Simply Red - So Beautiful

Does 'paused development" sound sexier than "midlife crisis'?

So here I am, hitting straight the ugliest and most dreadful spot ever; midlife crisis. Somebody please save me from that uncomfortable feeling of looking back at those bygone decades while trying to look forward at the rest of my life. They had warned me all about it (by 'they' I mean those who have been there and the, much, younger ones who have no idea what this whole agony is about). Truth is, I did not want to pay attention to them, thinking I would get away with it with some wit and positivity. Had midlife crisis not come to fling a stone into my calm pond, I would be all up and about these days. Instead I am slowly losing my taste for adventure, my impulsiveness and gradually sinking into that grey area where you vaguely resemble that someone you used to be, asking yourself:  'Is it still okay to be me?...whatever that is...'

Given that emotional intelligence and richness of the soul are not taken into account when you are nailed down like this, swapping the term 'midlife crisis' to 'paused development' might be a good idea. It can be a ray of hope .You know you cannot go with the flow anymore and you have to relinquish the idea that your energy level is never going to be the same as before. It has to be used more intelligently and diligently. You cannot just go lay claim to everything. You've got to face it, at 44 time bends it all and you don't have the upperhand on the script anymore. Even the universe tends to be a bit indifferent to your demands. I guess being kind and gentle to yourself is all that is left to do to avoid a roiling mess.

Message from Japan

My brother Amal who is on holidays with his family in Japan sent me this very funny message:

Almost had a quarrel with my wife yesterday. we had reached that stage in zonkeddness where we take half a day to decide where to go; arrive in the subway, fall asleep, wake up to realise we're going in the wrong direction and will soon reach some decrepit suburb with tatooed guys walking their pitbulls, scramble back towards the city centre and in the middle of this half conscious haze she decides that she wants to visit the yasukuni shrine. me: 'but that's where they worship their war criminals' she: 'it's just a few of them who are war criminals'. me: 'but you can't go there. it's their criminals. you go worship your own criminals.' fortunately she did not hear that last one.i hope she does not come up again with that idea today. to be fair to her, she was not the only one to come up with strange ideas. i suggested a neighbourhood called kagurazaka which is the french quarter of tokyo. it's ultra chic. we almost went there, thank god we did not, i don't think I could have handled a double whammy of franco-japanese refinement. quaint cobblestoned alleys lined with geisha courtyards, avant garde art galleries, conceptual stylists, fusion restaurants...already in kyoto we got badly put down when the kids said they were famished, and we couldn't find a place to eat. out of desperation we entered a bakery named 'Chez Amal' (no joke!) but it only had the daintiest little chocolate cakes i've ever seen. the kind of thing you're supposed to nibble along with organic coffee from Uganda or somewhere like that. then the girl told us we couldn't eat the stuff in the shop and we returned it.

Me: You should have taken a pic of the signboard, we would have shown it to the relatives and told them that you recycled into bakery in Japan. That would have been the talk of the town.

We already have a baker in the family: remember popol, in australia? but yes I should have taken a photo of Chez Amal. I guess the owner is an arab lady, or a fan of Amal Clooney.

Lil' things

Heard in the toilets of Bagatelle yesterday, a guy clearing his throat in the most gross, shameless, scabrous way ever. He had to go and reach deeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep within to make that frightful sound which can easily put to shame the T-Rex from Jurassic Park. Mr Phlegmy, you almost had my ear torn off. I admit I could not stop laughing. Actually, I still can't, else I would not be mentioning it here. I am thinking how I would describe this to Mike in our next conversation. Whenever there is a lull in our strained conversations, we just crack up silly jokes to relieve the tension.

The sun and heat has become a constant in our lives these days. I can't recall when I last experienced walking under heavy rainfall, the one which lasts for hours. The heat is uncomfortable but the starry nights have never been so luminous and beautiful. Every night, I sit outside for ten minutes and I lose myself to the sky, allowing my eyes to travel many millions of miles until they reach other galaxies.

The rhythm of my life has changed since Vimla has appeared in it last year. We spend most of our free time going for long drives and taking pictures from all impossible angles. Sometimes we pause and talk to perfect strangers or even take a snap with them. Her presence reassures me about not being the only crazy creature on earth.I know I can be understood when I say things like " Do you think that if I go and talk to that tree over there, it will reply to me?" Unhesitatingly she will answer " What are you waiting for? Go, hug it warmly and ask it how it is doing." -  when insanity meets madness...