Portrait of a Woman

There is a love that unsettles you. One that makes an unbelievable, wildly passionate, insane maniac out of you. Also, there is another, which makes you know peace, makes you grow roots. But who could choose..

She would write in wild bursts of energy. Words that, least to say never flowed rationally, from what was written before. Every new scribble felt like a non-sequitur. There could have been a flow though, not an obvious one but. A connection too vague, in your plane. Too obvious in hers. No body read her mind, she wouldn't stay as long to let them.

In unwashed jeans and with the collar of her jacket raised up, she would roam around. In this obscure, neglected hilly town. Wherein she arrived because she wanted to be treated like the town itself, thrown away, forgotten. Dwell in absolute solitude. Once a month, she would while into the grocery store, hurl in jars of coffee and packs of cigarettes into her bag. Like she was greedy, and she wouldn't survive till her next visit there.

She would walk back, glide rather, on the uphill roads breathing in the sooty exhaust of standstill cars in unending traffic jams. Panting, underneath her layers of wool and the jacket with the collar raised up. With an umbrella in one hand, that she would throw away the moment it rained, and get drenched. Would stop at the most unpredictable of places, never take pictures, or notes. Visit the wildest of dreams, clandestine brothels, deserted monasteries, abattoirs. Stare, with still eyes, a mocking cold glare in them, and move on.

She had abandoned, nobody knew how many accomplished years behind. Middle-aged she was. With no past. No future, only a fleeting present. With a quest, a faint one though, to empty herself into words. And to live by those.

Alone, you soak pillows, yearning for love. In the company of a man, who doesn't get you, you're lonely. On a lunch table with family, you feel even lonelier. More the listless souls, the more left out you are. In a crowd, you feel the loneliest. The only company that survives, is the one which is drawn to you by the measureless understanding of solitude..

13 comments:

~*. D E E P A .* ~ said...

ahha !!

nice. .. this is how i feel on certain days

Surya Prakash V said...

If you notice the outer and the inner; then one is canceling the other all the time. Where does one experience loneliness where does one experience company wi?

Anonymous said...

and i have always maintained that it's all about connection and passion... that in turn leads you to conversations which make your life a little less lonely! beautifully written! it touched a chord!

Blasphemous Aesthete said...

Solitude often offers the best company, the language it speaks is perfectly understandable.

I've seen love come, I've seen it shot down, I've seen it die in vain

~Bon Jovi


But could we prevent ourselves from loving again, when it asks no permissions to enter?

Blasphemous Aesthete

Anonymous said...

how b"fully written!!!

Anirudh 'Lallan' Choudhry said...

beauty fiction illusion quest

wildflower said...

Deepa
Well then, the point is made.

V
I don't know, V. I am a very disturbed person who will never know peace.

veggiecrook
It is indeed all about connection and passion! Well said.

wildflower said...

BA
Love the quote. Love what you said in the end, even more, thanks!

Anonymous
I know you, hence you're anonymous. If you knew me, you would have known the woman and the hilly town in context.

rudh
You read the labels! They make as much sense to me, as they don't.. :)

Surya Prakash V said...

Wi; the writing will not exhaust the inner noise, it is the inner noise given a shape; a form a voice. You name an unknown beast and study it. Useless insights.

Perhaps there is a way out; if you want it of course; the outer noise stills inner noise; a matter of focus; sometimes forced purging is the best way to form a new habit.

One is never secure with anyone else; yet one can afford company.

wildflower said...

For once, I do not even understand if you, if at all you are, criticizing me, or applauding me :D

Surya Prakash V said...

Wi; I have no criticism left in me; only unbounty; non-discriminating affection.

For the cynic that I now am, for all the errors I see; I am also a die hard romantic; but all these are just labels I hardly care about.

What I care about is your being disturbed; taken on face value that disturbs me :) ;

I guess I am beyond understanding - so be it.

I applaud you for your skills. Guess it shud end there.

Syed Ali Hamid said...

This is poetic prose, the kind I like, expressing angst, the suffering of a romantic with the narrative in tune with the feeling. But living in the 'fleeting present' is something I have always yearned for, but could never achieve.
Like the way you write.

loop said...

This is ridiculously beautiful, if you know what I mean :)I said this once before but saying it again, sometimes you write like a dream:)