Sunday Morning
As I laze around in a strange albeit cheerfully colored room in a day that began on a perfect note in the engaging company of Murakami’s Kafka Tamura I begin to feel highly contemplative. Gentle melancholic strums of Mike McCready guitar blend seamlessly with Vedder’s words making me realise once again why I believe Yellow Ledbetter is a song I will always cherish. The Velvet Underground wait, not so patiently in anticipation to put their version of this “Sunday Morning” in verse. It’s a good day to look back and laugh at some of the stupid things, some of the happiest moments not so long ago, old friends, old hangouts, old books and old loves.
I started writing this post with the aim of wanting to take a deep dive into one of those questions that always haunt a man willing to think about it “ Who am I?” but now the depth of this question seems laughably trivial. I have gently excavated my past in an attempt to understand this question and now standing at the depths of my memories I look up. I find unrelated, possibly insouciant musings on the surface but for some reason I want to climb back up. And since I am incredibly limber in my thoughts I am back up in a heartbeat.
One of the things that strike my mind first, possibly because Gabriel Oboe’s kind, loving tune of Nella Fantasia gently nudges my memories is a movie that touched me. Not the conventional emotional tear jerker but my eyes still feel a little moist as I write about it. A movie about people kind enough to find it in their hearts to embrace the very man who sold them to a lifetime of slavery. A man so drunk in his power that he refuses to see the pain of people who are instruments in his power game. A man who consigns himself to a penitence so hard that it melts the hearts of the priests who fight him, a man whose joy at finding forgiveness melts your heart. And yes, the man whose compassion is only matched by his resolve to never give up on people who are doomed to obliteration. I don’t know why I love “The Mission” so much but somewhere deep down I believe it kindles a hope in me.
Maybe someday the people that I wronged will know that I was so wrapped up in me and my fear of loss that I did not see what I did to them when they only gave me the truest love and affection. Maybe someday I will truly lose my apathy for the people I blame for having turned me into the man I was and realise that no matter how warped their lives were they loved me and took care of me the best way they could. Maybe someday I will present my true, slightly bedraggled, mildly scarred face to people I meet rather than being just an exciting collection of cool events and places in my life. Maybe I will figure out why the dark scares me. Maybe I will truly live to the words of Cohen's "Anthem". Maybe I will find myself within myself for good and not wait to see fleeting glimpses of Shameek in other people, their written words, their sung verses and their created art. Maybe someday I will find My Home. I don’t know how to classify what I feel today. A little nostalgic, a little melancholy, a little happy, a little closer to being an “Emperor of Solitude” yet a little lonely, mildly hopeful. Maybe someday I will figure out a word for what I feel now. Maybe ….
