one thing leads to another

last night when i stepped out of the shower (after having washed the tendrils of smoke and fumes of the drink of the season off my skin) and reached for my towel, i did what i usually do - bury my face in it. suddenly i was drowning in a strange familiar/unfamiliar smell. and the too tightly wound nerve endings in my body cramped up as if in shock, before they rolled over and played dead. it was a while before i realized it smelt of the sun.

and in that while, i went from standing dripping wet on my bathroom floor, to my grandmums house in the village where i’d spend winter mornings under a quilt she’s hang out to sun. i’m climb under it with a pink pummelo salad and a book, playing truant from life in general. that was my world. and that was my escape.

you forget things so that you find you are capable of surprising yourself.

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memory is a strange thing.

you have almost no control over it. you can’t choose what to retain and what to let go of. and you don’t know what it’s going to throw at you when. that said, of course you can choose to cling on with all your might to a certain memory. but here again, the memory is independent of you. it will change with time, mutate with all the other thoughts it’s touched by. it will take shape and be chipped away at by the vagaries of your persona. it will grow, bloom, shrink, swell, fall, fly, strip naked, do mad jigs – all the while you are taking your toast and your tea.

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today, i stumbled upon a blog (and not on ‘stumble upon’). i don't know the guy who writes it, but i know him. the words were familiar. like a dusty memory, that has been lying at the back of your mind for so long that you begin to wonder if it’s your memory or a borrowed one. it felt quite peculiar. the postings were old. and i found myself drawing up an image of someone from 3 years ago, like the light of a star that has reached me too late.

it’s a pity he doesn’t blog much anymore. seeing the past collide with the present would be interesting (more than watching re-runs of seinfeld, at least)

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i haven't been writing. i said i would. but i’m not. not letters. not emails. not blog posts. not disconnected sentences on the back of sales receipts. most of my writing has been contained to presentations and television scripts and websites. sometimes when i lay in bed late at night, words flow through my head, isolated snatches of conversations. strings of the written word. echos scattered about various living rooms. unfinished letters written on yellow paper while i was at school, full of youthful outpourings of love and longing. words that i don't have to work at.

sloth might be the most boring sin. but it’s the easiest to give in to.