The sob story.

Hearing one: The sob story (intro)

Maybe, application of the legal mind that I am so grooming might be helpful in this diagnosis. 

It’s a looking-at-life-now review I am writing; not necessarily a legal document for I would have studied it in legal methods, but it is one of the sort. I have to assess my living and see if  at the furthest point I see it so far (which is right now), it is beautiful. 

Liability. Compensation. Confession. Freedom. Capitulation. Total redemption.

 

The language of the law is English. The method of this type of legal discussion is story telling. Whether its substance is truth, I don’t know. I might see it differently all those years later. 

So, if It may please this honorable audience consisting mostly of me, I beg to proceed with the plot of the story. I ask that the bench may brace themselves for the purposes of hearing this one; it’s quite a sob story. 

At least in my head it is.

One Sunday some years ago I met John Tucker. The nice one. Not the Mr. Casanova movie character.  The one you looked at first at thought was the movie character type but in actual sense was way much cooler. 

It was a Sunday  unlike any other. The norm was the routine; waking up to play piano for the two services with probably like a Crown him with many crowns hymn to look forward to or whatever. Anyway, this Sunday wasn’t like any other because we had the Alumni service in the morning. That was something to look forward to. It also meant a special song at the least from the old girls. That was a big deal by the way.

The biggest deal however, was the food the school was obliged to provide as an act of hospitality to their Alumni. Ordinarily I wouldn’t even be in on this, but my big sister happened to head the committee for that year and so, I helped out with serving the sodas during that luncheon. 

That’s where it all began and this is why.

It’s because I was serving sodas that I had to carry the crates back to the shop right outside the gate that we got them from. It’s because that I carried the crates that I saw him in the blue shirt he was wearing when I returned from that errand. It because he was right below the stairs my friends and I used that they were able to realize he had a slight resemblance to a one presumed suitor I had at that time. Nevertheless, all I managed to catch at that time was his blue shirt. 

I couldn’t see his face. I didn’t see his face. I shrugged and followed my friends to help clearing after the luncheon had ended.

I also see it pertinent to address why this was kind of a big deal, I mean here is a blue shirted man in an all girl’s school.

Kind of self-explanatory.

 Every Sunday was the Christian Club fellowship. Once in a while they would invite groups and people to encourage the school in the practice and exercise of their spiritual journey. This involved preaching, ministry in song, dance and drama. It was one such Sunday afternoon. There was a lot to look forward to, thus my earlier averment- it was a Sunday unlike any other.

At the time it was to start, my friends and I took our seats fairly close to the stage and waited in anticipation. The team was from a renowned church. They started with ministry in song in a session commonly known as praise and worship. I also wish to bring to attention the fact that I was suffering from the common influenza cold, symptoms of which include hoarse throats and a running rose. I therefore couldn’t sing along in the session so I concentrated on listening and observing and coming before my God in a spirit that was glad to be in His presence. 

It was no hindrance that I could not express that desire in song and through singing. I didn’t mind listening.

 The session went on and hands were lifted in worship, hands were clapped in praise, eyes were closed in adoration and blessings poured down.

However, one of the last songs caused my eyes to be opened. I listened to the amazing sound of a particular song I had never heard before. The melodic tunes of the piano that accompanied it subtly in the orchestration just sounded and resounded.

John Tucker was looking straight at me. That’s when it happened. That’s when it all began. The moment. The heart of the sob story. 

Attentions from strangers were the last thing I needed especially under the cover of “outreach” and “doing the work of the Lord”  but here it came, embellished in the body of a handsome John Tucker, not to mention amiable, as I was later to find out. 

At the end of it all though, It turned out my sister played a rather foundational role. I simply mentioned to her that the gentleman in the blue shirt looked like a John Tucker. 
 

 Acknowledging my observation, she nodded, as if contending with my deduction and gently beckoned me to a walk through the aisle. I honestly and in good faith believed that we simply were using the front exit. However she suddenly made a sharp turn to the left and there I found myself looking straight at this John Tucker, with nothing to say.  

So  sold the best I had;  a klutzy attempt at faking a confident and non-nervous demeanor.

 No one bought it. 

My sister then introduced she and I to this blue shirted man and I accompanied my introduction with an over worked smile. I bowed my head in sign to depart but lo and behold, someone else had to mention that I played the piano. I hated things like that. If I wanted to impress him, trust me, I would.

Obviously intrigued by the idea of a 15 year old girl poking at ivory sticks, he asked if I could play him something. Even though I tried to refuse, I still can’t figure out why inwardly I wanted to.

 I sat down at the 1900 John Broadwood and flexed my fingers, readying myself to play the best I had to offer. At that time it was a poor mimic of “He’s my son” by Mark Schultz. 

For some strange reason he was in a sincere and earnest awe. He asked me to play him something else. I thought of some other thing from my maverick wannabe mind. I played as far as far as I could, then made the to- brag excuse “that I hadn’t the staff notated music” with me and therefore couldn’t finish the piece.

 He was besotted.

I couldn’t understand it. My mind went to assessing if it was pity? Mockery perhaps? It wasn’t anything like that. He actually thought I was good.

Time came and he had to leave. 
 

In a general analysis, it wasn’t anything articulately memorable or amazing. I was just thankful something had happened that I could journal about.

Some John Tucker look alike came to school and talked to me. Did I feel special? Was my head in the clouds? Was my heart whispering thing and things and things? Maybe, maybe not. Shrug.

 I got my bible and headed for my next fellowship.

I admit to this honorable audience of myself that I have dwelt a lot on the expression of sentiment that possibly clouds my objectivity in  the telling of this story. 

 But to reiterate the words of Jon Foreman; I am essentially not sentimental, this skin and bones is a rental. No one makes it out alive.

I also wish to remind this court that this is a sob story, so much so, I’m sobbing inwardly right now.

 I don’t know if at all it can be construed objectively as just that story. But I believe this court has the jurisdiction of these sorts of matters. I therefore leave it to them *read me* in their *insert my* wisdom to determine the proper way forward as presented by this cause of action, and literal sudden and overwhelming need for a huge and warm hug, preferably from my mother.

Otherwise, I rest my case... for now.

                                                       End of hearing one.

Red

Red

The blood on the streets that day ran red.

All reason was absent.

Reason was not to be heard calling out for sanctity and resolve. The heart and mind were too busy giving into themselves. They were busy giving into who they really were.

This is how it begun.

They found themselves in a hollow, the quaint sort. It was filled with beautiful melodies and resounded of the same. The heart longed to be part of  a process like the one they envisaged; but the mind gently reminded it that the time hadn’t yet come.

 The heart thought for a second. 

Pulsated once. Pulsated twice; and with a twinge of reluctance gave in to the mind’s reasoning. 

They continued listening to the beautiful melodies, in the quaint hollow, that reverberated with anthem and song.

That is how they always worked. The mind was always there to provide reason and logic, the heart was to feel and empathize. In working together they produced hope and strength and joy that were most important for living. They inherently comprised objectivity- the ability to decide that something was when it wasn’t; the overwhelming talent of denial and the weight from a kind of determination ,embodied in essence of the word itself. They also comprised subjectivity- all that was unpredictable, intangible and “in the moment.”

With that intersection in day to day living, a balance had to be achieved. Too much of one side and all that would be left is an internal desolation. In another sense, each was a coping mechanism but mostly the former; because ironically its extent of efficacy and achievement was somewhat subjective.

They had recently admitted a particular fact  in an indelible sort of way. It was a fact that had achieved a level of existence that could not be reasoned against, because it was something so strongly felt. It couldn’t suddenly become untrue by what the mind mentioned or rehashed, by the heart in some desperate form of unrealism. It was true and it remained so. The heart had chosen. The heart had loved.

The thing is they couldn’t be objective about love.   Not without dissension. 

 You just love. 

And so it hit them again and again without consideration for anything. It hit them every time they thought.  It hit them without the consideration that they did not want to be emotionally engaged; without the concern that they were very complicated and yet vital body organs. 

However, on that day, and in that quaint hollow, he was just there. 

Among everybody else. Amidst the other noises. Right within it all.

 In all the people and all the music and the noise and voices, he was just there listening to the melodies and longing to part of the same process. 

They were dazed and confused for a while until a loud shofar was blown across the landscape of the inner being. They watched as the  inner city  shone brighter and brighter and brighter and then begun to burst with the brightness of stars and with the sound of splashing shard. 

It had begun.

The shofar got louder and never seemed to stop. They were reminded by its sound, the every reason it sounded. That sound reminded them  as it shook the walls of the heart that had become so much fleshier. 

The mind had already vibrated into a puddle.

 It all started to hurt. It hurt because he couldn’t hear this unrelenting message. They wondered if he knew or cared that it was because of him that their world was ending.

 The heart was hurt the most.

 It was angry and sad and overwhelmed all at once.

The mind had no reason or logic to present this time as the heart pulsated once, then twice, thrice and then gushed….and gushed…and gushed….

There was so much red it seemed like the blood was bleeding. 

It felt like that too.

They sought objectivity, but it too couldn’t stand the red waters of bleeding blood, revolting along the walls of the heart and into the city. The painful storm of unrequitment had begun, vermilion and everything. 

All they could do was wait till it was over. 

So the streets ran red in a mutiny. The heart couldn’t contain it all and hated itself for it.

The mind was drowned in the merciless red.

Reliving the future

You spend days inside your head.

Like John Mayer, you keep on constructing and planning days that haven’t happened yet.

You are an architect like that. 

During that time in your head, you have random conversations about the so many possibilities, that one regret, the lost loves, current vendettas, the three fears that never leave, and your curiosity with renegades among many, many, many other things.

With a history of documenting thought, sometimes, that are especially before bed, you go through some of that documented history of thought. You pick up a novel you read five years ago and realize that now you empathize and relate more with the antagonist in the story, which wasn’t the case all those years ago.

That has what it means. Maybe you are evil person now. Maybe the evil has changed in definition. Maybe it is good now and no longer evil. The changing goal post in your head make your head hurt. You start rubbing your temples.

You play that mix tape or random CD and see that your taste in music is less and less dynamic with the passing of years. That also has its implications. You live and long for the past more than the future. The music you write every day is a hypocritical wannabe expression. You shake the thoughts out of your mind. In the process hurting yourself coz you shook it too hard.

 You stare at that 2014 journal and wish you could live in its pages; like just chilling on those white pages safe and sound within that scarlet jacket of cover, listening to tales of a Rapunzel like princess and a random Fitzherbert. Your heart momentarily hurts.

You pull a box out from under your bed with random cards, a watch, a necklace and a note. Your face is the sternest it has been all day. You see the walls go higher and higher with every consideration. Then you think about December and just switch off the light.

It is time to sleep now.

As you snuggle into bed with the light off and pull up the covers, your mind tells you in comprehensive assessment, that a lot of these things were anticipated in longings and desires and fears- especially fears.

 You bite your lip in wonder, let out a huge sigh and turn to face the wall. You notice the moonlight coming in through the window and causing the shimmer in the mirror.

The wind of the night blows through and ruffles the curtain. You pull up the covers over yourself. In about two minutes it is getting hot so you kick the covers off and lie on your back. You stare at the ceiling, but your mind is still going on and on and on about how you saw this coming, and could have avoided it and about how you are to be commended on this other thing and how you should watch out for that. It is the unavoidable pep talk.

You try to shut your eyes but the process in your mind is an active one. So you decide to indulge it, one more hour and it will be over.

It has been two since you got into bed.

 You think about how it all feels the same; the past, and the present, and the future that your mind forebodes. You wonder what happened to your mind. It used to be so hopeful. It then reminds you of the exact moments in life that each perspective was formulated and embedded deep within the subconscious, replacing old ideologies. For a split second you fear that your mind in protecting you will destroy you in the process.

Forty minutes have past. You sigh again and wish for sleep to forcefully take you. But you also know how the past weeks have been and you know it is going to be at least two more hours before your mind says all that it has to say. You remember the cough syrup on top of the fridge and wonder if it could be of any help. You realize opening doors at this hour might wake the whole house up and abandon the idea. So you give your mind the attention it is screaming for in your head. It is all you can do now.

It goes through some more items on the agenda and then you eventually start muttering inwardly statements of bewilderment, vexation and even crack a few jokes in the middle of everything. So you keep your mind company and give in to the reality of it all realizing with every night including that very one that time is no longer time. It is all these emotions and anticipations instead.

It isn’t hours and minutes and seconds. It is events and happenings. The past years living have turned linear time circular. It’s not a dejavu.

It’s the past in the present, and the present in the future. You have been in the future and it’s becoming like a memory. You are living it today and reliving it tomorrow in every emotion, feeling and happening.

You know it is sad and complicated.  But it is until you accept it as a part of you that you finally realize the snores are coming from you and not your brother in the other room.

Your mind is still going and on by the way, but you tell yourself it’s a dream now. So you dream of time- the past, the present and the future. To yourself you sing the Switchfoot lyrics … More than fine.

“When I wake in the morning, I want to blow into pieces. I want more than just ok, more than just ok. When I’m up with sunrise, I want more than just blue skies. I want more than just ok, more than just ok.”

                                                   More than just ok<3