Winguardian Leviosa!

I just watched the last movie of the Harry Potter saga in honor of the passing of an age. I feel as though I am older for having lived this story. As I look back on what I like to call the Harry Potter decade, I am astounded at how much this story has reflected our world and how much it has helped me live it.

The world I find myself in the second decade of the new millennium has changed drastically and suddenly from the previous decades; I've had to re-define some very basic concepts, like the idea of safety, travel, friendship, communication, education, and segregation. It has been, for me, a decade of upheavals on a very basic, psychic level that has mandated that I replace my internal compass with a GPS.

I remember telling my friends scattered across the country that  get-togethers should be no problems, since no place is farther than the nearest airport; but that was before 9/11, which completely changed air travel. I remember being able to count my friends on my fingers; but that was before facebook told me that I'd need many arms and many, many fingers to count my friends. I remember always being on the look out for reliable, reasonably priced calling cards and long distance plans; but that was before oovoo and 3G phones. The list goes on.

In a world that changes so fast, where tomorrow strides and barges in before today is done, I've held on to stories that distill these complex issues into familiar archetypes, told in a way that reminds me of the familiar way of life, at the same time shows characters trying to adjust to a completely new world, having to learn very similar lessons. This story resonates with me for many reasons, but I believe my ability to relate to the characters' choices, lessons, terrors, joys, and crossroads is the main one.

I am not alone in this, of course; my child, who is putting together her college applications, was very impressed to know that one of her dream schools has a very active Quidditch team; we visited "Harry Potter Houses" on our last trip to London and Oxford; no one today is a stranger to a strange word like "muggle."

Today, the entire theatre was completely full and the whole experience to watching this movie on the opening weekend was a treat, like watching a Bollywood blockbuster on opening night. The audience actively participated in the watching: there were boos, clucks, giggles, snickers, guffaws, and outright laughter, as though we were all at a live performance, not a movie. As the light faded out on the characters we'd all come to know so well, the audience burst into a resounding applause.

This was a heartening experience. When I read bleak projections for the future, dire consequences promised for irresponsible choices made by earlier decades, I am more patient. After all, there can be no way to predict what gems of imagination await during troubled, troubling times to remind us of the richness, sweetness, and sheer beauty that is the human experience.

Like audiences emerging out of a tragedy many millennia ago, we, the audience emerging from the theatre today were definitely proud of being human, of the same ilk as the characters whom we admire, then pity and fear for, and ultimately own, so that, like the wish-figures reflected in the mirror of Erised, they keep us company when we look into our solitary looking glasses.

Un-anchored

I seem to have stumbled upon a pair of Cinderella shoes: they keep falling off my feet. My feet, in fact, have sent me on a quest for the perfect pair of shoes; but alas, like the perfect handbag, perfect footwear eludes me.
The world is full of shoes: some promise to place clouds beneath one's tread; some promise a complete metamorphosis; yet others pose in mall shops, like portals to alternate selves, selves more sophisticated than imagination could conceive, who seem serious about having fun and making bold statements about this fun.

Some months ago, my 16 year old NEEDED (capitals are deliberate) shoes and so off we went on our Odyssey. As I regarded the fare, I balked at the precariously high heels, the punishing straps strung with hard beads, the uncompromising brilliance staring me down. My child tried on many of these, exclaiming over the unimaginable comfort the shoes afforded, prancing around the store in her borrowed gait.

I crept surreptitiously out of her prancing orbit, afraid of being swooshed off and trampled upon, and found myself being stared at by a row of the improbable sandals, at the ready, seemingly awaiting orders to begin some combat, buckles glinting like weapons.

Undeniably, feet clad in dusty, stringy, un-heeled, loose sandals, feet like mine, did not belong.

Please do not misunderstand me, reader; I do not wish to appear un-groomed and grungy. However, my disagreeable feet are very particular about the kind of material that may clothe them, and they will not countenance the toes being enclosed. They cannot be made to perch any higher than the ground.

Today, I sit here, looking at my faithful sandals, worn out with fitting in, blending, trampling, all in service of my feet. I shall miss them, but like a sad Bluebeard, recognize the need for new ones to destroy.

When I was a child, I was thought of as a rather strange being, one who ran off from street play to hide in libraries, who learned to climb trees in search for an uninterrupted space to read in, who could not manage to keep herself grounded. Now, I know the real problem: I just did not have the right shoe that could convince and assure my feet of the solidness of the ground. I am still on the prowl for a good shoe, one that will not bite my feet in its arrogance and anger, one that will not squeeze my feet and spray blisters on them, one that will not feel compelled to change me into an unrecognizable self, which, instead, would make an effort to blend in with what exists, like an ideal daughter-in-law from a Hindi serial.

After all, not all feet are Cinderella feet, equally comfortable in clogs and gold slippers, and unless the shoe fits, one remains afloat, somehow unconnected to all that everyone is convinced is real, un-centered, even, like Yeats' falcon who cannot hear the falconer.

But then the alternative to Cinderella, of course, are Cinderella's sisters, with their bleeding, sliced up feet and blind eyes, stumbling cluelessly through a graceful wedding, all owing to the perverse insistence of their feet unwilling to fit the right shoe.

Easy Dreams

The last couple of months have been fraught with much to do, much that seemed important to do at the time, much that I can remember nothing about. I spent weeks chasing chores that never ended, tried to meet schedules that seemed downright perverse and mercurial, and often sighed that the hours should be so short and unreasonable. This ado of daily routines pervaded over my waking hours and clouded my dream times. There have been times in the past weeks, when even as I knew I slept, I thought about tired solutions, worried knots that tangled my waking worlds, and even in sleep, reached nothing, knew no answers, only longed and waited.

Finally, it is all over: my quarter is squared away, my child is off on her summer adventure, the thunderstorm has passed, and the dishwasher is humming. I've also enjoyed almost a week filled with family, friends, and food, and the cats' contented napping is the very concrete image of my internal landscape.

I know I shall not remember today, just like I don't remember all the times when I have realized that I was happy. So I hope that this post shall remind me in my less contented moods, that I have known this wonderfully perfect, wet afternoon, which passed, and so shall my discontent. It feels important, then, to examine to what I owe this sense of well-being.

After all, it is Father's Day, and I should be missing my father. But I've just spent two days acutely aware of his absence as we celebrated his oldest grand child's graduation, an occasion woven with much joy and pride. So even though I am thinking of and paying homage to my father, I am not missing him: how can I, when I am surrounded with the poetry he loved, the stories he told me, and many of the books he treasured?

I should also be missing my child whom I won't see for days yet. But I missed her more at her cousin's graduation than now: every one I met, I wanted my child to meet; every step her cousin took towards her diploma, I wanted my child to savor; every picture I took with her cousin, I wanted my child to feature in. But today, I do not miss her: she is in one of my favorite cities in the world and she has promised to sprinkle thoughts of me all over its stones, museums, pillars, cross roads, and street corners. Hopefully, this city, then, shall dream of me tonight.

It would seem that I have my niece's graduation to thank for this ease I feel today. It has been a catharsis of sorts, but unlike other necessary, painful catharsis, this one has been a joyful one. In fact, I have found myself smiling as I remember the coffees we shared, the new and old conversational dances we partook of, and smile wider as I go over, yet again, the pictures from the day I spent with the clan. Of course, my niece's graduation has not been my first graduation by any means, even though I didn't attend any of mine. But I was struck anew at the significance of the ritual connected with this rite of passage, as every bit of that pomp and circumstance seemed to ring with fresh promise and all things bright.

Today, it seems my cup has exhausted itself with overflowing and is content to lie on its side, unable to hold much within. My television talks at me in familiar, lilting cadences of the many Hindis the serials and programs use, demanding nothing from me, not even attention. Maybe later today, I shall catch an old Hindi movie and my dreams will weave the well-known characters, music, plots, colors into their terrains and fabrics, until the very world of sleeping, like a city I have loved for long decades, shall dream of me.

Stories and Clay: Reflections on Motherhood

Being a mother, I write this at a risk of being the more harshly judged. Tomorrow, however, is Mothers' Day and having celebrated Fathers earlier on this blog, it seems right to reflect on the relationship we all take so much for granted, unless it has somehow been snatched from us.

Motherhood, I tell my students, is not for the faint of heart; the parents among my students nod their sage agreement to this. I am awed, for example, at how the existence of an ugly, squirming new born (face it; new borns are beautiful only to their families and remain indifferent to those who love them beyond reason or proportion!) can change the very personality of the nourisher. It is the most illogical of relationships: as a parent, one begins this relationship with full awareness that there shall be no returns on this investment, that there CAN be no returns on an investment this huge.

Logically, motherhood makes no sense; it demands, to a large degree, erasure of the self. We are told that in exchange, we are to give up our firm, youthful bodies, to become willing houses for lives more important than ours, even sometimes be willing to go through really scary, painful, unforgettable physical procedures that will forever change us into unrecognizable beings. Even those of us who do not go through a physical motherhood are made to go through procedures just as exacting and harrowing that often make us question our sanity. This metamorphosis to being a mother is terribly expensive, shall curtail our personal freedoms in a variety of small and large ways, and impose a role that we shall have no respite from, sleeping or awake, as long as we shall live, and sometimes, even beyond that.

I am, then, understandably mystified at this need we have to nourish. It would seem more logical to enhance our own lives, strive to increase our life-spans, live more fully, rather than to choose decades of half-lives, to accept fatigue the likes of which even the sleepless nights and agonies of grad school can hold no candle to.  So it doesn't make sense that motherhood would somehow stand for all we hold sacred!

But we often worship what we feel too strongly to understand. I remember the first time I held my daughter: a feeling so fierce seized me so suddenly, so strongly, it felt like a growl from a deep, old being that wept in fear, joy, fulfillment, and maniac laughter that bounces & echoes through thunder clouds. The nurses and attendants, well-trained and well-informed about the growl, gave me a wide berth until I could breathe properly again. I remember poking my infant in her crib, in the middle of many a night, until she shuddered a breath, so I could believe that I'd still have her upon awakening, if I gave in to sleep for a while. Of course, death, in any form would be more acceptable to me than the thought of losing her in any way, or of her being in helpless, uneased pain. I am a selfish woman that way.

However, when I look at all the mothers around me, they do not seem selfish at all. They patiently tolerate tantrums in malls and backseats of cars, wear out cookie cutters making endless peanut-butter sandwiches more alluring, gladly put their careers on hold for the privilege of greeting their pre-schoolers in the middle of the day for the nap, read one more story in their special Mommy Voice at the end of an exhausting day of juggling their many roles. These mothers sit, awake and still, at their children's bedside in the dark and breathe in the milk-and-soap fragrance of the children's dreams long after the story is done and the children unaware of their presence. They consider themselves fortunate, just for living this moment.

When she was six, my daughter made a baked clay bowl for me. It is a small fruit bowl that dreams of being a goblet. It is not exactly even or balanced, though it needs no support. Though glazed, the bowl's surface is not smooth: it bears thumb prints of a girl who used her hands for someone other than herself. That roughly made bowl holds countless moments and their leftovers in form of shells, pins, especially good erasers, and lately, a card reader for my sixteen year old's newest, proudest possession, the camera her uncle gave her.

To me, that bowl is the image of motherhood. It is a vessel that is too uncommon to be used in the common way vessels are used; it is too common to be put away behind a glass door as a curio or an object to be idolized and never used. Usually, we ignore it even though it occupies a prominent place on our furniture. But we cannot imagine it not being there. It is sturdy enough to hold momentoes of our life; yet we fear it might be fragile.

I look at that bowl now and wonder at its infinite capacity for holding little things that remind us of the stuff we are made of. I am afraid I lack the courage to clean it out and catalogue its contents to make it more manageable.

My sincere homage and salutations go out to all mothers, whatever their shape, provenance, or glaze, and to their infinite capacity for holding the entire Creation within their very fragile, very strudy arms of clay.

Trumpet Sound

I began Monday with Tutankhamun's stolen trumpet, and the sound resonated and echoed throughout the day. I must confess to being worried: it has been known to herald disasters (the World War began shortly after its first sounding). I have since agonized over it: should I have heard it? Should I have refrained? Was there a cosmic message in the trumpet being stolen during the recent unrest in Egypt, a message that I was missing?

This is a common agony for me. I write a story or a poem, which sometimes is accepted or published, and once it is out there, I worry that it constantly misrepresents me, that I shouldn't have said that in this way, that maybe it was too personal or too impersonal or too sappy or too cynical. I feel like chasing my words, netting them, and somehow controlling what they say about me. Of course, I know this is as pointless as tying a brick to my child's head to prevent her from growing.

I think everyone who dabbles with the pen and keyboard would agree that the minute one decides to create a fictional landscape or, even just voices, a part of the self gets split. There is the writer, whose horizons include the reader, and there is the real person, who often refuses to acknowlege the writer in public, even sometimes is unable to recognize the split part of herself.  One of the most rewarding experiences can be when these two selves meet, are introduced, and smile.

Last weekend, on Friday, I had a reward like that, one of those gem-evenings, beautiful, perfect, when all the universe smiled down on me. My book club had chosen my book for its discussion and I remain humbled and honored that so many of my friends came for the discussion. I learned more about my work than I could ever have imagined learning, and it has defnitely affected the way I have written since.

Of course, often, this smile at the split self sketches itself in fear at the recognition. How much does the writer reveal? In a world where the idea of privacy is so treasured because it is getting to be so rare, how much of the real person has the writer self laid bare for all to see?

One of the messages from that evening tells me that through my poems, I have revealed much of the way I mother, the way I respond to the world. However, I remember, while constructing the poems, I agonized endlessly over being too intensly personal, and labored over making them more universal, more impersonal. I look at them now, and maybe because I see the poems through the lens of my soul-searing revisions, I still think they are really not about ME, per say. Maybe my friends know me very well, and if this is the reason they see me so clearly in my written voices, then there is a great deal of comfort in that: at least I have not misrepresented essential truths to my friends!

One of my stories has just been accepted for an online journal's anthology, and it is a story I spent months over. This story follows the first person perspective of Sita, from the epic, Ramayana, a story I grew up with. I find myself worrying over my story: have I offended? Have I misrepresented her completely? What shall this story say about me?

I have also been working on a short story and I am trying very, very hard to make it more universal and less personal. But somehow, Oedipus-like, the faster I try to run from the real person, the more the writer self seems to run into it.

And it is boring to show what already exists and is so easily knowable. I like to write because it gives me the chance to explore alternate selves and realities, the heady, addictive world of "what if?". I strive to be that enigmatic writer whom people look at and say, "I can't believe SHE wrote this . . .", but alas! All these alternate selves seem to be nothing more than reflections of the same image, multiplied exponentially, as though through a couple of parallel mirrors.

I wish I had and had not heard Tutankhamun's trumpet. How different would I have been? How different my agonies? How would it feel to straddle both possiblities of hearing and not hearing?

But then I think of Odysseus, tied to masts, the Siren Song resounding through him. Does he agonize over the Song's influence? Does he wish he had chosen the safety of wax for his ears? We all are subject to our single natures, and our stories, then, are bound to tell of our real selves, the ones we often refuse to recognize, the selves we leave behind on retinas once our ships pass, and these selves speak a universal language, true and recognizable, and this song resounds precisely because the story is personal.

Ease Over

A quarter of the year is past and with it, the break between quarters. I had so many plans for this week; most of those are still waiting for some more time off. It could be that my refrigerator died, demanding immediate attention and time. Maybe the unexpected exhaustion that swallowed up an afternoon was the reason. Maybe the projects I had chosen were too ambitious for a couple of days the break allowed. I don't know exactly what it was, but I see tomorrow morning striding too fast across to me and I do wish heartily for it to come a little slower.

I had wanted to watch the sun rise on the ocean, with my child, both of us sweetening the morning with muffins, something we haven't had time to do since she was in elementary school. Then I dreamed of twilights spent on the sand. I planned to begin the month dedicated to poetry, with a bang, two poems a day as long as the break lasted; I haven't written a line. I had promised myself a bribe of an entire season of Star Trek; I had to be content with one episode. This break had been the deadline for a quilt; I got in less than 20 stitches and it still awaits closure.

So here I stand, Janus-like, on the threshold of another quarter and I am afraid that this one will also stride away before I have a chance to glance back and take stock. This evening, then, warrants such a glance before I dismiss it as a loss.

This break did concede a few allowances. I have a clean, efficient refrigerator with no left-overs. I didn't have to forgo any of my yoga sessions, or my Friday morning garlands at the temple. I got to genuinely enjoy Holi this year, and so I am more attuned to the changing seasons and the year does not feel so bare or meaningless anymore. All the laundry is clean, even the daunting comforters and quilts. The evening spent at Relay for Life always feels like a gift and the march of the cancer survivors and their caretakers always shifts perspectives and I remain grateful for my life. Also, rare and unexpected was the evening I spent with my very, very good friend and my daughter, as we went for a play and really nice dinner.

So even though I didn't get to most projects, need a few more days to just catch my breath, and still have all this laundry to put away, the bell  has summoned and it is time to refresh the screens and fill up the gas tank. I shall remember the next break waiting at the end of the new quarter when I bow to the sun in the morning, as I pause atop the on-ramp, to ease into the busy lanes that lead to I-595.

Under the Green Wood Tree . . .

I have been watching television, I confess, when I should be doing worthier things, like grading or updating this blog! I apologize, but not too sincerely. You see, I have been watching a specific kind of television: the Indian channels, redolent with recognizable characters, lush landscapes, and colorful sets. But there is one other aspect of these serials that has me enthralled, their roots in folklore, tales and archetypes that one cannot dismiss as accidents flashing on peripheral vision.

I have found just the threads I've been looking for, to maybe embroider my stories with: vegetation. Like all other lore peculair to our species, Gujarati lore is rich with references to trees, flowers, creepers, grasses, leaves, twigs, bark, trunks, roots of trees. I find myself contemplating on those.

Street corners are defined by the all-too familiar Banyan, Peepul and Neem, with the coolest, kindest shades for the weary. Now close your eyes a bit, reader, to see the well in the shade, with its creaking pulley and fraying rope, fragrant with many tales; careful with those always-damp steps, though. No shaded well is complete without the serenly masticating bovine population, and the lazy buzz of meandering flies.

Now, reader, let your half-gaze wander up into the branches; that's where the stories live. Surely, it is the sigh of those dead lovers that moves the still afternoon air and worries those heart-shaped Peepul leaves, she the beloved daughter of the widow, he the traveling minstrel. That Neem bough is never still, as the spirit of the pot maker's youngest daughter-in-law laughs maliciously on it, and no wonder: her body was fished from the well's depths and no one quite knows what hour of the moonless night pounced on her. These aerial roots of Grandfather Banyan sway in memory of those childhood lovers, still alive, but flung afar from their monsoon swings, neither capable of contentment or joy anymore.

These are silent, arborial songs of the history of our collective experiences. It seems logical, then, that they should find their way into the stories we tell of who we are, what shades define and shelter us, what trees gave us dreams of far-off places.

So I shall explore some ways of weaving these elements into my stories.

After all, it is important to keep one's wells freshened with cool water, in case some way farer from a distant land may taste it and warble out a familiar, forgotten tune to stir lost hearts and spirits.

Catharsis

This weekend has brought with it a relief that feels like a long dry season quenched with the coolest rain: I finished a short story.

This particular story has taken an extraordinarily long time to finish, even for me. The protagonist is a character from an epic and I have been struggling to figure out where and how to end it, how to begin it, and how to tell it. This is the common problem when the epics call out to be told, because the story governs the teller in a unique way.

First, the pre-made character comes with all the responses and attitudes of centuries. Then, the plot is sacrosanct, which can largely restrict character development. At the same time, the re-telling has to provide a perspective not included in the popular renditions of the epic, yet has to resonate with the reader.

I was worried about these issues when I realized that I'd have to write this story. I haven't been happy with this telling for many months now. I struggled with many issues: what parts of the plot to tell? How to tell without repeating the story that everyone knows so well? And most difficult: how to develop the character without changing her? Besides the fact that my character embodies too many archetypes to change her, I didn't WANT to change her in any essential way.

The story ended up being, cut, uncut, re-phrased, re-tried until I was ready to just forget about it. Characters were made ancillary, rounded, flattened, waltzed in and out of the first person perspective the story follows. I got quite dizzy and realised that this waltzing distracted from the intensity the narration mandated.Ultimately, things came together in the most natural manner, and the magic of the epic manifested itself with very little interference on my part.

I still got up last night out of sheer habit, trying to remember if I replaced a word with a better one, or if that comma belonged after a problematic phrase, or if an allusion should be removed.

I remember a similar condition from many years ago, when my child was an infant, and I found sleep more elusive than it was in graduate school! Last night, I kissed my story as it left my care to try out its luck in the world, and it frightens me as I realize that my child shall soon be ready to do the same, much sooner than I shall be ready for it.

I dedicate this entry to all stories that give us sleepless nights and take their own time over maturing, all stories that refuse the insistence on a predetermined time line and fight all fetters that would smother them with too much worrying, all stories that grant us so much relief and pride when they finally grow up, in spite of, or maybe because of all the mistakes, stumbling, and agonies.

Bubbles

It is a normal, predictable Thursday. The same plots are being re-enacted on the television; the cat is napping in the same posture as yesterday; the same kids rocket by the window on various wheels; the mail carrier greets me in the same way; my back hurts in the same place; and the same star shines first in the west.

But something IS different today: I have, in my hand, the final copy of my first book of poetry.
It has been a long Odyssey, and even though I have been expecting the shipment, nothing comes near the actual feeling of holding the copy in my hands.

I am not ecstatic and I don't expect my life to change in any way. This is not some kind of pinnacle or a point of no return. This is one of the clogs ticking and clanging in place, a recognition. There is a comfort when a part of the self gets affirmed, like when one confirms a part of how the world works. For instance, I'd never seen an entire row of blue jelly fish being washed on the sand like I did last weekend. But the sight reaffirmed what I should have known: of course, that's what it's supposed to look like!

We watched the jellyfish rolling in with the waves, trailing their laces behind them, quivering as they burrowed deeper in the sand, the ink swilling like a little ocean contained in a balloon. A little unsuspecting bubble is all that can be seen once they are settled. One would have to consider one's next step very carefully.

Today my joy feels like the bubble scattered on a sandy shore, one among many, constantly being worked on by the motions of the waves, sand, the busy rocking of the very earth as the cosmos scuttles around in the important business of living. I send my feelers out towards the horizon, the line that defines our very realities but doesn't need to exist. I try to catch a wave that has passed over me: a time when I first realised that holding my book would be a part of who I wanted to be.

I dedicate this entry to that moment when I lay on that swing in a house called Horizon, watched the clouds swilling across the sky, and as the swing swept the winds over the pages of the book on my lap, I wished and vowed that one day, I'd hold a book of my own in my hands.

The house called Horizon, along with its swing, is gone and cannot return.

So I stand at the edge of the ocean, my book in my hand, and fling my image onto the horizon, to reach that house, that swing, that girl, that sky.

Strain

I wasn't looking forward to going back to work today, even though I genuinely enjoy my job. It has been amazingly easy to lose days and hours, like misplaced erasers that no one misses. As I was walking to my Greek mythology class this morning, I remember shuddering inwardly at the prospect of ungraded work yawning at the mouth of the quarter, like Scylla's maw. The main reason for this unexplainable ennui is, of course, that my mind hasn't quite recovered from the fevers that had haunted my afternoons during the holiday season. Even on days I didn't have any demands, my rest hours would be spoiled with apprehension at the afternoon fevers; today, I was absolutely dreading the afternoon, even though the fevers are quite gone.

I was not excited, merely exhausted, a condition very unfamiliar for the beginning of the quarter, of the year.

As I clutched my pencil with renewed determination before stepping out of the elevator, a sudden music startled me. A student, who was sharing the elevator with me, had a cell phone and it had just gone off, trilling the forgotten strains from the old Star Trek, a mythology that invariably hovers over all my Greek myth classes with amazing frequency.

This, alone, is proof that the Universe is not a messy heap of unconnected masses, yoked together with violence (to borrow from Dr. Johnson) and accident; it is a wonderfully balanced entity, meticulous in arrangements and detailed designs.

The Star Trek strain righted the world on its axis: I was on my way to meeting an entire room full of people who loved the things I did, who are moved by the same stories that resonate with me, who, truth to tell, understand a part of me not available to my family (close as they are to me, closer than a heartbeat, even), and to very few friends, if any. In the classroom, time encloses us all in a bubble, from which we observe the milling humanity, like a species under a microscope, unconscious of our study, indifferent to our temporary removal from their midst. The concerns of leaking roofs, sick children, and gas prices await outside the doors. My students stared at me, enthralled by Orpheus' need to look behind, the secrets of what makes us human contained in that one restrained glance.

What are a few hours of grading to such magic?

The story is old and hackneyed, boring to tell and hear. But the miracle lies in recognizing the strains of the keys creaking to make puppets dance exuberantly, delightedly, to the twitches and whims of Universal strings.

Notes on a Mid-break Melting

If the test of the true princess is the pea underneath mattresses, this week, I'd have snagged myself a prince, if I could have garnered enough energy. The changing weather seems to have melted my bones, gelled around bone-sockets, and is leaking out of my nose and eyes. But this weather seems to have affected not just my skeletal framework but also the couches and beds that offer no comfort as they are filled with bolder-like peas and pins and needles from quilts I've not finished.

Actually, I must confess, I am relieved that the flu has finally descended. It has been lurking around desks, just out of eyesight, a haunting more uncomfortable because it lacked definition. I have also been relieved for this downing because it means that I don't have to worry about being a support structure; I can let go and dissolve for a bit. And as it happens with all sickness, time expands while the fever clutches. When I feel better, I am heartened to know that only a few hours have passed, not few days or weeks.

Since the fever is not serious, the melting bones feel more like an indulgence, and each sneeze feels like a catharsis of sorts. It has also lent a construct to days that are unfettered by any routines; I know the worst time of the day descends once the day gets tired, and so I have been able to sort out some bookcases; this is especially significant because bookcases in my house are worse than some people's closets. They hold many ghosts; many unfamiliar books that no one claims; many favorites that cause strife about whose shelf they should reside on; and so, like a lot of healthily repressed families, we tend to not address them. But since the only contenders I have right now are the supremely incurious cats, I have finally sorted out a few haunted corners of the house, like that bookcase behind my child's door.

For each day, I assign myself a few chores. A day I don't get to a chore or two is especially welcome. These days I feel like an inversion of a Sisyphus, who relishes every inch his rock descends as much as his doppelganger cherishes each inch the rock climbs. It is also important to remember that Odysseus relishes the feel of being in the midst of the ocean, even more than he does reaching an island.

It was a Wednesday when I'd last looked at a calender; I washed my hair today, so it must be a Sunday. The immortals must feel thus, moored serenely in the middle of a never-ending break, melting every so often, every so often sorting out a messy corner, watching absolute nonsense on an indifferent screen or page that tell the same stories and enjoying it all, always keeping within ken the dream of hectic days, with resolutely mandated wakings and dreamings, of constant heeding.

The weather has turned chilly again tonight, perfect for a melting. I shall vend towards the couch and dream of needles, peas, and books that don't belong anywhere.

Because . . .

The rain pounds on the cold windows, and for the first time in months, I am glad of it: rain brings changing weather, and I think I need it to. My grades are squared away, the madness of the most hectic quarter of the year is past, as is the holiday rush (for me). I look forward to a few quiet days of catching up with my inner self, something I've neglected this year. I have too many projects to actually appreciate a meaningful closure the end of December usually brings, but I do need some pockets of nothingness to adjust perspective.

Then again, I wonder at my need to justify this need: this blog-space affords one of the few indulgences I allow myself. I write here not because of deadlines, not because of monsters waking me up with itchy fingers, not because a theme needs more development or address, not because of any reason, just because . . . .

My father used to hate this word, this because word, which, he believed, holds many long-drawn out syllables for the sole reason of bulkily packaging lame excuses. He had a special kind of steel reserved in his eyes for when this word turned up in any explanations for, oh, a variety of situations, like why the Geography homework was not done, or the reason for the Civics grade, or how a sibling's favored toy ended up broken.

I must confess, I have to make an extra effort when I see this word in student papers: it is a good enough word and should not be mistrusted so illogically. Sometimes, I say the word out loud, drawing out the long syllable longer, to listen to myself say it, haunted with the steel from my father's eyes. Sometimes, I wonder at the hubris lurking in that elongated word: it assumes to know the bigger picture, and promises to explain the reasons behind its arrangement. So it seems fair to consider it a promising portal between multiverses that forever contradict all others, cancel each other out, and simultaneously co-exist and overlap with each other.

The rains have paused for the hour; the cats are napping in their preferred caverns; my child is out of town; and the long afternoon is still for a spell. I shall try to use this stillness to find the center of my being.

As the afternoon sinks into the evening, I scatter events of the past four or five months on my table and try to understand how their edges fit together, to realise a bigger picture. I don't know yet how these events will arrange themselves, but I do know the last piece of that picture: it is because, a word that links random-seeming events to choices of the past, to horizons of possibility, like all links, forged in steel, a word that holds a long breath in its chest that shall articulate itself as the afternoon exhales its explanations.

Chasing Closures

It seems the planets have again changed their paths and are messing up my horizons. It could be the weather that has me so off kilter. The days are really hot, but evenings come fast and dawns are lazy in rising; I am trapped on a glassy ocean in the Ancient Mariner's Rime :"The sun's rim dips, the stars rush out/ at one stride comes the dark!" The tickle in the back of my throat confirms the changing year. Last weekend when I happened to look up in the sky, the silent, rolling constellations veritably glared down at me and I hastily lowered my gaze, caught staring.

It is the season of long stories for the long nights, and it seems my stories are not immune to this tendency of stretching out.

I have been working on a set of stories for a few months and I am happy with none of them. The one that I thought was easier to work with refuses to end. I'd started it as a prospective submission for a short story of about three to four pages (the standard 2000 words), but this one is over ten pages and like the endless night, it sits jealously.

But I am loathe to give it up since working on it somehow comforts me. It seems to have taken up the vigilant post of my never-ending quilt.

The story is a first person perspective and I feel already immersed in the persona. The topography of my character's garden is more recognizable than my living room, and I find myself resenting having to clear up the laundry and sort away the dishwasher. My character's face feels more mine than the scowling brows and down turned mouth staring back at me from my mirror. I admire her tenacity, her strength of will, her ability to keep her head in midst of unimaginable circumstances, and I come up short, with my anxieties, panic, and frustrations over the trivial realities I can't seem to get a handle on, that are protean at best. My character has another great advantage over me: everyone knows her story and how it ends. I have so many alternate futures and horrifying prospects that seem as viable as any other possibility I can imagine. Somehow, these things make her more alive, more believable than I. I seem to be a faded out, insubstantial shadow of my character, and often wish she'd take over my life completely as she seems so much more able to handle all that is demanded of her with aplomb and dignity.

If she weren't so admirable, I'd envy her! But truthfully, I don't. I wish she could, in fact, step out and help me bear the fardels my particular flesh seems heir to. And I shall miss her when my story is done; re-reading the same story (knowing it has been finished once) is not the same. It feels false and essentially wrong, even narcissistic, like trying to seek the magic of a first love in subsequent affairs.

So here is my plan. I shall not let this story end until the holidays (mine and everyone else's) are over. When the year finally falls, I shall wrap myself up in my story and let it heal and warm my and inner core that the boring, eroding demands of my waking self regularly devour and corrupt.

For the Love of Music, the Lure of Tale

Once upon a time, in a far away land, I used to dance Kathak. We were told that the word, Kathak, literally meant Story Teller: Katha Kahey So Kathak (The one who tells the story, or Katha, is the Kathak). It is one of the classical dances of India, and I made a conscious choice of giving it up when my Literature Reading demanded all my attention and resources, a choice I recognized, even then, as logical, and heavy with regret.

Our Guruji would arrive at the height of our after-school naps; we'd be shaken out of slumber and made to get ready for the lesson. Of course, being kids, we really hated that. This rude awakening would be followed by Tatkar, the intense footwork exercises that get increasingly complex and convoluted as the training progresses. I didn't care for it then at all, even though it got easier for me to handle the complex rhythms and beats, because this exercise did not demand any emotional involvement from me. My favorite part came almost at the end of the lesson, when we would begin teasing a thumri or thaat. We'd try to channel Radha's unrequited, helpless love for the blue skinned god, or evoke Krishna as we'd tell of the mischief the god regularly got himself into, while not missing any beats or taal.

This is the fountainhead to which I trace my love for stories: the still afternoon air, a tale as old as memory, what Amit Chaudhary calls a cultural thumbprint.

As the training advanced, new strains were woven in, and we were introduced to the basic ragas, their, personalities, the diurnal characteristics associated with them, the diversions most suited to them. Yes, this does seem like characters, and they are characters! That was the reason I found them most attractive.

In fact, to date, my favorite type of painting is the Ragmaala paintings, in which each of these ragas is depicted anthropomorphically, along with the connecting raginis. I find them rather extraordinary: they express, perfectly, the exact emotions as well as the entire range of human feelings, and there are many schools of these Ragmala paintings! Just like human emotion, these ragas have no singular composer, and one doesn't associate individual artists with the paintings. There are, of course, stories about their origins, stories that connect these ragas to divinities. The ragas, in turn, tell these stories and more, and like the self-sustaining ancient deities, birth themselves.

They remove humans from temporal designations and introduce them to their feelings; for a lover of stories, nothing could be more perfect!

I am thinking of this world I deliberately turned my face away from, since I just finished Amit Chaudhary's The Immortals, and he so faithfully depicts this denied world. I must confess to more than a twinge of regret today, and these forgotten notes suddenly stand out in relief in the Hindi movie songs I am so addicted to, almost admonishing me for not recognizing them earlier.

But then I remind myself that the music is still within me, very much a part of my day, and I have given up nothing. After all, Katha kahey so kathak, and I am told I tell stories very well, like a true Kathak. Of all the compliments I receive from my classrooms, this one is the most meaningful to me.

The new Quarter begins today; I think I shall begin it with the story of Orpheus, my paean to the gods of music.

Et Tu?

Frankly, I feel betrayed by the one entity I most rely on: my body. Actually, let me re-phrase that. Today, I've realised to what extent my body has been betraying me for the past few years.

I have always believed that the body is a summation of the balance between mind and spirit; that good health reflects this balance, and is a conscious choice; that I would know if something were wrong with me, better than any doctor.

I had not realised how slowly it all seeps away, without one's notice, when one is caught up in the time-consuming business of living. It happens very discreetly and the little negligible things go first, all choices, hour by ticking hour.

My eyes felt too tired or blurred to quilt; I blamed this on the extended time I've been spending with the electronic media, especially lately. So I decided to take a little break and chose to read instead. My feet swelled up and ached; I blamed this on the increased lecture time as I've just re-gutted my class structure to include more instruction. My fingers hurt; and again, I blamed the extra typing I've been doing. Predictibly, my eyes itched, watered, and refused to even look at the words dancing before me; I blamed the computer screen I spend the day staring at. I found myself tired at mid-morning. Admittedly, I've never been overly industrious, but I noticed I'd been napping a great deal lately.

It took an outsider, a doctor, to force me to take stock: that the pallor of my skin was not due to my being out of sunlight; that I needed outside help to re-balance the humors that make up my being; that my age is not advanced enough for me to plead it as an excuse.

This is, at this point, thankfully fixable with a little white iron pill, staring innocently up at me, tiny enough to be lost in the folds of my palm. It is humbling to think that that mote holds the balance of my being.

The worst of all is the deep betrayal I have felt from my body. I now believe it has a separate consciousness all of its own, and that my own intelligence and care are not enough to sustain it. This entity I reside in has lately cheated me out of hours of quilting, denied me poetry I could have made, even books I could have read, and stairs I could have climbed.

After a very, very long time, I've finished four books in five days, completed my syllabi for the quarter that begins on Monday, watched an entire season of Deep Space 9, and stayed up till 1am without paying the price for it the following day. Tomorrow, I look forward to some quilting and more reading, without feeling dizzy with fatigue at the mere thought of it.

This entry is directed to my body, which, I hope reads this somehow, and realises the hurt it has visited upon me by lying and cheating in this manner. I hope it feels chastised enough to promise not to try such shenanigans any more.

After all, we have miles to go before we can be safely out of these woods; I shall need strong eyes to tell a true light from mirages and bog fires, solid fingers to firmly clasp the walking stick, and strong limbs for definite purchase.

The Service Of Waiting

A large part of being a Theatre Mom involves waiting, finding a place to wait comfortably, trying to get comfortable with being seen waiting, and convincing oneself that the busy work puttered away at while waiting has been a meaningful, productive exercise.

This is not all, however. One must prepare one's home to wait until its inhabitants return: dinner must be thought of, feline bowls refreshed and refilled, waiting lamps lit before hurrying away with all the implements (books, laptop, board games) that could ease the waiting. Upon return, one spends yet more time switching off wait-lights, lighting home-lamps, conversing with felines lest they should imagine themselves abandoned. Then the day needs to be wound up and alarms set to ensure that the waiting appointment on the morrow not be missed.

I am proud to say, I am quite the expert at this. Ask me about waiting spots anywhere in the tri-county area and I can probably point you to the most conveniently placed Panera Bread Company, the nearest Starbucks that plays the muzak most conducive to a Scrabble or Chess game, the neighborhood Barnes and Noble with the best spaced outlets for laptop plug-ins, away from the insulting bustle of the cafe and families rushing about, obviously not waiting.

The most difficult aspect to conquer in this is to get comfortable with being seen waiting. The servers at Panera Bread or French Bakery perambulate around one's chosen seat, with studied casualness or busyness. One must ignore all curious looks and concentrate very hard on pretending to not exist, on being invisible; idlers and loiterers are not kindly thought of. I have an entire wardrobe of clothing that renders me invisible, jeans and t-shirts of indeterminate grey-beige that the eye just skips over without registering any presence. Earrings, lip glosses, interesting handbags are to be avoided at all cost; if one's lips get dry, frequent refills of water in non-decrepit plastic cups are recommended as best recourse. Care must be taken that the books accompanying she-who-waits must be checked out from public libraries, preferably covered in monochromatic bindings or clear plastic that catches the most shy glare from the mutated lighting, magnifying it, making the title indistinguishable and unreadable.This deters conversation. One definitely does not want to converse, lest one be discovered "just waiting" and rendered irretrievably, incurably not-cool.

I will concede, Reader, that had it not been for these waiting hours, I'd not have graded, read, or played Scrabble as much as I have, and for that, I am grateful. There is something liberating about the knowledge that no trips to the grocery store make sense, since it'd be hours before the milk and frozen vegetables would find their way to their shelves in refrigerator & freezer. The public libraries, undoubtedly in pre-meditated malice, are 40 minutes away, making a round trip meaningless. So this section of the day, evening, morning is best resigned to timid waiting.

Don't get me wrong; I do not resent this. The week, hours, chores, obligations that surround this waiting often frustrate me with their insistent, meaningless necessity. The waiting provides me with a promised sanctuary of undisturbed, if forced, reflection, more like an oasis than a stranding. There are times, like today, when I have rushed around, conscious of and looking forward to the waiting promised at the end of the day. I also know that at the end of weeks of waiting, I shall be treated to a really enjoyable performance, with the added bonus of seeing my child in her element, while I get to gasp, giggle, applaud, and congratulate. There can be no greater reward for a parent.

I shall remember when time's winged chariot draws near, and my daughter shall fly away from any need of my waiting. I shall look back on these hours with fondness, and remember that it was not all rushing and busyness, that I cherished the waiting as much as the applause, the drive, the rushed meals, the littered laundry, and backpacks on the floor to trip over, as I ran around and after her.

The greatest service I am doing by waiting, then, is to my future self from whom this waiting shall be taken away. Then, I shall glance upon that inward eye and consider how my light is spent.

A Matter of Death and Life

The past weekend has been a roller-coaster, and surviving it still makes me dizzy. The wise maintain that the actual business of living may take only a few minutes, but that's time enough to reel through the entire stretch of emotions our species is subject to, and this past weekend has proved this wisdom indubitably. I cannot remember another time when the simultaneous immensity of life and death has dawned on me to this extent.

It began with a chance remark from an old friend expressing desolation at the sudden death of another friend. I still am unable to believe it: the friend who has passed away was not sick, not much older than I, and the unexpected nature of her passing has left confusion, disbelief, and fear in its wake. The memorial service was very touching, and her bereaved family deported themselves with admirable grace and dignity. However, as I stood in that crowded room, brimming with mourners, I could see most of us wore a dazed look, as though we were actors forced into an unrehearsed scene, in a world where we don't speak the language fluently. I could not believe that the service would ever end, until she'd walk in, setting the tilted world aright; I could believe less that after it ended, a little hour, long eternities later, we did something completely ordinary, and drove home, stopping for gas on the way.

Devastating as this experience was, the weekend was not over, and the roller coaster ride was only half way done. The next morning, I got a phone call from Des: the youngest among us had just decided on a life-partner, and the family was buzzing with excitement and joy on facebook! Everybody had an opinion about when the wedding should be, who'd attend it, where they'd stay, what websites would have the best fare, and inexorably, the wheel of time trundled on, uncaring of its effect on its riders. We all look forward to a joyful expansion of our tribe, and we can't wait to welcome our new relatives we haven't yet met. The possibilities shine in our imagination, of the inevitable laughter, celebration, and reaffirmation all beginnings promise.

I know time, routine, and new concerns shall dull the lessons this weekend has brought home so dramatically to me, but I hope this entry shall serve as an indelible reminder of keenly, intimately experiencing joy and sorrow within the span of a couple of days.

I also know I shall need to perch at the edge of the ocean and land to actually evaluate and imbibe the inexplicable insanity, to turn it into some hard nugget of usable matter. The only lesson I can realise through today's haze of emotional exhaustion, is that neither life, nor death await; in the end, one is left at the edge of a precipice, given a moment to feel, understand, and internalise the familiar behind, the unknown vastness before and beyond, and then either pulled back or pushed forward, because no space may remain still or stagnant for longer than a moment.

Festive

August has begun, and with it, the season of festivals. This month began with a wonderful, unexpected treat. Last weekend, we saw a wonderful film celebrating women artists and their ability to juggle family and other obligations with their urge to create; what better way to celebrate creation than thus?

This was made more meaningful because I could attend this function bracketed by the two generations that have defined me, my mother and my daughter. This event was attended by a group of artists and the treat was the discussions that accompanied this event.

A central problem sounded by the film that especially resonated with me, was the general assumption that women feel that they have to give up motherhood to be creative. It is true that I choose my daughter's needs over my need to write and this does cause a great deal of frustration for me, spilling over into other parts of our life. I would, undeniably, love to have more "me-time" and spend days, mornings, nights to just let my fingers have their will with the blank screen. However, a greater truth is that my motherhood has been responsible for every creative impulse I enjoy. I would have been a really hollow, empty shell had my relationship with my daughter not enriched me deeply.

Readying oneself for the festive season means finding one's centre, steadying one's inner core, and clarifying one's vision of self. This event adjusted my focus, priorities, reminded me of the reason why I am.

The film also pointed out the inevitable connection between women's routines and house work. In spite of resenting housework, I must confess to the rightness of it, the necessity for it, realize domestic chores as expressions of the nesting instinct that defines women's realities.

This afternoon has been a wonderful way to begin the festive season. I find that I look forward to the holidays, in spite of being so far from the building excitement that would be brightening up the long evenings in des. Comforted in my most creative relationship, I have bought rakhis for my brothers and nephews, to further affirm my relationship within the family, and shop for rakhi hampers with a genuine enjoyment. I hope to celebrate the birth of one of my favorite gods this Janmashtmi, and bid a celebratory farewell to the god of beginnings this Ganesh Chaturti. I shall dance with the goddess this Navratri, and plan out the illuminations, enjoy fireworks, and teach my fingers to find creative expression in decorating my thresholds with rangoli this Diwali.

As the monsoon clatters window panes, the winds sing a prothalmion of plenty and fertility, and Demeter begins to ready her daughter for her husband's house, it is difficult to resist the hysteria, affirmation, nostalgia, and unreasonable joy that is the music of the season.

The un-named protagonist of "Mother Holle" shakes the bed till it snows, in full understanding of the cosmic import of her domestic chores, heralding in Autumn festivities, lighting home lamps to celebrate and welcome.

Ravelled Sleeve of Care

The ancient Greeks housed Hypnos, the god of sleep, very logically in the Underworld. If sleep were to take concrete form, it would be heavy like iron and subject to gravity twice as much as iron. In likeness of death, it drags the body down, forces forgetfulness, and defines the state of being awake. I have come to appreciate how much sleep rounds up our waking realities, since of late, I am one of the cursed whom night-sleep eludes.

This shift in my sleep patterns seems seasonal. There is something debilitating about the heat that smothers in the monsoon. The still, wet air squats stubbornly in the middle of the day. There is no way around it; it forces helpless victims to get horizontal, unable to resist weighted eyelids, to seep lower and lower down to the very Underworld. The god often reaches out his heavy hand and once it clutches, the eyes surrender.

Night brings no relief from this heat; only Hypnos abandons the red-eyed, sweating victim to the book piles on her bedside table. The air refuses to move, spreading such preternatural stillness, that whirring and sighing of fans becomes necessary noise.

My friends have no sympathy for my condition and tell me in an exasperated voice to switch on the air, for goodness' sake!

However, air conditioning aggravates this condition instead of offering relief. Imagine the stale air circulating through one's living space, stinking of forgotten dust trapped in unreachable crevices, moving over dead insect bodies in vents, through shoe-racks and hampers with unwashed laundry, chilling awkward pockets of rooms, shrouding the house in a false cool that clenches teeth, grates on inner throat linings, swells sinuses, blocks ears, parches the body. Water desperately gulped down also tastes dusty, reminding me of long summer afternoons at my grandparents' old family house, when my grandmother gave us water in glasses she forgot to rinse from their long slumber in glass cabinets during the school year.

So being in air-conditioned spaces makes me feel like a condemned slave trapped in an undisturbed tomb; I must confess my acute discomfort of that musty air.

Besides, I love the fragrance of night blooming flowers outside the window, one of the many gifts this season brings. I had fantasies of drifting off to sleep, borne on that fragrance in gentle rain, when I planted those shrubs. Now, even though I can't sleep when the night jasmine blooms, I seek a little comfort in its keeping me company.

During the day, however, I obsess over sleep. I evoke vivid dreams, try to capture cities, houses, streets, rooms from dream-scapes, and remember to think of them in vain efforts to induce sleep. I spend pointless minutes calculating how many hours' sleep I must catch up with; then, I further slice up leftover time into neat sections, allocating a slice of time to each day. Of course, this adding, subtracting, factoring is to no avail; but counting is a knee-jerk reaction of any mind deprived of night-sleep.

I've tended, then, to snatch naps, in afternoons, mornings, while stirring coffee, watching a TV show, in the elevator, at traffic lights. My family says I've been blessed with this ability to cat nap, and I must say that while these naps don't quite knit up my ravelled sleeve of care, they do offer some respite. Of course, there are times when I can't always tell if I am asleep or awake, but then there is something comforting and restful about blending of these two states, about blurred horizons, as though no distinction is demanded, no clarity made imperative.

Despite everyone thinking me blessed with them, my naps are an acquired skill, one of the many lessons my cats have taught me. I've often stumbled upon sleeping cat bodies in various positions, in unlikely places and the total concentration and commitment to the nap are fascinating to study. Nothing can rouse the napping feline, not the squeaking ducklings outside the window, not the rattle of their treat bag, not opening of cans, nothing. But once awake, the cat is all there, needing no time to transition between states, clear in demands, eyes shining with enviable awareness of his own intelligence and resolve.

I am still learning. I seem to have quite mastered the art of choosing to fall into sudden naps. If only I could also master the art of immediate, complete wakefulness, so the horizon between sleep and not-asleep is more than an illusion!

Conquering Variables Or How I Spent the Summer

Yes, I have variables on my mind. Success could be defined as the ability to constantly factor in variables without losing one's cool while continuing to solve equations. These past few weeks have tossed up many variables that I must have conquered, because here I am, at the threshold of yet another quarter, contemplating the first week as it looms large and near.

For one thing, I refused to plan anything. I had no international trips and because of all the globe hopping of the past year, I was looking forward to a decent chunk of doing nothing.

But then what constitutes doing nothing, a phrase pregnant with promise and contradictions? This doing nothing has meant that I experience things I'd never thought I would, because I never think of them at all.

The beach was cold, wet, and dark, the sand packed so hard it hardly felt grainy. It was the day after 4th of July and we had no reason to be there. The sensibles had abandoned the beach to stay in to recover from the holiday, to watch movies, to play board games, to choose to turn away from the busy rains that had plagued us through the weekend. An isolated group of young hopefuls, noisy in their insistence on fun, ignored us as they gamboled away, flashes of their cameras lighting up their deliberate screeches.

It felt like it was time to go, but when I called my child to return from her walk, she said she was watching a huge turtle, and please could she stay?

Recognizing a variable of the best kind, I hurried, skirting around the many turle nests, across the sand to where I could sense her. It was too dark to see any shapes clearly, but not too dark to see the amazement on my child's face as we watched the dark, looming shape drag itself up the beach and begin digging.

I had seen this happen on youtube videos, represented on number plates across town, but never been treated to the real thing, an immense, incredible sight that dried up to my eyes as they forgot to blink. No, reader, we did not approach the turtle or take pictures of her, which would have been a profanation. Sometimes, the Universe rewards without any effort or reason exchanged for such reward, and it is a humbling experience.

Variables do not resemble each other, though, I found when I was treated to tubing for the first time. I had never quite understood what that sport entailed until I saw people floating down a river in inflated rubber tires.

It was the perfect day: not too sunny, not too cloudy and when we were dropped by bus at the top of the hill, I thought I was prepared; it looked simple enough. Vishnu-like, one just floated. However, like doing nothing, this was an action verb. There were tree-trunks and rocks one had to navigate through, and some it was impossible to avoid. That's when I realised I was faced with an unseen variable I would be forced to factor in: the moss and algae on the rocks which formed the only Terra Firma in the fast moving creek.

This has been an experience that has been fun and humbling in equal parts. The slippery creek bottom, my unconquered variable, reminds me that I cannot, ever, be confident that my feet shall find purchase in what seems like popular sport. I have to be prepared to get stuck, to keep up my upper body strength that I may be able to steer clear of the open jaws of still rocks under the bubbling, rushing water, giggling like a heady kid in the next tube. I have to be wary of insects that might suddenly show themselves, attack me from shady branches, swaying gently in the wind. And the only place I can actually close my eyes is the center of the stream, on deeper waters, the sun beating down and reducing all variables, relying on being visible to my fellow floaters for my safety.

I have a whole new respect for Vishnu, now that I realise exactly how much of what has to be factored into just floating and dreaming. I also know now why Vishnu is the Protector.

Sometimes, the very business of drawing breath takes one's breath away and at this moment, I am most reminded of the gratitude and divine quenching that overwhelmed every molecule of my being when I galloped down the first glass of icy water after I returned from the beach, after I emerged from the tube, as I write this and cause words to appear because I have navigated through the amazing variables and willed it so.