other person if that be? What is this call that I feel as a sentiment, a warmth from within the heart?
Teach me.
The sound silent, a child speaks. Walk on, dream on, sing your song of peace and reign the world in your light. Be holy, be young, be forever. Smile, walk the path that you see ahead of you, it is there, revealed for you throughout the mountains and the plains, the doors of the spirit. Among those who you walk, who you stroll with your gentle feet, your face of glass, your unbreakable mirror. The reflection is one of you, of all, of what else there is that is not mentioned but seen, heard, because it shines brightly. The beat of the drum welcomes you, 'tiz the heartbeat of your soul. The unceasing rhythmical representation of breathing, the call of the wild, the rose without which red would have nothing to be compared to. The blood of the heart, the core, the walker among gardens. The singer is who you are, you smile, your voice fills the air as you create the world you step into and you expand as your love grows, burgeons, proliferates not as a balloon would until it pops but as a wholeness reminding the lost to awaken. Bring them to life, as you bring yourself to the light. Stairway, ye climb, ye go on, ye never fight but open your arms to the shine of other souls as they bring their own light and spark the heavens alight in a scintillation only thought of by the thoughtless, the bright, the pure, the Holy. You are whole, this is your inheritance, so talk yourself out of wanting to be someone you are not and reach out into this sphere of orbit and create.
No shards exist. Nothing is broken. Everything is perfect, that you must know. Disbelieve in the pieces, the parts of the sum of the whole of the heart of the lack. They are not within.
Teach only love, for that is what you are.
The second week of university has come to a close a few hours ago - the weekdays at least. The weekend is still ahead, a time for reflection, relaxation and rest. I've gotten more used to the university experience now, so I feel more comfortable with it. Tutorials were interesting and interactive and the psychology lab was short and sweet. A highlight among these was today's English tutorial. We were asked to write for seven minutes without thinking. To spark off this journey into the known unknown, the tutor wrote on the board "It's funny the things we remember..." I started off writing about Commander Keen, the game I used to play in childhood, then went through a discussion which features computer comparisons, a trophy cabinet, a question in French, followed soon by an expressive question about the journey I take during life, having been through so much, yet so little, and heading somewhere, but not knowing the destination. The degree does not matter, for it is nonexistent.
What a question. Following the writing down, some of us were asked/invited to read out a piece or all of what they wrote. People around me intentionally (I think) did not make eye contact with the tutor, but I did not deviate, something he noted. I read out what I wrote, and as I did so, I felt my face warm, partly at the idea that I was sharing something personal, partly at the triumph that I was sharing something that came from behind the 'protective' veil of thoughts and warnings. At one point in the middle I think I got a chuckle, but once I was finished I looked up, I don't remember how many clapped out of the dozen+ people that followed the tutor's example. Victory? Pourquoi pas. But it is not a war, death is not the aim. He commented on my expressiveness and how the discourse came out from within me. He said something like it sounded like a novel. Cool.
About not remembering the applause. This has occurred times before. When I have won an award and I have been congratulated, the procedure that follows is clapping. The most I've gotten was during last year's awarding of the highest academic prize offered by my high school. I remember it very faintly, possibly because I received the majority of it as my name was announced and I moved onto the stage. I think there was whistling too, but I was nervous. Heart was beating, I could feel it, sentimentally visible within my body. Blood was pumping, rushing throughout my body. Maybe then that the memory of the experience was erased partly or adjusted in order to prevent trauma or shock? En tout cas, I enjoyed the moment. Few months on, I think back. What does it mean? That's the question that I asked in my writing. That is the question that I am asking? What is the point?
This set of words, it speaks to me
And I hope you too, if it be
That you share in me, today,
A hope, a smile within.
I am worth nothing.
Being of the littlest value is unlike me,
For I do not reach there.
I don't chart.
And so I want to cry at my demise,
The realisation that this shallow is a pit.
Suffocation can't occur with air in this hole
So why can't I see it?
It's cause I don't want to.
I refuse.
I refuse.
I want to be healed? No, never.
I hurt and that's that, that's my life.
I deserve it, all the pain that comes
Because I make it, it's mine.
I am a creator, I did this.
The crumbling shenanigans, the apple cores...
All mine, made in me, for me
In being misguided.
I mistook. I miscreated.
But I have held on to my glass pedestal as I would hold on to a cloud.
I didn't fly, but I wanted to.
I tried to raise myself from a platform I do not occupy.
And I never will. Ever.
I can wait and repeat the cycle, but no.
No more, I'm done.
It's too hard, the pain of suffering when I defend an illusion,
A shadow of me. Who I thought I was.
I know that it's not me, but I live,
Day to day, with the same façade
The same laugh and the same mannerism
Of a marionette.
Inside I patiently await. I am here
Waiting for you to realise what is worth more:
A lie, or a life?
The start of every life is the birth where we commence to listen and remember. The end is that death that follows the birth. We thus experience something in between, and call it life, because we have lost our faith in the ability to know what was before and what is beyond, both of which are not part of the past nor the respective future, but of the present, that gift which keeps on giving because we ask it to. We are reminded that there is little power in our projection or our memories compared to the moment that we live in now, it being eternal.
Change happens. Street lights light up near evening and cease when the sun catches up. A friend waves from the bus as it wheels away in the same direction where you are going; from the footpath you can see their smile passing. The television delivers a short melody to announce its being turned on, and another before it slumbers on Standby. The comment you wrote on Facebook moves its way down the page as it gives way under the weight of Farmville and Mafia Wars notifications. Smiles :) are seen and left as the eye moves right along the row. In quick succession, cars drive on the street in front of your house as you remain watching from the window. The song you're listening to finishes and then another begins. Hair grows longer and escapes when severed. Pikachu faints because it was poisoned by a Weedle. Your birthday is celebrated with balloons, cake(s), candles, presents, chairs, a table, maybe alcohol, dancing, laughter, chatter, gossip, a spill, two arms holding, clinking, cheering. The clean-up is left up to the restaurant crew or your parents. Your day's one of joy. You are older, officially, and you deem yourself ready to step up and push further the brackets of your horizon, revealing more of what you want: more sunlight, more clouds, more hearts, more voices, more happiness. You feel you can fit more in because today is yours. Take it. Take it.
But don't hold on. Are you not enjoying it because you do not want it to go away? To leave you, to never return? Are you holding on? Stop. Live now, and do not clutch the fears that you are projecting into the future based on a past. Live your life.
Your fingers, wrap them not around an object lest you crush it under the pressure of your dread. I know you want to hold on, to not lose. But objects fall away, they fulfill a use, a purpose, then are discarded, for another purpose. Buildings, systems, grow in size and scope and crumble one day after their birth. With birth, death follows. A beginning, end. And it all happens within the eternal. No, nothing does not last forever, nothing cannot be. There is no thing that we can hold on to because once we hold on, we let go at some point.
Such is the lesson that we need to learn, that the world is impermanent. It changes constantly - thus the only constant is change. And this change, this movement, this process, is a gift. It is your present. Your isle of peace, wherein you can open your heart and cherish life for what it is. It is. Words start and end, and such is not life for it cannot be spoken. You live.
This week was my first week of university, hence the mini post-hiatus. Monday to Wednesday, I left home at 6:50 a.m., came home around the same time in the evening. Information overload in the first few days because I found out about the expected workload. Full-on expectations of excelling, chasing those A+ grades. Study all the time. No. That was my mind blowing it out of proportion. I don't need to worry. So I'm not. One thing at a time, I will focus on that. Thank you for that advice from a friend on Wednesday, and reinforcement throughout the week.
A list of what I am grateful for this week:
- Making my first friend at university.
- Reuniting with my best friend from year 7.
- Seeing people I used to work with around campus.
- Hearing French being spoken predominantly in my French lectures.
- Meeting students who are enthusiastic and willing to speak to me.
- Being driven to and from university by my father, with my brother.
- Finding the location of all my lectures.
- Being given the opportunity to write for the Student Magazine.
- Having time to study and learn what I need to for my lectures.
- Learning about the university computer and library system through the courses offered.
- Going onto Queen Street when exploring with friends.
- Purchasing the needed textbooks and manuals for my courses.
- Organising my diary to prioritise my study and to tell me when assignments are due at a glance.
- Realising that I was creating unnecessary stress on the subject on university.
- Meeting friends from AUT in Albert Park.
- Having lunch and spending time with friends from high school.
- Playing badminton.
- Having notebooks to use for vocabulary and mind-mapping, as well as a refill pad for note-taking.
- Honing my mind-mapping skills by reading part of "How to Pass Exams" by Dominic O'Brien.
- Having Friday off to relax and recharge my energy in preparation for next week.
- Spending a weekend doing both study and fun activities, a blend that I appreciate for helping me achieve a state of balance.
- Seeing "Alice in Wonderland" at the cinema.
- Having Butter Chicken with Naan bread for the first time in a while, a few years likely.
- Being reminded who I am, and about what I need to do.
- Being given the lessons of "A Course in Miracles" for me to apply and learn from.
- Becoming more proficient at work and being present.
- Having my family's support as I adapt to this new environment.
- Being.
- Recognising my brother for who you are.
Thank you.
