Nowhere: A Place To Be
Essay: Salve
Take me to a place of no tomorrow, without yesterday.
‘I am more than what happened to me, my failures, mistakes and certainly more than my grief.’
Somewhere between now and the time I am living I want to figure out who I am becoming. Brought up with perceptions of someone else’s belief of right and wrong and what I must be, it is time to shed the conditionings and be the infinite truth of my being. To believe that love must be only between two people is a sickness. It must be healed immediately. Like removing of an ulcer before it turns carcinogenic. To water a flower, to feed the strays, to smile at the mirror, to share an ice cream on a rainy day, to sing a favourite song albeit out of tune, to nurture a dying plant, to befriend a bird are some of the millions of ways to be in love. To live the present day and a life without expectations of a picture perfect tomorrow, set by societal norms, and to rejoice today for what it holds, is true success. Life gives and takes away without any warnings, the rest is for us to make the most of till it lasts because nothing is meant to be forever. Not even life.
The thread of hope must stretch, tighten and mend but never break. Because we are connected to each other and so we are connected to ourselves, our lives make ripples around us and we can never be truly alone. Sometimes living a life is like making a piece of art. With shades of hopes, dreams and desires balanced with setbacks, failures and betrayals. Of course we are not taught this in school but one of the most frightening truths while we are alive is to realise that to become something we almost always have to unbecome someone. But don’t let them sacrifice your happiness for things to make you happy.
We are blessed with a superpower to not take things personally with the ability to change our minds at our own discretion. We must use this well. It can change the course of our lives and thereby the meaning of this world. The world is how we look at it and experience it, that’s why the same things and places mean so different to different people. Let grief soften you with strength and courage to be kind. All of life is an act to finally return to your self. Like it is rightly said that you must become yours before you become anyone else’s. Only then you will be able to love truly, as a fulfilling act of love and not as a means of escape as people often do.
Happiness and sadness are not mutually exclusive and so we must embrace them both. Like success can co-exist with failure at the same time. While peer acceptance might feel great it takes courage to be disliked and be okay with it. And only those who can cross this threshold can experience life. A life that doesn’t seek approval is real and free from the fallacies conjured by the never-ending capitalism of our race. An addiction to constantly seek a non-existent undefined place of greener pastures cannot save you.
As I ponder upon the subtle bittersweet truths of the years here, the Sunset dissolves into nothingness and colors my being as an aftertaste of touch. Time will not pause to remind you it is running out. Sometimes you win the race when you don’t play at all.
Author Lubna Yusuf
You may like to read her book Unpause — India’s First Book of Cinquain Poems and Illustrations:
50 Shots of Love- India’s First Book of Monoku Poems and Illustrations
