September Dream

We are in our first week of October, and I’m still thinking about September. That month always has its ways with me. When the sky finds new shades to show off, the flowers play along with more-r shades. It’s a game worth losing, because you win either way. The rains that find your home and the nostalgia of a childhood far and gone. As it takes different forms now and then, you desperately pray for a no-flood season every night. September is as slumber as it can get; life doesn’t change much during that month. It is the same, and so you find ways to make it seem interesting. You notice, and you make stories, because what else can one do? 

This September, however, surprised me with an unforeseen independence. Moving and building a home alone happened, and life changed in little ways. 

Chennai is supposed to be less hot from September, but damn, the heat is unbearable! And the burden of the climate change that we are witnessing in the fancy name called El Niño, as if Finding Nimo had a twin from Spain. Nevertheless, the standing yellow fan is now my favorite companion in the world; it comes along with me everywhere: front room, kitchen, all around the house. Each corner beams with a story of embarrassment, laughter, sadness, and love. Each picture, postcard, frame, plates, pans, paintings, broom, bucket, soap, blanket has something or the other to say, and if there isn’t anything, then watch me make up a story (a believable one!) The ivory walls, the big tree from my kitchen window, the extremely small, busy street outside- how did I end up here?! And how wonderfully! 

Living alone has consequences that no one warns you about. You get sick, you remain sick. There is no one to magically help you. When the dust takes up the tiny corners of the room, you have to clean it alone despite the bad back pain. Cooking is not, and never has been, my strongest forte, and if you cook, you eat. Orelse? Starve. When bad dreams take a stroll on you, you wake up in the middle of the night sweating, crying, helpless, and go back to sleep, leaving the lights on. And when loneliness creeps in, you creep inside the blanket on a hot Sunday afternoon, not able to distinguish between tears and sweat.

It is a loop, but the loop feels comfortable after a while. 

So, September happened in the blink of an eye. The sister who helped me move in, the cousins who showed up with a sunflower, the senior who made achar so that you don’t end up eating plain rice, or the friends who stayed till late night; the place is collectively held together by people, by love. With some early Monday mornings with 'Azhiyum Thirayum' by T.M K and coffee, or some super late Wednesday nights with maggi and water. There isn’t any right or wrong way to living alone; you just do it anyway, in the only way you know. 

There were/ are many things that went wrong, and I cannot remember, but through it all, I look out from my kitchen and see the sun glimmering through the trees; this feels different. I feel different, oh yes! This has been a dream.


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