As I settle in the evening with my cup of tea, trying to paint a picture of what I felt, to record it, so that I can come back to it again, I can feel it slipping away.
It is a rare occurrence when I am not able to gauge what I feel. I can pinpoint exactly what stage I am at, what malady is knocking on my door. But it was different this afternoon, a quiet and pleasant afternoon in the ‘summer-y’ winter of Mumbai, where it's neither hot nor cool. A sweet, but not jarringly so, controlled happiness flooded my chest as I lay with the room-darkening curtains drawn, eyes closed while my daughter lay beside me, pretending to eat a rainbow which her beloved Horton had brought in for her.
Imagine a tiny fissure in an airtight compartment—that minuscule hole where the air just gushes in, slowly but surely. My heart filled with a feeling that I had not experienced in some time, in a long time, ever?. It was contentment enveloped in quiet happiness—nonchalant happiness. It was a busy morning, like most weekend mornings, and I was looking forward to a nap which got pushed to early evening (late afternoon). I took my eight intentional deep breaths trying to fall asleep, and it kept coming in. Eyes shut, I could feel my lips curve into a smile. I am not superstitious, but I am afraid of happiness; somehow it is always the calm before the storm. This time around it did not stop and I resisted fighting that feeling, it kept gushing in. Now my heart is filled. For now.
It is not better to have loved and lost because the knowledge of the feelings felt and the truth of now, where one is living without them, is unbearable. I am looking for words, trying to make this ‘deep’ but I have none. How is it possible to be nostalgic for the feeling that you are feeling right now? How does one hold on to it? It does what all moments do, slip through your fingers. How does one now hit pause and stop and not let anything come on it? - leave it pristine untouched as is? How can I effectively - successfully take a photograph of a moment that I want to hold onto for a little while longer while it is slipping away as fast as it came in?
