The Return?

I have so much to say. Oh, I do.

It’s just that I’ve gotten very busy since I changed job, discovered the joy of tidying, playing the piano, riding and you know, just generally gotten very lazy.

I have a bazillion thoughts swimming in my head everyday, from the moment I wake up (no, actually even in my dreams. I have very lucid dreams), to being sardined in the Tube on my way to work, to half-way drafting a contract (my boss shouldn’t see this) and occasionally zoning out of conversations at the pub, I am constantly thinking, forming subjectively grandiose but objectively very myopic opinions on every single experience, every single thing I see and people I meet and being reflective. I don’t even know how that’s possible, but for someone who is similar, you’d get it. Why is it that we just c.a.n.n.o.t stop thinking?!

And I thought I haven’t been blogging much because there’s really nothing in my head. Wrong.

I try so hard to justify my lack of blogging these days (mainly to myself). But really, it’s all laziness. Then I realise, writing soothes me massively. Writing freely and creatively as opposed to drafting a legal document where each word is scrutinised for clarity and sentences hedged in all possible angles to avoid potential disputes, is massively soothing. Ultimately, this sense of liberation feeds back to many aspects of my life.

I’ll give you an example. Not very witty but realistically, it’s like making dinner. It’s a spa buying ready-made meals after a day at work, but it’s a whole lot of effort making dinner on your own – the prepping, the heating, the stirring, the agonising minutes waiting for food to cook, the scrubbing and the cleaning. God the prepping. Have you tried cutting an unripe avocado even though it says it is on the packaging?! Worse, I’d tell you if your hob is an induction, never buy into these fancy-schmancy BS. Use the real fire! I could pick up my phone and yak away at night on WhatsApp or get some drinks with a dear friend and spew out my thoughts verbally, but if you do these too often, what you get in return is not going to really feed you. Like ready-made meals. It’s not as rewarding or detail-oriented or nutritious as compared to a home-cooked meal. Sometimes, you really need to get your ass up and start putting thoughts into action no matter how tedious or time-consuming it might be. You need to water down your day with time because it’s the only way to sober you up from all the intoxicating distractions and instant reactions that are sucking the intellect and senses out of you. Like you know, writing, instead of heedless thinking.

(Wow Einstein, big applause, this is new. But, yea whatever. This is a painfully hackneyed advice that is painfully difficult to follow.)

I know this post is not exactly going anywhere but here I am, blogging again. Writing in a stream of consciousness, but writing anyhow, which is what I’ve been wanting to do. Coaxing my thoughts to flirt with coherence in this very spontaneous non-structure structure. It’s all very exciting on a Wednesday night.

This post has nothing to do with travel. Nothing to do with art (oh speaking of which, I have so much to say about this too. I’ve recently attended an art launch of a very talented friend and see some good photographs at the gallery and caressed a few antiques that I probably shouldn’t have touched at an auction house but I’ll tell you separately, when you’re in luck and when I’m less lazy). So, this post has nothing to do with anything that my blog was originally set out to be. Nothing. Heck I might even wipe everything off my About page now and re-brand this blog as The Claptrap – Absolutely Everything and Nothing No One Needs to Know About. You think that might sell?!

Yet, despite all my BS and nonsense and lack of engagement these two years, you are here.

Someone, at some point, is always here.

I know you come here mainly for my travel writing, but narcissistically I also know you come here partly because of me…doesn’t matter how minute and how negligible that part is (you don’t have to tell me), you are here. Reading this. Like the wall in my squash court, the literal bounce back that I need even though it’s all just me hitting the ball. Your presence and the silent attention. It will do. So this will do – to know that you read, to know that when I want to write, I can.

Even if they are all fluff. Massively, selfishly soothing fluff.

I can only come back for more.

With love x