'Destiny is no matter of chance. It is a matter of choice: it is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved.'

William Jennings Bryan

Can you make a mistake and miss your fate?

Only 21

It was as though we walked in procession to her daughters wedding chamber. A sick joke. For although her daughter lay in a virgin gown of white, there were no jewels, no veil, no laughter. Instead, she lay stiff yet somehow crumpled on a bed of plastic and metal, held in by a frame as though imprisoned in a box.

Her face was distorted, swollen and grotesque, a bloodied gauze by her nose. Uncontrollable tears coursed their way down masked faces, each bosom heaving with the reality of the words her mother haltingly breathed, 'I can't stand to look at her. She doesn't look like my baby any more'.

I could both understand and relate. It was in the face of grief I remembered the destructive nature of the power of what we breathe, air. The supreme force with which oxygen can be buried into a body has the ability to annihilate the delicacy of what it touches. Almost like a game, to reach out and stroke such a hand in the heart of this storm would be like popping bubble wrap.

Such can be the face death. Not beautiful, not divine, but threateningly real. And yet within its midst, we remember to praise our Lord.

Consequential

To be careful of one because of the two, whilst the third is acknowledged and the fourth is who?
And on to continue with the little or none, and each time I remember, it began at one.

Lost in a Moment

It was my moment to keep. To be dragged across the nettled boundaries, each haul another naive acceptance of an affair whose intensity brought out a wrathful lust, it's fearsome hold of disregard slowly corroding through the guarded mantles of desire. Therein lies a ridiculous progression of the inevitable understanding despite the parading howls of a wounded ego. Who are we to disregard the prophecy of our souls.

A Closing Reign

A slow fusion of all that recreates lays dormant in a cycle of reversed repeat. And as we slide between the tangential planes of parallel thought, the paths strayed upon draw circumstantial respect from vectors beyond our veiled gaze. These answers voice an echo within an entombed feud of the heart and soul. Yet it is our actions that pose a mystery of a defined reign of coveted will and vulnerability whilst an affiliation is merely the sound-proofing of our affairs. 

Unguarded, each swept glance brings us closer to a truth beyond the conflict of design.

Let me be the womb to your clutches of
despair. Let fire and neglect bore down
into bloodied depths in a feast upon
this scavenged life. And in a shuddering
wakening of the soul, starvation shall
create what mirth could not and it is in
this derailed peace that there is a failing
molestation of the pure. From this shunned
burial ground will emerge a carnaged
soul, cuccooned in a stolen reprieve. There
it yearns for the expanse beyond its tomb,
to which it is hurled in a brusque exchange
for air; now a wretched existence in
a guise to beguile as it reclines in
the arms of its prey.

Ecstasy

Piecing together the scraps that we lay from the trails of volcanic encounters, we spiral down the lines of the music sheet, as exhilarating as the notes we strike. Its voyage caresses us beyond the dreamless limit of a subconscience assault, expanded only by a high so exclusive that in searching for an encore, we throw ourselves beyond the boundaries of desire. This contaminant to our exile is a dance so sensuous that the very air vibrates with life. And as we fly far above the free and explore what we imagined only the enlightened could perceive, we realise that perhaps we have joined the ranks of folklore as we breathe in the life that only myths could foretell.

IMAGE: http://www.soulartstudio.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/photographers-series-ward2.jpg

A Simple Tribute

He was perhaps the best amongst modern day man. A true role-model and hero. Rest in peace, Dad.

"Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself." (Rumi)

"Requests to the server have been temporarily throttled".

Throttled? Interesting choice of words!!

WonderWomen

TODAY'S TEST OF COURAGE:

My sister and I walked through a 100yd stretch by the Serpentine in Hyde Park, in the dark, which was absolutely packed with violent looking ducks, geese, swans and even a heron. We salam-ed and jazakallahkhair-ed our way through the flock, hoping that it would calm them down and that we wouldn't be angrily pecked to death. Getting out alive was a surprising adrenaline rush! And then the ride we went on in Winter Wonderland kept it on the up and up. Alhamdulillah :)

Yay yay yay to life! Alhamdulillah to be alive :)

More Weddings

I HATE getting ready for weddings with a passion. There's one today and one on Sunday to attend. Whilst everyone else is excited that it's segregated and the hijabi girls get a rare chance to dress-up, it puts me in a bad mood. I'm not out to impress anyone and I'd rather be studying or watching Psych (my new favourite show). It's far too much effort that I can't be bothered to put in. My mum has forbidden me to just rock up in my abaya though. Sigh.

Magicky Me

I've been told that if I was a mythical creature, I'd be a mermaid (not the scary Harry Potter kind though). I am completely and utterly in love with the idea <3 

And no, I haven't actually seen 'A Little Mermaid'. Although, Ariel and I both share the same personality type apparently :D

"It is not who I am underneath but what I do that defines me."

Too Much Time

I'm on my 'consolidation week' at the moment. I guess that's supposed to mean that whatever I've done so far, I'm supposed to pad out the knowledge, bulk it out a bit, consolidate it. What if I haven't actually studied anything so far? No textbook, no Webct, no lecture slides, no nothing. It makes me feel ever so slightly queasy when I think of all the work that needs doing, averaging out to be around six textbooks per core rotation. I kid you not. And it's already November. For most people that's around the beginning of their academic year, but for me, my year started around 4 months ago. Exams are in about seven months, they count for 60% of my degree and with the craploads of stuff I need to get through, I guess that means I should've started cramming oh I don't know, sometime last year. I'm so screwed.. (Inshallah not :| ) Despite all the studying that needs to be done, I still regret the fact that my Morocco trip didn't work out. Story of my life eh?

I find that when I have more time on my hands, I start slowing down to a pace worthy of hibernation, which actually reminds me that I saw a hedgehog in my garden the other day! So darn cute! Some years back, there would be a hedgehog gathering in our back garden every day at 9pm for a few months. It was truly a bizarre experience, yet quite humbling, as though we were privy to their secret world that they had chosen to share with us. Even they seem to be far more active than I have been this year. Instead of studying so hard to the point of getting a nose-bleed (an asian parent's dream I would imagine) I'm amused at the competitive, brown-nosed, super-elitist med students whose number of unholy hours in the library speaks for itself in the imprints perfectly contoured to their arses left on the chairs there. I prefer the peace of my bedroom and the possibilities of afternoon naps and hot chocolate breaks compared to the humid atmosphere of the library, only intensified by the sweat of unwashed bundles of scruffy jeans and computer-strained squints vaporising into the still air.

That's just not me. I reckon I belong with the pot-smoking hippies of the 60s; cruising along, travelling wherever the wind blows, my head barely seen bobbing in the smoked ends of god-only-knows how many joints; a 'dude'. Although, I'd trade in the minivan for a Bentley or a Lamborghini, and a joint for a steaming plate of rice. In my head I vaguely remember a phrase about the devil and idle hands. Something that didn't quite make sense before is somehow seemingly becoming less of a foggy metaphor.

Instead of wisely taking advantage of my spare time (which technically I shouldn't have), I find new ways of dropping the big A into conversations at home. Like a bombshell, waiting for how people will react, minutely scrutinising their faces for that small giveaway of surprise in the slight widening of their eyes and an almost embarassed look that fleetingly crosses their face, not quite sure where to look or why I've said the name. We don't talk about him. Hardly ever. At the beginning, I wouldn't let them. But now, perhaps in some perverse reversal of the situation, I see how far I can go. I test the words, in my head. It's been a long time and somehow I have forgotten how to form the words with my mouth.. Abi. No, that sounds too strange, too formal. Clinical almost, like an awkward hospital appointment. It has been too long. So I try the next best thing, your husband, your father. I try these phrases, roll them around on my tongue. Yes, they seem more usable. The A is too intimate, or perhaps too far back in the past for me to heave it back into the present. I don't know. Maybe I'm still not quite ready. There are times when I'll sit stock still in my room and this overwhelming sense of loss and grief overcomes me and I'll frantically hide the tears that are crushing me so hard inside that I'm physically left gasping for air. It's like my lungs are drowning in the tears I refuse to shed. And then there is silence. I wonder whether my mind even remembers what it misses, whether I  remember, or whether it's just an involuntary reaction to some unknown trigger. It feels like a lifetime ago and yet at the same time it feels like I'm still waiting for him to walk through the door, to fill this dark space that's eating away at the peripheries of our lives like a slow degenerative disease, tunnel-visioning everything we see, do and hear. As though if he came back, it'd suddenly become brighter and we would see again, barely registering surprise as though this was the way it should be. Lord knows I've grieved, but perhaps it's something you never really get back. That sense of being whole. You're always waiting for that little more. Maybe I'll just blame my lack of time utilisation on that, as I always seem to be in limbo, waiting for something to happen..

Buried Alive?

When I was still quite young I found a dead worm on the paving stones of our garden. Feeling sad that the poor thing didn't even manage to die in the earth where it usually lives, I decided to bury it. Later on in the day, or perhaps it was the day after, and for some reason I can't quite remember, I decided to have a look at the worm and see if it was still there. It had disappeared. I still feel somewhat cheated out of a presumably unnecessary burial.

To Live

Living is a delicate art in which the connoisseur delves between the realms of a fluctuating balance of extravagance and that of circumstantial respect. It dances with an almost electric flair, only solemnised by the exchange of its forbidden lust between light and shadow and the subtle and overt. 

On a canvas of mixed medium we draw on the scaffold of our paint, and in the eruption of colour in the primed mundane, there is a pulsating subterfuge within the streaky silhouettes of neglect. There are no limits, no rules, and the only code that governs this display is the intuition with which we explore. There are secrets beneath the rivulets of coloured rapport as each breath aligns curiosity with reprieve, and it is within this regal expression of an un-curated spate wherein lays the exuberance of life itself.

Wishful Thinking

The Bugatti Veyron. Need I say more? When you come across such astounding beauty, I can more than understand why a guy can be happily married to his car. Oh Lord! *drool*