summer days where all you need is a gelato in hand //

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Numbering the ticking thingamajigs

1:16 PM

Numbering the ticking thingamajigs

One thick white envelope with a return address that makes me feel apprehensive about opening it. Dump it on the table in clear sight so that when there's nothing left to do that I can use to further procrastinate, I'll have to open it.

Two watches on my dresser. I can't remember which time I follow. It used to be the cuckoo clock downstairs, than the mechanics went all wonky. So I switched it to the high school bell, and than later the college time. And I set it to my desktop clock and my handphone time. What time am I following anyway? Time flows out of our hands so swiftly, once lost impossible to regain. Why is it always time that runs against us?

Three phones on my table, two dead, one alive. I need to clear them up. And figure out how to work the charger. I need to buy a new phone soon. But as usual, I've procrastinated it for 3 months and I'm indecisive and sway from one model to another.

Four packs of tissues neatly put in a small cardboard holder. I never use packeted tissue to cry at home. If ever, its tissue from the boxes or towels damp with tears because there are times when you just want to shut the world out and hide behind the cotton threads rubbing on your face. Crying on shoulders broad enough to lean on belonging to people who care enough to be there and you know that when they say they'll be there, no matter what, they won't turn you away. And there's nothing like crying in the arms of someone who cares and eventhough the person doesn't know exactly why, they know that the most comforting thing would be to enfold you tightly in their arms and make you feel safe and warm. Gentle murmurs and whispers that cut through those sobs and hit you directly the way a hot knife goes through butter. And sometimes, they don't need to say anything. Because they know that at times, words simply don't do justice. And eventhough its heartbreaking to be crying in their arms, you still find yourself doing it because the other alternative would be to walk away and cry alone. But, big girls aren't supposed to cry anymore, right?

Suddenly, I don't feel very grown-up yet. And I don't want to grow up so soon either.

Five girls who form a little coterie that stuck together through the years. There were others, but there was also this. One by one leaving and parting ways. Spreading their wings and flying off to see the big, wide world. But no matter where we are, we'll still girl talk and gossip right?

And this is where I stop counting the numbers.

You contemplate opening it up the way a watchmaker would open the back of a watch which stopped ticking. Peering at the intricate thingamajigs and anxiously scrutinizing each and every cog and spring, checking them for signs of rust or age. There's no detectable defect on the surface, perhaps the malaise comes from within or perhaps its merely imaginary. There's nothing to be done but to put the pieces back together and wait for it to hopefully start working again. And you wait patiently to hear that familiar ticking sound which tells you everything's gone back to what it was. But you wonder, if it starts ticking again, will there ever be that clockwork precision again? And you start wondering if precision was even there in the first place and if it was, does it really matter? And does the value and defination of precision change with time, no matter for good or for worse?

And after that pin-dropping mind numbing silence, you hear a little "tick-tock tick-tock" and you start breathing normally again and your mind goes off its panic mode and calms down a little. But you know tucked right at the back of your mind, there's a little worrywart there that it might stop ticking again. And you know that sometimes, you can't really do much about it but wait for it to pass and it makes you ever more appreciative and grateful for the times that it quietly ticks, a gentle metronome measuring out the beats and rhythm of life.

Some things just can't be dissected under a microscope or fixed just like that broken clock at a snap of your fingers or a wave of a brush. They need some time of their own to simmer down and sort themselves out before they can go on. And that's how life is, so its time to accept it. =)

Written on Wednesday, June 27, 2007; 1:16 PM

Flip My Past:

De-stressing from distressing accounting

Legal massacres, statistical butchery and economic...

Golden preludes

Red velvet ribbons sprinkled with gold dust

The beginning of the end

Round Two

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