Note to self

A poem by the great poet Tagore which has special meaning for me at this point in time.

  The Grasp of Your Hand 

 Let me not pray to be sheltered from dangers, but to be fearless in facing them. 
 Let me not beg for the stilling of my pain, but the heart to conquer it.
 Let me not crave in anxious fear to be saved, but hope for the patience to win my freedom. 
 Grant me that I may not be a coward, feeling Your mercy in my success alone;
Let me find the grasp of Your hand in my failure.

Being REAL

For once I overcame the fear of doing what I ‘should’ be doing and did what my heart told me to do. For once I overcame the need to be socially correct and please everyone and put on a smile on my face when all I wanted to do was hide in a corner and feel the rawness in my heart. For once I expressed myself and did not give excuses, simply said what it is that matter to me. It felt good. For once my heart told me – ‘you listened’. This experience tells me how negligent I have been in being kind to myself. How long have I let my most essential self (my being) be unheard, unseen and unappreciated by me? It is meaningful to me that I was born on the day that is now referred to as the peace day. It’s meaningful to me because I believe in peace and I have always tried to find peace in my heart. Only lately I’m finding the courage to act on it because it means I need to break habits, displease people – most of all, it means being disapproved and not quite making people comfortable with my views and opinions. But, I have come to that point in life where I either embrace myself or kill myself (metaphorically of course). From this point onwards, I refuse to linger in the grey area of life for I have always longed to embrace the intricacies of my inner self and live life from a deep place. It was just that I was waiting for someone to give me permission, someone to say ‘It’s okay, be yourself, we still accept you”. At least now I know the problem. I am the problem. I get in my own way. How stupid is that. Ok let me stop with the self-criticism and just work on self-acceptance. Hopefully self-acceptance does not take another decade to achieve because I’m a bit slow – self ‘realisation’ took 30 years! Isn’t it true that first we need to create peace inside before we achieve world peace? This peace day, I make a promise to myself to be true, first to me and then to the world. Here’s to me – the real one that lost the away.

Ordinary Miracles

Even though it is a Monday, today feels just right for some reason. It’s funny how I can’t quite pin-point what it is that makes this day more agreeable to me. It must be the extra effort I put into folding up the three-week old laundry that was sitting around at 11.30pm last night. Why do unarranged laundry and dishes get to me so much? It must be how I perceive it as incompetence on my part. Perhaps it’s because Devan is a walking talking comedian now. He makes me laugh in incredible ways. Like when I’m putting him to bed and sing a lullaby he ends up trying to imitate me on the word ‘Putha’ (Son) and giggles. The way he runs around the house like someone is about to light the house on fire, his love of spoons, keys and cars; I mean all objects containing round things that look like wheels. The way his vocabulary is expanding though everything sounds the same like ‘Ba’ for bath and bus and button. The way he puts up a tantrum when the keys and spoons get confiscated and tries to make it an Oscar winning performance. When we drive off together in the morning, how he sings self-composed lyrics like ‘car-car, ba-ba’ in varying tones. Best of all how he knows to smile when I tell him that I love him. Although life is not perfect, life is good and full of ordinary miracles and I feel more than grateful. I feel humbled.

An excerpt from my journal, written on one melancholy winter's night. "Sometimes the truth is glaringly clear. It cannot get clearer than this, for it comes to you in your precious solitary moments. The truth is that we have no one else but ourselves to depend on. The truth is harsh, but it’s the truth. There really isn't anyone else who can heal our souls. This knowledge goes against our inner most desires -the desire to have another person that can save us. The truth is that no one hears us, no one sees us. Maybe there are a few. But they are few and far between. All my life I’ve waited to be saved from my own agony. Over the years I’ve realised that there is no escape. We must live with our anguish and learn to transform it because that’s the only way. The longer we live without learning this, the longer it hurts. And I’m tired of hurting."

Learning by living

Life has gotten out of control. The stories in my head have taken a life of their own. It’s time to write things down for the stories in my head are threatening to burst forth. For me, weekdays are like a battle ground. Getting out the door with a toddler in tow is the biggest accomplishment in a day for me. If I manage to get out the door without a racing pulse and a calm and collected baby who has been fed breakfast while sitting in one place - it is an exceptional day and I would feel like I’m on top of the world. But such days do not exist and I’m a person hardly in control of my own life. But there is one constant force in my life to give me much relief and that is my mother. Without my mother, I will not be who I am today and to realise this (I am ashamed to say) I had to become a mother myself. Every day that passes by now, I'm grateful for her for all her struggles and tears that we did not see. I can finally understand and ‘see’ her for who she truly is and has been for us. I can finally see where it is that she is giving from and with what intention and at what cost. All my life, I had taken my mother for granted for she has been a constant fountain of ‘giving’ and strength that was difficult to understand and get along with for her pain was always in the way of us becoming friends. Even in science when something is a constant, we tend to ignore it (with much relief) for we can count on it for not screwing us up by being a variable that behaves in unexpected ways. But to consider for a moment what it takes for a person to be a constant under all circumstances? That is humbling for what it takes is intentional self-sacrifice. It only took me 3 decades of life to figure this out. It’s unfortunate that we need to have to go through what another goes through to truly understand and know them at the most fundamental level. This makes me feel somewhat sad to know that our Sons will never truly understand us. A woman’s pain will only be her own to share with her own kind (in time); it will never precisely be known by men, especially men who matter to us the most and whose understanding of our pain mean everything to our emotional well-being. It makes me think that perhaps, nature is not perfect after all. Nothing is perfect.

Sometimes I find it difficult to get through a day. I feel not enough……I feel unappreciated… Stretched beyond my stretch- ability... Worn…Torn... Even broken.

There is an ache inside of me, deep inside. No matter how hard I try to put my finger on it, I can’t. I can’t locate the pain or the precise reason. I try to be okay with it. I try to sit with it. To do some work with it. I try to walk with it and try to let the autumn breeze and a stranger’s smile soothe it. But none of it works. The ache remains. I meet people, I talk to them. I smile and even manage to laugh at a joke and momentarily forget it. I manage to concentrate and get through some tasks that need to be done. But the ache persists…..I feel helpless. I want to stop it, I wish it didn’t exist.  But I realise that this ache is destined to stay with me forever. It feels that way. It is an ache that cannot be soothed for it is impossible to erase what causes me this ingrained pain. Well, at least not in this life time.  

After as much trying I can muster for today, I return to my desk to try to write my ache away.  By chance I reach into my jacket pocket and pull out an unexpected object – a blue, green and white striped tiny little sock : an achingly sweet reminder of my precious son with his boundless joy and energy and effortless love of THIS life. I lay the little sock in front of my key board and start to type. This little sock is my anchor to the best thing in my life right now.  It reminds me why I must live - and live happily.

All I really want

I want to be able to create something. Anything. I want to reach somebody inside their mind, in their heart and feel a connection. I want to be able to look at the world with a sparkle in my eye. I want all my smiles to reach my eyes. I want to be heard. Truly heard. I want to be handled with care and tenderness. I want to have conversations with no words but with expressions.  I want to write down every whimsical thing I feel. I want to be seen for who I am and not be affected by what you think. I want to know that another person is just like me. Vulnerable. Shy. A little confused. A little lonely. A little crazy. A little too sane and a little too critical.  I want to never forget the playfulness that I once had. I want to love life. I want to spread love. I want to be remembered. I want to be inspired. I want to inspire. I want to help somebody. Anybody. I want to make this world a little better. I want to laugh till my sides hurt. I want to be loved till I feel like I might cry. I want to have hope. I want to be a hero in my Son’s eyes and even if I fail in all I do, I want him to know that I loved him best.