Of "girgilla" and 'fingers crossed"

The last few posts have been a little intense and to lighten the mood I thought of writing to you about the innocence that once was. Have you seen how the kids in Junior Masterchef Australia, cross their fingers and hope and pray with every dub-dub of the beating heart that they win. It reminded me of a me that once was.

Do you remember how we used to cross our fingers, toes and pigtails even, just in the pure belief that that, would be what gets us what we want. No reasoning mattered then. We knew in our hearts, the harder you could cross your fingers and the more number of things you crossed the more your chance of getting what you wanted. I miss that faith I had in my tiny little fingers, that would with such ease overlap one another and not give way.

Remember the times girgilla was the worst that could ever happen to you? Id be mortified when the never ending game of 'tag him girgilla' would reach me. Remember how our faces would turn the darkest shade of red, and that solely would be our most embarrassing moment ever.
Remember how coloring within the lines was the hardest problem we were faced with, and how we would sit for hours and try and stay within the lines just so we could get that "star sticker" or "perfect sticker" from the teacher? And the times we did manage to get that sticker, do you remember the pride with which our chest would blow up, and the smile that lit up our entire tiny face.

Remember how cursive writing seemed like such an impossible task and how we used to concentrate on just keeping those alphabets on that straight line, for fear that it would dance about on that page and wouldn't be accepted? Remember how our mathematics books had criss-cross lines on the entire page, just to make sure we could write numbers clearly and not get them all jumbled up in one single mess.
Remember how we needed all our fingers, just so we could be able to calculate the math problem. How we never thought there would be something more difficult than that, that would meet us as 'mental mathematics'.

Remember how we din't like boys, and boys din't like us girls? How drawing a line in the center of the bench seemed to solve all the problems in the world, and how we would sit content at having been able to divide the table into exactly half. The trust with which we used to sit, in all our satisfaction that this line wouldn't let the boy cross over to our side. Remember when being sat next to the opposite sex was the second worst thing that could happen to you, and life seemed unfair. Little did we know how much that would change over time.

I remember there was this bench-partner of mine in the sixth grade, and he used to put little i love you chits in my pencil box. Every time I found this chit in my box, I would be mortified and shattered. After a while it got to me, and I took my revenge for all the 'I love yous' by smacking him with the largest textbook I had. How I wish, to find now, those little I love you notes in my pencil box.

If I could, I would have saved all my stickers to keep me grounded and know that the little things in life mattered the most. I wish girgilla was still the worse that could ever happen to people.
I would love to have the faith I did then, in knowing that crossing my fingers, would solve every one of my problems and get me what I want. I miss the times, when boys were "the enemy" and coloring within the lines my sole purpose of living. If I knew then as I do now, how difficult it is for people to give and take love, I would have saved those chits for the future me to cherish deeply.

Wear your past on your sleeve !

"I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly dreaming I am a man."-Zhuangzi

A really dear friend of mine put forth, to me, a question in all its simplicity, "When people write so much about all the things going on in the world, the surroundings they are so conscious about, why then doesn't anyone write about ones subconscious mind?"

I have pondered over it, mulled over it, and arrived at the conclusion that in order for a person to portray the subconscious mind, he should be comfortable in being with himself and absorb every thought that he feels. Not many would like to do that though, probably for the fear of not liking what they would be faced with. 

Its scary really, even for me. The thought of sitting in solace with oneself. We all run away from what makes us feel, what stirs up emotion in us, such emotion that seems alien to us, so we avoid it altogether for fear of the unknown. I've tried to sit and just be. Absorb whatever my mind wants me to. Its tough really, because for a few seconds I can feel myself channelling my thoughts, letting myself be drifted back into times forgotten. But sooner than later, it happens almost reflexively, and I'm back into the present. 

I wonder sometimes, that why do we run away from solitude? Isn't revisiting memories something that should make us happy, be it good or bad memories. Why then do I retreat from being taken into the past? Why do people say its in the past let it be, theres nothing ever good that can come from being in the past. My answer to them is,

Its your past. You have already been there once before and well guess what, you survived, so what are you so scared of to revisit it again?  

Honestly knowing where you come from, and discovering yourself is the best gift you can gift to you, from you. Everyone is too scared to dust off the surface, its not just you and me. But once in a while, take the road less taken, take time off to introspect. You may surprise yourself with what you find, for all you know you are a butterfly dreaming he's a man, and wouldn't that be splendid? Because thats the power of your subconscious mind, it will baffle you in more ways than one. Its a safe place, not a place where you have to put up your best front. It will let yourself be you. 

Revisit it, and keep revisiting it, till the time when your thoughts and experience is simply in its existence, a beautiful page in the story that you are the author to.

Would you like to read a book that has a few pages missing? Look back at your past with fondness, its the pages that make all the difference to your beautiful story.

Carry it on you sleeve, much like your beating heart because those few pages that you would otherwise bury away, make all the difference to the plot.