"I like the in-betweens. I like the time it takes to get somewhere."
the time it takes to move, to wander. the time in the middle, after you sit and move till you get off.
i like the empty roads, rolling your car windows down only to feel the air touching your skin like a soft greeting from the skies. i like taking my hand out and making my fingers dance. when it's raining, I like to collect droplets of that drizzle in my hand pretending to collect stars, to collect reasons to live and carry on breathing, to collect every thankyou a close friend has ever said, to collect pieces of myself that i had given away to the wrong people.
i like to listen to songs that align with my peace of mind. sometimes i am all about the beat drops, and singing along at the top of my lungs with the song blasting in my ears like it's supposed to, i aspire to be on that mood most of the times. it makes me happy that im happy. in the middle of my absolutely horrific performance in the middle of a traffic jam in the backseats, i think about how lucky i am to have lived to this day, to have survived. beyond all that happened, all that tried to strangle me. i smile as i dab to a beat drop continuing to sing along.
and sometimes, im all about the lowkey, soothing musicals. songs that could make you sleep. songs that hydrate your skin, songs that allow us to take it all in and still breathe. songs that take you to the outskirts of the himalayas, songs that teleport you to live the day dreams you never think would be real. i like to use the moonroof when the roads are empty, and in the middle of a James Dean song or something like Vallis Alps's Reprieve (my favourite song), I would peek up and feel the air again. the cold rose-like texture, the wind blowing my hair. it feels like a music video, your own creation of something vast that the Earth cannot see. the Earth cannot handle to.
i like to smile at strangers, to give them something to remember. not creepy smiles, come on. the smiles you give to babies when they show you their half eaten ice cream, asking for you to share it with them. the smile you have on the insides when you get a text by an old close friend out of the blue, that one guy you don't talk really often to — but who has a heart of gold and hides under his happy all the scars. that sort of smile you would have when you just saw a a complete stranger from your car help an old man cross the road.
i like looking at that one flock of birds that flies together in tessellations that are wonderful to see. a circle. a diamond. a small flock. a large one. to see pigeons sitting on wires like what a music note would look like.
i like the traffic lights in the night time. the red lights from the back of the car of the road we are on and the orange-yellows filling your eyes from the side road. the like how those transform into bokehs on ones camera. the lights of billboards, the lighting of different stores, the LEDs of newly opened ones.
i like when rain drops pour on your window. and i love watching them go down until they drown. i wonder how it looks like on an airplane. i think I would love those sights even more than i know. i can only imagine riding with the clouds. to see a lightening strike from your airplane window inside a cloud. to see a bolt flicker on the insides of that cotton ball. to see it strike. to witness it.
and i know id like a lot of the things that i haven't seen yet. like how the air welcomes you differently from a helicopter staring down the Grand Canyon. to see a lightening inside a cloud on my way in an airplane. to see a little child smile at you from a strangers car. to wave at you. like helping a man waiting for a ride in a far off distance from the city. having him tell stories of how his grandparents used to scare the crows by becoming scarecrows. to hear him call you to his home for a dinner because his wife makes the most delicious fish in the world. to hear the hummingbirds sing. to hear the sky cry again, so that it makes us happy.
'so basically', i like the happenings from the start till the end. i live for those in-betweens. those moments that you live behind you as you go forward. that kids kite you had stopped to see and missing the traffic light went to green. then knocking your stupid head out of it. the honking that comes after. capturing a really old man smiling as he sits with his shoe-cobbler friend to talk about broken politics. to see them smile when you ask them to. to see how the wrinkles on their face disappear as they blush. the beat of your heart that follows after. dup-dup; ba bum; plop-plop; thud-thud.
the colours that you have never seen, the people who have never met. the air will breathe next, the feelings you're going to feel. that.
that.
conclusively;
the journey > the destination.
