i still love the scent of rain

Well. I arrived at The Stables (see previous post) about half an hour after the show had begun. The tickets were sold out so, the charmingingly rustic venue was filled with people sitting down on foldable garden chairs or bales of hay, sipping wine, chatting and tapping their feet to the jazz. No ticket = no seat. So I was just standing at the back, tapping my foot to the jazz. I called Ridwan, I wished he was there too. But no ticket also = no money spent on ticket = no compulsion to stay. I had no idea if my friend and her boyfriend were in there somewhere or not anyway. Plus I was beginning to feel hungry–hunger no amount of jazz, however catchy, could satiate. I wandered off towards the East Terrace and pleasantly found myself in the Garden of Unearthly Delights.

I knew about it, of course. But I wasnt sure where it was. I was merely gravitating towards the ferris wheel I saw from afar. But I was contented to be there. All the while, I kept on thinking of The Five People You Meet In Heaven. The rides, the music and the many performances, both blameless and burlesque. Unlike The Stables, there were kids galore. The weather has gotten cooler of late so there were little toddlers wearing the most adorable jackets. One cherubic little girl who caught my eye was wearing a classic calf-length red jacket with black buttons and on her head a matching red hat with a black flower–she looked like a miniature Jackie Kennedy.

With my bowl of Lebanese Rice with chicken and almonds, I sat facing the carousel. Did I mention that I love carousels? Especially the old ones with only horses carved out of wood. Well, the one in front of me was the modern kind with all kinds of animals made out of plastic, but I still like it.

At that moment, I thought of how romantic it was. Imagine sitting, watching the carousel and falling in love. My brain was getting fluffy with the funfair music and the officials walking around wearing vests and tophats.

I was savouring the calm solitude of being anonymous in a crowd. But the crowd, though in truth unchanging, was getting louder and busier in my mind. The lights of the carousel, its mirrors, the carved out faces on its top rim began to look garish and sinister. I looked at the children and the families–they were talking, laughing, crying all too boisterously. Then, as quickly as the caricatures in my mind appeared, they subsided.

Here, I saw three girls (cousins?) playing with ribbons, pretending they were ballerinas. There I saw a mother bouncing her chuckling babe on her knee. Next to the pretty carousel, stood a man who smiled and waved each time his little daughter passed by him on her plastic bobbing horse. Behind me, I could hear the excited voice of a child recounting her time on the trapeze to her parents. I didnt need to turn around to know the expression on her parents’ faces–smiles not feigning, but acknowledging wonder in a little thing.

For a minute, my eyes welled up as I was fighting back tears. I have not seen the smile on my parents faces for months at a time these pass few years. I have not watched my baby sister grow. I have missed my other younger sister’s prom, her talk of friends and school and Other Important Things. I have been absent when my brother entertained the family with his antics and excitedly recounted his day like that girl behind me. But I cant bring any of it back. Like I cant bring back any of the births and deaths, marriages and milestones of any of my cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents that I’ve missed. I cant wait to have children of my own that I can bring to carousel rides (start my own family since I’m so far away from the one I already have??), although the propect of that within the next decade seems bleak. I cant help any of this. But I could pull myself together and enjoy the carnival.

I got up, walked to the next busker. And I allowed him to make me laugh out loud.

This entry was posted on Saturday, March 18th, 2006 at 5:59 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.