Randomly rambling...

My DD never takes 'no' for an answer. Neither is she ready to see that maybe, just maybe I have a point in saying that sometimes things become too much, or that a day has only 24 hours in it. Her beaver-ish solution to everything is - we can find a way around it; we can do everything, we just need to rearrange them...and she then proceeds to work out these crazily impossible rearrangements that strangely do work!!!

Randomly thinking...

For those of us who have children, we need to leave a tiny space open for them to crawl back into and into which we can wriggle, when we are at war with them....for all their bravado and ours, can we really live without our kids, and if we cannot be their sheet anchor, then who will? So while neither side is ready to back down, or back off, there is always that little space, that little retreat...

Rambling in the rain...

Yesterday I saw this huge, massive Gul Mohur tree lying on its side, uprooted by the strong winds that were blowing. Just a few weeks back, the same tree was gorgeously bedecked in green, orange and gold...Today it was lying wounded and dying...

My mind went back to the eucalyptus trees in Lovedale. Tall, slender, almost frail-looking, but no wind, or tempest or hurricane could uproot them...

Sadly, the Gul Mohur had just not sent its roots deep down into the soil - so there was nothing to hold it firmly when the storm came. The eucalyptus sends its roots deep, deep into the soil. No matter they grow on mountain sides, or in unfriendly places...Their roots go deep down. And they are ready for any hurricane...

Are we spreading our roots of living only superficially, or are they growing deep into depths and being of our souls, seeking to find their succor in the spirituality of living?

Randomly thinking...

about relationships - most often, to my mind, our various relationships are blurred. Whether it is the vegetable shop, or the friendly neighborhood shop, or the bakery, or the laundry, or the beauty parlor, or wherever, one forms connections, or relationships, with the people who run these. They know what you cook; what your shopping list looks like, or should look like, and often remind you that you need this or that; how you want your clothes done; your usual requests in the beauty parlor and who you would particularly like to groom you...but what about them? I wonder if we even know they exist and have lives of their own...

Consider those who work for us and with us - how clear are the boundaries of their lives to us?

It is the same with our other relationships -  friends, close family and extended family... do we have blinkers on?...or do we have selective vision?

One thing I've learnt just now is how clearly death throws life and relationships into relief...

'milling ramblings...

My DD (Darling Daughter) has one recipe for dealing with stress...

Stop all work

Take a deep breath

Either fix yourself a kofe (as she spells it), or get something to munch

Leisurely sip/munch 

Look at the work and see if it can be broken up into bits. If it can, then go bit by bit, and if it can't then take it point by point

If you feel the stress coming on again - STOP -

Lie down, listen to music or listen to the silence. Sleep if you can. 

Get up and start over...

Now mind you when there is a deadline screaming out from the computer, this seems to be a stress-levels-increasor.......but in fact, it actually works!!!!!!

My DD is, as usual, right!!!

The rains are here...

The first rains always create 2 powerful images in my mind's eye -

Crocuses - growing wild all over the garden, and especially around the roots of trees where they were planted.

and the gorgeous Dove orchid - there'd be hundreds of little doves growing out of the coconut shell holder clasped onto the mango tree in the yard.




 'Good Morning World!

Imagery

In the words Mom and Dad lie the little child you will always be for them...

Randomly thinking...

of the word 'release'. If we don't, for some reason or the other, release the past, it continues to have a hold on us. Thing is that whether that hold is good or bad or sad or ugly or happy or beautiful, it has an effect on the present. But if we are to move on, then we have to resolve and release the past...think, good memories make you want to look back, and bad/sad memories make you want to forget. Either way, they dampen the present. But memories are just that - memories. Draw lessons from them, or enjoy them, but leave them where they belong - to ,and in, the past...

Randomly thinking...

We should never let anyone make us believe that we are the custodians of their happiness - nor let them put the onus of making them happy on us - nor pass the blame for their unhappiness on us...for such people are great at making us feel guilty for our happiness...

We are responsible for what we create...

Thinking about the journey that life is...

I couldn't get it till this realization dawned on me - being teachers, one of our main chores was correction of books/scripts of children's work. There was one teacher, who used to rush through her work so that she could finish quickly and have time left over before the deadline. Her reasoning was that it was only after her work was over that she would be able to rest, relax, read and catch up on the things that she wanted to do. The rest of us would go through our work slowly, talking, joking, reading, sharing, and generally happily doing all that we had to in our professional and personal lives. But, we would meet our deadline.

However, invariably what happened was that since this lady completed her work before us, she found that a) we were on a different plane altogether, and b) the VP would give her some other work to do - please can you do this, seeing as you've finished your work...or....please can you help her, she's new....or.....please can you organize this for us.... . And so, this poor lady would end up doing all kinds of extra work and eventually have no time for relaxation at all, or do the things she'd wanted to do...

We, on the other hand, would submit our work when it was time, and be as relaxed at the end as we were at the beginning...

Seems to me life is something like this - there is no one point in time that we can mark out saying, yes, we've finished our chores and now it is relaxation/celebration time...looks more like we have to make a celebration of every day along with and in spite of our chores...there is no time after chores...

Randomly rambling...

It is important to keep a picture of yourself taken at a time when you were your own true unspoilt, undiluted self, just to remind you of who you were. Life causes lots of changes to happen, depending on whether the experiences were positive or negative (putting it broadly). It could be that you were living someone else's dream or someone else's life, because you were not sure about your own, and you had not the time/means/energy to see where you were going, or, maybe you believed that that was the right path, and suppressed all feelings that popped up telling you that it was not...

All these leave films over the real you, till one day something happens to bring you up short and you find yourself staring at the question: Is this what I've become? 

So whether you have a few years left of life, or many, it would be time now to do something about getting yourself back, enriched no doubt, but recognizably, and distinctly you...

A new thought on roots...

In a conversation I had recently with a close friend, this topic of roots came up again. And again I wondered at the obsession with roots...

Roots are what go deep into the soil  - any soil, any place -  and hold the plant firm against all the vagaries of nature.

Many of us are immigrants - to another locality, city/town/village, country. Now when we go to where we have decided to make our home, we need to put down roots firm enough to deal with the vagaries of life.

Roots of plants or humans, in effect need something big - bigger than itself/themselves to get rooted into, and in which they can grow.

Roots need large areas of earth into which they can go deep down and find succor for the plant. They also need to  spread out deep in the earth, in order to keep the plant firmly standing. Of course the part of the plant that is above the earth also has its work cut out for it, but without the security of firm roots, the plant will just droop and fall.

So too humans. Humans also need something larger than themselves in which they can be rooted. This would be in the form of a belief system - religious or secular, conventional or created. A belief system is the only thing that would keep humans grounded and rooted, and which would prevent them from falling/collapsing/disaster. While daily life goes on, and we work to find our place in the sun, it is our belief system that we draw on for succor and strength.

I've deliberately not mentioned culture, simply because as immigrants while we have our own culture, gradually the culture of the place we are in mixes itself into ours and, till we sort ourselves out, there is a lot of confusion and pain. With a belief system, there is no discrepancy. It is something you live by - you are not influencing anyone, and it prevents you from being influenced by every wind that blows, or every storm that occurs.

Randomly thinking...

of something my cousin told me a few days back...

My cousin is a lady who may not be knowledgeable about a whole lot of things, but is very cultured and has a fount of native wisdom. One day when we were sitting together and talking about the way a very quiet person we knew had revolted against her circumstances, she said there was a saying: How long can you stamp on, trample and kick even the mildest of snakes, that is anyway relegated to crawling on the ground? One day it is sure to raise its head and sting...

Since my DD had some major issues about the snake bit - I thought I'd share the explanation -  you cannot go on and on kicking, trampling and stamping on a person (just because the person is quiet, or good-natured, or genuinely selfless, or can take a lot, or poor, or downtrodden), for one day, that person will stand up for herself/himself...

Randomly rambling...

I do not agree with what you have to say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it.
Voltaire

Noble thought but have you noticed that the people who generally quote this are the ones who even while defending 'to the death your right' to differ will try to put you down, or give examples to show how wrong you are anyway, and how right they are, anyway. How many people can actually take another person's differing point of view with grace, and then leave it be and not feel the need to either defend their point of view, or point out the errors in yours?

A flash...

I heard "'Ignorance is bliss' you know" many times...as if that one phrase condoned the action - but this one time it suddenly struck me--for who? for who was the bliss? because for the people who had to put up with the results of ignorance, or who had to pick up the pieces after ignorance happened, or those who were inconvenienced or discomfited or damaged or even hurt in some way or another because of ignorance...

                           .....ignorance was far - far - far - far from bliss....

Cheers!

Come pause with me a minute and celebrate my 200th post...

Another 'milling rambling...

I'd read somewhere that while being happy is good, it is the grasping for happiness that brings unhappiness and various problems in its wake. It struck me that maybe instead of asking for happiness, we should ask for strength to let go - let go of things that bring happiness as well as things that bring grief...enjoy the moment, or deal with the moment, and then let the moment go - never ever ever roost on the moment...for, while happiness changes to unhappiness, grief can turn to destruction...

'milling ramblings...

Childhood and young adulthood memories, reminiscences of your DD growing up, and recollections of a few other special times form an oasis where the barren soul can go for comfort and succor, feel refreshed, maybe even rejuvenated, enough to face a new day...feel courageous to face whatever life offers, knowing that at the end of the day, there is always the refuge of the oasis to seek shelter in...

A case about our DDs...

It was one of those serendipitous instances when 3 of us friends referred to our DDs (Darling Daughters) as people without whom we would not be able to accomplish anything of value/importance/that meant a great deal to us. Besides the absolute fact that DDs gave meaning to our lives, DDs were the reason for us to enjoy life... . In a kind of strange volte-face, we realized that we were more dependent on them, than they were on us in certain crucial areas...We needed them to put the iron into our spine...we needed them to rest our weary heads on...we needed them to spike our lives...what's more, these were people we could blindly and surely rely on ALWAYS! ALWAYS!! ALWAYS!!!

Cheers to all the DDs in the world...

Sharing words that comfort me...

Whenever anything happens that seems contrary to what I feel should be...these words pop into my heart - What is happening is as it should happen - now if I accept this, no matter how dreadful, or frightening, or discouraging, or disheartening, or whatever the emotion may be... , I instantly feel better. If I flutter against these words, I end up getting entangled in a mess that results only in disaster...

At all times we have to aim not to disturb the underlying harmony of our lives, or even cause it to be temporarily hidden.

A sight to remember...

The day I was flying back home from Madras, after a very tumultuous time, I saw something that I can only think was sent just for me....(and of course, others who were in the same state of mind and heart as me)...

There were masses of clouds - some dark, and some white - part of the world looked stormy, and part of it was bathed in sunlight - and all of a sudden, there appeared this most perfect rainbow...no diffusion - just clear bands of all the colors...

There was an affirmation and a reassurance in that sight...

It was strength-giving, and confidence-to-face-the-future boosting...

It was a don't-give-up, don't-give-in, and be-clear-of-who-you-are-no-matter-rain-or-shine sign...

It was just what I needed to start the new chapter in my life...

An insight...

It takes death to make you realize that you have to live life on your terms...



Of course there has to be compassion....of course there has to be consideration.... and of course we are not islands... but you cannot barter away yourself, when very often the barter is for nothing in return, or worse - hurtful things in return...