Lighting your damp matches


"As you see, within our bodies each of us has the elements needed to produce phosphorous. And let me tell you something I've never told a soul. "

"My grandmother said that each of us is born with a box of matches inside us but we can't strike them all by ourselves; we need oxygen and a candle to help. The oxygen, would come from the breath of the person you love; the candle could be any kind of food, music, caress, word or sound that engenders the explosion that lights one of the matches. For a moment we are dazzled by an intense emotion. A pleasant warmth grows within us, fading slowly as time goes by, until a new explosion comes along to revive it."  -- Like water for chocloates, Laura Esquirel 

The past two years have been tumultuous for us all. We didn't have the faintest idea of how our lives would change in the months to come. We were forced to deal with our inner demons, while the world around us seemed to collectively grow into a darker place as well. Most of us fell from our own expectations, of being healthier, of reading Shakespeare and Proust, of conquering the guitar or the ukelele. Because all we did in turn, was scroll and wait and blink as we saw numbers and graphs and expanded our medical vocabulary. 

Going back home and living with my parents also did something unexpected for me. It got me to meet the child within who had wandered off when I left home 8 years ago. I was forced to encounter the dreams, that I had left at the doorstep when I walked out of home, trading for few ounces of practicality and a pound or two of a false sense of responsibility. 

It took a bit of nostalgia and the familiar comfort of the home for the soul to come back to its original form. At home, there was nowhere for it to hide. Living in bits and pieces in my old things, photos and sketchpens, the truth of my being was evident. Calling back to my adolescent years, when I thought of the world as a fantastic place to be. And so, when the prodigal daughter returned in the wake of a global pandemic, she was struck by the fact that it was long since she had thought about the future with such awe and positivity in a very, very long time. 

 "Each person has to discover what will set off those explosions in order to live, since the combustion that occurs when one of them is ignited is what nourishes the soul. If one doesn't find out in time what will set off these explosions, the box of matches dampens, and not a single match will ever be lighted." 

Flashes of my time in my childhood house haunted me for a long time during those months back home. Along with that flooded back this belief that destruction was for the good. It was why we prayed to goddess Kali. For one cycle had to break in order for the new one to start. It was this thought that some of the lowest moments in people's lives had been their biggest turning points. Since that was when they got their heads above the water and paused to question why. 

"There are many ways to dry out a box of damp matches, but you can be sure, there is a cure."

Sparks and fire,
XOXO

-T







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