Friday, August 24, 2007

Finding solace

This week, some of my questions have been answered: the answers came unexpectedly but not in a surprising, jarring way. It was like a butterfly lightly landing on your shoulder. You feel it very, very slightly; it becomes more palpable only when it's gone.

On a late Monday evening, I was just sitting in my study, staring at the silent PC. I was just sitting there, hugging my knees, my eyes surveying the room for something---something I did not know. There was that searching, seeking feeling in me. I knew I had questions inside but I didn't know what they were exactly. Just when I was about to stand up to finally go to bed, my eyes fell on Joyce Carol Oates' "Small Avalanches and Other stories". I haven't opened this book for quite some time. I remembered savoring each story in the collection, never wanting the stories to end.

When I opened it to a random page, to the story "The Sky Blue Ball", I was gifted with this: "In a long-ago time when I didn't know Yes I was happy, I was myself and I was happy. In a long-ago time when I wasn't a child any longer yet wasn't entirely not-a-child. In a long-ago time when I seemed often to be alone, and imagine myself lonely. Yet this is your truest self: alone, lonely..." What does it mean, I asked myself? What is it, what is it?

That particular story is about a high school girl who "encounters" a sky blue ball soaring over the fence and lands in the path in front of her. She figures that a child in the other side of the fence is probably trying to play a game, and so she throws the ball back into the fence and the game continues. As the game with the unknown playmate continues, the girl is reminded of her childhood. After a while, the ball doesn't come flying back to her anymore and she wonders...she decides to go around the other side of the fence, looks for her "playmate" and the ball...but finds nothing...

What is it, what is it? I still don't know what it means, what this particular story is trying to answer in my head, but I know there is something...I know something has been answered because after I read the story, there was that calmness, that recognition, just like that little butterfly on your shoulder.

And then last night, P and I watched "Stranger Than Fiction", and again, another question has been answered.

Who is writing my story?

Why are you doing it?

How will you end it?

How comforting, isn't it? An answer to a question could be another question.

For now, that is enough.

1 Comments:

  • At 11:09 AM, Blogger Tee said…

    wow...there's much in here of what i wanted to say but can't at the moment..wow...

    may i borrow these words and share with my world? (foolmoon.buzznet.com)
    just need to find that blue ball image to go with it. may i? may i?

    asking pretty please,
    tins :)

     

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