Words: Bits and Bobs

- of writing and loneliness

Scraps of paper came out of the tote bag as I foraged it for my hand cream. I usually have around two small tubs or tubes of hand cream around the house, yet on this day, I found one to be empty, and one misplaced from my tote. I get easily flustered as I realise my hands are dry. This phase soon shifts into an anxious one, then slightly irritated as if someone is gnawing at me bit by bit. I have epic historical episodes in my lifetime related to hand creams that can easily declare me a maniac. And so, as I looked for the lavender hand cream tube in my tote, my hunt led me to these papers— small pieces, A4-sized sheets folded discretely, yellow sticky notes, pages torn from a random writing pad, thick card-like paper notes— which had my days scribbled in them. Sometimes, only thoughts. Thoughts that sprouted from memories: seeing a stranger resemble someone I knew closely (a possible doppelgänger), teenagers talking, books, sentences that I read or merely overheard from two people in the queue of my bus. Not remotely related but close together, these bits of writing depicted my state of mind and how it moved swiftly from one thing to another. I sat with them then and there and read them all over again, trying to regain the memory of writing them: when, why, and how. I recalled some and read others as if passed on to me by friends like chits in a class. One of them said- Fucking Assholes. (with a full stop) I smiled at it, hysterical at the truth and the list of people I could scribble below the leftover space. I pondered the status of my mind when I wrote it. It wasn’t as hysterical as I make it look now. But there they were, spread on my dining table, telling stories or just the beginning of them. I collected them with a swoop like one would scoop sand with both hands and lay them on my desk, in a corner where my son wouldn't notice them lest they become his scribbles more than mine.  

Picture by Nupur Lakhe

One of these little notes torn from a to-do pad said— Time stands still. Time slips like sand. Which one is worse? Or the best?  

In the last few months, I have seen time stand still and its capacity to terrify. Filled with silence, these were the moments I could hear my heart beating like a loud drumbeat. ‘Thud, thud, thud’ hijacking my silent mornings, which I love the most with the only sound of the ticking clock on my desk, into something horrifying. And yet, this stillness in time feels gratifying as you stand on the beach and the cold waves lap your feet. The contrasting nature of life never ceases to surprise. They are many and undiscovered. The blurry line that separates solitude and loneliness is one of them. I realised much later what my thudding heartbeat meant. It came back to me when I read these lines by Marilynne Robinson in Housekeeping— ‘It was the kind of loneliness that made clocks seem slow and loud and made voices sound like voices across water.’ If I had any doubts then, these lines made it sure now.  

I used to take immense pride in my solitary business until last year. I still do, and because I thought I knew it so well, I kept misreading my loneliness for solitude until one day, when I wanted to talk and found no one around to listen. My friends and family may raise an eyebrow at this, but what I can’t explain to them is sometimes one doesn't even have the words to begin, and not every conversation is for everyone. What you can say to an old friend over a bottle of wine on her living room floor is not the same as you would lay bare to your mother or spouse. Or what you can say face-to-face to a friend doesn't have the same effect as digital communication. Although I have had the most important conversations with my best friend over the phone, messages or voice messages, this time, however, I wasn’t convinced by this mode of communication, which made me more miserable. Given my social conduct scores, I am not an enthusiastic people person. I look for connections more than just an evening to spend with. Without a clear understanding of what I was looking for I grew grumpy, and then in stages — anxious, blabber mouth, and finally quiet. Vulnerable situations often have us doing something stupid that we wouldn’t do as our sane selves, like reaching out to people we shouldn’t and saying stuff we shouldn’t. As I recall some of them, I laugh, albeit with embarrassment too and hope my words will effervesce from the other person’s mind. They better do. Like Nora Ephron writes in Heartburn- ‘Every time you turn around you get involved with the one person on earth you shouldn’t get involved with. There’s nothing brilliant about that- that's life.’ And so, as life goes, and as my vulnerable self, I did all that until I started scribbling on these differently shaped papers. I might have still been lonely, but in the half-sentences, broken analogies, and scrawly handwriting, my loneliness found a space to exist. These papery bits and bobs were exhibits of it. 

Weeks before these little notes started their making, I coaxed myself for not writing enough. Or not at all. I felt like I had nothing to say. Nothing to share. Nothing to say that people may want to hear or that matters. That aside, my notebooks lay empty as the dates passed. Like proof of how empty my mind was. Or was it so full, that it couldn’t find an outlet, like clogged pipes? Paul Auster addresses a writer’s self-doubt in his book, Baumgartner. He writes- ‘Doubts, yes, despairing moments, yes, but what writer or artist doesn't live in that shifting territory between confidence and self-contempt?’ My chastisement over my writing subsided as I read those scraps of paper excavated from my tote bag, akin to the disappearance of the steam from the pot lid once removed from the pot. It was not potent, not at all, but it was something. It reminded me of two things: something I had read and something I was told. The former from Kate Zambreno’s book, Drifts, where she struggles to find semblance between the writing life and the real life and in doing so remarks— You are writing, even though you think you are not. The latter though was said to me by my tutor and mentor at the University whilst my master's program as we were discussing my work. He said — Don’t be this harsh on yourself. This is good work. And yet, that is all I have been these last few months. I am trying to quit, but it is one of those bad habits where a bit remains no matter how much you try.  

I read beautiful books during this time— short stories, translated literature, essays, and fiction by my favourite authors — and they became my haven. Co-incidentally or serendipitously, the translated literature books I read— The House on Via Gemito by Dominico Starnone and The Details by Ia Genberg followed a similar storytelling trajectory of recalling past lives. I took such liking to both that by the end of reading Starnone’s thick book, I had drawn up numerous parallels between them: navigating past lives by choice to understand people better or unconsciously visiting them through material memory. As I read my favourite Nora Ephron, I chuckled and laughed like I hadn’t in weeks. Her ability to infuse truth in what she writes amazes me the most. And to do it with that zest of wit is why I love her so much. Ephron’s book, Heartburn, brought me that joy amidst everything I was sailing in. It feels wrong to write about reading and loneliness in the same breath. Doesn't it? Books can lessen the blow of life and whatever it throws at you. But it doesn’t curb or eliminate every powerful feeling coming your way. You may look at the page intently, but not even one sentence makes sense. At times, it is shelter from the storm, only. To my surprise, and also not, my little papery bits and chits had no mentions of my reading. It is rare.

As I neatly opened, pressed, and stacked these notes together as per their size, I considered rewriting them in my notebook as a remembrance lest they be lost or misplaced or end up in the dustbin. But I didn’t. These bits of paper formed the bits of my reflective mind. One day, they might find their place in a story, but for now, I shove them in the only small drawer my desk has, taking one last look at the note that says— Fucking Assholes. Probably, my favourite of them for reasons unknown or many.