You are in a habit of pointing out my sentimentality as a fatal flaw. You warn me repeatedly that my romance with the idea of romance is more doomed than any star-crossed cupidity available on a bookshelf or found on screen. Spirituality, you tell me, is what people call their need to connect the inanity of their existence with the majesty of the stars. “There is no connection but we want one. So we have made it up. Whenever we find ourselves boring, we fake ourselves some majesty.†I can never seem to argue you away but I know I disagree with you. I resent this charge of plagiarism because I fear the truth in it.
You tell me one doesn’t need any of these labels and that life can be spent merely on the peripheries of the events that live us. We can just be, you say. There is no spirituality in that. There are times when I feel you are a nihilist who only associates with me because you find my fanciful nature amusing. Or perhaps you are lonely enough to want to live vicariously through someone who feels as much of everything as I do, so you can keep numbing yourself, and retain the upper hand. I find that I miss our conversations after they end and therefore I am trying to catch their tail end here. Naturally this is a misnomer, considering there was no conversation to begin with and you (who read this) are in all probability, not the person I am trying to speak to. This is through no fault of your own but rather because of my colossal failings as a perennial verbal and emotional fidget.
I suppose for this letter to be truly two-sided and honest, I am obliged to ask after your health and general wellbeing. I hope for your happiness. Moreover, I hope that you are one of those individuals who do not expect happiness in general and are therefore pleasantly surprised on the odd days where you find yourself contemplating the meaning of your existence in a good, strong cup of coffee and find your faith, sitting at the wheel, waiting for the traffic light to change in the middle of the rain. I hope that you are not the narcissist I am dreaming you up to be and I hope that I am not in love with you already. I hope you are a firm, solid, stable quadrant in this dizzy world and I hope you resist all my melodramatic ministrations and not-so-subtle manipulations on this forum. I hope you forgive me my desperation.
I pray, dear Stranger, that you will excuse my clumsy attempts at keeping this archaic romance alive, not with you per se, but with the idea of you. I am afraid that most of my ideas are a dying brand and that I should let them pass peacefully but I find that I am not quite prepared to lay you to rest yet.
You, who speak in sublimations as I do.
You, who struggle with premises and prefaces alike,
You, who also, are forever incomplete.
And wish to remain so….
Artwork by Mohsin Shafi.
Maria Amir is Features Editor for the magazine.
