The Ringtale Notes.....XI

The Butterflies And Elephants I Sleep With.

My Dear Butterfingers,

I was only passing by when I happened to notice her dance in the silence of the dance studio. The only music I heard was the sound waves of her body movements; feet gliding across the floor like a paint brush on Da Vinci's board painting the Mona Lisa; hands floating like she was one with the wind, for a moment there I swear I thought I saw her take flight as if she was looking for her heart and only heaven had the answers. I stood there mesmerized and I felt butterflies in my stomach...it also felt just a bit awkward, especially when she noticed me. I wanted to say something, trust me I did, something hot just to break the ice or something lame like how normal boys would do. Something like, "hey there little miss sunshine, has anyone ever told you that you're a thief? A beautiful thief in fact. When you move it's like you're robbing the bank of my chest of its most priced possession, so forgive me if I act a little heartless and I'm late with my compliments, it's just that you've stolen my heart. I guess what I really mean is, your beauty is like a Tanzanite, it's a rare discovery."

But I didn't say anything, the words never actually came out. So I contracted back to the confines of my little box, where the imagery I just saw only ends at the fibres of my spectacles, turned into a song I heard when I wasn't listening echoing sparingly into oblivion. And the butterflies in my stomach turned into elephants that take over my bed while I sleep on the floor with my poems cuddling. Dreaming about pickup lines that never really pick up anything except the space in my manuscripts and that giggle I always make when I write them. The thing is, my dear Butterfingers, I've never really been a sucker for love like Cupid in his nappies, his arrows were always deflecting off my heart-lock, cause my old man told me that true love is for pansies. He did that with the silence of his absence. So little girls never stood any chances, I only took what I wanted from them and never gave anything back. How can a young man know how to love if he never experienced it himself as a minor? Our hearts are like ticking time bombs, ready to explode and cave themselves in at the first sight of vulnerability. I still ask myself, 'how come out of all the girls I dated I never truly love any of them?' It was all a game, it was a gamble like the game of dice and my soul was the price. I guess we never really know the cost until we pay. At the end, true love is a drug and we all crave it, so I figured that's why most men lock themselves into solitude confinements, because it scares us so much when we finally find it.

I don't really know how to express my emotions, God knows, I always tell Him every day on my daily devotions. For more than two decades now I've never been able to tell my mother how much I really love her, so how could I tell a girl that I barely know? Pour my heart out into hers to liven up her face with a smile, to let my soul speak to hers like how God speaks to mine, letting our spirit connect in a perfect fit like the stars and the Universe. I'm not even sure if that's possible. So I made a vow that I would not be like my dad, do the kinda things that he did. Disconnected from his emotions and misguided in his ways like unwarranted dispositions. I pray every day not to end up like that. But instead my faith and hope I keep in God, to teach me how to love and act right. That one day I may be able to approach a girl at the library of God's wisdom, decode an arithmetic that will make her smile, opening the door to her heart and letting it speak to mine. And I'll know, Beauty has finally won the uninterrupted eye of the Beholder.

Its grace thought, that gets us there Butterfingers, nothing else. God is our Father from whom we're to learn how to love, but not only that, but also how to express that love through both emotions and actions.

Let's keep catching the little foxes...

Yours Affectionate Brother In Arms,

Ringtale, The Guy Who Plays A Certain Instrument.

The Ringtale Notes.....X

Of Pearly Moons And Shining Stars.

My Dear Butterfingers,

"Give me the night to speak to when all eyes are closed and the crickets sing tunes of my insecurities..." Is a phrase I once heard from a close friend of mine. His name was Sir Nicholas. He said these words sitting on the window of our dungeon basement where creativity knew no limit but traveled on every starlight we gazed upon. He paused for a moment, as if contemplating what he would actually say to the night as it besieged the throes of our inert situations. Reminding us both of the Beauties we had seen, and coercing us speak about the butterflies that had occupied our stomachs. We found a haven in that night as the moon rose to it's full strength. He spoke about the damsel that he had unwittingly given his heart to, I also spoke of mine, basically we were men without chests, heartless and at the mercy of these Beauties. He also spoke about how he messed up a relationship that almost was because of fear of the unknown. The thing is, he wasn't sure of what he wanted to do next, she was sure of what she wanted but not of where she was going, and so the entanglement of unspoken broken promises and this delving into confusion put everything into a halt. His heart was smitten, but circumstances had an entirely different view to it. It had nothing to do with love itself, but had everything to do with destiny, Kinda like what happened to me as well. The comrade (the girl I liked, we used to call her that, but as to why? I really don't remember) and I had different paths in life, and if we had forced things, we would quenched each other's destinies. And when one thinks about it now, it's moments like those that grows you and makes your stronger as person, a friend, and as a lover to be (one day is one day).

I guess I'm writing to you my dear Butterfingers to remind us that, sometimes we might think we've found the beauty, only to realise how truly incompatible your paths are. We meet different people heading to different direction in life all the time. 'Cause life is a highway congested by crisscrossing destinies, and not everyone coming your way is really moving in the direction you're moving in. Look, I'm not an expect of love at all, but in my years of single-hood and waiting, I've learnt that eventually God brings someone along you, moving in the same direction you're also moving in. And even if things are unclear at first, if it's a love story written by Him, everything inevitable falls into place.

"...when my dreams are lost, awakened from them by singing frogs with choruses of bad days and life gone astray with no time to pray, give me the night..." God is that Night we can speak to when we feel that our heart and efforts on love have been betrayed by reality as He is the one who weaved it into being. He is that spark and that shooting star pointing us to the direction, out of our aching heart in the hands of fading beauties, and into a new sunrise, a new day made for those who are patient.

Look upon Him now even more in your distress my dear Butterfingers, the beauty awaits our arrival into the center of His heart.

With love, I always pray for you ...


Your Affectionate Brother In Arms,
Ringtale, The Guy Who Plays A Certain Instrument

Zandile (They Increased).

A Journey Of Fate, Grace, And Peace.

A friend of mine recently told me that I seem to be gifted in the art of turning ordinary stories into great stories...I blushed a little. But then I've been thinking, isn't it possible that we all might have been birthed with the ability to turn our normal daily activities into poetic psalms of genius in the hands of God, the master Poet? Instead we've been well skilled by society in the ability of taking extraordinary stories and turning them into the ordinary. In every story of life, in every circumstance, there's always something extraordinary in it, the problem is just that we've learned to only look at the gloom of the situation.

About 11 months ago, I had a very interesting conversation with my grandma. She spoke of her life as a youth, basically contrasting it with our current age, the privileges that we have but have failed to recognize. She told me that life is not worth living when you do not know God. She sat on her grass mat as she recalled the trails and tribulations of her beautiful life. She got married at the age of 20, only to discover that she was barren, told that she would never bare a child. Despised by the in-laws, she was sideline as wife in a polygamous relationship. Verbally abused with words that covered her heart with scars. But she had always been a praying woman, so she found God in the midst of all that.

Years later, she received her blessing, she fell pregnant with her first child, but sadly a soul that never got to see the light. With the second one, she only got to hear it cry only once before the curtains came closing in. And after nine pregnancies (my mom is the last one) with 4 kids lost at infancy, she sat there on her grass mat knitting her heart into solitude, glancing at the sky she smiled, and then spoke of the joy she had found in God and how in her fading years she looking forward to see her King. Her mane is Zandile (which means 'they increased'), which was prophetic really, considering the amount of kids she ended up having (5 who are still alive). She saw her life beyond the ordinary endeavors of a house wife, but in the perspective of the one who wrote it.

She said to me, ''there have been days that have not been kind and nights that have not been warm enough to take comfort in. There have been sunrises I've never looked forward to, gasping st the hands of dawn in fear of the inevitable fate that has it's foot stuck in my front door. And there have been sunsets I've hurried to, I kept chasing the wind to catch the dream fading away in the midst of moonlights while there was still a flicker of hope left. Yet paddling through my journey, in the midst of the dark tunnel, He is the light that I met shinning above the rest. I met a new day, a bright sun to light up my mornings, and a shinning star to light up my path at night. God had arrived and couldn't be denied His place...And it's amazing to see, how trouble to him be simply things with mystery within, to shine His face, the light of His glory revealed, giving birth to faith for those willing to receive. To know the love, the beauty from above that no heartbeat can escape."


Be extraordinary in your ordinary circumstances and when you tell your story, it will surely be extraordinary.




Keep Thinking!
Sources: The Life of An Ordinary Housewife