Rewind: I Sit

Baby Tingkagol in 2005.

I refuse to fall down. I sit. Though every bone in my body aches, and giving in to closing these heavy eyes to a night's worth of fleeting slumber is too inviting - I choose to sit. I wouldn't know why, but I remain stubborn; refusing to let the natural forces beckon me, all the while feeling a twisted sense of power that I've somehow defied some primeval law of nature. I pride myself. Here's a guy who thinks he knows what he's doing. But I don't. Yet all my senses are sparked.

Maybe I wanted to get a better grip of the few inanimate figures big and small sprawled before me - or simply wanting to hear the rustling answer of the dead leaves to the wind. I think to myself... maybe. I gradually begin to pick things out bit by bit - like how cold the wind is, or if these leaves would easily become the flame from my lighter - or would the wind allow it? I don't know. All I know is that they're here for me as strange pacifiers, and we lazily let time pass under the faint glow of the stars, granting us permission to indulge and simply be.

Such seductive power. And like the rising tide, my self-awareness and conceit rises with every scar and crevice in my body introducing themselves as if they were childhood friends. But just as the tide recedes, I realize that I'm in the shadows, sitting on a tightrope with the vast emptiness lurking underneath, refusing to fall. I try hard not to, until something banishes the shadows with light. Love, perhaps? Maybe.

- March 12, 2008