An Innumerable Fresh Start

I’m trying not to think what it means to try this again.

Questions like “Is it really necessary?” and “Will you be able to sustain it this time?” keeps swirling in my mind.

To which the answers are “Yes, or I’ll lose myself” and “who knows, but I must try.”

And what’s the start of a year, if it’s not trying again— to be better, to adjust and move forward, to really embrace what brings joy.

And sustaining my writing practice, whether it’s poetry, short stories, or even writing a blog post, is what centers me, and it’s what brings me joy.

The Reflections

There’s a lot that can be said about 2024. There was a lot of processing of reality. A few jarring revelations, and a lot of work to let things go, which I hope to see the fruition of the year. There are things that I’m immensely happy about this year, that made special for me:

• In 2024, I read 44 books — a feat, since I used to struggle so much in the past. I’m also very happy with the quality of books I’ve read, and hope to keep that up!

• I traveled to three additional destinations (one of them was a business trip, but it was still amazing), which seemed impossible after Covid, mostly because of anxiety and planning procrastination.

• I submitted a piece of writing just before the year ended, and I’m proud of myself for it

There were other, smaller, more personal victories that made 2024 standout, and pave the way forward. There are still areas I want to cement as part of my habits and achieve goals, but I’m also being mindful and not be too hard on myself with the pace. The bricks are being laid, one by one, to create the whole.

Resolutions?

Like many, I usually scoff at the mention of resolutions. But I didn’t want to give this a hard name like “goals” either, so resolutions it will be, and the ones I want to focus on this year are:

• A monthly post. I’m hoping I didn’t jinx myself, but given how I’ve struggled to come back to blogging, making it a monthly activity seems like a more realistic goal in bringing me back to writing.

• Go back to posting poetry. I’m back to doing it recently, and I hope to keep going. I realized it’s one of the things that centers my being.

• Share my writing progress in these monthly posts. For the longest time, I either have works in progress that haven’t progressed much, or ideas that haven’t manifested yet, and are just stuck in the ether of my mind. This year, I’m giving myself to my craft, from building the habits of weekly word counts, to poetry submissions and other random writing pursuits. I want to note it down every month, and see how far I can progress.

I’ll most likely make up the format of these posts as I go along, but I’ve always had in mind that this is a space for reflection, observation and celebration. A subtle way to mark the quiet turns of life.

Here’s to a year of creative grounding.

Unraveling The Yarn

Seven months.

Seven months since the post that was supposed to “start a new chapter.” I don’t even feel embarrassed about it because I did call myself out on my procrastinating habits.

The change of circumstances during that time has been fast and ever-changing. Pandemic-wise, it went from strictly regulated, to a bit of ease, and, just a week ago, back to being regulated again.

Throughout it all, I couldn’t help but feel like being caught in a kinetic wave, pushed back and forth. Not swayed, but shoved— because the former indicates gentleness, and it hasn’t felt quite gentle, not yet. The ease of going back to “normal” has been a daunting prospect in the last few months.

Back to work, back to social obligations. The intense pressure of normalcy feels chaffing after the last few years of isolation and cautious gatherings.

It is so immensely overwhelming that there are days where I just sit and process the day’s events, rather seize the rest of my day. I joke with friends that “the social stamina is at an all-time low,” and when I sit down in silence to gather my bearings, I remind myself that it’s the truth.

It’s interesting to me that there are those that re-assimilated with ease, and I hold on to hope that I’ll be there one day. But I’m also keen to take my time in building back that stamina, because at the moment it feels like being on a high-speed rollercoaster with a malfunctioning safety bar— it’s there, but not secure enough to hold on to.

I do wonder how long it would take though. How long until it really feels like normal? Because going through a pandemic, I’m sure that not everyone came out the same person. I’m trying to remind myself that it’s okay, that it’s normal to reassess one’s viewpoints after a big, shared event such as that. Even if the reassessments mean making major decisions about the present and the future.

Some of the pressuring sentiments is that after a year and a half of lockdown, the world seems to want to make up for lost time. Like we should strap ourselves to a rocket, heading at the speed of lights to Destination Normal.

It not that simple, because humans, by their very nature, are not that simple.

We’re like yarn. We unravel ourselves and discover how far we can go, and pull back when we understand that it’s not the right direction.

Last year, during Abu Dhabi Art (a normalcy I welcomed wholeheartedly, because what’s art if it’s not a healing of the mind?), I came across an artwork by Sumakshi Singh titled The Images Still Lingers As The Structures Dissolves.

Sumakshi Singh - The Images Still Lingers As The Structures Dissolves, displayed at Abu Dhabi Art 2021

The haunting and unusual artwork was accompanied with one of the most relatable description I’ve come across so far:

This body of work is a reflection on…questions as unravelled tapestries of web-like threads converge, diverge, knot and form into partial images of nature, hovering weightlessly, like an insubstantial mirage.

The holding of fragments and the releasing of form both speak the language of memory-partially preserved, and flattened a between the pages of a book or perhaps they speak the language of potential future— as the image awaits forming up and… expresses a desire for the whole. This weightless image of the future-past is a seeking of refuge in the transient image— a waiting to rejoin the world perceived form or an un-turning of the knots which created form to allow a dissolution bak to material from which it came.

I couldn’t have summarized my current state of mind any better than this. And I’m sure there are others experiencing something similar.

The bottom line is, it is okay to feel anxious as we go about our day— what was once familiar would need time to be remembered again.

It is okay to regulate your assimilation back to “normal”, whatever that means to you. All the convictions of how much you’ve changed are valid.

Like this thoughtful artwork, we’re just working our way toward rejoining the world— it doesn’t have to be today.

Third Time's a Charm?

Some days, we all get an itch to do something. To start on a new project, or to restart it. Bring it out of the ashes of neglect. Clear the dust and see what can be fixed and tinkered with.

And so it has been with this blog.

Some voice at the back of my mind questioned if this was a good idea. After all, it’s been years, and the previous blogs I tried to maintain ended up being forgotten. I still wonder how that happened - whether it was because felt I couldn’t fill it with my voice anymore. Whether I had anything left to say. Why start a new one only to scrap it if I come to that point again?

Recently, I’ve been cleaning out my files, and I found a folder marked “Blog”— created in 2018. That voice wasn’t a random occurrence. It was a constant desire waiting to be realized.

So, here we are. Another blog. A third attempt. Maybe, the one that will stick. Or maybe it won’t, but that’s alright. It’s also okay that I haven’t quite nailed down what the focus of this blog is, and I don’t think it matters — it never did matter before. All my previous blogs were a mixed pot of interests that I enjoyed sharing with the world, and it worked just fine.

It was how I stuck to blogging for so long. It’s what made me hone my writing voice. In those days (Lordy, how is it that I’m recalling the past with the phrase “in those days”), I remember the community of bloggers that congregated on the internet. Before there were influencers, there was just the simplicity of blog entries sharing personable, wonderfully human stories. In their voices, they recounted their daily lives, their unique perspectives filtered through to paint a full, lived experience, depicting their backgrounds. A quick search these days barely crops up any similar results of that bygone era.

I also felt like I received a sign when my dear friend Dina started blogging again. Dina and I have a history of blogging camaraderie between us, and one when stopped, it seemed the other lost steam as well. So it seemed appropriate that when one started again, the other would too.

So yes, I am blogging again for the sake of nostalgia. For the availability of a blank sounding board. For sharing the love of writing and stories, and travels and introspection whenever it strikes.

And if it gets lost in the vast algorithm of the internet, so be it.

Getting lost is part of the charm.