I have turned into a drifter, wandering in and out of sometimes upbeat and sometimes gloriously nonsensical days. The minutes weave into each other and stretch like a never-ending trance, a sort of poetry in motion. There is no structure in the sunlit hours and nothing to confine the nights. Yesterday does not count. What does is the here and now. I love these hobo days.

It’s mid-morning and I can hear nothing but the twittering birds. The decibels of my previously boisterous mind are almost muted. Sporadic thoughts float around and I translate them into prose.

As with any de-cluttering, a lot of stuff has come up while sorting the mind over the past few months; things taken for granted and insights on personal evolution. Important things that remain buried under busyness. Busy mornings, busy streets, busy lives; busyness consumes us. We fence ourselves in, evading, side-stepping, setting up boundaries that shackle our minds and crush our spirits. Boundaries that rein in life’s revelries. So it’s stimulating to become divergent and wander, every now and then, onto untrodden paths.

In the past few days, I’ve stopped at random and realized I’m happy doing what I’m doing in that moment. I don’t know when the haziness merged with clarity, but it did. The moments that used to be weighed down with languor have now found amity. It must have a lot to do with replacing discontent with delight.  With easiness and acceptance. With being a cerebral drifter.

Last week, my friends and I were loafing around and they mercilessly ragged me about my near-amnesia. I suitably forget all the trivial things that need forgetting but I blank over the vital stuff too! They were talking about pranks played at school, penalties imposed by reprimanding teachers, crushes on classmates and I couldn’t remember a thing. It didn’t really matter; for me the bonding in that moment was more than enough. So I let their laughter wash over me. Later, we hollered through a ridiculous movie, chatted incessantly over a sumptuous meal, looked at the world through each other’s eyes, ignored our worries and watched them melt away. Those are the kind of radiant moments I live for.

I have realized that more than walking a straight line, going off on tangents works for me. There used to be a time when I stayed cooped up in an obscure world of my own. But being outdoors and letting life in has become important. Because when you step out, something wonderful always happens. You see the sunset. You hear the ocean. You chance upon strangers. You stumble onto stories. Minds connect. Hearts unite. Philosophies are shared.

There’s so much to discover. And as you go along, the outside and inside worlds collide. I love the freshness of it all. I love the novelty of my thoughts and feelings. How it all just ebbs and flows over my senses. Colour me quixotic, but gorgeous everyday moments just make living so much better. And in the melange of chaos and order, I catch glimpses of who I am.