On Monday morning, you will wake up to sunlight. Lots of it streaming through a window that was not shut the previous night, like all other nights. Because sunshine does not necessarily mean joy, you will look for a dress you like.
You will look for one that does not hug you tight. One that’s short enough. One that gives illusions of good things. This is a day that will not look or feel like a good one; you will need all the illusions you can find.
When the material flows onto your skin, without molding you but somehow still managing to make you feel pretty, you will breathe. You always need to breathe before leaving the house.
You will find tupperware and throw in some breakfast. Pack your bag and leave the house. Lock up, throw your keys into the bag and question at what point a house becomes a home. Does anyone ever know?
You will walk to the bus stage and ignore the dust that is collecting at the back of your ankles. You will struggle to climb into the bus; the steps are always too high. When you take off your sunglasses, you will notice a fifty bob note lying on the floor. Because you are not really that dumb, you will collect that note and take out your novel. It is your first book of the year, you should have finished reading it three weeks prior but the thing reads like a river.
When you find the bookmark (a ticket stab from a gig the custodian of your sanity performed at) you will look up. You will be expecting the 50 bob owner to be standing over you, with an oiled palm that looks like it could cause concussions outstretched towards you. But he will not be there. Wherever he is, he wonders about his fifty bob note but does not know you hold it in a hand bearing a botched up manicure. One you botched up but would rather blame the nail polish manufacturers.
Khaled Hosseini will get your attention and you will read him with less intensity than you did last year. You will analyze him. You will look for instances in his writing that feel like he is reaching. Because you will been looking hard enough, you will find them. ‘And The Mountains Echoed’ will read to you, like the second draft an author could not let go of. You will read some more, pay the conductor with your lost and found fifty bob note, alight and walk to the office.
Your finger print will fail, or maybe it will be access control telling you you should have stayed home. A colleague will rescue you. Your day will begin to look up.
You will get a cup of tea; that stuff always seems to calm you. You will write a to-do list. It will read like the beginnings of a research paper…or a feature. Or just another essay. You will sift through your music, you won’t find love. Zayn Malik and his beard, God bless them, sound better than love. Good music is eternal, love tends to go stale. You will loop him, answer emails, edit a text, and commence your research.
Music is interesting.
You will remember a conversation you had with a friend the previous week. Something to do with disc jockeying as an art and a song’s ability to transport you to the wherever you were (emotionally) when you first heard it. Or just when you first heard it and paid attention.
Leaving 1D (and recording this album) the greatest thing Zayn ever did.
— V (@theVeon) January 23, 2017
But it will not be because Mind of Mine will remind you of an instance when your feelings turned into cooked spaghetti. You will be wondering if it will be that kind of music, but Zayn will not strike until his second lap on your music player. You will put one song on repeat and your soul will turn into a pot.
It will fracture.
It will crack.
You will listen to yourself and all you will hear is flight.
You will want to run from your definition of you.
You will need to find plates and throw them at walls. Like losing yourself in pieces of enamel can stop you from becoming pieces too.
You will have this prickly need to channel your soul into a piece of sound and let it out.
You will want to fill the cracks in your soul with gold lacquer and own your sorrows; but you are not Japanese and wtf is Kintsukuroi anyway?
You will want the one thing you always want; you will want to write. You will try, but words will not come to you. Then they will come and leave you at the altar. You will hug a friend’s sweater to you and know that love has dwelt in it, for a minute that will be enough.
A few minutes to COB, you will switch to slower music and expect a sharper heart break. You will find peace and this time words will come to you. It will not be frantic. You will find Oxygen in the spacing. You will look into your life and find smiles…find yourself wanting pain; it runs deeper.
You’ll take the peace. Sometimes, home is the absence of happiness. That will be your truth.
Image courtesy of @MohaBig (Twitter|IG)
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