Thoughts of a minibus traveller

Binging and hoping it would be the last time.. feeling sick after eating too much chocolate but the sickness after overeating is like feeling the physical illness which is the mental pain. Another set of chocolate fortunately appears and I think no .. enjoy normally, a bit at a time, but there is no normal any more. There is a  piece of chocolate left in the box, damaged after melting and remoulding  but giving a high and yearning for more. There is privilege in being able to go out and buy what ever sweet junk is needed. Closest place to buy the junk is a place which sells alcohol and I keep thinking that it is a good thing I don't drink and that no matter how bad things get, I don't want to do drink alcohol. Month of what I thought would have been rest ends up with me feeling worse than at the beginning. I know I could change this and fix this. Things keep changing, up and down, flux.  Time flies. Feeling the shame which comes with cancelling one assignment afte

It used to be a flourishing bougainvillea with deep purple flowers until it gradually died due to the attentions of the hands which could not grow anything. The tree died, no flowers in the dry season, no leaves. Three years or so. The pot still there though because no energy to fix the external things which are not in my control. Week has been rough. Deep shame after crying when I should not have been crying and sending messages to people I should not have been sending messages to. Nothing can be undone but unmasking and breaking down happen sometimes when fatigue sets in and coping strategies no longer work. Plans have changed. The break which was meant to rejunvenate is not working out like that instead it is a constant struggle against struggling and trying to be useful .  The tears do not bring release. Body does not stretch as it should. Shouting at the person who does not need to hear shouting. I wonder if I have lost it and I wonder whether I could lose it some mor

Took 5 minutes to mix up and 2 minutes to microwave and then there was a whole big chunk of flour/sugar/milk/raising agents/butter covered with jam as temporary relief .. huge temporary relief. Mug cake.. new thing.. not writing no recipe here because it is dangerous. It is too quick to make. Too easy. It might not taste good like real cake baked slowly in the oven but heck.. it taste good.. too good, too easy. Tangerine did not work and banana did not work enough for the sweet rush. Instead of learning and doing new productive things.. it was easy to measure out flour etc and put in microwave. Mindlessly.  No icing though, but jam, two kinds. I should not have tried this because now like any other addict to unhealthy stuff, this will be another thing to resist in favour of some other thing which does not offer relief from mind swirling with things to write and guilt at not writing or doing enough and at stomach feeling queasy from the junk. The good thing though was the

Sleepless and thinking I should go deliberately into the yoga pose called corpse as a way not to stop tossing and turning and thinking of calling the caller who had called when sleep was an issue. Knowing that social interactions have to be managed, and that responding to 'How are you ?" without saying 'fine' when 'fine; is dishonest but also knowing that people not able to get into messy details which have no cause and no solutions really beyond waiting and which get some people frustrated because their way of solutions are not your way of solutions. Holding up though is a mindful act of dealing with routine  Carefully though as carelessness could result if not thinking of the steps and if things go out of step, then more bad feelings could emerge from not being able to adjust. So holding up also involves deliberately changing a routine thing, doing one thing differently as a way of being conscious that it is okay to adjust and to experiment and to feel s

Place was dark and cool, 545am and I woke up and thought it would be nice to just be in this for a long time.. gentle rain and place cold..  but light comes and Universe says no Got up and said I hope this would be a good day but there are no guarantees. Something with the moon and there is slowness and heaviness. Today was going to be the day off, I will do nothing. Small things left over to be done. I spend a long time taping up the box of a childhood board game. It was to be given away but the board is scratched up with two generations of children, and some of the cards have markings. One of the cards has writing from 40 years ago..'Look behind' .  I turn the card over and there is a big circle and the writing 'Vidya has a big belly ha ha'.. I pack up the card with the rest and put up the game with others which can't be thrown away, but too faded and rusty to give away. Phone call comes in to do something and then reminder about other things which h

by Vidyaratha Kissoon “Yall give me a minute leh me trow dis gas in” the minibus driver said. He had stopped on edge of the wet road. He took the dirty white bleach bottle which hung by a red string from the gear stick with him. I asked the other passenger what was going on and the man said he ain’t know . The dashboard was no longer black, it had become grey and brown. Skies were grey. I would have stayed home but baigan choka and roti at Mon Repos had called me out. There was a nice bright pink/purple coloured torchlight on the dashboard which contrasted nicely with the grey skies and the dashboard. There were holes on the dashboard where the sound system parts used to be. ‘Rajesh Baby’ was in faded letters at the top , in between two Om symbols. There was a faded sticker of Radha Krishna, on the left of the wind shield. In a week of GECOM chairman madness, and Charles Ramson SC pulling up his former Comrade,the Prime Minister, and the P

Woke up and said that today will be a good day. Doing the affirmation thing and so but that is not easy as thoughts of other days and nights keep flooding back. Worshipped the sun on Makar Sakranti , remembering doing the surya namaskar even though the pain was there in the body and the sense not of regret of the past which is gone Call at midday, a surprise call. Voice I love to hear but often not sure I should encourage because of all of the past and the complications but fortunately the Universe decides the space between the calls and I don't think any harm is done. My head is out of kilter and I feel like I am messing up the conversation and not focussing on appropriate responses. Call finishes soon and I wonder if I messed up. I feel nervous and wondering if I should message to apologise but memory tells me that would not really solve or help anything. Was I helpful? Was I useful? Should I have said that I can't talk now to avoid messing up? Drink sweet tea wi

Stomach is feeling sick after the binging on the sweet junk food. I remembered I had said no more the last time I binged and I said as I binged that this would be the last time Until the  next time. A woman I know said..'you arite.. ' and I say yeah.. i buyin' sweet stuff.. Coming out of the place with the sweet unhealthy crunchy stuff which would give relief and two young women stop to ask me if I want to sample some childish packaged drink .. Big teeth showing. I thought it was some milk drink. It is a milk drink with alcohol in it.  Packaged for children and  young people. I barely hold back with the stuff in my bag which would kill slowly. 'Alcohol kills.. why are you selling alcohol... " Big teeth shows. "No.. what is wrong with you..  alcohol does not kill.. " Part of me is like go home and eat the sweet thing .. there is a part of me which says maybe no one has told them different. "Why yall pushing drugs on young peol

by Vidyaratha Kissoon “Gas price raise fus ting.. is whuh dis place coming to?” Monday morning after New Years – streets are wet and skies are grey. Place is nice and cool. Minibus driver working with his wife as conductor. “All ting gun raise now.. “ Gas price and Guyana’s misery were not on my mind. A sweet turpentine/julie mango which might have been dying had given me wonderful joy and serious belly wuk I think. I have a habit of eating around bird bites and so on. The mango did not taste as though it was dying. One woman told me that as she has aged, she can only handle two mangoes at a time. Another woman wrote about the two mangoes on her tree as a sign of hope. This duality of mango joy and mango belly wuk was more on my mind that gas price. I have been piling up the rejected mangoes under the tree. At the root. Thinking that there is something nice about how the decay nurtures the soil and the other animals , and the thing whic

Three days in the year and mental health is succumbing to the inability to detach as survival. The floods are there and the real dark clouds would have been enjoyable if it was possible to take a chance and lose myself and try to heal and recover in the days I had assigned as healing days .. would be good to lie in bed with the 600 page book but I can't concentrate on the book The Universe though dictates otherwise and memories come back of another January with floods.. of the retching and the begging to go to the doctor and the stubborn refusals until it was too late. Detachment though is needed and this is the second or third attempt to write down.. sanitised maybe, but writing down helps to detach from the nitty gritty small things which are adding up. Gluttony used to be a coping mechanism, but the body gave up on that. Exercise is a good coping mechanism but that no longer works as the body and mind are out of sync. It used to be easy to run so as to recover quickl

930am on New Year's morning and I am ironing the two trousers and the one shirt in the tub because I am feeling some kind of buzz even though I had spent most of the night before in the toilet or being anxious about going to the toilet or thinking of 2017. Ironing seems to be a stoic thing to do, resistance to succumbing to the feelings of negativity and fufiling purpose without distractions. And it is not much ironing. There is an irony in how the gluttony of the season this time has ended in a serious belly wuk. 9am on Old Year's day I know I should not be indulging in the final bit of gluttony on a stomach which had started to feel weird.. maybe from fruits rescued from flood waters or other things. 10am on Old Year's day I drink a gravol tablet to deal with the nausea. There were warnings about how it knocks you out. I get knocked out and the body seems to slow down. The nausea subsides, the head feels heavy, the stomach is still weird. I drink clove and