My heart as paper
My blood as ink
A rhythmic letter
Folded into being.
A paper fish
Swims a furious ocean
Floats with every wish
Graceful in motion.
A paper feline
Roams a wild jungle
With guts and spine
To fight and mingle.
A paper bird
Soaring up and about
Sky high and undeterred
Wherever without doubt.
My heart as paper
My blood as ink
A rhythmic letter
Of fins, claws and wings.
We get this question every other day.
It’s almost a courtesy to ask people how they’re doing, when we’ve not seen or meet them for a long time. More so now that the whole world is going through this pandemic.
Our perception of this question is usually as simple as it sounded regardless of how complicated our life is at that moment. So we answered simply with, ‘I’m doing just fine.’
Maybe we’ve bumped into a familiar face once in a while at the mall and assured each other that we’re doing okay. Maybe we had a hard and stressful time at work and refused to talk about it with anybody. Maybe our relationship with our loved ones were on the brink of collapsing but we felt that nobody needs to know that. Maybe we thought that our depressed episodes should not be of another’s concern.
Hence, we summarise our days or weeks or months – all the good, bad and ugly – into one effortless answer ; I AM FINE.
When sadly, deep down we know that we’re surely not, not exactly, maybe not even close.
Imagine if ‘how are you?’ is actually ‘how is your heart/soul doing?‘.
Imagine that people were really sincerely checking out on us, and not just asking out of common courtesy. Surely, ‘I AM FINE‘ wont suffice and wont do justice as an answer.
Because our hearts may be weary and our souls exhausted. Because we may be on the verge of breaking down. Because life may just be a repetitive cycle of mundanes. Because we may no longer find the strength to chase after our life-long dreams. Because after all that we’ve been through, we may felt like there are no other options except for giving up.
If that’s the case then truly, we’re not fine at all.
Hectic schedules in our daily lives may cause us to abandon our true feelings and deep thoughts. In order to maintain healthier emotional levels, it is super important for us to regularly recognise and acknowledge the contents of our own hearts and soul. Once acknowledged, we can further determine the cure to our brokenness, to fill the gaps of all cracks and hollows.
I’d like to think that the current pandemic – in all it’s seemingly never-ending quarantine time and tedious queuing at the store – to be a surprisingly humbling and introspective experience.
For we now have ample time to contemplate deeply within ourselves. In the confinements of our own abode, in the wee hours of silence when the world goes to sleep, we may find ourselves alone and at peace with our feelings and thoughts through meditation and ultimately, through prayer.
It’s definitely not an easy task. But whats worthy are never easy.
It takes more courage to examine the dark corners of your own soul than it does for a soldier to fight on a battlefield.
W.B. Yeats
May we be given strength and courage to delve deep within our beings and confront the demons that has been wreaking havoc on our faith in all things that are good and positive in our lives. And when the time comes, may we finally be able to say that we are absolutely fine with unquestionable confidence and clarity.
How do you define strength?
Growing up, the idea of strength to a 14-year old me was rebellion; freedom to do what I want to, which was extremely hard as my parents are basically ‘typical Asian‘. When the so-called freedom I ached for so badly were denied, I became angry. I grew up building a bunker protecting my heart, a cage without windows to look out for anything, refusing entry to nobody and nothing. Yes, I was that angry. And I had no means of properly venting all the anger out which caused an emotional turmoil within me till I was 21.
Seven years of contained anger rendered me emotionless. I could still remember watching sad movies with my friends bawling their eyes out while I sat among them with a poker face. They would turned to look at me in bewilderment while I’d just shrugged and said ‘It’s just not that sad’. My heart had been caged and blinded in pitch dark for far too long it could no longer recognize light.
And the saddest part was, I thought I was strong; for not crying, for not betraying my emotions. I could swear feeling my blinded heart grinning smugly whenever my friends told me that I was strong. Little did I know, and little did they know, that I was nothing but the opposite.
Life works in mysterious ways, in the infinite wisdom and mercy of God Who creates. One fateful day, I stumbled upon this quote that goes along the lines of:
“There is courage in being soft in a world that is constantly making you hard.”
I let that sunk in.
And boy, did that sunk.
It was like a wrecking ball straight to the bunker protecting my heart. The bunker cracked, allowing rays of light to seep through.
There’s no turning back from that point on. The crack got bigger every time I let my emotions run wild. Every laughter, every tears and every moments I felt so deeply for, progressively turned the protective bunker into ruin.
I cant say that my heart is absolutely free now, because it certainly isn’t. A heart that has been sheltered in the dark for too long needs time to recover, to wallow under the basking Sun and bath under the blinding beauty of light.
I’m learning to let go of my own heart, to let it roam and explore every nook and crook of every kinds of feelings. And ultimately, to feel because that’s how a graceful heart grows; by feeling naturally what it is supposed to feel.
All I can say is, there is definitely courage in being ‘soft’. In the words of Plato,
“Courage is knowing what not to fear.”
My courage is still budding, but I’m looking forward to the future, when I’m no longer afraid to feel; strongly, deeply and incandescently.
That being said, I’m acknowledging strength in a totally different perspective from my naive self back then. I can hear strength in an old woman’s calm voice whenever she re-called burying her own son, I can feel the strength of a Mother who is constantly forgiving her children who’ve wronged her and I can see the strength of people who’re struggling to destroy all shapes of demons in their lives.
Strength comes in different shape, forms and sizes, in tears and laughter, in silence and sound, in the ‘lost and found’ of life. And there is strength in each one of us, in our refusal to give up despite everything that has happened and in our battles for ever-lasting happiness. Truly, we are all stronger than we think we are.
SCRAWL SEASON 