Last week a good friend of mine sent me the message below. How is it that friends –even the most recent ones- can see things that close relatives cannot?
Curious how certain patterns, certain things become relevant in one’s life. ”She’s Leaving Home” has been a background piece several times in my life, all of them crucial occasions. It perfectly apprehends my run-away-bride behaviour, my always-radical departures.
My first attempt to leave the house occurred at the age of 4; it didn’t take long for my father’s driver to follow my trace and bring me back home. My first solo adventure lasted only few precious hours but it tasted like heaven. Ten years later I escaped from a hideous -girls only- board school in San Antonio, TX and hitchhiked my way to Dallas. Back home and forever grounded my mother asked why I behaved so thoughtlessly. No word came out of my mouth; I felt guilty and confused. At that time I couldn’t clearly understand myself let alone what others expected from me. It seemed that everything I was or wanted was the exact opposite to what adults had planned for me. My parents divorced short after that incident so their wild cat ended up living in the North of Europe with a French aunt I had seen twice in my whole young life.
Uncertainty was never a problem since it is in my nature to take risks and rise to the occasion; however it was my infinite need to be free and discover the world and myself what kept me going. Marriage was never in the original plan of course, but a home. My daughters became my home; I created what it was denied to me for so many years. Thus when I realised that my multiple attempts to save my former husband were completely futile and that his mental illness was threatening not only his but our lives; I took my girls, jumped into my van and left. No certain destination. No hesitation whatsoever. Behind me bombs hit, showering debris from all sides in the darkest night of my life. In front of me a thick cloud of dust, a suffocating forest of poisoned smoke. Failing was not an option, so I gave gas.
All supposedly friends with no exception shook their heads and asked why do you behave so thoughtlessly? What could those people possibly know? No word came out of my mouth. This time though I felt no guilt, no confusion. For the first time in centuries I could see clearly. I saw so much bullshit all around me. I saw horrible realities, realities those friends and relatives had chosen to ignore. I could no longer relate to the aspirations they had for creating a wealthy, comfortable and pleasant life for themselves.
Thankfully my former husband never asked, he was an utterly clever and sensitive man; I guess he knew from the bottom of his heart that he had blew it, he knew he had lost me for good. We were headed in totally opposite directions and we could never hope to turn those around and go back towards a point in the past where we had something in common.
Yet I cared till the bitter end, my love for him never died. I loved him for the good times and all the lessons learnt together in the far past. It was just that my love for life, other people and purposes had far exceeded it. And I was brave enough to stand up for my values and genuinely, yeah, perhaps recklessly, acted accordingly.
Among the ruins, midst in the misery of an apocalypse’s-like scenario, and right in the core of nowhere, freedom was mine at last.
On March 20, 2014, The New York Review of Books published this poem with the article “India: You’re Criminal if Gay,”. The article was written by the poet’s mother, retired High Court Chief Justice Leila Seth. The trigger was the Indian Supreme Court’s killjoy re-instatement of a colonial anti-sodomy law that had been revoked in 2009. Vikram calls this “to undo justice.” His mother affirmed her love for her bisexual son and wrote: “The Supreme Court judgment means that he would have to be celibate for the rest of his life or else leave the country where he was born, to which he belongs, and which he loves more than any other.” Thus Seth divides his time between Delhi and a home in England that belonged to Metaphysical poet George Herbert, whose 17th century language echoes in this poem.
Anyway, what I wanted to say is that memories as painful as they could get, are life. And by that I mean, they do not represent it, they ARE life. Our memory is our coherence, our reason, our feeling, even our action. Without it, we are nothing. I know that for sure since I joined for a while my former mother-in-law’s trip into a deep hole of darkness called Alzheimer. You really don’t know what emptiness means until you look into the eyes of such a patient. This shit is scarier than staring at the Devil himself; and I certainly know what I’m talking about because as previously mentioned folks, I well know that one face too.
Most Indian men are handsome in a very Yin/Yang way; they are decidedly virile, yet gentle, sweet, and caring at the same time. Intelligent, skilled, and amazingly witty they make perfect companions until they want what they cannot afford. I’ve gone through a number of, at times ridicule, situations trying to keep married guys at bay or explaining seemingly underage fellows why they really don’t want to date a woman who could be their mom.
nohemidragonne.net 