Of salty sea air and romance

Surprise Surprise! It is around 5.30 in the morning and I am awake. Extreme thirst woke me up. The next hour or so is my favourite hour where you are in what mind researchers call the “alpha” mode and I like lolling around trying to find a snug corner to curl up, not wanting to wake up from this blissful state. Today however I decided to bring a change in routine. Filling myself a tall glass of carrot juice, the welcome drink for the day, I am writing on nostalgia. Nostalgia of the days when I used to love waking up early. It was the days of transition from a child to a teenager.

I must have been around 12 years old. We had just moved into this rambling old house ( which my friends used to tag as a “haunted house”) with parliament fans dangerously swinging from the very high tiled roofs, a legacy of the colonial rule and courtesy, my dad’s job. The first few days after we moved in there, it took me a while to get used to sleeping in a room where there were more doors than windows and where large trees swayed in the breezy night engulfing me with the smell of salty sea air, with the sound of sea waves seeming dangerously close that sometimes I woke up thinking I am on the deck of a ship. There were times when I was so tempted to run to my parent’s room and crawl under their bed and go to sleep but I was much too proud for that.

However in a few days a total transformation happened. It was as if the sea, the nature surrounding this quaint building and the place itself was wooing me. From initial wariness to intimidation and then to cautious enjoyment to total abandon, my relationship with the place went through one complete cycle of falling in love. From the corridors running around the rooms one can witness a breathtaking view of the sea in all its mammoth expanse. With a beautiful moon adding silvery shimmers to the moving sea, it was a romantic sight to behold.

I would rummage through my brother’s music collection, (he was the first to introduce me to mind blowing music, which was mostly awesome guitar work, the likes of dire straits, pink floyd, eric clapton and santana), turn up the volume and gaze at the sea for endless hours. These were also the days when I used to jump out of bed at the first light of dawn break, rush to the rickety railing of the corridor, watch with awe, the orange glory of sun rise with the now papery moon fading away. I would flip open my pocket notebook and pen out an amaetur poem, caught in the glory of the moment. Ouch! the doorbell rings, am rudely shaken up from my reverie. It is time to continue my mundane activites of the day but yeah want to travel back in time again for another cozy memory that has been tucked away

If astrology and Linda Goodman are to be believed then I have this cancerian ascendant, which kinda makes me cling on to the past and guess what ‘am loving it and won’t let go!