Friday, May 21, 2004

The pHoenix and the Archangel

Sometimes I find myself surprised that I'm still alive after all these years. That I haven't topped myself ages ago, in one way or another. The weight of life has sometimes felt too much to bear. I've been through my share of pain and despair. For example, from the 1990s many of my recollections are darkness. How my whole world fell into pieces time after time, and how I had to gather it together again and again from those pieces (details to come later, if at all).

All through this I have felt equally cursed and blessed. I can't explain it in any other way except that I've had some kind of a guardian angel along with me all the time. I've been a wretched person and not worth much oftentimes, but still I have made my way through. That is something not short of a miracle.

And again, I feel that my life has arrived at another turning point. It's hard to decipher or put into simple words. It's one of those times, when you need all your strength and determination; when you have to push ahead but still watch carefully every step you take, like a cat balancing through the tin roof.

The understanding arrives not with a small amount of elaboration, some of which is very painful and wearisome. It is as if the whole soul has to be torn apart in order to become one again: the repeating cycle of demolition and reconstruction. If you can make it without, good for you, but I'm not the one for a clean, straight and bumpless ride. To become complete I have to break into smithereens time and again.

My friends, there's not much you can do for me; it's a journey I have to take all alone.

"When I crossed the river with a heavy blanket roll
I took nobody with me, not a soul."

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