dear (stranger, wisp of cloud, intangible word, forgotten friend, neighbour, the bird outside my window, you),
nice of you to join me. i hope the festivities have been wonderful and the new year is treating you splendidly so far.
there’s something about the glimmer of winter sun that makes me think about predestination.
there is something incredibly compelling about attempting to grapple with a theme that has been grappled with for centuries, aeons, existing within that ache of time and space when new generations eventually replace old, when flowers wilt and regenerate - birds recoup, dew congeals, letters are written, diaries are fought with, potential is lost, talent is wrought, and so forth.
i'm not exactly sure when it was that i started to think about destiny as a power that controls my life - all of our lives, that is. it is a very greek idea, that there is no destiny, there is only choice. and yet, i cannot shake the fact that destiny does rule part of our lives.
some destinies feel wrought with iron. the greats - achilles, odysseus, agamemnon. all destined to achieve great things, no matter how terrible - and/or destined to live a brief life that is as much a tragedy as it is a paradigm. agamemnon, great general of the trojan war, slaughtered by his wife and her lover. achilles, fierce-some warrior with an anger too big to see beyond; a life truncated and cut short before it could properly bloom. when asked whether he wished he had taken a different path, he answered in the affirmative. yes, if only he could have grown old and watched his lineage sprout and live and if only he could have seized life fully and realised that he was alive! alive! alive! achilles, arguably one of the greatest warriors of all time, known to everyone well versed in history or not. achilles, who wished he had had a different destiny, even if that meant his name would never be known.
but that is not how destiny works.
in fact it is also this humbling prospect that we do not choose our destinies that entices me. destinies that are so perfectly curated for us and our lives, and yet, we do not choose them. we simply stumble day by day, living out this preordained, chosen life for us. that makes no sense either, does it? surely, man makes his own destiny.
I ask god what my destiny is and I hear nothing. I feel nothing different, no sudden compelling wave, no sudden sweltering rage. all I feel is my knees on the ground. perhaps that is what destiny is - a prayer. this is all there is. this, and the grey sky. this, and the fog that cloaks a mountain. this, and laughter.
destiny is a sword. it is a desire and a want and a craving so sharp that it can only have been blacksmith and hammered and polished to the point of death. desire, want, craving, need. these are all one word in my mind, one feeling. like the breathlessness that comes from looking into a valley. like the dreamlike sobriety that comes from seeing a deer. eye to eye, face to face, body to fairytale body. that diaphanous, humbling collision. head on. seeing nothing but one path. nothing but your feet, stumbling, blistered, into the light.
destiny. a crown. the need to please. the need to perfect. the need to lead. the hunger and the thorns, barefoot and sundazed, the child in me looks for fairies. Hair caught in tree branches. broken amphora, image of the dead, trickling stream. destinare - to determine.
my destiny keeps me from falling, keeps me from talking. and yet I never can look it in the face, can I? after all this praying and dreaming, it is still difficult, I still fear it, don’t I? still terrifying. what will my destiny cost me?
yes, some destinies are wrought in iron. one and the same. frigid, forged. burn a candle, light a match, start a fire. it is all the same.
destiny and the very word for it alludes us. we all live in the strange ache between knowing and not knowing, between purposeful actions and stumbling blindly forward.
regardless of what your stance is, I am here to reassure you. think me as your guardian angel. if you believe in destiny; it was written in the stars that you read this, written years before you were born that you would be here, at this very moment, reading these very words that I may or may not post into the void that is the internet.
if you do not believe in destiny; what pure, beautiful, strange coincidence it is that you are here, reading this. how many minute actions did it take, how many minor thoughts, how many stars had to align, that you would read this. that you are here, and I am here with you, and the words are still warm after I wrote them. turn off the lamp, close the curtains, look at the dust in the air. do you feel it? the words are still warm. that ache that we each exist within is pulsing. it is alive! alive! alive!
yours sincerely,
Maariya (your guardian angel/fairytale)
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Read the originally published article here: https://maariyadaud.wixsite.com/the-orpheum-collecti/a-note-from-the-editor
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