sojourn

The sojourner exudes a magnetic aura of courage and self-dependency. In today's world where inter-connectedness and network-edness is the norm, the drive to seek oneself in unfamiliar surroundings can be both exhilarating yet poetically sad. I feel like a sojourner sometimes, when things rush headlong into everything and amidst the clashing priorities of life, I wish for quiet peace. How many times have you thought of yourself? Defined yourself in ways that are not monetary, not status-based, not based on who people who know you perceive you to be?

Poets and critics often chart the emotional landscape of the sojourner with the physical landscape he traverses. When I take a step back I realise the same thing applies to me. In the hub-bub of school life and the buzz of a staff room, I am quite the misfit. Not that anyone can really perceive the off-kilter English teacher couched in his cubicle leafing through papers as the misfit. I speak when spoken to, smile when the occasion calls for it, and partake in the standard office practice of gossiping and bitching. Yet when the opportunity comes, I run, I withdraw. Currently I am hiding in an empty room behind the hall, in an obscure corner of school. What does my physical landscape say about myself then? I am trying to figure out too. Maybe really what I am doing is to place myself in a physical space occupied by only my person, a pool of peace and quiet surrounded by the bustle of a school; maybe that is my inner sojourn, to find myself amidst the social and relationship demands.

Great things are moving in my life. I can't pinpoint nor can I vaguely control any part of them. Little things that I find minor and senseless can come round to become big issues, similar to the butterfly effect, and affect me deeply.

That's my sojourn through life. The clashes, butterfly flaps of inconsequential stuff, the storms of huge proportions, and the exhilaration of ephemeral deeds. My sojourn through emotions, in marked contrast, consist of a quiet room I can write and think in, a room of one's own, for myself and for finding out who I am.