A lonesome night

It’s 2.am on this pleasantly warm wintry night. I am sitting up all alone in my bed listening to this painful country music.The world is in a deep slumber. Not a soul stirred and a deep silence prevailed broken only by the ocean moaning lazily against the beach. I had been trying but sleep won’t come. A strange sorrow fills my heart tonight. It’s hard to express this feeling. It’s cold and starts from very deep within. My heart feels like it has been tossed into the sea, swaying and drifting around helplessly. I can’t help falling back into a renaissance of old feelings. 

Flashes of memories play on my mind like a movie screen.  The warm smoky ambience of my childhood home, the feeling of the cool breeze on my face as I gaze down a mountain top on a clear morning, the dew drops in the paddy field, the swaying of palm leaves on a caribbean night, old faces, friends, family, a soft voice... and a well of tears in my eyes. It’s like an art with more depth than Mona Lisa. I am afraid to stray too far into my memories. I had been pained and had suffered loss. I wouldn’t go there for the entire gold on earth. But tonight, this feeling is a  frenzy paroxysm of grief and I can feel my heart wailing inside me. A lone voice is whispering a faint good bye, an ambitious mind is boarding the ferry, a poetic heart is broken, a rugged love fading away - this life, this truth, it all ends up to this sorrow on this lonesome night. 

Lost in a reverie

If you drive two hours out East from Manhattan on Sunrise Highway, time comes to a standstill and nature unfolds itself in its austere grandeur. The New York minute suddenly spreads into a laid back time and the rush of the city fades away into serendipity. Beautiful English country homes and vineyards are the landmark. 

Driving into the sunrise this morning, I thanked mother nature for its ever forgiving gift when humans battled everyday to destroy it into an ugly mess of concrete. Setting my drive to cruise mode, I made myself comfortable on the warm seat and watched with glee as farms and lobster shacks zoomed by. I let myself drift away into a familiar feeling of home. My mind settled into an oasis of oblivion. The soft music on the stereo called away into  sweet songs of birds and the melancholy flow of a far away stream in a deep forest. The warm air from the vent blew into my face like a breeze laden with the sweet aroma of red rice steamed in spring water. A heavy load lifted itself away from my mind and disappeared into a cloud. The focus on my self-conscious mind blurred and lost its cognition into a moment of euphoria. 

Nothing seemed to matter at that instant. I forgot the chaos of the failing economy. The ever fluctuating dollar rate did not bother me anymore. The rush for my every day grind weighed a trifle. The greed and the calculative self in me slumbered in its enclave and a moment of strange contentment filled my mind. Mother nature took me in her bounty of love like a long lost son and I dwelt there lost in the moment, wishing the feeling would last for ever.

As I turned back into a busy intersection, the harsh reality of life filled back in and I maneuvered to get ahead through the hustle and bustle of New York Minute. Frustrated drivers fumed behind every wheel and the bumper to bumper traffic moved at a snail slow pace. No one has time and everybody is rushing to get somewhere. Once again, I join the stream of workers grinding away every precious minute of life.