ave maria

Thoughts arrive like butterflies. They land and linger on my leaves, begging me to write a net of words to capture their beauty. But I am over mesmerised and they escape every time.

One such butterfly of thought concerns the seas of the moon. Every few months they get a mention in something I read and I remember how much I want to write about them. But I can never begin. Something about their beauty combined with baroness, their uninhabited extreme, always leaves me speechless.

The dark patches that we can see on the moon are known as lunar maria (mare in the singular). They are dry plains created by volcanic eruption, reflecting less light, hence their dark appearance. They were named maria (from the Latin) by early astronomers, who mistook them for seas. The moon is also home to lakes, marshes, bays and an ocean.

But its their names more than their notion that draw me in. Particularly alluring to me is the Sea of Clouds set to turn the world upside down, and the Sea of the Edge, harking back to the days when the world was flat. I long to linger beside the Lake of Dreams and drown slowly in the Lake of Time. I could drag myself reluctantly from the Marsh of Sleep if only to behold the Bay of Rainbows.

And so I’ll settle to offer you a few scraps about them. And the thought that with names like those its no wonder I feel I am living in the wrong place.

redefinition #1

Gods bother me but angels appeal. All that illumination with added wings. They come in all shapes and sizes. Named or shamed they rise or fall. But what the books of the believers never tell you is how angels are made…


If you can name it you can break it. Mirrors, glass, bones, hearts and minds. Things you lose and things I find. You can collect up the pieces and try to glue them back together with patience or idle promises. You can wrap them in newspaper and lay them to rest in the bin. But there will always be a few fragments that get away. That lay embedded in the carpet, biding their time, only to float skywards one day.

And there they reconvene, brushing together their jagged edges and sharp corners. Meeting and greeting and reuniting in celebration of the shattered. Until all those forgotten have found a new place to be, to breathe and believe they can fly again.


So now you know. Now you see what was staring you in the face all along - a one letter shift between two words. And now, when something breaks, remember there is an angel in the making, so bless rather than curse the thing you’re breaking.

pieces of art

I’ve talked a bit about my quote taking habits before.

But there’s more to it - it goes beyond a handful of words lifted from one book to another. Most of the people I know are collectors and clippers - I see their lives peppered with special crumbs picked up on their travels. They spend their days gathering pieces of their passions. Cutting and pasting them into real or virtual albums. Hence my need for a whole blog just to store such finds. We people gather quotes, a few bars of a cherished song, a corner cut from a coloured canvas. Moments taken out of time.

And I wonder why… is it that these chosen bits are better than the whole? or perhaps because we simply cant carry a gallery or symphony in our pocket, head or heart. Maybe its like those people who carry tiny photos of their child or lover or pet in their wallet. We need a little something that is always by our side, a scrap of magic amid monotony.

[illustrations clipped from a few of the things that illuminate my days]

sensory overload

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something in the air

Sometimes smell becomes my primary sense. When the animal in me still twitches its nose to show that domesticity hasnt completely tamed me.

A few days into the year and new lotions and potions are cracked open and applied to dry winter skin. And suddenly I no longer smell like me. I smell of a new me. A me who has wandered through exotic spaces and forbidden gardens, collecting spices on the soles of my feet and rare seeds in my hair.

And as my imagination races to the places my new skin might take me, memory drifts to the scent of moments left behind.

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