Look what chicklit did to me!

Shall I tell you a secret..?
Even the most capable of women like to be protected. She might blow the socks off every investment banker in town, repair her own car and pay her own bills : she will still want to be told that she makes the lightest soufflé you’ve ever tasted. Men still like to play the protector and women still, and will always, like to be taken care of. And it’s understandable, surely, after all those centuries of genetic proclivity..? That’s why all but the most hardened of misoandrists, the most ardent promoters of the decline of patriarchalism, will confess to a sneaking liking of having the door opened for them. The key is respecting women and considering them your equal in every way, but realizing that the surest way to a woman’s heart is still with a posy of flowers. The remnants of chivalry still have a place in our world, if only to make the male feel still male and the women to feel feminine.

or maybe i'm just feeling this way after my recent immersion into chicklit :D
wait for an opinion change.

For Ma

I’m more hurt than angry. Its difficult, to deal with this, too many things are going wrong, too many things are... uncertain, and for me that’s the toughest thing. I don’t feel like giving up, I never have given up on something I have set my heart on…I’ve never been a defeatist. but this is getting hard.
What do I say, you know how it is. But it hurts when other people get the work I want to do, when I know I can do better than them; and the hurt is worse when there is no hope to redeem it… I may never do the work I want to do, although I know I am good at it and although others know it too.. sometimes life hands you too many lemons. What can I say, who can I blame? I just wish life was more.. just :( I’ve worn rose tinted glasses too long I think.. and reality is hitting hard. I’m tired, exhausted, I want a few days when I don’t have to think.. I need a break. But that seems to be the hardest thing to come by, now :( I’m worried and well, I know its inconsequential to worry about things I can’t change! But how can you ask me not to worry, to be hurt when there is so much I want and I can see it being given away when I know I deserve to have it…! Life sometimes can be too unfair… I just cant understand it. How long will this last?
Sometimes I wish I could be the kind of person who would be happy without thinking too much, who didn’t really Want.. as much as I do. But then I’d be a different person altogether.. and although this is painful.. I guess I’d rather have the pain than the feeling of knowing that I never tried.
Its worse to try to talk to you about it, I know you worry! And that’s the worst bit! I can deal with the worry myself, but knowing that you are worried about me makes me feel that I have let you down.. and its very difficult to live with that. I’ve never believed I am the sort of person who does things to live up to other people’s expectations – but then I’ve never let you down before :)
I’ scared, of course I’m scared! And more so than you, whatever you might say. Its my life, isn’t it? If it doesn’t work I’ll be the one left crying!
Please don’t worry.. even if I’m sad, even if I whine.. or cry. I just need to have you here. Nothing more. I know you worry about me; but I’m just in pain.. you understand that, don’t you? Don’t make me give up, please. I would hate myself for that. I guess you’re only a loser when you give up. I want to try, I need to try, and although I may well not make it, I’d still like to try! Give me that. The pain wanes, and the pain would be worse if I didn’t have the hope that adds some steel to my spine – the dull ache of compromise hurts more than stumbling, falling, learning. Let me try.

Desert Places

They cannot scare me with their empty spaces
Between stars - on stars where no human race is.
I have it in me so much nearer home
To scare myself with my own desert places.

Anybody want to trade places? I’m tired of coming back to an empty house. I hate it – I hate unlocking the front door, stepping into the chilly darkness. There have been times when I’ve slept with the radio on because I can’t stand the silence. Whoever says living alone is easy should try it :D
Me, I just want to go home.
After four years of being on my own, ‘home’ has taken on the connotations of a refuge, a safe haven… perhaps that’s why I get vaguely disappointed every time I go there lately : its wonderful enough, but the memory – or the rose tinted version of it! - is always better than reality..
but the paranthas mom makes should compensate! :D
and besides, it has to be better than this.

My favourite Robert Browning

Reluctance

OUT through the fields and the woods
And over the walls I have wended;
I have climbed the hills of view
And looked at the world, and descended;
I have come by the highway home,
And lo, it is ended.

The leaves are all dead on the ground,
Save those that the oak is keeping
To ravel them one by one
And let them go scraping and creeping
Out over the crusted snow,
When others are sleeping.

And the dead leaves lie huddled and still,
No longer blown hither and thither;
The last lone aster is gone;
The flowers of the witch-hazel wither;
The heart is still aching to seek,
But the feet question 'Whither?'
Ah, when to the heart of man
Was it ever less than a treason
To go with the drift of things,
To yield with a grace to reason,
And bow and accept the end
Of a love or a season?
_____________________________________

Dipping my toe in the water

I want to write, write in sentences of burnished gold made luminous by their own intensity, like the winter sun that turns the tips of trees into molten sparks of fire... I want to write in a way that makes that slow sweet smile spread across your face, brings the meandering recognition that touches a vein of unexplored feeling in your heart... I want to write to make you chuckle, I want to see that glint of pure glee and realize that it was me who put it there!
It’s not easy to write, especially not like that. I don’t write unless an idea skitters across my mind and plants itself, headstrong, there; watered unknowingly and sometimes unwillingly … turns into an enormous gnarled tree that I suddenly discover has roots in every corner of my heart.
(Even when I do write, I write most often in long convoluted sentences you have to un-wrangle, that struggle within themselves to find meaning. Quite like me actually.)
I don’t often write, I am dragged kicking and screaming to my notepad, leaving scratch-marks every inch of the way, by that odd pensive feeling that attacks me sometimes and refuses to go away till I acknowledge it in writing..

This meandering serves a purpose... Much as it seems otherwise :D
Don’t expect a post often.
But when there is one… it will have roots in my heart... That much I can guarantee... if that’s sufficient to hold your interest... I’m grateful :) bouquets brickbats welcome... Who knows, I may grow to love the attention too! :D