Presence

I've learnt to embrace - instead of avoid - this fickle thing called emotions. The mood changes that can send my soul soaring and suckerpunch me in the gut the next moment. I've learnt to embrace them the way an awkward teenage boy would hug his mother in front of his friends - slightly unwilling but knowing he can't get away with doing so.

So with all the peaks and troughs and occasional flatlining, I've learnt that dealing with them will still leave the sad days sad and the good days great. At the end, however, I walk out of it feeling better than before each time.

Time is a blended blur of movie clips fading into each other, of soundtracks on a turntable overlapping into the following song - almost discernible but not entirely so. And time-passed plays in my mind like disjointed shards of a home video put together by an amateur, moving from one scene to the next to the next to the next with seemingly no relation except for the one theme running through them: Presence.

Presence of heart, mind and soul reduced on low heat and concentrated to those very moments where the awareness of being right there and then paint more than mere visual memories. The hearty laughter of a jolly Italian baker, abrupt hugs from five-minute friends with promises to change the world, a last dinner, a heartbreaking final sunset in Paris, the exact moment someone wordlessly threaded his fingers through mine, goodbyes, a climb up slippery rocks along the Calanques with great friends, the silent ride back on a train with my nose buried in an e-book, the heart-stopping moment when I thought I was going to crash my bike on a busy road, and all! those! smiles!.

Smiles from strangers, acquaintances, and friends - some tentative, some broad, some polite and some with hugs thrown into the mix. From the one with a perpetually restrained smile belying an unreserved reservoir of thoughts (upon some probing) to others with their hearts on their sleeves and sunshine in every grin - each time I start doubting people, with just smiles, others restore my faith in humanity.

Humanity defines us, both as individuals and as a whole; an ocean. Most times I just see myself, but those moments of (re)connecting with friends and strangers is when I (re)realise the vastness of humanity. Just think about it: personalities*background*philosophies*experiences*andsomuchmore.

More than just a big digression, what I am trying to say is that I've reach a point where I am a-okay with strolling into the next scene, with my hands in my pockets and heart in my chest (and not throat), to take on whatever it is because for the people and moments? It's worth it.