A Little Corner On The Dark Side

A wonderful breakfast porridge, irresistible little pastries, sweet tropical fruits that melt on your tongue.

A little escapee for those that wish it. The weather this time of the year warm and inviting. The smell of the mangos ripe on trees, harvested by dark little natives. 

As a father climbs up on a rock with a machete, his little boy walks up to me. 

He asks a question in Tamil, if I was in fact lost. 

My eyes widened at the child, I didn't quite answer. The fabric of my shorts itched.

He plucked one of the gathered mangos from his pouch and skillfully cut it with a sharp knife. The mango a hedgehog, the boy ate it in front of me, and offered me the pit. 

I grasped the pit in my hand, feeling the weight of it. 

I said to him a phrase in Mandarin, he willfully nodded. The leaves of the sweet-smelling trees rattled in the wind. 

I kneeled and dug into the Earth with my bare hands. His father came by on the boy's shoulder. 

With the sugary pit in hand, I saw a thousand little worker ants go about their business. I dug further. The boy and his father watched. My taste on my tongue was funny. 

Earthworms and millipedes, little dirty pebbles. 

They stood respectfully and at full attention, the boy a gleeful eyes.  My fingernails raw.

I dug further. 

The bedrock had came, the sky had darkened. A cool breeze washed over the landscape. I stood at the end, and I dug, and dug, and dug. 

Emerging from a little corner on the dark side, I sit at my laptop, typing. It is 1:30 pm.

This side a bit more non-carbonated and caffeine free, the fruits not as fresh. Realizing the scope of the work abreast, and all of the worldly distractions at hand, I hit publish.

Moments

One disappointment after another. Is it time to grow a thick skin?

That is inevitable, but for you there is a fundamental change as important as breathing air itself.

Live life for the moments.

That kiss, that hour passed by in the blink of an eye, those eyes as deep as ocean, the silly putty you. That one moment.

You look back on life one day as an old man. Nothing you did in your life matters, not your accomplishments.

You remember but your moments. 

Those people you shared them with. All the negative, all of their indifference now, all of their hatred if need be. None of those things they think of you matters. 

You only keep those memories. The most sweet, heart-warming ones when you are on earth smelling every blade of grass and taking every hint of perfection on this cloud with that person. If only for a little while.

That you keep close to you. 

This is for me again and again

But they will never take away my dreams.

This is for me again

My only goal.

- To survive.

JC

What an insane situation is like

It's not a disbelief. You don't just cry, you do that later on in unsuspecting times. Crying is for the movies, when you are in truly deep shit, you don't cry, you sit there a lot hoping to cry. Hoping to let it all out.

The mind is an amazing machine, I feel the calmest as I have been ever in my life. I am fearless at what seems to be petty things facing an already near impossible situation I am in. Women, success, fuck it. Those things are easy compared to this, and your escape is reaching for success. Because now, your water truck of chance has suddenly became a half empty bottle of water, and you don't have much room for error. You stop fucking around, you take responsibility.

I feel motivated more so than ever before in my life to do work. I work as a photo editor at my campus newspaper, and I have never been so happy to work in my life.

I try to avoid sitting in my room alone too much, then I think of what's happening at home and the historical court date that will ultimately decide my family's fate.

I will be here, you think to yourself. You are the strongest you have ever been in your entire life, your mind has helped you cope. You have your inspirations, and you think of petty situations where people have cried MUCH, much longer.

You surprise yourself for being so calm. You live day by day, and you worry about your loved ones more than anything. It isn't a movie thing, their lives are of monumental importance. You live now to see them live happily, in all your possible power, because you realize how very fragile things are.

Here I am, I forge day by day. I know the worst is yet to come, but I do not fear it as much as I thought I would. This is your mind going into survival mode.

I think I have reached adulthood. Not quite the most pleasant way possible, but I did.

This is my insane situation.

Cheers,
JC

The family is a unit

Despite all hardships and despite everything material, the family is the most essential unit there is in society.

Money can be remade, properties and business rebuilt, lives put back together again. But the family must stay together.

In the end, that's all that matters. It is your purpose in life to keep it together, to love each other. Everything else is moot.

How my Chest Feels

"Live bravely but with a meticulous heart."
-Mom

There are bigger things that are totally out of my control right now. And they ever infuse me more with a vigor to live and love for others.

My dad is still, his hands does not shake. My mom is calm, she only finds solutions.

I once thought I knew everything there is to know about them, but I have never known them as much as I do now.

It's a tough going, it's a tough life.

I'm so glad they told me so.

-JC