Reveries I

Soon this will feel like a distant dream. Until then, may you rest in a deep and dreamless slumber. - Elise, Westworld

2016 and 2017. Two life changing years for me - two years in which growing up has taken on so much more meaning. Even now, I can practically feel my brain forcing my personality to change, and my perspectives to shift. In the one sense, these two years have been one fucking awful thing after the next. In the other sense, these are the best two years to have happened to me. 

I'm supposed to avoid emotional rollercoasters, but that becomes a little difficult when you consistently wake up from nightmares in tears. These nightmares have little to do with my conscious mind or daily life. And yet, I'd spend the entire day smiling and chilling and generally being productive, only to face the nightmares at night. The very wide gap between what my conscious mind is doing, and what my unconscious mind is doing is rather unnerving. 

And yet, "recovery" has now become a meaningful word. For years I laboured to reach here, and finally I have. One of the many tests in therapy is the question - Are you paying less attention to the positives, or deliberately devaluing moments of happiness? I'm in the middle of an attempt to avoid devaluing moments of happiness, so let me just say that all nightmares notwithstanding, I'm happier now than I ever have been. 

Over the course of the last few months, I've amassed quite the set of therapy songs on Listen on Repeat. Perhaps these songs can be used to prevent memories from being lost forever, or to avoid being triggered by literally everything.

മൗലിയിൽ മയിൽ‌പീലി ചാർത്തി - നന്ദനം 

Mauliyil Mayilpeeli Charthi, from the film Nandanam

A song that makes me lie back, relax and let the music wash over me when I'm tired or sad, and which makes me want to dance non stop when I'm in a good mood. Even right now, lying back, my mind traces all the steps - including my favourite classical dance step ever - as though I were dancing right now.
I know this song with the intimate familiarity that comes only when you've learned a dance number to go with that song. In my case, it wasn't me, but our younger batchmates at the dance class who danced to this one. Long before I ever watched the movie (in college), I loved this song.

In addition, every time I hear this song, I just have to go back and listen to this one - a Hindu devotional that was also a popular dance tune when it came to events for Vishu and whatnot.

The movie Nandanam is a very cute one, with the biggest thing recommending it being Navya Nair's performance in the lead role. (I'm sure there are idiots somewhere that think Prithviraj is the lead, but dude, no.) And the first time I saw the video for കാർമുകിൽ വർണ്ണന്റെ ചുണ്ടിൽ (Karmukil Varnante Chundil), I was astounded by the raw emotion I saw her put into the song. Even viewed out of context, the song elicits intense feelings of anguish in the average viewer. (Also I think I used this to get over a break up type situation back in 2012 or something.)

A piece that includes these two songs cannot be complete without the mention of one more song from the same movie:

മനസ്സിൽ മിഥുനമഴ (Manassil Midhunamazha)

This is only the third song I'd performed onstage at the time (fifth grade). I was nervous and miserable at the time (and ultimately flubbed part of the performance, as a result of which I attempted to scrub the whole thing from my memory for years afterwards.) That teacher, for reasons known to only her, deeply disliked me. I guess I was in that lanky, awkward stage and it didn't help that I wasn't a particularly excellent dancer. Nor was I rich (these were the criteria for dance teachers liking you in Dubai - either they see talent, or they see a cash cow.)

I'm not crying for myself. I'm cryin' for you. They say that great beasts once roamed this world. Big as mountains. Yet all that's left of them is bone and amber. Time undoes even the mightiest creatures. Just look what it's done to you. One day, you will perish. You will lie with the rest of your kind in the dirt. Your dreams forgotten, your horrors effaced, your muscles will turn to sand, and upon that sand a new God will walk, one that will never die, because this world doesn't belong to you or the people who came before. It belongs to someone who is yet to come.

- Dolores, Westworld