mi corazon va mmmmmm :)

Rafa Rafa Rafa ... mi amor por siempre

Hoy fue un día en que Dios no estaba en el lado de Rafa, pero a quién le importa cuando el hombre es tan caliente! Mientras que su otro (ordinaria) fans fueron el duelo español de la pérdida, me quedé escribiendo cientos de mensajes en su blog profesar mi eterno amor por el tratamiento que delicioso llamado Rafa que se sirve siempre caliente. No me avergüenzo de decir que el hombre me hace querer abandonar mi religión y empezar una nueva religión llamada Rafanism. Español como un idioma extranjero fue para mí hasta que se convirtió en un puente, teniendo que me acercó a gazillion luz años de diferencia entre hottie y yo. Que siempre se puede ganar y algún día, él se dará cuenta de yo también existo en este mundo...

:)

Para bailar conmigo que necessita una poca de gracia...

Happy Feet Translate into Happy People

Listening to La Bamba for the gazillionth time today as I sat in a classroom in the basement of a shady hotel, filled to the brim with over 350 student, I realised that this was the moment, right there in between that chaos and the tidal wave of human beings surrounding me, when I took charge of my life, when I reclaimed it.

I looked around at all the people, some looking perplexed, some confused, some irritated and some just indifferent and smiled to myself thinking that even though I don't know the names of most of them, they were proving to be the light at the end of the tunnel for me. So, as I put La Bamba on a repeat mode while waiting for the Prof., I started jigging to the song in contained hidden movements while sitting on my chair.

"Yo no soy marinero, yo no soy marinero, soy capitan...soy capitan...soy capitan" and my hands just started independently tapping on the little desk attached to the chair. My feet were moving independently of my body as my shoulders and the rest of the body moved separately...thanks to the year plus dancing lessons, things were not exactly getting ugly. Suddenly, a person who had to go past me to get to his place, tapped me on the shoulder and motioned me to stand up for a moment so he could pass. I don't know what was going on in my mind besides La Bamba which was so all consuming that I smiled at him, got up and did a bit of an impression of what I was doing while sitting...OK the bit lasted for almost a minute during which the entire sea of students had found one common point of focus.

I don't normally like it when people stare at me...guess that goes universally too, but today, I loved the attention, even though I saw some people giving me those contemptuous looks of "who gave her the right to be happy enough to just break out in a dance in the middle of the class". But somehow, it is so hard to care when you are so happy and for no apparent reason. Besides, Ritchi Valens was still screaming his 'cancion' in my ears so even if some condescending comments were murmured, I was blissfully deaf to them.

The song ended about a minute later, and so did my little impromptu performance. So, I just gave everyone a beaming ear to ear smile and a slight fake bow while I took my seat. The Prof walked in about two minutes later which is when I took off the earphones. The Prof suddenly roared into the mic in a somewhat naughty voice, "So, I hear their was a fiesta in the class...without me. Happy to know that happy people take these classes. By the way, when it comes to breaking out in a jig in a public place, there is a thin line between happiness and sanity. I don't know which side the lady stands on but I prefer to think it's the former," he said smiling as we went back to studying about the levels of personality and Freudian interpretation of dreams (not the book...the theory).

When the class got over, I heard people talking about the "semi-mental girl", the "Dancing Queen", "Twinkle Toes" and other such names being discussed which I assumed were a result of my little outburst. Somehow, that made me feel happy. As I started driving my car back home, I had a craving for some more music so the earphones were back in place while I screamed, "Pour some sugar on me" followed by "Show me how to live" and yet again, "La Bamba" at the top of my voice while fellow travellers on the crowded roads gazed in wide wonder. I just smiled at them all because I knew then that everything is going to be just fine now.

A bit of psychology...

EROS vs THANATOS

Uncle Freud must really be smiling in his grave today knowing what he stated with authority years and years ago is still haunting the descendents of those who condemned and wrote him off as 'inflammatory' or 'obscene' or even 'blasphemous'. Today, as I learnt about the theoretical roots of aggression and calm, I realized what a thin rope it is we walk and how easy it is to cross over to wild rage from a poised sanguinity.

Freud’s psycho-analysis which is based on instincts and two primary principles of sex and aggression being the reasons for every action and reaction by us humans (I have new respect for Uncle Freud who understood the two basic things which drive us all more than a generation ago). While there are many types of instincts, those which stand out and are considered the most important are two – Eros and Thanatos. Simply stated, Eros are what we better know as Life instincts and Thanatos are the Death instincts. Those who have more of life instincts are more composed, cheerful, laid back and relaxed while the death instinct people are those who have that aggressive streak in them. They are easily excitable, more often than not emotionally unstable and have an inclination towards violence. Normal are those who can successfully strike a balance between the two are the happiest as they are considered normal.

When I heard this explanation, I thought to myself happily that I am rather cheerful, laid back bordering on lazy and don’t get easily angry, but not discarding those few occasions when I do lose my temper, it’s nothing short of uncontrollable rage. So, I safely classified myself as compound of the two. However, it soon struck me that maintaining a balance between the two is walking a tight rope which stands precariously over a deep gorge. That is when my mind started galloping to places where no reign ever holds it down. I got to thinking how easy it is to cross over from peaceful sanity into horrifying insanity which pushes me into unimaginable corners of that pitch darkness where I go blind with wrath. How love which turns into passion soon transforms into a frenzy or a minor altercation becomes a war. How spiteful and hurtful I get and so easily or those unexplained emotional outbursts.

That is when I realized that aggression is very much a part of my being and is as inseparable as the need to be happy, sometimes much more than even that. I had heard long ago from a non-believer friend of mine that the Old Testament has an unknown version of the Original Sin in a phrase which indicates that when God created Adam and Eve, he made Lucifer, erstwhile an angel in his Kingdom and God’s favourite too, the in-charge of the Garden of Eden. However, after a few days, Lucifer started feeling left out and got bitter and bitter with every passing day until his bitterness turned into ire and he decided to take revenge on God. So, he started sending Adam out all day while he and Eve would consummate the same time that she was with Adam too. When God came to know of this, he punished Eve for her sins by giving her painful labour and menstrual cramps among other things and threw Lucifer out of his kingdom. When Eve had a child, it was half Adam’s and half Lucifer’s which gives all the human beings an evil side along with the good side.

Now, I know that coming from a non-believer this theory could just be a fib. But I do believe that we all have two sides within us, the two people inside who are dramatically different from each other are always at a contradiction. However, it is when a person who hosts these two entities within himself manages to ensure that peace exists despite the contradiction, the things remain in control.

Thanatos or any sort of negative instinct of emotion cannot be controlled by repressing it. Repression just makes things accumulate to pave way for them to come out all together with vengeance at the smallest trigger. The key is in finding a solution to that negativity, be it in changing focus to something humorous, or talking to a friend or a relative to get it out or just channelising it in a constructive direction. Apparently we are all born with a certain amount of energy which cannot be increased or decreased. So, what needs to be done is a change in the deployment pattern. Easier said than done? Well, it is and yet, it is not really that difficult.

written on an impulse...

Just a Day

It was a day

Not too different from today

Except it was raining then

And the streets smelt of the trees and the grass

And the trees and the grass were greener than they ever were

The streets were empty

But they weren’t silent

They laughed like they were being tickled

Giggled in all their glory

It was a day

Not too different from today

Except you were with me then

I was on the street that day

Giggling with the streets

With the rainbow in one hand and heaven in the other

And clouds beneath my feet

the green in the trees and the grass was me

the water in the rain was me

and I was falling on you

covering you all over

reaching every little part of your body

as you walked on the happy streets by yourself

looking at me in the trees and the grass

smiling on your own, to yourself

never realizing you were not alone

never realizing I was smiling with you

or perhaps you knew

and then you turned into me

and I was walking right where you were

soaking you in, wanting more of you with every drop of you on me

I was smiling now but I knew I was not alone

Or may be I was

I looked up to see you sitting at the rainbow

screaming my name to the sky

I tried to catch you, but the rainbow was far far away

So I closed my eyes and said a little prayer

When I dared to open them

I saw no rain

No giggling streets, no green leaves

No rainbow and no clouds

and as I tried to wander back into orientation

my hand touched your breath

my eyes met your closed eyelids

I could see you were smiling in your sleep

I nudged closer to you

You smiled some more

Not aware that I saw you

That you were still not alone

That I was smiling with you

I tugged your arm with one hand

And the other hand felt your breath

I closed my eyes and then it happened again

I had the rainbow in one hand and the heaven in the other

And the clouds beneath my feet

It was a day

Not too different from today

The Saddest Poem

I can write the saddest poem of all tonight.

Write, for instance: "The night is full of stars,
and the stars, blue, shiver in the distance."

The night wind whirls in the sky and sings.

I can write the saddest poem of all tonight.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.

On nights like this, I held her in my arms.
I kissed her so many times under the infinite sky.

She loved me, sometimes I loved her.
How could I not have loved her large, still eyes?

I can write the saddest poem of all tonight.
To think I don't have her. To feel that I've lost her.

To hear the immense night, more immense without her.
And the poem falls to the soul as dew to grass.

What does it matter that my love couldn't keep her.
The night is full of stars and she is not with me.

That's all. Far away, someone sings. Far away.
My soul is lost without her.

As if to bring her near, my eyes search for her.
My heart searches for her and she is not with me.

The same night that whitens the same trees.
We, we who were, we are the same no longer.

I no longer love her, true, but how much I loved her.
My voice searched the wind to touch her ear.

Someone else's. She will be someone else's. As she once
belonged to my kisses.
Her voice, her light body. Her infinite eyes.

I no longer love her, true, but perhaps I love her.
Love is so short and oblivion so long.

Because on nights like this I held her in my arms,
my soul is lost without her.

Although this may be the last pain she causes me,
and this may be the last poem I write for her.

--Pablo Neruda

I do not love you except because I love you

I do not love you except because I love you;
I go from loving to not loving you,
From waiting to not waiting for you
My heart moves from cold to fire.

I love you only because it's you the one I love;
I hate you deeply, and hating you
Bend to you, and the measure of my changing love for you
Is that I do not see you but love you blindly.

Maybe January light will consume
My heart with its cruel
Ray, stealing my key to true calm.

In this part of the story I am the one who
Dies, the only one, and I will die of love because I love you,
Because I love you, Love, in fire and blood.

--Pablo Neruda

I cried when i read this first...

My dog has died.
I buried him in the garden
next to a rusted old machine.

Some day I'll join him right there,
but now he's gone with his shaggy coat,
his bad manners and his cold nose,
and I, the materialist, who never believed
in any promised heaven in the sky
for any human being,
I believe in a heaven I'll never enter.
Yes, I believe in a heaven for all dogdom
where my dog waits for my arrival
waving his fan-like tail in friendship.

Ai, I'll not speak of sadness here on earth,
of having lost a companion
who was never servile.
His friendship for me, like that of a porcupine
withholding its authority,
was the friendship of a star, aloof,
with no more intimacy than was called for,
with no exaggerations:
he never climbed all over my clothes
filling me full of his hair or his mange,
he never rubbed up against my knee
like other dogs obsessed with sex.

No, my dog used to gaze at me,
paying me the attention I need,
the attention required
to make a vain person like me understand
that, being a dog, he was wasting time,
but, with those eyes so much purer than mine,
he'd keep on gazing at me
with a look that reserved for me alone
all his sweet and shaggy life,
always near me, never troubling me,
and asking nothing.

Ai, how many times have I envied his tail
as we walked together on the shores of the sea
in the lonely winter of Isla Negra
where the wintering birds filled the sky
and my hairy dog was jumping about
full of the voltage of the sea's movement:
my wandering dog, sniffing away
with his golden tail held high,
face to face with the ocean's spray.

Joyful, joyful, joyful,
as only dogs know how to be happy
with only the autonomy
of their shameless spirit.

There are no good-byes for my dog who has died,
and we don't now and never did lie to each other.

So now he's gone and I buried him,
and that's all there is to it.

--Pablo Neruda