Eyes

Eyes

Thursday 29 March 2012

Real stars.

The world of celebrities has lately seen a trail of wasteful deaths: Michael Jackson, Amy Winehouse and most recently Whitney Houston. People of phenomenal abilities, gifted with remarkable skills and good fortune with the power to draw and keep the attention of enraptured fans for decades...and then get knocked-out by the blow of stardom. Towering personalities, shrunken. Weakness overshadowed accomplishments, checked off easily in numbers, strings of consecutive no 1's, Grammy's, sold records. In the end, they couldn't be saved from themselves. Pure God-given wealth, trashed. Conveniently, there is always someone or something to blame. Whitney Houston's ill-fated marriage to Bobby Brown and descent into drugs, Amy Winehouse's hapless addiction to alcohol and drugs, Michael Jackson's...can't even a keep track of his apologies, and drugs.

It is enviable that some people are born to be effortlessly good at things. Born with the gift of beauty, unusual intelligence or skill. The especially genetically favoured! Are the rest sitting on their hands waiting for brilliance to kick in? Are cliffs being blocked off in a rush, to keep them from jumping off when they realise it won't? I'm referring to the stars of average existences that find a preternatural ability to forge on, the real stars of life.
The kind who hold the trusting hands of their dying child through the last year of her life. Knowing she will never go to school, never learn to swim, never fall in love, never feel a first kiss. Knowing she can never know. So they keep her smiling, playing, singing, while they watch her fade. Doing their crying in the rain.
Of the kind who throw on their business suits and stilettos, splash on the mascara, slap on the smile and head right back to the corporate grind, only hours after being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. The show goes on, the living continues while there is life. You feel your way along an unfamiliar path. Improvising, adapting because there are children to raise and bills to be paid.
And of the kind who left home on a happy holiday, to return as only half the couple and person they were. Ashes in place of what should be a person. Picking up the pieces and dropping them again, practicing till you learn to hold it together. Because you go on. Not out of a lack of options. Out of choice.

Choosing not to succumb to the temptation of self-pitying weakness. Choosing to generate outstanding grit.
I hereby declare myself an ardent fan, of real stars.





Thursday 8 March 2012

My James Bond moment.

(Surely!) Everyone has one such weakness. A faculty so underdeveloped, it borders on retardation. Since that's the case, I feel ok to reveal mine. With me it's my sense of direction, actually the non-existence of orientation in my case. Incidentally, I have been compensated, like with my ability to multi-task, which vastly surpasses that of average humans. Or so I believed. In any case, weaknesses, borderline retardation, exceptional abilities - all of these lead me to my James Bond moment.

It was her Birthday and I wanted my piece of the cake that morning, which was that she was fine. She was fine, and it hadn't been that way for weeks. The dark cloud had cleared for today, it was a party in my mind. I rushed through my morning routine to catch her before she left. Dashed out, jumped into the car and drove out. Phew, in comfortably good time! Can cruise along at ease. My familiar route to work. Roads I know like the back of my palm. The car is my least preferred mode of transport and I do avoid it as far as I can. Still I must have driven this route at least, what, 20 times in the last 5 years? Listening to uninterrupted radio is one of the few treats of driving. "Pa pa poker face, pa pa poker face", can't.. quite.. check out my Lady Gaga face in the rear view mirror.. bummer! "Can't read my, Can't read my, N'bdy can read my poker face" maybe if I stretch over a little bit more...seriously do I see another pimple?! What the..! Is there no other part of my youth that my body is capable of preserving, other than the sprouting of pimples? Hey, I wonder if the German's realise that the the radio churns out the same 5 songs ALL through the day, cyclically, in good German order, over and over and over again. The audience must particularly like just these 5 songs, how very peculiar they can be! There goes song #3 again, "Never mind I'll find someone like you-oo..". Huh? Did that board just say 'Unterhaching', crap! Where the hell is that, i.e, where the hell am I?? Must have overshot the exit! No matter, no worry, will just flip on the Sat nav and type in destination...was never very good at single handed steering. Should take me to the next escape hatch.....Song #2. Searching, searching, no GPS...still no FRIGGIN GPS!! Not too bad, hasn't got any worse. I didn't know where I was, still don't know where I am. Of all the things in all the world that we own, a functioning Sat nav isn't one of them! No matter, have myself a very savvy iphone, HA! Don't need no lousy SEARCHING Sat nav! My cellularly occupied schizophrenic eyes go from road....to Sat nav....to iphone. Running out of hands here, will just have to stay on this gear.........blinking red lights, did I just drive past blinking red lights? Much too low for traffic lights, blinking with a tourettic kind of insistence. 'Nbdy can read my poker face', song #2. I see a gate barrier coming down on me, I am driving on tracks. Help...another gate barrier in front of me, almost all the way down...almost home. I missed the bells, that's what level crossings with trains approaching do in India, they have bells that go 'Ding, Ding, Ding', you can't miss it. 'I wish nothing but the best for you'. I stood on the accelerator, not stepped, but literally stood on it, so help me God! I felt the barrier shave the back bumper, angry for missing the kill. The traffic across the barrier stood, as I did, in a daze, disoriented now more than ever before. I heard the train whizz past. Chaka chu chu, chaka chu chu. My 007 moment, James Bond of the day.

The sun shone warm for the first time since winter, not just bright providing light, but warm. The first day in the year that you shed the impediments of the cold, of coat and scarf and gloves and hat....and feel the sun. Nothing more between the sun and your skin. And you feel alive. When I hugged her I knew she was fine, and so was I. And so was I.