Filed under: creative prose
Your eye is the lamp of your body. When your eyes are good, your whole body also is full of light. But when they are bad, your body also is full of darkness.
I am in a darkened room. A flickering flame is the sole means of light within this space. I cannot make out much other than the smooth hard surface on which the light stands. Yet as I gaze into the soft nothingness that surrounds I begin to see the dull outline of human forms. Their eyes peer back at me, searching, hungry. A number of these forms reach out and touch the fragile column of light. Its power is intensified and what I see is not beauty but tragedy itself. I know that at this point I could extinguish the flame and be rid of the sorrow before me, but as I look around I find that my soul is becoming further connected, engaged and involved with these beings. The reality is that I am far from the place where I could turn from them and forget.
I encounter a number of people as I wait on tables in the little restaurant I work at. As I tend to the delivery of topped up plates, the removal of an abundance of left-overs and the constant flow of requests, I can’t help but overhear some of the words shared over a drink or meal. It fascinates me how varied the attitudes and intentions brought to these verbal exchanges can be. I suppose this particular milieu generally attracts people from a similar financial and cultural background. Nevertheless, they each bring their own baggage to the dinnertable talk.
A couple sit on table eight – the table requested by every couple, open fire on one side, window overlooking the trees on the other. I am certain they are determined to make this night as miserable as could be. Frowning brows shade the eyes of one before she even sits down. He passes a snide remark aimed at her. I sense troubled waters and leave them to examine the menu. The night continues in this fashion and little is shared between the two other than the wooden table that holds their plates of food.
I was saddened by the shroud of resentment that enveloped table eight that night. This couple seemed so consumed by wretchedness, like animals crouching in their own filth. On the whole people are much more open to making the most of the night’s company. Generally the restaurant is a place where friends catch-up, a romantic dinner is shared, a family birthday is celebrated or drinks are had to fuel a memorable few hours. What went wrong on table eight? Maybe they were just sick of the pretence of life.
Filed under: life
I’ve been doing a lot of thinking over the last few weeks. The kind of thinking that visits every once in a while and shakes the foundations from under me and leaves me either searching for new ways to stay upright in an active manner or sends me on a downward spiral as I dwell on the futility of my plight.
You see, I care deeply about the injustice that’s going on in this world of ours. But until recently I’ve been rather hardened to it all. I’ve seen my own life as being far removed and irrelevant to the plight of others. I think Western culture is rather good at promoting such thinking, but I know that on the whole I am to blame. Anyway, it’s like there’s been a paradigm shift in the part of me that wells with emotion over things/events/people. Instead of only focusing on bettering myself as a person, I’m feeling led to just get alongside others and take risks living life in order to see truth, freedom and love established where it was previously absent.
We’ll see how it all goes.
Filed under: stuff
I’ve been tagged by Will and I’m it. SO here are six weirdish things about me.
1. I can spend hours perusing the innards of a good op-shop. Bliss.
2. Apparently using the phrase “of late” when referring to a recent occurrence is somewhat passé and belongs to the vocab of those 60+. Yep…something that I had failed to pick up on and won’t get out of the habit of 
3. I can’t stand the sound of crunching food within the mouth of another and often have to leave the room when this phenomenon occurs. It’s disturbing. Interestingly enough the degree of disgust varies from cruncher to cruncher (innocently munching away on his or her crisp snack). Maybe it’s to do with the irregularity of cheek thickness?
4. I often relate letters and letter combinations to particular colours.
5. My mind has the annoying habit of taking a word and playing it over and over again like a tape recorder. It’s as though the word has wedged itself between the cogs and wheels of my brain and needs to be freed so that it can plop into the ‘used’ bin.
6. Ideally I like to rise with the birds at dawn and get to bed by about 9.30pm. I’m a bit of a Nana.
Think I’m supposed to tag six others, but I don’t have six others to tag so this will have to do.
Filed under: stuff
I have put off beginning this for quite some time now. Largely due to the fact that I was worried about the time it would take up. But after reading a number of thought-provoking and amusing blogs I decided stuff it. I’m going to create my own space to record some of the nonsensical trains of thought that come to me throughout my days. So here goes…
