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2011-02-17T05:14:00.000-08:00

" And in his eyes...
she saw her home."

An unbearable urge

2011-02-17T05:06:00.000-08:00

I hold an unbearable urge to seek out and capture beauty in all its shapes and forms. The unfurling red rose, gathering its veils around itself shyly like a newly wedded bride. The ever changing sky in its infinite colours, the red spreading over blue like paint mixing. The golden gleam as the wind creates waves in a field of corn. The lullaby of raindrops reaching for the thirsty earth. I hold a strange desire to gather them, to preserve them, to snatch them before the hungry cycle of time renders them changed. I feel such an inconsolable sense of loss when the blushing flowers begin to droop, petals withering, scattering.

Likewise with memories.

I remember at the age of ten, leaning over my baby sister's cot, watching her sleep and repeating to myself that I would make myself remember this very scene, I would imprint it somewhere inside of me, untouched, to be summoned at will. The perfection of the curl on her forehead, her clenched fist beneath her flushed cheek, her eyelashes so lush, her tiny chest rising with every breath.

There are others. My grandfather's beard tickling my cheek as he embraced me, and then his turning so swiftly, hands clenched, his steps determined and fast, not looking back, perhaps so that we did not see the hot tears that fought for room in his eyes. As he walked away, a vision in white, the crushing foreboding that this would be the last time I would see him. How I wish I had been wrong.

My mother kneeling on her prayer mat, slowly turning the tasbih beads, lips moving in worship.

The sweet fragrance of the rain drenched earth back in Pakistan. That magical time at dusk, when the Azaan filtered into our homes, and life itself seemed to pause in reverence.

So many memories, so close. All I need to do is close my eyes and melt into them.

The feel of his stubble on my neck.His strong arms holding me so close and safe. Breathing in his fragrance. His tired gruffly voice that I love. His turning to wave at me from the car. His magical eyes, and how they smile, those pools of honey brown light trying to drink me in. His expression stroking my face.

I carry a burning need to etch these onto my heart and hold them oh so tightly, solace for bleaker moments.

I fear that one day, his hair will not be mine to tousle. The space between my fingers into which his fingers fit so perfectly, will be filled with emptiness. His scent will slowly drift away and leave the bedsheets, the clothes. There will be silence where his voice was. The thought itself terrifies me.

And so I continue to gather each word, each glance, every touch, frightened to let anything slip away. I am hungry for every moment we have spent together, the tears and the laughter, and I hold them so close. I carve them into my very being, in the hope that perhaps one day, these memories will begin to fill the expanse which he will leave. I hope that they will sustain me in my sea of emptiness.

And with that thought, I take my camera to the garden, to capture the bud I can see in it's fiery red and orange flames, before it is snatched from me into non-existence.

Zee.

Walking A Thorny Path

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An unbearable urge