Where We Used To Be..

When the sunrise was not something I took for granted and the sound of birds chirping in the morning made my day complete before it had even started. When soft guitar chords would float around me as I waited patiently for nightfall, as days stretched into night and then merged into each other like rivers flowing into a big ocean of freedom,  I thought it would last forever. The freedom to lie back on a terrace with the warm rays of the sun cooling the chill that night had swept into my bones, my hair falling in a soft cascade on the dirty floor of the terrace and my eyes shielded by shadows of laughter and the smell of breakfasts being made in homes around the city wafting upwards toward the slowly lightening sky.

We used to watch the clouds part and the sun playing peek-a-boo behind them. When it rose completely, that’s when we went back to daily life. When the sun stood still and told us that it was time to stop staring up at it; that the dance of dawn was done and our day had begun.

It was quiet on the terrace. Even in rush hour, when the rest of the city scrambled to get public transport and cars honked impatiently so as not to miss the twinkling green signals. When there was construction around (unfortunately starting at 8 am, a ridiculous time to interrupt our reverie with the sound of drills and bulldozers), it was still peaceful for us as we shut it all out with earphones and a good song.

The cool morning air would brush against my skin; my eyes would sparkle with the promise of serenity at the end of the struggle of growing up. People changed, people left, life zipped past. But the terrace stayed the same. Solid and stable, unmoving, always there to go back to; to sparkle with the stars and blink unflinchingly up at the sun, challenging its glare.

Dreams were woven in time, life a big question mark that we didn’t want to find the answers to just as yet. The naivety of youth rising and falling as we indulged in conversations beyond our years and giggled like children in quick succession.

In the afternoons the terrace was lined with crows, black dots against the rusted edges of the grills, peacefully sunning themselves while we read our books and lay back on our chairs, dozing in the summer heat and the winter warmth. The evenings gave it life all of a sudden, quick chatter replacing the cawing crows and footfalls heavy on the mosaic tiles.

It was all-knowing, the terrace. It saw more than we intended it to. It laughed with us, opening its arms to welcome us in when we needed companionship, cried with us when it saw tears glistening in our eyes. It sat in silence while we watched the sunrise and hummed our favourite tunes when we forgot the rhythm. It watched us dance, let us talk, stood patient through the screams and it didn’t miss the kisses in the moonlight. It watched people fall in and out of love, all the while drawing us into its web of tranquility. It broke through the barriers of anger held up between us; it became our sanctuary, our home. It understood us and what we needed.

The terrace hasn’t forgotten, but we’ve forgotten it, life snatching us up, leaving us with no time to say thank you. 18-year-olds now sit where we used to, dangling their feet over parapets, unaware of what’s to come and happy in their oblivion. The conversations are the same but they’re not our voices. We visit, but we don’t linger.

We’re the other people now, running through the morning. The sunrise is forgotten on most days as we rush to meet deadlines. The sun sets quickly outside while we wait for the day to end. Soaking in sunlight is a dream, to be able to stand outside before the sun dips beneath the horizon and disappears.

It’s quiet in my mind when I close my eyes though. I’m on the terrace, letting the wind sweep memories playfully by me, spilling out dreams now stuck in a purgatory. In my mind nothing changes. Everything stays the same.  Still. Beautiful. Perfect. Until I open my eyes and continue to type.

Rhea Dhanbhoora has been writing since childhood, has published a book of poems (Poetry Through Time, published by English Edition in 2003) and is currently a Literature student, writing features as part of a full-time job. She can’t imagine a life without writing and one day hopes to be able to live and breathe off the words, preferably in an idyllic country setting somewhere. Food, music, reading and travel are high up there on the list of things  she loves reading and writing about. Writing to her is, like life itself, an adventure – a journey to find her place, to define and redefine who she is over and over again and to live and learn through the process.