An Arm Granola Bar
By: Tulika Gurnani
Tags: Sunlight, Sonnet, Calm, Shakespeare, Journal

I just realized my looks will never allow me to be an arm candy. If anything, I’d be an arm granola bar.

So guess who had their first session of a super exhausting summer camp today? Yep, me. Some poor kids were forced to put up with me for an hour. In all honesty, I understand their struggle; I have been forced to put with myself for seventeen years now. I’ll spare you the details of me rambling about grammar rules in front of over excited kids. Anyhow, coming back to Shakespeare, he continues to be a bit too invested in the intimate lives of attractive people (yes, it’s the eight sonnet and he’s still lecturing us on procreation.) However, the eight sonnet has a line which got me thinking:

“Music to hear, why hear’st thou music sadly?

Sweets with sweets war not, joy delights in joy.

Why lov’st thou that which thou receiv’st not gladly,

Or else receiv’st with pleasure thine annoy?

If the true concord of well-tuned sounds,

By unions married, do offend thine ear.”

Now while, he talks about how certain kinds of music make us sad, yet we continue listening to them. How is it that some things make us both sad and happy? How do they fill us with joy and disappointment at the same time? While the sonnet goes on to elaborate on a different track; these were the lines that caught my attention, and hence you will be subjected to me rambling about them.

Imagine you are in an open field. The sun is midway to setting. The sky is a deep purple and streaked with orange. The sun, a centre of molten lava in the sky, deep yellow and colouring everything golden. Providing an ethereal atmosphere in its departures; as if apologizing for leaving. You can see the silhouette of birds against the sky and hear the buzzing of a few insects. You lean back on your arms and feel the grass tickle your bare toes.

You feel a vague sense of peace roll over you. It engulfs you whole as you lie down, close your eyes and smiling in the setting sun’s face. This vague peace is something you’ve come to recognize now. It comes off having achieved the day’s goals. Yet, there is something bittersweet about this equanimity. Just a little tinge of sadness in your calm euphoria.

You wonder where the sadness comes from. Is it from having nothing to do? Or is it from having to do the same things over and over again? Maybe it’s from missing the day which has just passed. A day which had its ups and downs but was unique in itself. A day which you will never live again. Is it the disappointment of that? Perhaps it is the sadness which inevitably accompanies departure?

You lie back down. It doesn’t matter why the sadness is there. It just is; and it cannot be explained. Not everything can. You close your eyes and lie down in your gold tinged haven. The engulfing peace makes you feel infinite. Indestructible. Inexplicable. It makes you feel golden.

And there you have it; my exhausted mess of a brain produced something which only embarrass me later. Thus, with 146 days and 146 sonnets left, signing off.

-Pretentiously, yours.

P.S. If this blog vanishes by tomorrow morning, it’ll be because I deleted it in a fog of desolation. Hopefully the thought of someone reading my writing (…you’re there, aren’t you?) would be motivation enough.