With weary eyes I look at you 

You know, I am tired to the bones.

Running after you for so long,

To you, I never meant a dime,

And you will never give me

The time of day,

When all I've ever asked of you,

Was a song. 

You depart with a friendly smile,

But you have left a storm behind.

I watch the dark clouds gather

And hear the sound of my own heart

Breaking like the claps of thunder.

I am cold to the bones,

Shivering and quivering under the bitterness of the rain.

Perhaps one day I will not remember your face,

Perhaps one day I would find myself again,

The one who was lost amidst the flurry of your words,

The one who had believed in you.

My heart was once pure and true,

Only now I've come to understand,

That I was played for a fool. 

The Bard

http://forreadingaddicts.co.uk/authors/10-of-the-best-shakespeare-insults/10690

http://forreadingaddicts.co.uk/authors/10-of-shakespeares-most-romantic-quotes/10781

Wild- Cheryl Strayed

I remembered watching half of the movie and got bored. It's been happening a lot to me these days; the same thing happened when i watched unbroken before reading the book. Given that I'd found the movie boring, I'm not sure why I eventually bought the book. The book as always is much better than the movie. Two passages made me cry and the rest of the chapters just left me awe-struck. The first passage that made me cry was when Cheryl knowing that her mother was going to die anytime (after being diagnosed with lung cancer a month earlier) soon left the hospital to bring her brother Lief to see her. When they finally returned, the curtains around her mother's bed were drawn. She drew the curtains and saw that ice packs were placed over her mother's eyes as she had donated her cornea. They had arrived too late. 

The next passage was when they had to put down Cheryl's mom's horse as she was getting on in age and suffering. Having no money, Cheryl couldn't afford to have a vet euthanize the horse so they chose to shoot the horse. She thought it would be a clean shot, that the horse would die immediately but it wasn't so. After being shot thrice, Lady the horse struggled and died a slow torturous death. Cheryl was mad with grief. I would too. 

I was awestruck by her courage and determination to complete the trail she had planned on doing, even though she had no hiking experience and had come to the trail unprepared. Most hikers on the Pacific Crest Trail had spent months and almost a year to prepare themselves for the trip. She didn't. One also gets the sense that she'd been very lucky that nothing bad had happened to her during the entire 3-month hike. It was a dangerous thing to do, to go on a solo hike on unfamiliar terrains, especially the Mojave desert. 

Feeling inspired by the book, I went on to the PCT webpage and read that there was a long list of hikers who had completed the entire trail, running from Mexico to Canada and that a typical trip would last for 6 months and cost between 4-8000 usd. I can't imagine living 6 months in the wilderness. I then searched for more palatable trails and made a mental note that if I ever returned to the US, I would do the Oregon or California section. 

I kinda understood when Cheryl said that even though it had not been necessary to sleep in a tent, being in an enclosed area gave one a sense of comfort and safety. It's funny when you consider this. One of the reasons to be in the wilderness, is to feel that great expanse, to be in all that space and to get away from the crowded, concrete jungle, and yet, being in a tiny space, even if it's just a thin sheet of material between us and the wilderness, gives us a sense of security. I really am curious as to how it feels like to be completely isolated from the world and hiking alone. Will one go crazy without seeing another human being for a long time? Or will find some kind of inner peace? For Cheryl, the solitude and the wild healed her broken-ness and I whole heartedly believe too that nature has the power to break you and heal you. 

The book is definitely worth the while to read although I would rate it a little below Unbroken. 8-16 April 2016

Perhaps just a glimpse will do,

Perhaps then, I will tell you the truth.

All the things that you need to know

All the secrets that have never been told.

The years have made me older 

But they have not made me bolder.

My heart, it is still troubled,

Sometimes I think, it has turned colder.

I'd planned so much to do today

But you see, the tears they cloud my eyes,

I unravel 

And couldn't remember the reason

Why I cried. 

There are so many secrets that I keep

And you, miles away,

You couldn't hear me weep,

Could you? 

The seasons will change 

But me, I remain forever fettered

To the cold, dreary darkness.

She was already drowning when she met him.

She listens to the breaths of the ocean- swoosh splat- the waves crash against her cheeks. 

The saltiness of the ocean mixes in with her tears. She is floating but in a moment, she will be sinking, into that deep silent ocean.

She takes a deep breath, closes her eyes,  and readies herself for that final moment.

She knows that soon she will be enveloped in a cocoon of silence, a silence she yearns so much for; the incessant chatter in her mind has kept her awake for months. She craves that nothingness and prays that the fear of a painful death when her body is deprived of oxygen, will dissipate soon. 

I had a feeling that Kathy's Song would be on the vinyl that was bought a long time ago. Lo and behold it was there. Although the record was quite scratchy, I still thought it was pretty nice. Sound of silence is definitely a vinyl song too. 

I must have listened to Kathy's Song a hundred times in the past two days. There's just something cathartic about listening to a song over and over again till you get sick of it and then repeat the process again, a few years done the road, when you re-discover the song.