It is interesting how quickly life can happen to you. You do not own your own story, you are merely the co-author. Life happens. You can plan accordingly, and you can try to control every aspect of your life, but the story unfolds according to rules we cannot change, affect, or even begin to understand. The sun will most probably rise tomorrow and the seeds of various plants will germinate and grow into beautiful trees. But we can only improvise our dancing to the ever-changing music of life.

I met a girl some while ago while I danced to this strange music and since then I had to improvise my steps along with her, always thinking about the two of us. And now, the dance happens in yet another terrain, one that asks for more entanglement, more engagement, inevitably leading towards even greater mysteries.

The first part of this dance happened a while ago, now I transcended even more ground by asking her hand in marriage. Engagement becomes the liminal in-between space between dating and marriage, a purgatory in which you can collaboratively fight against the various forces that might attack you from all sides.

It will be an interesting ride.

A while ago, when we began talking about the transition, @urban.scout gave me a Jack and an Ace card, spelling the word JA, yes.

At that moment, she already said yes, long before I asked. Tradition dictates that I ask her, so while waiting for the perfect day, she continually asked me when will I ask her?

She arrived a couple of days ago, and I could not wait for a better day to arrive. The winter weather played its part, and I bought a couple of candles (60 to be exact), and I built her a shrine in my garden, leading from a path lit up by candles. I hid behind a bush, and she walked down the path towards the shrine, with champagne glasses ready, and the ring in a box with her pet name typed on it.

It is funny how we cling to certain traditions but break so many others. She did not conform to the standard rule book; this allowed me to experiment, change the norm/tradition, but it also brought various other problems into consideration.

But in the end, everything worked out, I had her answer in my pocket, she was only waiting for me to ask her; mere formalities some would say.

Underneath a tree that I planted with my father, I wrote a story with characters that did not exist and something which I hoped that some people might read. Unbeknownst to me, a girl a thousand kilometres away read the words that I wrote whilst I sat underneath this tree. At that time, the words did not mean anything to me; they were mere words amongst thousands and thousands of other words. But as life played its song, and I merely danced to the tune at that moment, something aligned in the cosmic reality of our worlds.

We are the co-authors of our lives, but there is a different tune playing all the while everyone else is also trying to dance their dance to their music. No story is similar, no song is the same, and no dance will mimic another.

And here I am writing these words, listening to yet another set of musical notes that I am not sure what to make of. The only constant is change, and I will need to improvise my dancing to this new music.

But this is the beauty of life, that we never know what the new day will bring. The pathway might be lit up by candles, but we will surely always dance along new lines not always lit up by candles.

For now, I am dancing in the candlelight of this new song.

All of the musings and meanderings in this post are my own. The photographs are also my own, taken with my Nikon D300.