Do unto others...

"Do unto others as you would have them do unto you"...
Sounds wise, pragmatic and even doable.

In fact, I have long used this as a guiding principle in determining my conduct with people. And still there have been times when this has led me to place of selfishness and bad choices - all completely unintentionally.

I have now realized that using ourselves as the standard for treating others is often a bad choice because it sets us up as some form of a moral rubric. Following this maxim has often led me to do things that I believe are right for me, not necessarily things that are right for the other person.

How would someone want to be told of a bad news - clearly in writing or rambling in person?
How would you like to deal with a bad memory or experience - bury it, live in it constantly, fight it constantly or succumb to it?
Would you rather vent in rage and move on or silently process it, forgive and forget?
What do you do with a wound? Dress it and wait for it heal, leave it open as a reminder of the things that went wrong or pick on it till you have a scar for your lifetime?
Do you console them? Do you mourn with them? Do you remind them of better days or do you offer them hope?
Do you talk them out and give them attention or do you give them space?
Different people react differently and need different things. When we do to them, what we would have them do unto us, we are taking the choice away from them. We are imposing our standards and our choices on someone else. We end up putting ourselves above their needs and that often leads us to making bad choices with the best of intentions.

What is best for you may not be the best for me... How then do we navigate this?
What does one do? How do you treat a person with the kindness and love they truly deserve? How do you give them what they truly need at the moment?

I don't quite have all the answers but the first step to identifying a solution is to find the problem, and in my mind that is the problem. Being a kind human being means being able to recognize what the person needs at that moment and to give them that - and nothing else.

If you know someone well enough, these choices might become easier and intuitive, if not, it might be best to just ask them. Because sometimes, all we want to do is be helpful and do our bit. But in the process, we may just end up becoming a part of the problem and not of the solution.

From nowhere to somewhere...

I was never quite fond of airports. 

They were always impersonal, artificial and aseptically clean of any and all human emotions. Despite my wanderlust and the fact that they were my portals to trips, vacations, exciting memories and wonderful life experiences; airports remained these strange places of transit, that I associated being somewhere and no where. 

They were always laced with a certain anxiety - of ticking clocks, uncertain time-zones, long queues, uncomfortable chairs, overpriced coffee and the likes. Somehow, the angst of parting from someone always weighed over the excitement of getting to some new place. And often times, the anxiety and excitement of getting to a new place left me in a state of limbo in the airport - a state of transit. I was never a frequent traveler and airports were associated with a state of weariness in my mind. A weariness that accompanies that frantic activity of packing up, finishing chores, meeting deadlines, making preparations and actually getting somewhere. 

Yes, I know. I am making even a vacation sound like a task - but the truth is that when one is doing everything, even the good things take a toll on you. 

And so airports were always these impersonal spaces where nothing good or horrible really happened. 

That was, of course till a year ago when airports started making their presence felt in my life. 

Now, I have some of my fondest memories in the aseptic corridors and halls of an airport. Of meeting the people I love, of falling into an unexpected embrace and never wanting to let go. What began with a personal story, one july morning in an airport, has grown into something unexpected. A friendship that seems to grow stronger with time. A relationship that seems to evolve with time. 

Airports have become imbued with unexpected meaning and memories. What after all is the meaning of driving 3 hours to meet someone for 1 hour at an airport? Irrationality reigns supreme in many of these moments and yet I have not regretted them. 

Memories of stories over cups of coffee. Memories of shared meals and laughter. All in those very same aseptic corridors. What used to be laced with memories of anxiety, tension and interminable waits to get some place, now feels like a place in itself. A place that has an existence of its own. A place that triggers emotions and memories - things I want to hold onto. 

Things I am in no hurry, whatsoever, to forget. 

It is amazing how places become so much more when we have memories associated with them. 

What is home?

What is a home?
A city? A place? A person? A feeling?

I have often wondered about this question trying to find an answer. I have searched for the meaning of 'home' as I moved across state and national borders, as I shared my space and lived alone, as I traveled and as I came back home. Home has been an evolving concept... always present and yet just out of reach of definition. 

Below is a song by Teitur, an artist from Faroe Islands on the subject of home... Listening to this song brought back that question all over again....

"Home is the sound of birds early in the morning
Home is a song I've always remembered
Home is the memory of my first day in school
Home is the books that I carry around
Home is an alley in a faraway town
Home is the places I’ve been and where I’d like to go
Home
I'm always gonna feel at home
No matter where I may roam
I'm always gonna find my way back home
No matter how far I’m gone
I’m always gonna feel this longing
No matter where I might stay
Home is a feather twirling in the air

Home is flowers in a windowsill
Home is all the things she said to me
Home is a photo I never threw away
Home is the smile on my face when I die
Home is the taste of an apple pie
I met a woman, she always lived in the same place
And she said home is where you’re born and raised
And I met a man, he sat looking out to the seaAnd he said home is where you want to be
I met a girl in some downtown bar
And she said I'll have whatever he's having
And I asked her how come we never met before?
And she said all my life I’ve been trying
to get a place of my ownI’m always gonna feel at home
No matter where I may roam
Always gonna find my way back home
No matter how far I’m gone
I'm always gonna feel this longing
No matter where I might stay"

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As someone who has moved around a decent bit - cities, places, buildings, houses have all felt like home at one time or another. But with time, the identity of a home has evolved into something more amorphous.

I realize now that 'home' for me was always about people. I felt at home when I found my people - be it in the middle of a book, an airport, a school or even at home. I have felt like an outsider in my own home at times; and I have felt comfortably at home in somebody else's kitchen. Its just a feeling - sometimes evoked by people, memories and visions of a time gone-by.

There are not many people who become a 'home' for me but thankfully there are a few...

In their tight embrace, with their lingering warmth and their comfort - they take me home.

They feel like home even though I haven't had too long to be familiar with the embrace. When I look back, we probably didn't fit in as well with our heads bumping and arms reaching... With time, we just fit better and better each time. With each embrace, I left a little bit of me left behind and I took a little bit of you. As we grew from strangers, to acquaintances, to friends - that comfort and feeling of home has stayed with me.
The embrace has been just as reassuring, just as comforting - right from that awkward first time.
In their arms, it was and still is like finding home. There is a sense of familiarity, of acceptance and even surrender. A sense of old camaraderie, a certain acceptance of the chipped paints and broken windows. I come to these embraces with that sense of acceptance. Its not perfect and I am not perfect.. but its perfect for me.
I miss those hugs that held me together in times when all I wanted was to fall apart.

That is home, I guess... a familiar place that comforts, protects and keeps you together.

Hoarding words...

Life has turned a corner over the past few months.

Not a lot has changed but a few things have.

People have been kinder and so much more generous. Even as people who are the closest to me have walked out of my life, some others have stepped in. Strangers have become friends. Estranged friends have found their way back effortlessly and have left me with kind words. My circle has grown and my world has billowed into something wider, brighter, happier (and clearer maybe).

Some other near strangers too have written in with kind words - words of encouragement, appreciation, empathy. A cynic would say they are but empty words, but to me these words mean a lot. 

They are the comfort I hold onto as things fall apart - around me, within me.

As months of work fail; As that sense of gloom and doom come knocking; as accusations fly and as anger surges - these are the words that pull me back from the brink. 

These are the words I save in a jar of thankfulness because I know I will need them.

So, like memories, I hoard words too because they hold the power in them to take me back to the magical moments. To the moments of  thoughtful kindness. To moments of unexpected pleasure. To the warmth of love and friendship. To genuine and generous compliments.

And so I hoard words...


PS - For all of those wonderfully generous people who have read my ramblings and have send me their thoughts and thoughtful words of appreciation - Thank you! :) They do mean a lot. 

The Gestalt shift

I hear people describing others - lovers, friends, enemies with great detail.
They see the lines of their face, the color of their eyes, the flecks in their irises,  the skin color,  the sinews of their muscles, the sway of their hips...
The list is endless. After all, poets and writers have loved and hated for eons and everyone has described the people they love or they hate with great attention to detail.
Yes, attention to detail. That is what it is.

Some people can see others (and the world around them) as an assemblage of pieces - the eyes, the hair, the nails, the mind, their heart. Everything is a smaller part of a big whole. They can see where and how the pieces align, mis-align and fall apart. They can see the fault-lines, the wrinkles, the pock-marks, the scars and the freckles. They can see the symmetries and asymmetries of our physical and mental selves. They can see the details which make our individual selves.
And from the assemblage of those many tiny details, there emerges a whole. A person. A thing. A view. A world.

But things seem to work differently for me. I can't see those details - those freckles or the wrinkles. I start with the whole itself.

For me, people and the world comes with a sense of completeness. A wholeness where I cannot identify the pieces or even how they fit in or don't. I cannot even say what I like or don't like.

I either like you or I don't.
No judgment really - just a fondness, a liking, a deeper sense of amicability. Its a visceral feeling that defies explanation (sometimes even logic).

It is so intuitive and instinctive that I can't ever understand what makes some people work and not some others.

Why is it so difficult for me to say I like this about you or that?
Why do I find it hard to notice the shoes or the scarf or the hair or the dress?
I look at your eyes and I look at your mind... and all of you seems to fit into it - wholly, completely, perfectly. Everything else is just there like the garnish on a plate. I might notice it but I don't really care for it.

But then when I listen to you talking about these many aspects of me - some that you like and some that you don't. I see pieces of me as you see them but I struggle to see what you see as a whole...or rather even what you feel for the whole.

There is a gestalt shift I think that happens when the eye moves from the many details to finding the whole. I think I got the process upside down.

I start with the whole of you and maybe then I work backwards to find the pieces that make you, YOU.
I start from the whole of you, to then look for the edges or the lack of them, to see the grains in your character or the bumps in your heart. But by the time I see all that, it doesn't matter because I like you for who you are. Just as you are. Given enough years and the gift of hindsight, maybe I can pick a few qualities I like and a few that I don't but none of that changes much for me... because it is the whole of you that matters by that point.

I see you, I like you and I want you in my life for all that you are...
Would I want to change anything? Probably. Or probably not.

Do you see what I am saying? Does it make sense to you? Do you see, why I struggle to see me as you see?
Do you see why I am ever so clueless?

I cannot but stop wondering how the rest of you see the world and the people in it? A collage of pieces or a single whole?

An absence...

My days are now enveloped in a sense of absence. A sense of lack. A void shaped like another person. Someone I haven't known for a long time. But that lack is glaring, it is ever-present. Its shocking to me how easily we get used to the good things in life. Even when we know that it is not going to last and it is not forever.

And even as I spend my days trying to fill this void with life, I see M. 

M, you lost a leg. A leg that was wholly, completely yours. Not for a brief while, but for the forever that you have known. And you lost it. In one day.  In a few hours in fact (because I saw you running that day). I can't even imagine losing my leg after spending my day running - life does have a sense of irony... 

I think of you and that over-whelming sense of absence that you might feel and tears find their way into my dry eyes. I am sure it is unimaginably hard when the ground beneath your feet shifts like this. When you are not able to do things like standing up on your own that you have done from the very first year of your life. I am sure it is devastating to look at the prosthetic and to imagine the real thing. You may even have phantom pains in the limb that is no longer there. Making its presence felt, signaling its ache and throb - like a clarion call from the dead. I am sure life as it was is no longer the same. 

And I know,  If I were you, I would have spent many a days, packing and unpacking that one word - why. 

Not that answers are ever easy but this one is always especially difficult. 

Why do bad things happen to good people? 

Why does randomness seem to be so totally random? 

(And I know that question doesn't even make sense in a rational world but I can't not ask... after all, when I see good people being thrashed about, I have to ask. I have to try and make sense of it.)

And yet, despite all this and more, you walk into the gym, M, smiling as ever. You are back to your life,  business as usual or at least so you seem to say.  In a few months. 

I don't know you so well. Maybe we spoke a couple of times in more than a year. But I hope you know, that I admire what you have done.  I admire the fortitude, the resilience, the spirit and the courage with which you have overcome that void and have marched on. 

I find it hard to put the pieces of my life together even on a good day. I can barely imagine doing that when some pieces are missing. And you have done that. Just that. So beautifully and bravely at that. 

And when I think of the void that is left in your life and how you have filled it, I see hope for my  foolish self. So, thank you for being there. 

I am terribly sorry that you had to go through this.  

I am sure many will tell you that this will make you a better person and it will all work out in the end. It probably did make you a better person and it probably will work out in the end. But even if it doesn't, M, I hope you know that you gave courage to someone. 

Someone who is not easily inspired, who is not easily awed...  

And now I shall get back to the arduous task of filling that void around me. 

Some monsters are never really dead...

Some monsters are never really dead.
You think you've slain them, buried them, burnt them and walked away - whole and alive... but, no, my dear, no.
They continue to lurk in the deep recesses of your mind, as a memory that you can vaguely recall. They seem to have multiple hidden lives, protected from our watchful eyes in horcruxes that are stowed away.
Their subliminal presence casts a faint shadow every now and then one learns to ignore it.
But then there are times, when a tiny comment, a jibe or a passing witticism by someone will unleash those monsters. The horcruxes will begin to burn, itch and glow even as you do your damnedest best to ignore their very existence.
They will rise up from the dead and you will have to deal with them again - and yet again.

I have had my share of monsters. I have run away from them, ignored them, battled them and finally slain them - or so I thought.
They were hidden for a long time, but even the most innocent of comments can serve as powerful spells as they revive the slain monsters.
I can sense their presence as they raise their head now. I can hear the jibes, the sneers, the tug on my confidence...
I can feel the angst of my 'plain', teenage self, who wanted nothing but to wake up as a different person. I thought I had slain this monster.
What happened here?

But this time, things are also a little different... This is a familiar enemy and I have seen the other side. I know how the battle plays out and I know I can survive this too. And so, I am not yet broken and buried. Instead, I retreat and find myself a foothold. I strategize and I plan. I know where I stumble and I am going to make sure I don't.
The monsters shall rise but I shall slay them again... and again and again. Because that is all you can do. Find the monsters that scream defeat, hatred and insult; and slay them, ruthlessly and relentlessly.

Life in metaphors...

I began as they said. I wet the paper and gently dabbed paint at one corner. It spreads quickly.
I apply another dab of paint and wait.
First it was blue, then green. Then yellow and red.
The water trapped in the paper is blurring the boundaries. Somehow, nothing is clear and distinct.

The colors are spreading. Things are moving out of my control as the colors diffuse, spread, mix and leave trails behind. I sat there watching.
Waiting.

A small panic rising in my heart. Will this be ok? Should I wipe it off? Should I dry it? Should I dab a  little more? Or maybe a little less? What should I do?

But, I hold on tight. I sit on my hands (literally) to stop myself from doing something. The effort to not do anything is enormous. The urge is over-whelming.
It is completely unnerving to sit but I have to wait. I have to see how this plays out.

And so I do.

I let the colors follow their course. I let the water dry at its own pace. I wait for the water-soaked, mellowed, cold-pressed paper to return to its dry, rigid self.
And it does in a few minutes. Some really long minutes but minutes nonetheless.

I now see that my panic was unjustified. Because the colors had only merged and melded seamlessly into this beautiful, complete whole that I couldn't have painted on my own. The incline of the surface, the water, the colors, the air, the humidity and my brush strokes - they had all come together to give rise to something unexpectedly beautiful and complete.

A few months ago, I would have panicked, interfered and stopped the colors from mixing on their own. I would have taken charge and dabbed, dried, erased, outlined. I would have done things to get the image I wanted without letting it emerge.

I would have drawn lines to trap the objects, the people and the world into my tiny-little outlines. They would have fit into those boxes and they would have stayed like that - fixed, unmoving and sharp. Surreal to the point of being fake.

But today, the image emerged on its own, unaffected by my outlines, boxes or preconceived notions. Freely the shapes blended and rose as the colors danced with each other (and also fought sometimes). The image was filled with soft, blurry lines that invited my eyes to linger. To imagine.

It was filled with possibilities - and new possibilities arose as I saw again. Shapes shifted, lines blurred, objects emerged and appeared. It was dynamically fixed.

My former sharply defined world seemed like a distant past. This new blurry world was my present reality. It was real, surreal and ethereal - all at the same time.
I, a person of action, who could not be a passive spectator, learned a lesson today about passivity. I saw my life and myself a little clearer in those blurry lines and fuzzy shapes.

This is a lesson I need to remember.
I need to learn to BE. To be a little passive when situations demand so with the hope and the faith that the consequences will not necessarily be bad.
Complete control is not always the solution we seek. Sometimes, one has to wait for order to emerge from the chaos.

I always knew that art mimicked life but today, for me, art carried a valuable life-lesson too.
The lesson to just BE. To learn to wait for things to emerge before pounding them into existence.

Letting go...

For as long as I remember, I have been a fighter and I have always had a firm grip - on plans, hopes and dreams. When things would go awry, I would chip away at it, with an almost manic sense of doggedness. With a perseverance that borders on being a mistake (or probably is a mistake) and has often surprised me too.
I would grab on with all my might and not let go as if it were my last link to life and all that is good. I have spent years like this, in this frantic, death-grip of sorts - on things; on life.

But now, after years of gripping tight, somehow letting go has become a little easier. Instead of tensing up and pulling in with all my might, I am now able to walk away. I let go a little more easily - of dreams, plans, wishes and even life itself. I can now see myself - not fighting things; of just letting go and drifting off.

I wonder though, if I am made or unmade in the process of getting here...

Is this a result of fatigue from the deathly grip and sore knuckles or is it wisdom seeping in? Am I losing my stubbornness or just gaining perspective? Have I lost my resilience or am I just finding my courage in letting go? Is this driven by fear and pain or by a higher purpose? Am I finding a newer self or just letting go of my sense of self?

Hope springs... happiness blooms...

They say life doesn't go the way you planned. It doesn't. But the good thing about it is that sometimes it goes better than what you expected. Or at least that's what people and books said. I had believed in them for a long time but it never happened to me. Not much, at least. But today it did to someone so dear that I felt it happened to me - suddenly, simply, silently, happiness had walked through the door.

Today, I saw a happy ending or rather a happy beginning, after a lot of patience, frustration and anguish. My heart sang at the prospect of such happiness for someone so close.

I had somehow given up on happy endings. I thought they happened only in books and movies for young girls.

Real life is different, I had come to accept. It is colder, harsher, a little more brittle and a lot more confusing.
But today proved me wrong and I am a happier person for that.  Because today made me believe again - that in real life too, happiness can come simply, easily and effortlessly. It can spring into your life one fine day like the spring flowers that line the roads. It can bring beauty, happiness and a change for the better.

Like the spring blossoms, they may last for a few days but they mark a new beginning. They mark a step forward towards a bigger, brighter and happier future. And that is all I need to believe for a little longer - that good things do come to good people. That amidst all the chaos, randomness and luck, good things do come. May be not to everyone and may be not all the time,  but there is enough of a chance to make it worth playing the game.

Here's to the new beginning and a walk in the clouds - because some people are special!
L'chaim!

 

Daddy's little girl

I have been walking at the edge for a long time... at the edge of belonging and not belonging. 

I have often wondered if someone will be around to help... If I trip. If I stumble. If I fall. 

Will that be the end? Will a chance accident, a slip, a rolling pebble, a stray breeze - be the beginning of my end? 

What happens to me then? 

Will people just blame me for testing the rules, for skirting the edges, for flirting with the boundaries that they, in their 'infinite wisdom', had set? 

Will anyone ever even try to understand my reasons for my actions? My reasons for not following the rules? For seeking something more. For wanting to look beyond what was told to be my rightful place in the world.  

I didn't think so because every time I had looked, there was hardly anyone without a finger pointing at me. I heard jeering and jibing. I heard doubts and incessant advice. I heard voices of concern and I heard fear. 

And through all this time, all I wanted was to know that I was not alone. Not alone in wanting something better, in wanting something real. All I wanted was to know there are people who see some good in me and my actions. And who would want for me what is good for "Me"... not what the world says is good for me, but what is truly good. For ME, for my mind and my soul - as a being distinct from the rest.

But then you gave me that assurance the other day. As you wept on the phone, I could see that despite the anguish and the pain, there was also a flicker of the understanding I had hoped. As you promised to stand by me, I wanted to be nothing but 'daddy's little girl'.... the one who would stoically walk back from school or college after a bad day - only to collapse into a puddle of tears at your one single question. I wanted to be the girl who knew that despite everything going wrong, I will be OK because you were there with me - through it all. I wanted to be that girl because she was fearless. She didn't waver at the edges, because she knew there was a cord holding her - tight and strong. She knew there was a hand supporting her, if she tripped, stumbled or fell. She knew that someone would fight for her when she was tired. 

And that flicker was all I needed to steady my feet at the edges. To dig my feet into the dusty ground and to hold my head high without worrying about the ground below. 

Thank you for that! 

A year in numbers...

Some years are better than others but the good thing about a bad year is that almost anything after seems better. So that was 2015 for me - the year after a storm.
I did a little more. I learnt more.
I fell less often and when I did, I rose up faster. I ran more. I dreamt more. And I let myself worry about fewer things in life. I met many more wonderful people even as I lost the assurance of some close relationships.
I have some good memories I want to hold onto.
I have some bad memories I am ready to forget.

But unlike most years there are some numbers that define this year for me...

2015 = 68 books in 365 days
2015 = -15 to 20 pounds in ~365 days
2015 = 3 trips in 150 days
2015 = 46 paintings in 365 days
2015 = ~ 500 - 800 miles running in 365 days
2015 = 6000 - 7000 words in 60 days

This year, I want to do atleast this much if not more.