Seven Weeks Falling

I have lost my words, but don’t worry. The sky has them.

I feel it’s not a very worthy rewording of a quote from a favourite Buddhist (‘I have lost my smile, but don’t worry. The dandelion has it.’*). But the heart of the matter is the same. I have been losing my words—losing them at the same rate I’m losing my heart (read: my head, my liver, my freaking footing!). And if you think there is a correlation between the two, you’re damn well right.

Because that’s how it’s always been with falling in love—you lose some sense of balance. That’s the downside, also why it’s called “falling” in the first place. Here's a blow-by-blow: 
1. the liver—that epicenter of Asian folklore and ritual—goes nuts (at least according to my incomparable professor Resil Mojares);  
2. the mental bearings go haywire; and 
3. you slip and fall down the stairs (literally) because you’ve been flailing about ape-jawed like a complete moron. 
4. Also, your pathetic attempts to write include loads of parenthetical asides. 

Lame.  Just lame.

But how do words get lost anyway? Easily. They get mortgaged to the troublemaker you’ve been madly dedicating them to—the loved one. Picture your words and thoughts as a hurricane with “The Loved One”  as its eye. Terrifying. How else can you have space and time to use them for other stuff besides? That's how you lose words.

And the only thing to bring them back is to pull yourself up and step back. Get the whole package: balance, grip, perspective.

Falling in love is glorious, but silly. It’s also transient. Words are not.

Falling in love makes you lose your head willy-nilly. Words, on the other hand, have the power to make you keep it. (Well, for me, it’s words. For others, it may be their smile, need for food, time. Or, their proverbial security blanket. And even the figurative pet cat.)

Thus, if one ever wants to go beyond falling in love to authentic loving, one must know where to take back what’s been mortgaged. In my case, my words... from the sky. The sky being vast, and limitless, and a highly convenient spot to focus on when one wants to be mindful enough to think—the antidote to dopey tripping and tumbling down staircases (because where would we be without metaphors?).

Consider this then the first installment of the Saga of the Supreme Siege of the Sky… not because I don’t want to fall in love, but because I don’t want to stop falling in love with words. Too.

(*A quote lifted from Thich Nhat Hahn)