Keep calm and leap on

Things could have ended badly for her. They usually did. She hadn't spoken to them in months, may be even a couple of years. It was hard to keep track of these things when you were on the road.


It was hard to remember the smell of burned toast on a Sunday morning and the sudden start of the old taps sputtering blasts of cold water on your skin with no prior warning.


When she was on the road, hopping from one city to the next, flying to different countries every week, drinking precisely 3 cups of chamomile tea a day and singing exactly 8 songs every night (except when she got an encore), it seemed easy to treat it all like an unreal haze. Especially if you counted all the heroin.


She'd squirm, when out of nowhere, a pale, glowing evening sky would remind her of the creaky porch at home and their old blind dog who sat there in the evenings slobbering unceasingly.


Today, she turned 29 years old. Her phone rang and it was them. How could she not say yes? How could she not leave it all to go see that dog that slobbered, the porch that creaked (even when no one was sitting there), the taps that startled and the blackened toast you treasured more than any cheque?


She boarded the plane with shaky hands. In a less sane world in a big city, the bosses were furious. Her phone kept ringing. But she had already answered the most important call of all. Keep calm, she told herself, and leap on.


The plane crashed exactly 40 minutes after it took off. When they found her body, she had the faintest smile etched upon her face.


The traces of heroin in her body which actually killed her, they found several weeks later.

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Too morose? This is a part of Fantabulous February started by this talented blogger. Last day today, but waiting for more bloggerly awesomeness from Soumi.


Love


The Cyniqueen

Like a drop of ink in a glass of crystal clear water

Set yourself free

Setting yourself free is more than just physical boundaries.


It's more than being able to buy what you want. More than the freedom of deciding that you want to watch a movie at one AM on a weeknight. More than getting the haircut you want because you don't care if he/she doesn't like it. More than saying yes to fun and no to homework. More than taking a cab one day because you had no patience to wait for the bus. Even more than trying something new. More than doing something because you can. 


Setting yourself free does not mean being free of love.


Setting yourself free means being unencumbered enough to look beyond yourself, to do something for someone because you want to. Because you can.


The Cyniqueen


Kanika says day seven of Fantabulous February is going to be a good one. I agree :)

Epiphany

Because in the crisscross craziness of life, when one moment meets another, magic happens, sparks fly and everything comes together like a rainbow on a sunny day. Like yesterday, when the sun shone so prettily on the fresh, shining mounds and drapes of snow, nothing else mattered.


This is a part of Fantabulous February for Kanika's awesome blog. Go take a look!


The Cyniqueen

Snow big deal

I woke up to my first proper snow day today.The dry tree branches were drooping with it (as you can see in the picture) and the cars parked by the road were draped with an impeccably symmetrical white blanket. 

I stomped in the thick snow and stared wondrously at tiny snow flakes that settled on K.'s black coat. I clicked pictures of snow in heaps and snow on bushes and snow on tables and chairs (which had been left outside, for some reason). And snow mixed with mud and snow stuck between the tight, hexagonal spaces on a cobbled sidewalk.

Oooh, and yesterday I saw condensation on a window which cold wind had turned into big, shining, magnificently opulent looking crystals.

And I saw some soft, white snowfall, which danced and swayed gracefully to the ground like a performance.

I love my first European winter!

Soft ice and snowflakes,

The Cyniqueen

A minute too late

Only for the longest eternity, I want you by my side 

Just for a minute I want to close my eyes and forget that I have a magazine to conceptualize and a radio-program manuscript to write.

Just for a minute I want to sip on hot ginger chai (with whole fat milk).

Just for a minute I want a clean room, an organized study table and a devilishly beckoning unmade bed

Just one for a minute, I want to feel the hurried impatience of turning the page in a book I can't put down.

Just for a minute, I want to read as if there's nothing else to do.

Just for a heartbeat, I want the hollow, crashing sound of the waves resonating in my ears.

Just for a minute, I want nothing else to matter, except the peace I feel when I'm lying in bed.

Just for a minute, a lingering minute that does not want to leave, that shuffles it's feet at the door and keeps looking back as it's walking away -- just for that little diamond of a minute, I want today to feel as Saturdays should -- lazy and free and bed-lounging and jazz-playing, with the glittering promise of a sloth-y Sunday right ahead.

Sigh. Such is life.

Yours longingly,

The Cyniqueen

P:S-[Photo via weheartit]

Quick Post (Because I miss you and love you)

The you in the title is you, dear reader. The me, on the other hand, is a bit ashamed at not having posted for a while. I find it very hard to post when life is happening at a fervent, bursting pace as it is now now. So, where does that leave us? At bullet points, of course, I am tempted to say, but I mustn't be lazy.

So. The coolest thing happened to me last week. I was running to catch the train  (descending down the steps of the subway train station). The train was in sight when the alarm signalling that the doors were about to close sounded. But the driver saw me and STOPPED THE CLOSING DOORS MIDWAY. I couldn't thank him, but I sent a lot of happy thoughts his way. Love small, silly, happy moments like this :)

Also, there's still no snow in Berlin. I saw snow once and was terribly excited about it, until people pointed out that what I saw wasn't 'real' snowfall and it's normally much thicker and prettier. They say it's one of the warmest winters in Berlin this year. I'm scared of minus temperatures, and I'm a little paranoid about whether I'll survive, but dammit, I want to see some of that white wonder.

University has been a little crazy, with lots of work and classes. I'm trying (hard) to organize my thoughts about what I want to do in the future. Sometimes an option glows before my eyes like a volcano sputtering fire. And the next day it dwindles to a tepid ember, impassively waiting its end. For how long can this back and forth-ing of career options go on? I can only hope it yields something fruitful.

And now, I have to go watch a film and write a critique about it.

(But before that, some indulgent Roadies 9 viewing online. Teehee).

Love and purple feathers (because that's a nice image, isn't it?),

The Cyniqueen

Because sometimes, jazz flows through me like the current through a river

Going through a huge jazz phase right now. Even though it's always been right up there with country music and swing, these days its been ticking inside my head like a thought that won't go away. Scratch that - like a thought that you don't want to go away.

You guys, I have so much to tell you. Like the fact that the approaching winter can be a pain and rock at the same time.

That Austrian cheese "aus dem Bergen" ("from the mountains") and Glühwein from the Christmas markets here is magical.

That I rediscovered the Tacheles house (that I've told you about several times before, remember?) last night with K. Met some of the people there, happened to land up in the middle of a Mexican birthday party, got a new cloth bag which says very coolly - Kultur kann man nicht kaufen - which in English means - you can't buy culture. And then there's an asterisk and right at the bottom, in small letters, it says aber (meaning 'but'). Cool huh?

The artist is Tim Roeloffs and his work pulls me out of my comfort zone and makes me think. I also bought this postcard right here. It means 'Berlin - The City of Peace'. I love that little bear and the dove.

And my birthday was last week and it was really good. One of my many lovely presents (from friends I now have, hallelujah!) was the Amazon Kindle I got from G, complete with a book I was waiting to read. Moment of crazy dancing here for the awesome people in my life:

A dancing banana

A dancing cow WITH bananas (and udders for genitals)

Thank you Google images for the awesomeness. Ironically, the cow is smaller than the banana. 

Lots more to tell, but for now, Saturday sloth is calling.

Tata!

Love and bananas,

The Cyniqueen