Letting go… of being disappointed with disappointment

Last month, the rehab doctors I work with told me that a year from now, I will look back and say, “I can’t believe how sick I was”. I looked at them in surprise and laughed, “what are you saying? This is the healthiest I have felt in years”. They simply smiled knowingly and with sagesse.

I thought of them a few days ago, when I caught a bug in Kerala. I came crashing down like a pile of bricks. I felt so tired and weak that I was surprised. Why, just these past few weeks, I had been a whirlwind of energy and vitality – traveling, meeting up with people, eating stuff I had not dared to eat in years – I had felt invincible. Yet in a brief moment I had been shown my place or so it seemed. As I lay on the houseboat, watching the scenic world drift by, feeling nauseous and terribly weak, I wondered if I would truly be able to partake in the world and its activities at the level I would like to.

I had met friends I used to trek the Himalayas with and talked about Himalayan treks in the future. I met friends I used to learn classical dance with and I badgered them for music and DVDs to start dancing again. But will it really happen again? Or is it a case of my mind and body being in different places again? My mind is indestructible. My body is fragile. My mind wants to live life in multi-color, multi-dimension. It wants to savor life to its every last breath. My body is just plain tired and wary of what my mind wants. Perhaps this has been an ongoing tussle all my life, but I sense it more now. Will I really be able to trek the Himalayas again? Will I really be able to get back to classical dance again? I don’t know.

Despite my hopes and efforts, perhaps I may have to prepare myself for it not happening or happening at the level I would like. And I have to find a way to be okay with it. Not in a defeatist, pessimistic way, but with acceptance and in the knowledge that not everybody gets to do everything they want to do in their life. For dreams are never-ending… the secret may be to find a way to tailor them to fit the scope of our life, the reality of our life. And that may be an art truly worth mastering…

Letting go… of a good thing

As I type this, I hear the waves in the background. I lift my head and feel the warm sea breeze and gaze into the ocean. I could sit on this reclining chair in the balcony of our hotel room watching the gulls, swaying palms and ocean churning out blue foamy waves forever. Yet my bags stand packed inside and within half an hour we will be driving to the airport. A few years ago, we went to the Great Wolf Lodge, a water park and stayed there for a day. We thought two days of constant water play was enough. Our child thought otherwise. She sobbed all the way back home. No amount of consoling, cajoling, rationalizing and even threats would make her stop. The end of a vacation or a good time can be a difficult moment to handle. For at its brink stands reality, responsibility, real life. And this is for a straight plain vacation. Leaving or re-leaving India and close family and friends is a different emotional matter altogether. That inexplicable sinking feeling bears heavy. True, there is that certain ease and pleasure of sleeping in your own bed, in your own home, in your own surroundings. On your own turf, where everything is familiar, where you’re back in charge, where you look at old things with new appreciation. Perhaps memories of warm weather, nature scapes, and people will waft in and out. Perhaps I will smile at those and hopefully, let them go… for holding on can only create dissatisfaction or sadness in the present. Perhaps I can apply the rejuvenation and renewed energy to real life with its sobering reality that awaits my return. Yes. Letting go of a good thing is a hard thing to let go of. But I want to let it go just like I let go of the warm lapping wave the licked my feet yesterday and disappeared back into the vastness of the ocean…it was there, it brought me joy, and it was gone…back into the infinite…

view from our room... 

Travel and letting go

Since I was a kid, I’ve always wanted to go to Kanyakumari (in a bucket list kinda way). I imagined this lands end with a sense of infinity… with long stretches of unbounded oceans that would bend with the arc of the globe... a magical place where three oceans meet… where Swami Vivekananda once meditated on the rock at the union of the three seas.

I thought it would be a shame to not go to Kanyakumari since we were travelling so close. The travel agent who did hotel reservations tried to discourage us. I was unshaken. Our driver disapproved. “Kanyakumari is a dirty place. Kerala is so beautiful. Why do you want to go there?” he questioned. I was unshaken. The trip seemed tad hectic. I was unshaken. I caught a bug two days before. I was unshaken. The night before the trip, my daughter threw up at night. We wondered if we should cancel the trip. But she looked perky in the morning and the trip was back on.

She seemed grumpy. “What?!! We’re driving all the way to see a rock?” she indignantly inquired. And only a short distance away from our destination, she threw up in the car. Sigh…the worst had happened. We cleaned her up, cleaned the car, gave her some electrolytes, and we were back on the road. It made better sense to reach our destination, than drive back the whole distance. I wondered why I had insisted on this excursion, when all odds seemed against it. Was I going to miss anything by not going there?

Braving more heat, bumpy roads, and a less-than-happy child, we plodded along. We were finally there. A ferry boat ride lay ahead of us… and of course a long queue. “Why are we always waiting in line?” my daughter eyed me annoyed and accusingly (??). Sigh…I felt her pain. I shared her discomfort.

As I glared at the woman who stepped on my toe a couple of times without even noticing, I thought of all the people who rarely leave their living rooms. Was I envious? That’s what all the travel channels are for, I told myself. Why would I not sit in my most comfortable chair and watch a video of the place? Splendid sunsets sans sweat, smell and struggle. And without this pushy, smelly woman practically sitting on my lap. I sighed. At least my daughter was feeling better, I thought gratefully.

A short bumpy boat ride with its own share of pushing and shoving later, we reached the Kanyakumari temple and the Vivekananda memorial rock. Somehow the clamor and chaos were never part of my mind’s picture as I had imagined this serene magical location.

We went to the Vivekananda memorial and for just a moment I let go of the clamor and took in the awe of the place. I looked at the waters searching for differences in color between the seas. Till of course, my daughter complained how terribly her feet burned. We found a spot in the shade and let the wind blow through our hair. It was wonderful.

I was excited to go into the meditation hall. I felt as if I was sharing a moment with Swami Vivekananda by meditating at the same spot. Except no eight-year-old poked his leg when he closed his eyes in meditation. Nor did other kids wail and fuss around him; nor did noisy tourists discuss the next destination in a spot which clearly said “Silence”. Grrrr… even if I threw them my most evil glare, sadly enough, it was too dark for them to see it. So I let it go… and decided to take in the moment. This was my moment and no wailing kid or pesky tourist could take it away. And despite the chaos, there was magic in the moment and no travel channel could give me that.

I came out and we sat on the steps looking at the ocean. A woman came out of nowhere, enthusiastic and dressed up. “Photo, photo,” she said and before I knew it, her arm was around my shoulder and we grinned at the camera like long lost friends. And no matter how strange the forced closeness was, her enthusiasm was infectious and it makes me laugh in confusion. And no travel channel can ever give me that.

Travelling can be uncomfortable and filled with annoyances and uncertainty. To encounter rich experiences, it is often necessary to wade through the less-than-pleasant waters of delays and detours, crowds and chaos, bad weather and stomach bugs. Whether it is worth it all is a personal choice. Perhaps some degree of letting go is required to experience the magic…for it is there…and no travel channel can give me that…

stop! let the cattle pass first...

truck carrying sugarcane

just your routine traffic jam...and yes, the elephant is real

 

 

 

Life in Rhythm

We drifted down the backwaters in Kerala in idyllic setting and pace. The waves tapped the houseboat rhythmically as we sailed away without any sense of purpose or apparent reason. Life slowed down. We did less. We took in more.

We watched birds swoop down to catch fish with poise and skill. We stared at the horizon and the backwaters flanked by swaying coconut palms, remote villages, paddy fields and workers. An old grandma rowed her canoe and waved to me as I clicked away. We watched a mussel fisherman bend precariously over the side of his boat rhythmically pulling his nets in. Yes. It had been a good day and a good haul sat in his boat.

 

 

Our houseboat crossed some snake boats and our captain explained how 110 individuals row each of these boats during the annual competition in August. But what made me smile was that each snake boat had five singers who sang along to keep the paddlers in rhythm. What a beautiful tradition. What a beautiful purpose. What an artistic way to maintain rhythm. And rhythm is everything for a snake boat race.

Yes. Rhythm is everything for our life. If we could always keep our life in rhythm, what a beautiful thing that would be. Why then can’t each of us have those five singers to help us maintain our rhythm? A strange image stands before my eye, fueled of course by some hyperactive imagination. Five random persons would follow me everywhere to help keep me in rhythm. Of course, each of these five would in turn need their own five…

I decided to stop before my imagination carried me away. And I realized that I didn’t really need five singing strangers following me around. For each of us probably already has five things or persons that keeps our life in rhythm. The trick then is simply to find them, know them and keep them around – whether or not they sing a melodious tune.

Letting go…of allowing nature to slip out of our lives

I would like my daughter to live India, not simply visit it. We spent last weekend in Satara visiting family. Apart from the constant pampering from our relatives, there was a certain closeness to nature that we were lucky to savor.  

We ate food that came directly from the yard and their farm. We fed leaves to our cousin’s cows. We visited a “ved pathshala” where young boys in dhotis (traditional Indian attire) and bhasma (smearing of ash) on their foreheads, received education like in olden times. We watched kids there milk cows by hand. My daughter twitched her nose and hesitantly entered the cow shed with its floor covered in “cow poop”. But as she watched a kid, (only a few years older than her) milk the cow, she gave in to the experience and let go of focusing on the “cow poop”. 

We swung on Banyan trees. We tussled with sugarcane – tearing the peel with our teeth, gnawing on the sugary bark-like twigs, spitting it like cattle, savoring the sugary nectar. We drank sugarcane juice from sugarcane that our cousin cleaned and got crushed. (not to mention the gluttony I demonstrated in its consumption… ahem… after all, it is the best drink in the world).

We hiked to the top of a waterfall on a path that was anything but an outlined trail. We walked through knee high grass, on a path that only a few probably knew of and that we were lucky to experience due to our nephew’s knowledge of the land. We watched him chop away some overgrowth so we could reach the top of the waterfall. We sat in the spectacular view as the wind threw droplets of water on our faces. There was nothing other than our voices and the splendor of nature. 

Our relatives were probably a little surprised at the enthusiasm with which I showed my daughter the “bamba” (an ingenious copper water heater that uses twigs and leaves from the yard and heats water beautifully) or the flattened cow dung cakes that are used as fuel.

On reaching Pune, my eight-year-old firmly stated, “I want to go back to Satara.” While this was mostly due to all the affection she had received and the bond she had formed with her cousins, I do think living in nature played a role too.  

I reflected on how processed and packaged our lives have now become. For living an organic lifestyle requires more energy, more sweat, more time. More slowing down than any of us are probably prepared to do so. The “bamba” for instance, is certainly more green; the water more disinfecting as it is heated in copper. But for most of us accustomed to turning on the hot water tap, it seems like more work, more time than we believe we have. 

So is there no turning back? Have we moved on in our processed, packaged world? Is this truly progress? 

I have no answers. Like most, I don’t believe I can turn back either. Like most, I believe I don’t have the time or the energy for the ‘bamba’. But can we slow down a little and keep nature a part of our lives in whatever little way we can? 

Paper trails

We leave all kinds of trails in the place where we grow up. One such trail for me is a papery one - the handmade paper institute near the Agricultural College in Pune, an all time favorites. The place holds several memories for me – my wedding cards were printed here on beautiful cloth like paper, folders for a journalism conference we organized were made here (at my insistence of course).

Yet this hidden, non-descript place had somehow slipped out my mind. I was sad to hear that the Government run place had shut down for a few years due to losses. But it is up and running again. 

I walked inside and nostalgic excitement rippled through me. My hands stroked the bumpy walls made of paper. My eyes raced around looking for old favorites, noting the changes with mixed emotion, trying to take in all the products all at once. 

I was the clichéd kid in a candy store. Unfortunately the ‘candy’ was rather heavy to carry back and I could (grudgingly) pick out only a few papery treasures. Paper with beautiful, bumpy texture; paper with onion peels and flower petals embedded in it; paper a result of much hard work and handiwork. Even for a writer whose writing happens mostly on the computer, paper will always be paper. 

We requested a little tour and the tour made me love the handmade paper even more (if that were even possible). 

We walked to the back where bundles of cotton cloth scraps and paper waited patiently to be turned into beautiful textured paper. The scraps then got shredded to tiny white fluff which soaked away in special ponds. Underground conduits transported the cottony mush from station to station. 

When it was finally time to press the pulpy paper into sheets, skilled workers put the pulp on screens squeezing out water to form large sheets that were skillfully flipped onto wet burlap. Petals, onion peels or twigs can be added at this stage for the paper to have pretty somethings embedded in it. 

The pancake-like stack of pulpy sheets and burlap are kept wet for a while and sheets are then hung out to dry in air on a clothesline. An old timer told us of a time when paper would be dried on hot stone heated by red hot coals. It then lays out in stacks for a day before it can be weighed, sorted and cut. Sigh...my description can go on forever. But again that was never the point of this blog.  So what was the point of this blog?

 

Revisiting old favorite places requires a kind of letting go, even if it seems the opposite of letting go. 

Letting go in the knowledge that this was a part of my life…but no longer is…and learning to be okay with it without too much nostalgia or wistfulness.

Holding on...but moving on at the same time...Holding on to the sweetness of the memory and the time… but with the vigor of today; with the movement of today. Movement that allows us to experience the old, but without stagnating in the past. 

For there is much that I want to hold on forever…but I would never want it to hold me back... 

Letting go…of expecting others to share your enthusiasm

Revisiting the place where you grew up is always fun. With great zeal, you want to relive experiences. You visit your favorite places, meet your favorite people, eat your favorite foods… You also want to share these favorite things with your favorite person – your child.

Bursting with enthusiasm, I tried to share these experiences with a jetlagged eight-year-old. “Let me show you my college. We’re really close by,” I chirpily suggested. “I want to go home,” replied a jetlagged voice “My journalism department is even closer. And know what? It’s a historical building now. Want to go?” I persisted. “I’d rather go over to aji’s,” came a definite answer. “Oh sweetie, that is a fun place that I used to love. Let’s go in,” I tried another day. “Can we get ice-cream instead?” pat came the reply. 

Tad confused, tad miffed, I felt tad disappointed. I love stories. I think of life as a series of stories. I am somewhat of a storyteller. So why was this child – my own flesh and blood so reluctant to share my experiences?

I sighed. I made a face. Not quite different from the one my eight-year-old makes. And then I let go. 

It was silly of me to try to shove my favorite things down her little throat. She probably wants to make her own experiences and her own memories. Why would she want to piggy-back on mine? And what an astute eight year old to choose to make memories with her aji rather than visit her mom’s old college, I thought proudly. She loves listening to my stories, about places and people. But she probably wants to experience things from her perspective, from her past memories of India, from her point of view and priority. And I will try and respect that. 

When something gives us much joy or in this case nostalgia, it is only human to want to share with those we love. But perhaps we can share without any expectation of a reflecting enthusiasm. And perhaps, her memory may not be so much of the place, but of the enthusiasm her dad displayed when he took her to his college boat club or the enthusiasm with which her mom shows her things around town.

I imagine we will continue to share things with her and take her to some of our favorite places. But if she doesn’t quite share the enthusiasm, that will be quite okay by me.

Letting go… by becoming part of the bustle

My rehab doctors have asked me to walk daily. I had been diligently walking on the indoor walking track since it was too cold to walk outside. But little walking had happened since our arrival in India. Only eating. But that will be another blog post. It deserves its own respect and a lot more space.

I set off on a walk this morning… wore my sneakers, tucked the iPod headphones in my ears and headed out to the neighboring street.

When I walk in the gym, it is a targeted, goal oriented activity. My wasted muscles want to be rebuilt, my stamina wants to be developed, my strength wants to be increased. I am in my body, thinking of my body, working towards a better body – all of the 20 minutes that I am in the gym.

This morning as I walked, my senses were inundated. A sea of humanity shuffled around me. Vegetable sellers arranged their vegetables, hiding the smaller, unhealthy ones at the bottom of the pile; kids in uniforms hunched over by huge backpacks waited for school buses and rickshaws; sweeper ladies lost in a haze of dust swept the roads; drivers on two-wheeler zigzagged along with faces completely covered like bandits to guard from pollution, women with flowers in their hand walked to the temple... Everywhere I looked there was life, there was vitality, there was a wide gamut of activity.

As I carefully avoided the cloud of dust from the lady sweeping the street, admired the fresh flowers beautifully arranged in baskets, swerved to avoid a two-wheeler hurtling by, smiled at the kid with a huge backpack being dragged by his mother, watched a cobbler set up shop on the pavement, looked at a flock of pigeons in the sky, wondered if I just saw a parrot… I realized this walk would never be like the one on my walking track in the gym. The chaos and color was a sharp contrast from the homogeneity of a group of people exercising in the gym.

I took in the sights, sounds and energy of this morning bustling around me. Birds chirped, vehicles honked, vegetable sellers cried out, a flower seller tried to sell me some flowers, some senior citizens invited me into a temple, a mother shouted at her son…I took my Ipod out of my ears.

No. I was not in my body. I was not thinking of my wasted muscles. I was not making any effort to strengthen anything in particular. This walk was allowing me to step outside of my body. Each of my senses was inundated. There was life, there was chaos, there was beauty around me. No. I was not in my body. But that wasn’t a bad thing. For this bustle allowed me to let go… of my body, of my weakness, of my thoughts. I felt part of this morning confusion and bustle. No. I was not in my body. And that wasn’t a bad thing.

 

Old friends…Now friends…

I spent a weekend in Lonavala with two of my closest college friends and their kids. Although we have stayed in touch, being in the vacation home for a couple of days, cooking together, wandering about, taking over a kids’ park (move over kids, the old ladies need the slides and swings!) and chatting non-stop over endless cups of tea and coffee, puran polis and chiwda, for a couple of days was a treat. 

It’s funny how easily you slip back into a carefree time when you’re with old friends. We talked about boys(!!), old crushes, and also husbands and marriage. We goofed around, teased each other relentlessly, talked non-stop, and were at our silliest best. 

Our kids stared at us wondering who these women were, disapproving of our behavior at times and silently wondering what had become of their mothers. My daughter had never witnessed anyone teasing me such, had never heard such stories (ahem…those may come back to haunt me). “You guys are silly,” she chided, part disapproval, part confusion. It was a weekend I will always remember.  

True we continue to make wonderful meaningful friendships all our lives. And I am definitely fortunate to always have terrific people around me. But being with college friends is always different. For it is a beautiful reminder of youth and carefree days and lack of responsibilities; or perhaps a different approach to responsibility – a time when everything seemed easy and anything seemed possible. A time when we were all stars and felt like real stars (ahem…true “greatness” aside).

This trip to India has been about people and reconnection with family and friends for both my husband and I. We met with his college friends and shared the funniest, strangest and silliest of stories. We laughed till our sides hurt. We looked at old pictures and laughed at ourselves. 

I had a reunion with school friends and we reconnected within minutes even if some of us met after decades. We walked through our beautiful school campus. We giggled, we reminisced, we shared, we empathized. We talked about those who life had not treated well; those who husbands had not treated well. I was touched by how much we seemed to care about each other and how authentic the concern was. For after all, we remembered each other as school girls in pigtails. To imagine the same scrawny school girls in red ribbons having to battle life’s challenges seemed unjust. Some of us have kids the very age as we remembered ourselves; and it seemed all the more difficult. 

And I know I have more treats in store. For this week I meet my dance class friends, friends I used to go on Himalayan hikes with… and there are so many fond memories there. We meet with more of my husband’s college friends and there is plenty of laughter in store there and then of course my journalism gang of crazies… I can hardly wait.

I wonder why it is so special to meet old friends. Is it because it takes us back to a life we no longer live, and wish we did (no matter how unrealistic that sounds)? A time that seems easy, carefree and fun? A heady, dizzy time when we lived only in the moment?

When we meet old friends, are we able to completely put aside our current grown-up life with its humdrum and responsibilities?

Every friendships we make in later years, no matter how rich and meaningful, will always be one made in a more “grown-up” period of our lives – a time of responsibility, a time of maturity, a more serious time. For who has the time to wander around town aimlessly anymore, or spend hours at a chai tapri (stand) philosophizing over tiny cups of overly brewed, overly sweet chai?

Perhaps that wandering about aimlessly forms the base of such sound friendships. And that wandering about aimlessly can never happen again. Perhaps old friendships have a near dream-like quality – beautiful, unreal, wispy and evanescing.  

And as much as I treasure the old friendships from a time gone by, I treasure just as much my new friendships - those made in the grown-up years. True, I may never wander about aimlessly for hours with any of my “now friends”. True they will never be as carefree, as silly, as reminiscent of youth.  

The “now friendships” are real, more matter-of-fact, more surrounded by schedules, and work, and chauffeuring-the-kids-to-activities. The "now friends" may know more about your daily struggles, see you as you now are. They have as much grey in them as our hair, they are more bound by limitations, they belong to those who are less giggly, less silly, and more responsible.They are who we now are.

But they are both just as real and as valuable. And I am grateful for being able to hold on to the old that make me feel the way I have felt in recent days; and I am grateful for the new, those that belong to my every day…