Cruelty, thy name is woman!

Some days ago, I was working in the laser lab, setting up a z-scan, and using a soundtrack to keep me company. It was trance, and I like trance. I couldn't make out the words, but I liked the tune, and the feel... it felt like that high after an adrenaline rush; that rush you get after having been in a position so exasperating, that you could not breathe.

The piece, itself, is here:


What I did not realize, however, was that the piece was also downright depressing (to me). I was probably so entranced by my work that for the time I was immune to depressing effects that the piece would later have on me. You see, there's more than one way to get a high out events that surround you. One way is to participate, willingly or unwillingly, in an filled act, and the other is to sit tight, willingly or unwillingly, while a situation that you have no control over unfolds, with you sitting tight in sheer terror, or in tremendous agony.

While I like the rush that you get in the immediate aftermath of an adrenaline filled action, and also the rush you get from sitting out a situation in which you, or your computer avatar (as in a video game), are in immediate danger, but all you can do is lay low, because there is nothing you can do about it, this piece, somehow, reminds me more of the agony when there is more than just your own life that is at stake, while there is nothing that you can do about the danger.

More precisely, it reminds me of my mood when I first went into a pond, when I was around (probably a little over) three, not knowing how to swim. You see, my Mom did not know how to swim, either, so she was the last person whom I wanted in the water, with me. At the time, my Dad was working in another country for as long as I had lived, so you can understand my attachment to my Mother. The pond was right in front of my Aunt's house, and my cousins were in the pool, with me (and they all knew how to swim, and how to float). While I did not realize it at the time, I was being held afloat by one of my cousins, which is why I did not go under. I still felt I was in a very precarious position, though: I felt like I was in a position where I could go down any minute, but that there was nothing I could do about it. No, it is not this precarious feeling that this song reminds me of. It reminds me of the agony I felt when my mother got into the pool herself. I remember feeling like a fish out of water (pun intended; in actuality, I was feeling out of my element) as soon as my Mother announced that she would try the water, herself. I felt that my whole world was unraveling. It is one thing to be in a position where you could loose your own life, but it is entirely different when the dead could be someone else. Now, I worried that I could loose her, but might survive, myself, and thus have to deal with the pain of loosing the dearest person I had. It is this feeling that this song reminds me of. Further more, this song reminds me of that feeling of loss, as I saw my Mother in the water, right next to me. She did not even try to put me at ease.

I never inquired how she kept her head above the water, and she never bothered to tell me. Over the years that followed, however, I would wake up from recurring dreams in which I thought my Mother would drown; and this happened every few weeks. Some of those dreams seamed to last forever, and I developed not just an intimate knowledge, but also, a strange fondness for the sadness that comes with knowing that you are going to loose a loved one, but that you cannot do anything about it. It is a strange kind of fondness: you feel saddened by it, but it is so familiar, that you cannot truly escape it. Sooner, or later, its banality becomes reason for its acceptance.

Sometimes I would see some progress: I would have dreams in which I was alone, and would swim to safety (how that happened, I do not know, for I still did not know how to swim), or that I would grab an empty nearby boat (some of these dreams had rows of empty boats) and paddle to the other shore (and I never figured out how I had gotten into the water, so close to my side of the river, in those dreams). Of course, those dreams in which I was alone were few, and far between. Soon, my progress would degenerate into Sisyphean labor, in that I would soon go back to dreams in which I could loose my Mom, just after one dream of progress.

Just about a year, or so, after the 'incident' at the pond my Mom and I were trying to cross a river, somewhere in Bangladesh, and we could not find a boat. The kids (well, I call them kids, now) who were swimming in the river pushed a half-sunken boat to our side of the river, and drained the water out, while the boat was still in the river. Since we had no alternative means of transport, this was the way to go. I remember the ride being very smooth -- and not in a good way. The ride was not jerky, but we were always in a state of going up and down. I had ridden in a Fokker, twin engined, propeller equipped airplane when I was three, and had asked my Mom and Dad (he was visiting) to hold me during the bumpy ride; but ride was far worse. We had no idea if the boat had a leak, or even why it had been left half sunk in the middle of the river; we had no paddle (oar); I was too shaken (and, I was less than five) to even think what I could do; and our boat was being tugged, and pushed to the other side by kids who could not have stopped the boat from sinking, if it sprung a leak. While I do not think I was that shaken, I do remember that just before our boat ride back (and a boatman from the village that we were visiting had kindly offered to give us a ride on his fully functioning, oar driven boat) I needed to visit the men's room, but I just could not let it out. I'm still not sure if it was the lack of water over a whole day of journeying, or simply the result of fright. I remember the serenity of the boat ride back; how calmly the boatman took his boat across the river. I remember those moments of tranquility. Those moments of reflecting that the previous boat ride could had taken our (my Mom's, and mine) lives (or, so I thought). It was one of those moments when you calmly reflect on the sheer terror that has gone by. A time when you feel that you are indeed vulnerable. Somehow, the part of the song during the lyrics
"strung out on those feelings
"cuz people just need things
"no sense in believin'
"just to turn me on"
(I found the lyrics later) reminds me of that feeling, and that reflection of vulnerability, during the boat ride back.

That melancholic feeling on the boat ride back is the high point, for me, when I am listening to this song. The song "Holy Ghost," by the "009 Sound System." Most of the time, when I am not absorbed by what I am doing, this song reminds me of those horrid dreams (It's hard to get this song out of my head, even when I am not listening to it). I suppose this is partly why I like to do things that demand attention to the here, and now, so that I may loose myself, and my thoughts, to the current activity, and avoid going into a depression. This has been the case, for me, for many, many years. Of course, I also think that my resulting interest in parkour, free running, tricking, rock climbing, skydiving, paintballing and skiing has to do with my inheriting thrill seeking tendencies from my Mother.

It's interesting, to me, how over so many years I mentioned those dreams to my Mom, and she never told me anything. I told her I was still having those dreams after I had gone abroad, for college; and yet, she never said anything. Then, one day, when I was twenty two, or twenty three, I mentioned such a dream again, and she just so annoyingly casually said what could roughly be translated as: "You need not have worried: my feet were touching the bottom (of the pond)."

I was SO Disgusted! I had spent MOST of my life waking up to recurring bad dreams, and she had to wait about 15 YEARS to tell me this!?! It had never occurred to her that she could have told me this when she was IN the pool?! Or, at least, she could have told me when I first started having bad dreams! She never seems to give any thought to the consequences of how she treats me.

All she had to do was to tell me that she was safe, for after she did, the dreams stopped!

Cruelty, surely thy name is woman!

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AFTERWORD:

Perhaps the above is why I choose to define "woman" as a female who is in a position to cause you a lot of hurt. Any other female is either a lady, or just a girl.

And it's not just my mother who has caused me to come up with this definition. Some time when I was around twenty one, a cousin of mine (whom I was very fond of) was flying for the first time. She was flying alone across international borders, and had a stopover in Bangkok. All the time that she was out of site of immediate family, her brother (who was in London) and I kept in near constant contact by phone, e-mail, and instant messenger, in case either of us got word of her arrival at her destination. Her brother and I were both studying abroad, and we never knew how word would travel, and we wanted word as soon as possible, to relieve our anxiety. Sure, she got to her destination just fine, and everything was alright. When I spoke to her later, however, she mentioned that when she was in Bangkok, she was planning a little prank on her little brother: she would have the family tell him that she had gotten lost in Bangkok, and that there was no word on her (and I would have been affected by that joke, too, since there was no way I was going to allow this, especially since the thought of a young girl lost in a place famous for prostitution is unnerving, to say the least). She said that her husband forbade the joke, when she told him about it. Now, that sent me thinking back to the night of her flight: there we were (her brother and I ), late at night, and early into the morning; we had neither eaten, nor had anything to drink, nor had we slept; and, in my case, I was not even in a position to take a rest room break; and there she was, and all she could think of was her little bit of joke! I wanted to break her nose the moment she told me about it. She was one of the reasons that I had always wanted to visit home, when I started living abroad (at five), and I had never thought I would have ever wanted to hurt her. It's a good thing she told her idea over the phone; for, in person, I would probably have just acted out on impulse. I guess betrayed love begets the most prejudiced revenge.

P.S. Don't worry, Sis, I have calmed down.