Snow on the moon.
Something very ripe in the sky beyond all trees of the world beyond the mountains rose the fruit of night —
— so clear and white. So white and wonderfully exposed. A little foggy ball, a little snowball in the sky, a single white cherry. I’m convinced that it recently snowed over there. I stare and stare, and try to convince those around me that it indeed snowed over there —
— I’ll dream of being unfathomably hungry tonight. I’ll sleep with my eyes wide open so that I don’t forget my late dinner: one ripe fruit with snow all over.
Past midnight, full moon, December 19/20, moonlit snow on the mountains, -10ºC, starry sky, upper-Manali valley, and the chilly breath in my nose.
Life is beautiful.
Slurping gravity.
When I walk, I do not even step on the ground fully and firmly, with all my little weight on this giant rock rolling in space. It is as though I’m slurping gravity, not devouring it. I walk as though I never properly learned to walk. And when I rest my body on the bed, I levitate like a cloud.
Is this tenderness on my part for the earth, or is this my anxiety dripping as I walk?
A thought arrives and disappears.
A brilliant thought occurred to me in the shower in the morning, and I said to myself that I’ll keep repeating the thought in my head until I’m done with the shower and then write it down the moment I step out of the bathroom.
I remembered now, past midnight, that I was supposed to write down the thought I had in the shower, and I forgot it the moment I stepped out of the bathroom, and never remembered it again during the course of the day, I forgot to write it down, I forgot what it was.
Now it’s driving me crazy and I can’t sleep. I hope that the same thought occurs to me again, while taking another shower, maybe tomorrow, maybe 25 years later.
A thought arrives and disappears, perhaps to never arrive again.
Pink bougainvillea.
The flowers I saw last night, pink bougainvillea, were not there today even if there were flowers and they were pink bougainvillea.
Pink bougainvillea in Udaipur, Rajasthan, India. December 2020.
Earth’s moon from outside the earth.
Full moon from the Space Station. Taken by the astronaut Alexander Gerst. August 2018.
Franz Kafka.
This is a fragment from my beloved writer Franz Kafka’s diaries. I can’t describe the raw brilliance of these words. I can’t believe someone had this thought and noted down in his diaries, which he had instructed his friend to burn after his death.
This thought exists, still, and continues to exist in my own heart.
It exists because Kafka wrote it down in his diaries and Max didn’t burn the diaries. It exists because, above all, it was written down. Max had a choice — whether to burn Kafka’s unpublished works or not — only because Kafka had written things down. One cannot preserve or publish what doesn’t exist. One cannot set fire to what is yet to exist. Kafka gave Max a choice by not burning his unpublished works himself when he was alive.
Now, in the evening, after having studied since six o’clock in the morning, I noticed that my left hand had already for some time been sympathetically clasping my right hand by the fingers.
— Franz Kafka, Diaries
I belong to the Himalaya.
Ever since living in the Himalaya, for almost a year now, it occurred to me that I would feel strange and uneasy when and if I would visit a city.
A stranger in the city. A foreigner in my own country.
I would feel like I don’t belong there. For I never felt like I belonged there.
Ever since living in the Himalaya, I’m finally living. Living my core self, a truth of my fundamental desires.
First snow, Vashisht.
First snow in Vashisht, near Manali, Himachal Pradesh, India; on December 06 2021. Taken with iPhone 7.