ant

the morning started with the carrying of water bags for eyelids. i wonder what the science is behind that. it's like the body wants to remind you exactly what you went through hours ago.

and you carry it around for most of the day. you carry it around as your face takes on the day's deliverables, smiling, interacting, making appropriate expressions. and the eyes try to keep up but sometimes, depending on the intricacy of their desired expression, the eyelids feel unmoving, uncooperating, still carrying the weight from a previous expression.

expressions should happen and then be less a part of you. you let things out to create space within yourself. to keep yourself empty. to keep yourself open. because it is the most crucial thing, to have space. to be open. He might be whispering and you are too busy listening to what's already been expressed. listening to the past.

it was a full day of going back and forth with a report and emailing and taking in inquiries. i kind of feel things were okay today. and i felt that i wasn't really doing work and was just functioning normally. and i wasn't being plagued by unnecessary thoughts that kept me from making decisions and moving forward. it is nearly 9pm now and i have yet to make a start on boot camp homework.

it was in the late into the afternoon, when there was orange light in the corridor outside the office, that i realised my eyes were feeling normal again.

i encountered a few children earlier in the day and i found myself incredibly grateful for their candid presence. 'How are you?' i asked one. 'Five!!!' he answered, holding up an open hand to represent the number 5. i didn't know he didn't use to talk - when i started teaching in his class he was already doing so.

i wonder what it is that keeps children from learning how to speak nowadays. i remember home videos of me and my sister and how we were barely 4 years old but talking a lot.

also encountered a young indian boy and his mother today, they were there to inquire about taekwondo. i found myself so curious about their circumstances - why were they here? 2 years. how are they finding it, compared to bangalore? i didn't ask more than how long they had been in the country, because i suddenly felt it might be intrusive. and i myself didn't fancy being asked a lot of questions about my foreign status in other countries.

i think i found that the less i thought about myself today, the more normal i was able to function. at least, i didn't think about myself in an unhealthily conscious way.

i tried to keep in mind K's messages from the morning. i need to know who i am in Him. who i am period. i don't know why it is so difficult. i can't tell why it is so hard to understand and accept love that is for me.

my mom caught me crying last night and so i tried to open up to her a bit about my flaling productivity at work. she called out my pride that made everything much, much harder for myself. she mimicked what she thought i would be thinking - dapat naglalakad lang ako. dapat alam ko na ito so hindi ako magtatanong. i'd been aware of the second sentence for a while, but it was the first one that knocked me a bit. it sounded ridiculous. a little thing who could be flying, choosing to stay on the ground and take four times as long to get from one place to another.

i remember what one of the attendees from saturday's talk said when they saw me carrying two wooden benches back up to the art room. 'do you need help?' they asked, smiling. i smiled back and said i'm okay. 'you're like an ant,' one said.