Feast on your life!!

I'm not much of a poetry person. Nevertheless, came across this one by Derek Walcott - and I quite liked it!

The time will come
When, with elation,
You will greet yourself arriving
At your own door, in your own mirror,
And each will smile at the other's welcome,

And say, sit here, Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
To itself, to the stranger who has loved you

All your life, whom you ignored
For another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

The photographs, the desperate notes,
Peel your image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.

~ Derek Walcott ~

Loved it!! Yes, Feast on your life! And, let me add, "don't crib when you have to share the dessert"!!

--Virtually Yours

The story of my life . . .

If I were to write the story of my life, how would I write it? Whose story is it going to be, where would I begin it and what on earth would I write?? I believe every individual inhabit different worlds in a lifetime; at least I do! Some of these worlds run parallel and they never meet while some converge at certain points to become one. My story can't begin at the beginning... I believe in narratives which begin in media res. There is some kind of mystery and romance in the stories which don't have any beginning, don't you think so?

Ah yes, getting back to the story (or stories?) of my life... it's redundant, repetitive, but with a unique sense of intermittent ennui and ecstasy almost throughout! Did my story begin when I was born, or did it begin when I grew up enough to construct my own story or is it yet to begin? Well, who cares, anyways.

I would like to believe that my story began when I first touched fear! But don't ask me when that was - I've no clue! I don't remember what my first fear was... but one of the first fears was that of going to school and finding that none of 'my' friends had turned up that day! I think that's a fear that just refused to leave me... I still get a moment of nervous breakdown when I find that 'my' things and 'my' people are not around me! I'm trying really hard to break out of this 'my-my' feeling but it continues to cling to me like a five year old who fusses every morning before school!

My story began when I learnt to edit my own life before friends, strangers, and even family. I don't know if you had done that too, but yeah, I definitely did. I edited certain parts of it to be used later, to be just quarantined into oblivion, or even to re-edit and project again. I loved it when I edited my emotions! Even today, I edit my own life - even when I don't like it, even when I know I don't have to do it anymore. . .

My story began when I realized that the Almighty is the author of my life, that every moment bears His signature! It was like a watermark in the page of life - always already there even when I'm least conscious of it. His presence filtered the fears and monitored the editing in ways that I could never imagine. Around the same time, I met this man . . . a carpenter's son who was born in a manger, who went on to change the course of history and many lives for centuries to come. He changed me too, took charge of my life and there began a new life, a new story which He will bring into completion. And, now I don't care if the story of my life is half-written or even unwritten - He IS there and that says it all.

At the end of the day, I guess I have neither the concentration nor the linear thinking to put a story in place! And, you know what, I can never write a story. . . people like me would be forever running behind the different stories that could have been rather than sticking to the story that IS. But trust me, the story of my life will go on . . . into eternity, with the ONE who holds my tomorrow!!

Till we meet again on that beautiful shore. . .

--Virtually Yours