In Continuum.

Tranquility Over A Stormy Sea

'Are you happy?' she asked.

'What?' i replied.

'Are you happy?' she asked again.

And again,

and again,

and again in my head.

Am i happy? I asked in my head...

*

There is a show called Deadliest Catch or something like that on Discovery Channel. It follows a group of fisherman out into the stormy seas to capture and document their everyday routine: To catch fishes. The show usually starts with the group of fisherman sailing out to sea from the harbors, with placid waters and calm ripples, with the sound of the motor at the back of the boat, the team sails out into the unknown, mumbling silent prayers for a big catch and most of all, a safe return.

Usually, the first part of the prayers will be answered, as the team celebrates their catch upon the deck of their fishing boats. Nets full of fishes, shrimps, and sometimes even fishes bigger than themselves. But the second part of the prayers is almost always in doubt, as the wrath of mother nature unleashes waves ten meters high upon the ship, crashing down on the helpless men like water upon ants. The price to pay for the world's deadliest catch, to brave against the dangers of the high seas, the wrath of mother nature herself. It is not a risk normal people are willing to take, not a venture even the bravest men are daring enough to take on.

But these fishermen took this lifestyle as a norm, and up the crests of each wave they felt not of fear nor death, but the height at which they reach, when they get that much closer to the power of God.

*

I was just thinking about the subject of sailing. By sailing i am not speaking in conventional sense, but rather in a rather figurative manner. I am speaking in terms of a relationship, and how the story each couple writes transcends into a trail of disturbed water that traces the route of a sailing boat. A smooth-sailing relationship would leave say, smaller ripples than a rough-sailing one. Of course, one can always argue that a smooth-sailing relationship doesn't really exist, and that it is the romanticism of humans creating this illusion of a smooth-sailing relationship. In fact, all ideals can be rooted to that illusions too. But despite that known fact about idealism and romanticism, i guess what i am trying to say that though a smooth-sailing relationship doesn't exist, it does however, when it is relative.

We've seen it all too many times in the news, or read it too often in the papers. Couples arguing over a single small issue and then breaking up, killing each other or threatening to throw their babies off the fifteenth floor window. We've seen and heard of those stories, and those are the examples of a relationship sailing upon rough waters. In relative, a smooth-sailing relationship, however, exist in a place say, Lake Placid. No tides or waves, no winds strong enough to brush up waves any higher than a human ankle, peaceful and bliss. Sure, you get ripples and occasional licks of the waves upon the shores, but other than that in comparison to the boat upon the high seas, the couple of this little boat in the lake is rather fortunate. Or are they, really?

Let's take a moment to think about this. There was a saying i heard before about silence. Well, how quiet a silence is depends solely on the noise that precedes it, vice versa. How noisy a place is depends also, solely on the silence that precedes it as well, common sense. It depends not on the decibels, not on the number of people contributed to the collective noise in a restricted space, but really the level of quietness they contribute before it. The difference is what causes people to notice, and not really the result.

Bringing it back to the topic of relationship, a relationship that is on good terms might seem to be so, but seeing another couple that might be on even better terms might throw a rain cloud over your own. All i am saying is that, though we shouldn't compare, everything is relative in this world. And that includes, the existence of a smooth-relationship.

A friend of mine is or was, depending on if she already broken up with her boyfriend, in a bad relationship. There was no trust between the two parties, partly because of the guy's distrust in relationships as a whole, and also because both of them are heavy clubbers. Now, you might say that the following statement is a biased and irresponsible one, but i don't trust most clubbers all that much. Because really, no matter how loyal you are, or how truthful you are to her in the morning while you are outside hanging out with her in some beautiful park, when you are in the club with five shots of vodka in your stomach, rolling around as your crotch gets rubbed by the ass of an unknown lady, you don't think about loyalty or devotion anymore. That's the sad fact for clubbers, and that's what happened for that friend of mine. Two-timed and disliked, i hope she chooses the right path to walk.

She told me once that my relationship is a breeze compared to hers, almost with a sense of pride even. She told me that my relationship is going to go a long way, that she sees a probable future for myself and the girl i am with. Not that i don't see it myself of course, but it is just rather weird for a person to be saying such things at the brink of her own broken down relationship. I started to wonder if my own relationship is, what she said, a breeze. Or, like we discussed, smooth-sailing in relativity.

If i were to imagine myself not being with the person that i love right now, and that i am with the person i liked more than a year ago, i would honestly say that that relationship would've been smoother for me, relatively. I mean, with her devotion to her religion and a lot of ideas being compromised, not to mention her happy family and friends, that near perfect life she is living, there is hardly any room left for drama, or crests of waves, or even anything that could go wrong in a relationship. I would imagine myself to be where her current boyfriend is right now, hanging out at her house on a lazy Sunday afternoon, strumming on the guitar while she prepares cookies for him in the kitchen, a perfect ideal picture of a pair of love birds. But is that picture truly the best we can ask for? What i am saying is, is a relationship without it's drama, without the arguments - without the crests of waves - a healthy one?

Sure, on the surface everything is calm and peaceful, or even happy. You find something you don't like about her, she finds something she doesn't like about you, and you guys fight about it in private. I imagine myself in that state with her, and then imagined her running away from everything, from dealing with the problem at hand. Because she said so herself, that she runs away from her problems, like how she did with me ultimately two Novembers ago, and all her older relationships. What i am saying is, running away and ignoring existing problems, forgetting the existence of it all does not make a supposed happy relationship, happy. It just makes it pretentious, it makes it fake. And to others, people might be jealous of the two, smile and give their blessings. But why do we have to wear masks when emotions and feelings are the two worst actors in the world? Emotions and feelings don't lie, they don't pretend to be a set of other emotions they are not, they certainly do not fake a tear or a smile, and they do not participate in a play of happy people, a happy couple and a happy ending. Because with a relationship like that, everything is going to boil over sooner or later. Everything is going to accumulate, boil over and then explode. She is going to run away sooner or later or i would, and it is merely a matter of time.

Is that worth it, to have a seemingly peaceful and happy relationship? The cost of not having arguments, not having tears shed for one another is too much, and too expensive personally. I'd rather have occasional arguments, quarrels or even fights, what people call 'Drama'. I would rather have my boat crash through the high seas and meet gigantic waves than to be sailing through a lake and catching fishes the size of my pinky. What i am saying is, i have a whole new ocean of opportunities out there, though however dangerous, i am still willing to go out there and take my chances.

*

Soap Opera Woman,' Excuse me.'
Wiley,' Excuse me.'
Soap Opera Woman,' Hey. Could we do that again? I know we haven't met, but I don't want to be an ant. You know? I mean, it's like we go through life with our antennas bouncing off one another, continuously on ant autopilot, with nothing really human required of us. Stop. Go. Walk here. Drive there. All action basically for survival. All communication simply to keep this ant colony buzzing along in an efficient, polite manner. "Here's your change." "Paper or plastic?' "Credit or debit?" "You want ketchup with that?" I don't want a straw. I want real human moments. I want to see you. I want you to see me. I don't want to give that up. I don't want to be ant, you know?'

--- Waking Life (2001)

*

With you my love, i must admit that it has been a rough ride. It's like the book i read about Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman riding around the world on their motorbikes. While traveling through Eastern Europe and particularly the Mongolian border, there were no tarmac roads whatsoever in that region. Replacing those, dirt and sometimes even mud covered roads for them to conquer in order to get to their next pit stop. You can't say that their journey was an easy one, because it was not. Ewan even had a car accident while listening to Coldplay's ' The Scientist', which ironically has a music video of a couple being involved in a car accident too. It was a tough journey for them, and inside the book they mentioned numerous times along the road, how much they regretted taking on that journey, how much they missed their family members and friends, or their normal life in general. They were worn down to their knees, and they were breaking down as they had uneasy sleeps on the roadside, shielding themselves with thick jackets and blankets against the Northern wind. But at the end of the journey as they ended in New York, they met up with their family members and their other loved ones, and looked back and saw just how worth it that journey was for them.

The truth is, at specific moments of any sort of journey, a relationship might seem stormy, might seem a little bit too rough, or uncomfortable. We might argue, or we might fight over the most trivial matter. But i believe that at other points when we look back, and if we bear in mind that those issues we talked over and were later resolved, i think we then have acquired the right to smile at the memories that we had, the fights that broke out along the way. I believe a healthy relationship is not one with all smiles and no fights, but one with all smiles with resolved ones.

And that my love, in that respect, i am glad that we have that between us. I'm not sure if you have noticed that, but we have this strange pessimistic thing going on, every single time we decide to argue over the littlest things. I know i misbehave and you make your mistakes, but sometimes if we take things slow, if we take deep breaths and be rational about certain issues, we almost always end up on the phone, laughing as usual and talking with dried tears in our eyes. I mean, that is what a relationship to me should be like, with issues talked over and resolved, rather than both parties running away and avoiding it because at the end of the day, what we share is not going to be threatened by the accumulation of such problems, but rather built upon the gathering of something real, something solid and something true. That is you to me: Real, solid and true.

This thing that we share, this magic, though it might seem dreadful at some point, though it might seem suffocating along the way, we always give each other that tank of oxygen that we need, to keep on breathing, keep on surviving, keep on loving. I guess at the end of the day, this is what love does to you, and even love is relative too. As the saying goes," The sweet is never as sweet without the sour". Similarly, the love you have for me, isn't truly love until you have temporarily taken it away from me. Thank you for teaching me love, to love, and the feeling of be loved.

*

'Are you happy?' she asked again.

And again,

and again,

and again in my head.

Am i happy? I asked in my head...

I took a deep breath, the longest breath i took after a question. Sixteen floors upon from the ground, with specks of rain falling on our skins and the warmth of each other so close, i was guilty of thinking that long for a simple yes-or-no answer. But everything went through my head, though it took some time, they did. So many things from the very beginning to then, from the start to the present, everything. I thought about how flawed i was in the past, in every phase or stage of my life. With every aspect of myself i loved, i hated another aspect of me. Sometimes, they even worked like two faces of the same coin, spinning and spinning, fluctuating in emotions between love and hate. I loathed myself for loving myself, and loved myself for loathing myself, and there was no end to that endless spinning of that coin.

But right there and then, i had a clarity of the mind. The rule of balance was broken, and there i was upon the edge of my own destruction of the rule, staring upon a brave new world raw to my eyes. In the present, where i stood, i felt completely at bliss. There were no aspects of myself that i hated, but only loved. There were nothing that i disliked, or hated, or dreaded about myself there at that very moment, but only the blissfulness that i was immersed in. Right then and there, i realised what was happening, or rather what happened.

You completed me.

And there was nothing i could possibly complain, anything to be unhappy about.

'Yes,' i finally said. 'I am happy.'

I am happy with you, my love. Even as i look upon the word 'happy' and begin to see that it does no justification as to what i am feeling. I am happy. I truly, am. And aside from feeling all that, submerged in the tranquility over the stormy sea...

I love you.