Whatever it is you are seeking, won’t come in the form you are expecting.
Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore
Every now and then, you come to those crossroads – that fork in the narrow, meandering, unpredictable, forest trail of your being. A walk that began as an aimless journey and a hopeless quest for fulfilment and finding yourself, soon begins to get crowded — with people, emotions, situations, complications, choices, and decisions. A walk to remember that should have been all about you, becomes a hotspot for every other lost soul facing the same fears. It’s these common insecurities that bring you together, and before you know it, you aren’t walking alone anymore. In a dark forest, with a moonlit path, strange sounds for company, and the faint, inquisitive smells of all things living and dead, you light each other’s nights with your glow, and this Neverland becomes your safe haven — your comfortable bedding. Every day you live, you survive, you overcome, you conquer.
But soon, you begin to miss waking up to a quiet dawn, a sunrise you won’t need to share, a day you could conquer on your very own. A memory of that walk to remember now comes gnawing at you, and suddenly you wish to run away from the crowd. You wish to walk alone — with the birds singing, the light filtering through the trees, the eerie sounds of silence filling your nights, and waking up to a bed that has no one side to call your own. As you begin running, you realize you cannot — will not — go back. Breathless, and yet full of wonder, you finally come to those crossroads. They aren’t your first, and they certainly won’t be your last.
You stand at that fork in the trail — not knowing what you seek ahead, not knowing what you expect, not knowing what you might find. But, you stand there in awe and amazement — there’s a strange thrill in knowing that no matter what path you embrace, you have nothing to lose — that you are on your own, winning or losing only to yourself, accountable and answerable only to yourself, falling and pulling up your socks all by yourself. So you walk, willing to keep one foot in front of the other till infinity and beyond. You believe in miracles, in full moons, in magic spells, and in cats falling from the sky. You believe in the absolute surreal moments of time. You feel empowered to juggle whatever life throws at you — thunder, heartbreaks, loss, dilemma, love, failure.
But whatever it is that you are seeking, won’t come in the form you are expecting — because mostly, you are unaware of what you really seek, what you miss, what you need, and what may really complete you. So one fine day, as you lay still on the familiar turf of your being, closing your eyes and waiting for sleep to take you in, your marvel arrives. The universe secretly conspires for you, as you take in all the light your marvel brings. You don’t know it yet, but this light will guide you, warm you, free you and watch over you.
Your marvel may look different from my marvel — just as your reasons for running away have been different from mine, your walk to remember has been different from mine, as has been the path you journeyed. And yet, we all seek our own marvels, knowingly or unknowingly — to bring us back from our Neverlands, to sit beside us while we get lost, to know where they can find us, and to take us back there when we need to run away again.
They allow us that little bit of a leeway to not be ourselves sometimes, to do the things we wouldn’t normally do, and to help us feel right doing the wrong thing — without judgement, expectation or interference. They may come as revelations, dreams, visions, callings, desires, hope or intuitions. Irrespective of the form they take, these marvels become that undefinable something — that strange vigour — that rare state of mind where we believe we are invincible.
And yet, our marvels become the ideals that help us stay grounded — they become the footing to our chaotic imbalance, the calm to the hurricane in our eyes, the reason to our vexatious judgements, the composure to our impulsive minds, and finally, the answers to our secret conversations with the universe.
Every single time that you escaped to your Neverland, looked up with wonder at the night sky, gazing at the relentless spark shining bright from every little star, and spoke to the universe in hushed voices — the universe rearranged your marvel a tiny bit, till all the colours fell right into their places, and your Rubik’s cube of a marvel was ready to take on the world for you, with you, beside you. You believed that all those secret conversations were nothing but a release of pent-up energy swelling deep inside you -—but little did you know, that with every shared secret, you were attracting your marvel towards you, never to be left alone ever again, to take your side in every little firefight, to rearrange you till you were sane again.
If you have been fortunate enough to be granted your precious marvel, then you must never ever let it slip away — tuck it safe under your pillow, ride on it’s happy wave, tie it tight in little strands of paradise, and walk with it before the morning fades. You must marvel at your marvel.
And those secret conversations with your cosmos — you must fuel them with the music in your soul — keep them coming. Sometimes you may be greeted only with the sound of silence, but very rarely a marvel will come along that will fill your patio with the rhythmic clinking of a thousand wind chimes in tune with your soul.
To the marvels that show us what coming back to life really feels like –
“Your ancestors called it magic, but you call it science. I come from a land where they are one and the same.” — Thor
Until next time, XOXO
Moms aren't Gentlemen 