On Surviving

The more I look back the more I see clearly, the scars of the past follow me even now. The more I pursue the knowledge I feel I need, the more confused I get. Dispelling the blackness in the back of my mind is not an easy task if that is even possible. It’s only now that I realize what I’ve been running from most of my life and now I have nowhere left to run, just a back to the wall and a rearguard fight. The salvation I thought I would receive is nowhere to be seen, but I’ve made my choice now and I have o live with it. It’s funny how something I thought had no effect on me apart from material and locality has in fact coloured my whole existence, made me, for better or worse, who I am today. I kept thinking I was the one who was unaffected, who was above it all. Now I see the arrogance, the blinders that have brought me where I am today. I know now the deep depths at which my gut screamed to me, when and where I went wrong. I think I’m ready to listen to it now.

Surviving isn’t easy. It takes reserves of strength and climbing mountains that seem almost insurmountable, especially in the mornings and the stuffy afternoons. Everywhere I look I find walls, those that I’ve put up and those that have been put up. I found myself today falling into that old pattern, another checkpoint in the future where my life will change, begin. But now I’m googling how to start it now instead of further down the road. Fingers crossed and a strong heart.

Consulting Memories

These two songs bring back some vivid memories. Nervous, sweaty palms sitting in my soon to be beloved RAV in a furniture store parking lot. I hadn’t had a lot of interview experience and I just remember leaning back in my seat, breathing deeply as Rob Thomas and Sufjan Stevens washed over me, wandering what 9am would bring. Agoura Hills was grey and cold as traffic whizzed by on the 101, blurs through the tall wire and I desperately tried to remember everything I had read about the company. Little did I know then that I was a few minutes away from a two and a half year journey. A journey that seemed to last a lifetime at the time but now seems to have only lasted an incandescent moment, one that was one of the most rewarding, most frustrating, challenging and difficult experiences of my life.

Looking back on it now I wonder if I did the right thing, walking away from it all. Of course you tend to remember the good and forget the bad as with anything in the past. I know I wouldn’t give up that experience for anything but it still wasn’t quite for me. The team was mostly great, DD and MC providing their endless encouragements and patient leadership, CD with his erratic brilliance, SM with her mothering, SR providing the musical background, MD with his surfing tales and understated humour, DS being the most demanding boss I have ever had. I still remember sitting in my office and dealing with the unfamiliar sensation that I would miss most of my workmates when I moved on, a feeling I hadn’t had thus far in my working life.

The location was brilliant as well. Climbing the hills of Malibu, the ocean breaking in the background, golden sunshine breaking down the Pacific Coast Highway and Malibu Canyon drives past the houses of the rich and the famous. The chaparral and bush of southern California, the red earth roads and hard rocks of the trails I hiked. The characters were varied and interesting, Bob the contractor, gruff, father Christmasy but hugely knowledgeable, sweet talking the ladies at the City to get what I needed done, trying not to punch out the assholes at the City and County who were holding up my projects.

It was a great trip for those couple of years, being a bright shining star in that team, topping the company in productivity and earning quick promotions, closing out tough projects under pressure. Of course those are the good memories. And it takes some dredging to remember why I left. The 12 hour workdays, the constant requirement to keep running at high speed and keep billing out with no end in sight, the unyielding pressure to meet your minimums, the stress when there were a million things to do and the worse stress when there weren’t, the financial under appreciation and those hours stuck on the 101 in congealed traffic.

Most of all I remember the panic attacks in the morning, the nausea and insomnia, the drugs and pills to take the edge off living the American Dream. I think I made the right decision. Given the uncertainties I face now in making a living, I have my moments of doubts and weakness. But that trip in the end was not sustainable, it was not my niche.

Where that is though, I’m yet to find.

Head Honcho Outlook

The safari shirt and khakis threw me off. The tie was a mistake I thought as we entered his office and started chatting. Half way through I was even more disconcerted to note that he wore sandals, a most relaxed set of attire for a head of an IDO. Sometimes it’s nice to meet a kindred spirit, someone who has spent eons in the US (well in this case 16 years) and came back because he loves elephants. My heart sank a bit when he mentioned that he didn’t have any openings at the moment, if for anything I quite liked the US style phones they had. A Lankan location with a bit of the first world thrown in.

I know of late I’ve been moaning a bit, missing the high hourly pay, ants that are more discreet and less venomous and a room that doesn’t suffocate me at 2.00pm in the afternoon. I would apologize to those who have put up with me without complaint but of course there have been complaints. I apologize anyways because even I’m finding myself a bit of a pain in the ass. And that’s something for someone as self obsessed as me.

I quite liked the head honcho’s outlook though. “Those 16 years in the US, they were good, but that chapter is closed now. You CANNOT compare here and there, otherwise you go mad.” Truer words have never been spoken. So here’s to prickly heat, rathu kumbi, underpaid work, broken Sinhala, nagging grandmothers, squirrels chewing on my t-shirts and fucked up internet connections. Here’s to sunsets, impromptu trips to Yala and Short Stuff. Here’s to home, warts and all.

I promise I’ll stop complaining soon.

The best part of my day

It really is. Watching the sun’s last dying rays explode out of an ever changing bank of clouds. Mauve, red, unimaginable shades of crimson streaking across the sky while the waves themselves reflect the colours in sympathy, before swiftly descending into black. I love the rhythm of the ocean, so constant yet so different. My alone time, my time to bring peace to my mind, sitting on a rock on Marine Drive at dusk, simply watching, breathing and blanking my mind. The crabs play out their little dramas in front of me while the ocean beckons endlessly. A train thunders past, the carriage lights reflecting inside my glasses, kaleidoscoping against the ocean and the sunset panorama. A vision that not the most potent MDMA could replicate. The aching darkness left after the train flurries past. There is no need for a soundtrack, thoughts, loves lost or any base needs. There is only the Indian Ocean, the horizon and my insignificant self. A humbling and liberating experience.

On piecing it together

For some reason I’ve been obsessed with Kings of Leon recently. Use Somebody has been on repeat. I’m slowly picking up the pieces of my old lives and examining the shards, cutting my fingers on some of the more jagged edges.

This house is like a museum, I guess old people really don’t like to throw things away. Today I disposed off all my report cards from school. A nondescript bundle I came across while clearing my bookshelves to try and accommodate the library I shipped over from the US. Who knew the school I lost my Sinhalese was called Reseda Baptist Elementary? I never knew I was so good at history either, I guess writing all those analytical essays and topping my class at o-levels has had some beneficial effects. My cyclical aptitude at mathematics and chemistry was also interesting to see. I think it was all down to teachers. Mrs. S, Mr. L and Miss D always brought out the best in me with their belief and free wheeling attitudes. Mr. J and Mrs. C always brought me down with their rigid inflexibility.

I’m trying to figure out how much of that kid remains, a decade and more on. I know I’m wiser and yet more bitter. I’ve tried a fair number of things on my journey, the drugs, meaningless sex, workaholic, partying, love, voodoo chemistry, yet nothings gelled. I know I feel the most alive with a camera in my hand and recently slipping under the waves. Yet I wish I knew what I want in life, some sort of goal which still seems so elusively blurred.

I am piecing the jigsaw together. A million pieces tackled one day at a time. One day at a time. I think that’s the mantra for happiness, but so much more difficult when I haven’t had a proper nights sleep in three years. I miss the constant companions of the last one and a half years. I know the work may have eventually killed me but those were the worst and the best of times with the friends I had, I have, but 10,000 miles away. I’m still navigating the social webs here, trying to figure out where I need to put up walls and where I need to tear them down. The old threads are most definitely fraying and even some of the new ones.

Here’s to six months from now and the jigsaw being somewhat in place. Fulfilling work, the opportunity to practice my passions and some like minded peeps. It’s not much I ask to piece the shards together. Of course nothing comes easy. Also here’s to this.

Fizzle

It was as good as could have got, that Monday, in another lifetime. The Indian Ocean murmuring in the background, candlelight, eyes shining with laughter and footsie under the table. She was expecting the question, finally after over three years of geography, commitment issues and general drama, there were no barriers. Or at least it seemed so.

My heart screamed yes, but my gut whispered no. And I went with my gut. The light in her eyes died as I stayed silent, her hand slipped away. The crab grew cold in front of us and the phone came out, cabs were called. I had just changed too much and she didn’t know it. She had changed too little and I could see it. I’m not who I was in 2006 when I fell deep into those brown eyes. The physicalness of her has no hold on me anymore, the soft lips and hot skin.

I guess irony really has no bounds. When the place is right, the time is wrong. The sad part is I don’t think she understood as much as I tried to make her understand. The hurt shows in her eyes even now when she’s with someone else. For my part I understand that there really was no other way. I don’t know if I’ve grown up, but I for me the confines of a club will never have that allure. No more crazy Friday nights and early Saturday morning. I get my thrills from the wilds, meters under the ocean and she cannot comprehend that lifestyle.

I’d like to think that the last few years weren’t just about my ego, having the It girl want me, playing those games, cold one night, twisting in the sheets the next. There was some sort of deep voodoo connection and I guess there always will be some part of me that craves for her, in the dark depths of the night. But right now I’m trying to stay in the sunshine and keep life good. Too good for complications.

I think my gut was right.

Shotgun Safari

I’m not sure how many moons I had spent in Yala before, but I know it was a significant amount of time. In all those years I had seen a grand total of six leopards and two bear (one I can’t really remember but let’s just assume I did see it). I still remember those days, the wise old tracker quartering the park, looking for pug marks and listening for alarm calls from deer or langurs. Drawing on years of experience they would lead us around the park to the animal’s favourite haunts in a usually fruitless but always thrilling search. A cup of tea at the bungalow and talk of near misses and the pug marks always followed. The memories are quiet and golden, of hushed whispers and muted clothing to show your respect for the wilderness.

This time around in Yala was certainly an eye-opener. The digital age is certainly upon us as it seemed the time of the rally racers. The tracker has been shunted into a corner by the new breed of young, fast safari tour drivers. Admittedly since Sumudu had been doing this for eight years the revolution must have happened some time ago, but due to my extended sojourn out of the county it had slipped past me unnoticed.

This is not to say there are no advantages.

Two nights, six leopards and a bear sighting will attest to the fact that the safari drivers’ approach works.

Three (give or take) members of the same company will traverse the park in different jeeps.

The cellphone rings courtesy of a magical Dialog network that only the safari tour drivers seem to have access to.

Kiyanne

And then a drive that Colin McRae would be proud of would ensue. I believe our jeep may have started off with side view mirrors, but they were long gone and are probably still festooning some poor spotted deer whose standing by a jungle road going ‘what the fuck was that?’ Trees, rocks swerve by in a flash as you desperately hold on to anything tied down to the truck to avoid getting thrown out into a thorn bush. The jeep then screeches to a halt in front of a slightly taken aback leopard/bear/elephant while the people inside try to figure which way is up and try to remove camera equipment embedded in friends body parts.

Add a few hundred (well maybe just a dozen) cars to the spot in about an hour and you have your sighting.

I’m not sure how I feel about the changes in Yala. Sure it would seem foolishly nostalgic to wax on about some pseudo-golden age where the animals were less hassled and the onlookers more noble, but those are probably selective memories. I am a bit saddened by the demise of the tracker though, at least in the company of the safari tours. The grand old men of the jungle are no more or at least have no voice.

Out with the old and in with the new I guess. At least you're guaranteed the goods.