In all His Godliness

Some could say He has an English walk. Some of-course, argue to that. From behind, it looked as if he were trotting on a horse, moving away — then coming back in the same fashion, in reverse. He was measured at the stage, every step of the way. He spoke, however, differently, much up close. It felt like he was bolting down words, penetrating on one from above. He had his vertical length working for him immensely. How he stood tall close to 7 feet, with a tinge of an uppity brush-off attitude.

“Life is not all-encompassing, you have to make it such”.

Belle’s interpretation of what’s being said that day on which, she thought of sleeping straight for a week. She was shocked to notice how exhausted, though partly relieved, she was after.

Lara, the other one, in all honesty, didn’t want to attend the seminar. The newspapers called it ‘seminal’ but she doubted the advertisement very much. She didn’t want to go out even that night. Belle got her the ticket, all paid for. But that night though, His gospel with all its magnanimity, the celebration of one’s self in all its glory — had transported her from her little cocoon to somewhere utterly confusing and with thoughtless provocation.

All her time there, she kept on thinking, was she really capable of such mind-shift? Such transformation? The kind of change for which she has to toil specifically and alter herself from the core? She thought she was fine in the core category but now, felt so confused about this imposed need to drill down and scream at her soul; until it jumps out all shaken and mortified. The thought of it jeered funny and horrifying at the same time to her.

Belle is her best friend and was responsible for the experience. ‘An experience of a lifetime” — according to her boastful habit of broadcasting. Lara wasn’t convinced a whole lot but tagged herself along nonetheless. She knows that Belle needed company. Needed so all through her life. She is the kind of person who’s scared of dying alone by an open window and eaten to a point of unrecognizable by some intruding raccoons. The fact that she lives by herself in a raccoon infested territory, bothers Lara. She asked her to move a number of times in the hope to build a different setup for her nightmares.

Belle has got such a comfortable hold to her loneliness, it seems to have nested on her. It’s her one deary ache that she sings to sleep and wakes up next to as if a permanent companion, her attachment to self, an extension to her limbs. In a fetal position, perfectly cocooned, she stays in bed most hours daily.

Lara has got issues herself, no arguments there. What Belle had hardly any, she, plenty. Men, family, relationships -she’s spontaneously troubled and pained over. Men, ha! Like a march of the plain-clothed penguins- dull, meek and intellectually dried to the bone for an aftertaste. But they weren’t short supplied in her life for some reason. They come and go with an equal bar of certainty. She thinks she offers an apathetic gesture that turns out usually to be an adequate form of invitation. Her casual shrugs for a goodbye afterwards works excellent for both parties. She offers an attitude that appeases the most which somehow, from years of practice, became her modus operandi. Could this be her million-dollar question? “How can she start not being how she is presently”?

Lara & Belle had been in acquaintance with each other since the dawn of their lives. Together, they realized and practised in life: what they love and hate. In an elliptical sense, their relationship is platonic, rested neither on the cusp of love/hate nor on any other easily-defining emotions. For a long time, they used to wear the same clothes and walked and talked in the same style. Peas in a pod, bosom buddies and almost conjoint to the bones. Life took its due course but they never really felt apart, got distant or moved on further but rather have been able to pick up conversations from the last one, in a blink. Catch up on each other breaths with utter and natural ease. When the time came for the one to propose something, the other could hardly ever dispose of it. Therefore, the self-actualizing seminar.

There was a time when the Gasman used to hammer the doors of our houses and when late to open and let in, we were simply yell at: “why would you leave me waiting out here!”. It was quite a different style for servicing the customers. The etiquette of it was quite the opposite of what now. The same Gasman, if at all, needs to come in and bother us these days, would apologize first for the intrusion and ask most politely, for an inspection and entry into the premises. Such a way time has changed the custom of doing things in our society — through a shift in our minds. Our perspective, our notion of handling things. And that is how ladies and gentlemen, we can go by smoothly and catch success in the test of time — through an ongoing shift, in our mode of thinking, our way of taking things in. How we measure a situation up and act upon it.

Lara’s heartbeat, she felt at this point, getting shot off the charts. Like a drum paddle beating to a heavy-metal song. She chose to internalize it like she does every now so often. She crossed her arms and her legs to give herself a warm hold of reassurance. She didn’t think she needed that but the method seemed to have calmed her down. A mind-switch, a shift — how does he mean? Mr Godlike continues…

You are the master of your destiny. But first, you have to be the master of your own decisions. All of you are here because you’ve thought that your lives need amending. I now want to ask all of you individually, do you need a bandaid for your soul? Perhaps you do. Yes? Then Listen to it, spend some quiet time with your soul, your self, first thing when you wake up in the morning. What does it say to you? Is it well? Does it need rescuing? Does it need freeing up of the foes? The negativity that clams it down most of the time? Does it feel lonely? Is it dying to reach out for a buoy?

Lara repeated everything she could remember. She needs this, her soul was reaching out for her and she knew it for a while. It wasn’t exactly procrastination she’d been practising till now but a slothful self-perpetuation. She now seeks companionship to settle her soul. She sits down pondering about all the years and the way how she had been on and off and then on again with the relationships, her insignificant interactions. She gets baffled by the sorrow and a sense of loss it suddenly starts to gather. Was she ever touched by an angel? Ever was her soul slept in warm through the night? In all things shattered, she realizes that it is not her inability to recollect such experience but she had never felt such. She wipes the tears off her cheeks, lifts her chin, looks into the mirror and thinks of how the man on the stage had carried on.

When you go home tonight, in your room and lay down in your beds, just before falling into sleep, make sure that you do something. Make sure you clear your head off everything mundane and everything daily. You breathe audibly. Let it be heard. One, two and three times you take a long inhale. Let your body feel cleansed and innocent again. On your back now and close your eyes. Everything drowns down around you. Utter silence. You feel you’re in closure with yourself. You feel aligned.

Then you ask yourself, at the rendezvous with your soul, ‘What is it, dear….what is it’?

Lara took out her pen and notepad. She must not let any of this slip out. She felt she’s been be offered a lifeline. All so long, she had muted herself with the feeling of a ‘break’ but now, she finds herself blindly scavenging with a ‘make’ ambition with a pulsating heart and a perspiring forehead.

“I see you. I see your Hurt and feel your ache, throbbing, your howls to carry on. And I want you to know, I am here, now, with you and by you — to hear, and hold”. Keep breathing, let this motion sink in, let the words seep through into the depths of your soul. Feel them resonate. Listen, as your heart beats faster and then slowly stabilize, matures and ready to respond.

Feel what is there inside. Do you hear an opening, a movement of some kind, a muffled sound of leaves or something that is in harmony with your heartbeat? Yes? Feel it, breath into it. Listen.

Lara’s eyes are now droopy and she’s in a fetus position in her bed. She couldn’t remember what happened in the last hour, how the talk finished and she got back home.

“Where was Belle”?-she thought, but then soon dismissed the idea of an active investigation. Did Mr Godlike get into her? Stirred up a dust storm inside? Messed up her so-called settled self? All she knows is that the hypnotist man was right, immaculately spot on with his wave of words. He walked all over her brains and done some reorganizing. She hears a response now.

She meets face to face with the Inner Lara. She looks at herself in the mirror once more, this time more into her eyes. Her childhood appears in front. Her upbringing — petite, full of resistance, dry with an absence of passion. Where are her hugs and smooches? Taps on the shoulders or even a thumbs up for motivation? What she feels when charting down her age-old calendar doesn’t spark a joy. It wasn’t an abusive childhood but yet it always had brought out moments of departing bonds and disconnection. Emotions hung in the air were shortlived and fruitless with a certainty of withering away. The family was always silent with chores and steady in criticism. Never a good girl but quite often, the other kind. Where could she have gone for a genuine compliment or a blessing — Lara had wondered all her life. Perhaps such words don’t exist apart from a dictionary? Only in books, she had read about them. She never left her childhood home, solely because of her bad faith that there is no warmth available outside of her peripherals. This slow-moving tragedy has been her life.

In that night, Lara’s most memorable to date, she opens herself to a Soul. Her’s. She knew she needed a remedy and now she believes there is one. She had been losing her willpower to go on like this — at a pace of which, she was alarmed. She listens. Eager to hear what’s more there to the heartbeat. Words took due time but then throb off. “Give Away. Give away to them who need the most. Now”.

Lara sits up, shakes off her shoulders all her inhabited pangs-piled over the years. She feels goosebumps, in such waves that she never did. She knows she could bank on that and figure out the rest on the go. What a revelation!

She neither knows the mechanics nor the map to her path coming but Lara feels hopeful. She knows that it’s the right feeling and she’s touching progress by letting it sink into her. She looks out the window and smiles at the falling leaves, wishes them well for how they’d made way for the fresh ones.