These few days (?weeks) there is an unrest, deep inside.
The ability to lose myself in thoughts, while apparently doing nothing.
The ability to fly to the hills and stars while watching the world pass by the bus or car window during travel.
The ability to be contented with the beautiful evening sky as I am walking home from work, and feel my troubles dissolve in the wind.
Have I lost it?
I texted my sister at random one evening,
"I feel restless. A restlessness that tells me I want to travel ... to walk, to ride buses and trains.. To seek my own company."
To wish the impish girl replied.
"Perabih HO dulu."
Ceh.
I like to think of myself as a free spirit. Walls and wheels cannot restrain me. If I can't physically travel, I will make the journey in mind. Music tends to speed up the process and introduce new places. If the mind finds itself sluggish, the fingers will write the words necessary to purge it of clots and clogging debris. There were multiple times when I would feel restless, then spend an hour or so writing, and came out of the exercise feeling refreshed. Worse come to the worse, I will sleep, and dreams that visit my sleep are usually vivid, dreams that feel like second lives, and I woke up fascinated.
Lately, altogether with some spiritual refurbishments I was attempting, the soul suddenly (well not actually that sudden - I think it is a gradual process, acutely exacerbated by the aforesaid pursuit) went into "this-world-is-narrow-and-suffocating" mode. I started to feel uneasy, restricted by the everyday routine, something struggling inside my chest - which at times feel physically tightened - wanting out.
The mind failed to launch satisfactorily, and of course it failed to sail smoothly, when I tried to go into my usual mental excursions. Travel in car or bus or plane suddenly feels boring, surprisingly, I felt like I don't have anything to do to kill the time. Writing poetry or generating stories in my head cease to feel as effortless as it used to be.
While I am happily working in my wards, caring for my patients, reciting figures and facts to satisfy my superiors (moreso my own desire for perfection), there is a discontent that is stirring inside. The day-to-day routine feels mundane. Yes, I found solace in prayer and reciting the Quran and zikr, which is when the mind and heart were at peace, loving and feeling the Love, but I am not yet able to maintain that state of mind continuously.
There is a discontent inside. Perhaps this is what Paulo Coelho felt when he said in his autobiographical novel, Aleph, that he is suffering a 'spiritual stagnation'. The remedy, according to him, was to travel, and let life unravel its secrets to him throughout the journey.
I have always believed and practiced the wisdom. I travelled to look for peace, to find answers, to meet those who matter for me, to run away, to seek shelter. Most of those journeys are done solo, or with the company of selected important persons. And indeed, even if I did not find exactly what I am searching for, I will not return home empty-handed. Life, indeed, with the grace, mercy and protection of Allah SWT, revealed its wisdom endlessly.
Now I can't travel in physical, not that much, and my mind- and soul - is unable to take flight. Even to write now feels like a chore. I hope this is but a transformational period, from which I shall emerge afresh, a better person.
Lord, deliver me.
