I'll be your bridge over deep water
3.45 pm
Sunday
June 27, 2021
Dear Love,
Looking out of the balcony, at the world, which is dark, solemn, and interestingly, also sprightly, with its cold impassive skies contrasted by the luminous greens of the trees, the hush of the slight drizzle interrupted by the song of the cuckoo, incessant and persistent, unlike the rain that refuses to leave its home, while the paint of the buildings fade into quiet, like a background score one listens to while reading or studying, there but not quite, and the darkness creeping into homes, the bird’s song, the drip drip of the reluctant rain, the stillness of the sky, the silence of the trees, the Sunday air of ennui - I can feel the air rest in my lungs, at home in my being, and then leave, returned to the atmosphere.
Monsoon, my least favourite season. Summer, a barely tolerated affair. Winter, the favoured moment of the year - not because it coincides with my birth month (November). I love the liveliness winter brings: the sharp, crisp air; the buoyant mood; the electrifying joy that rakes through life (mine, at least). Then imagine my surprise, when I found myself enjoying what I usually don’t - summer, monsoon, and my own companionship.
Now, now, there’s a lot to unpack when I say that I am slowly learning to enjoy my own company, and I don’t want to do that. Not today, not now, when the sky is serene despite the rain, and I feel the giddiness of the droplets abandoning the skies, rushing earthward, eager and ebullient.
Instead, let me tell you a story. A few days back, I was besieged by an anxiety attack that went on and on for the duration of the day. Someone described anxiety as living in a prolonged state of distress, a distress akin to one missing the step on a stairwell. All through the day, anxiety ebbed and flowed, and its force was unlike anything I had ever experienced. None of my self care methods worked. Distractions didn’t help. Scrolling endlessly through Twitter, Reels, Tumblr didn’t help. Googling didn’t help (made it worse. As usual.) Listening to music didn’t help. Brooklyn 99 didn’t help. Cleaning the house didn’t help. Sitting by the window and breathing in the sunny air didn’t help. Reasoning with myself didn’t help (rarely does). Nothing worked; while the anxiety, like a cancerous entity, grew and grew and grew, and I imagined a darkness running along my nerves, coalescing in my mind and smothering all light and reason. Slowly, my head began to pound, the nerves on the sides of my head sticking out, angry and distressed, and despite taking a tablet, the migraine refused to ease, dulling only in the course of a nap. But post-waking, the anxiety woke up too, and my head continued to scream, while my heart thundered, and my hands shook - this was bad. This was really bad. I knew writing it out was out of the question, like breathing underwater.
But that was the solution, breathing, even as I slipped, painfully, into my mind’s crushing darkness.
Seeking reprieve, I headed to the terrace to witness the sun’s descent into earth. That particular evening was a beautiful one. Sunsets are anyway beautiful. But that evening was more so - the mischievous winds, the gliding eagle, the nervous pigeons, the pinks and yellows and blues dressing the sky, and the sun - bright, then soft, then softer -
And all around I saw people on their terraces. Some on call. Some still. Some walking. There was something about seeing people in repose and relaxation that made me feel this connection with them, like we all were up here for the same reason: to release the staleness smothering our existence.
In all this, I had music. I sat up there, on the highest part of the terrace - the roof of the roof - and I sat there listening, really listening, to music, when suddenly, I had an idea. I stood up, and began singing Simon and Garfunkel’s “Bridge Over Troubled Water” to the setting sun.
Art by Heikala
Pulling out my phone, I sang to her, while she left her throne in the heavens. Hands raised, feeling like Beyoncé, I gave my solo performance, while people milled around on their distant terraces, barely paying me any attention, as I sang high, then low, feeling every word, singing more for myself than anyone else, while the sun smiled, like an aged grandparent, waiting for me to finish so she could close her tired eyes and rest. When the words “sail along silver girl” ran through my spine, I felt tears spring in my eyes, and as the music picked up, I was crying and laughing, drenched in the awareness of life, the darkness in my head fading, dying, and as Art Garfunkel sang, “Like a bridge over troubled water, I will ease your mind”, it felt as though the Sun was singing back to me, and I to her -
But the Sun was still here, and I knew I had time for one more song, and I sang Billy Joel’s “Vienna”, which begins with Joel yelling, “Slow down, you crazy child/ You're so ambitious for a juvenile” - his words reverberating in my head, in my throat, in the air -
The wind in my hair, I was air. Light. Untethered. A sprite, no more claustrophobic in my own being. Near the end of the song, the Sun had finally slept, and I was happier than I had been in the longest time.
Right now, however, the rain continues to fall, languid and easy like the Hyderabadi temperament. But even the gray of the sky cannot stifle the green of the earth, leaves like opened palms, taking in whatever the sky has to offer, letting fall whatever it cannot hold, whatever it need not hold.
Do you understand?
With love,
Shivani