A-Z April - Day 16 - P for Paddle your own Canoe

I was very tempted to sprinkle a few words here and there and write the self proclaimed verse today. But somehow the 'time' angels are benevolent on me  for the better part of the day, I wanted to write a short story. Then the interaction with the first born lent a new food for thought and here I am kicking off this ponder as a GenX, old woman, looking down upon the gen Z Zoomers. But it'll take a twist I promise. Or I presume.

Not too long ago, the first born got an Instagram account. I wasn't consenting of the  idea (or the consenting parent at least, which is not moi - the other part of the parenting unit is the arch nemesis to this bad cop) So, we agreed to disagree and kid1 got her Instagram account. I sent her a follow request from my benami (nameless) cooking page that has a whooping follower tally of three, and she promptly declined. I didn't, in the least do this as an attempt to moderate her activity in there. She is fourteen and is old enough to make her decisions and appreciate her freedom. But somehow she sent me a request later in the day. Which I accepted. In three hours time, this tot of mine garnered over 250 followers and I am sitting here nodding this neutral nod as she proceeded to be  Narcissus personified and click a gazillion pouty selfies to zero upon her social media portfolio. Thus 'operation profile picture' kicked off. I let things be and did my neutral observation.

I chanced upon this other kid's profile in her account. The said kid had some creativity going on. Great shots of his everyday, carefully placed so as to take the focus off of him and put it on his picture stories. "I love this kid" I said to her. "Why don't you do something original?, now that you are at it, why don't you bake, or sew, or take pictures of the spring blooms in the garden, or sketch or sing...why don't you sing?" I did get the characteristic eye roll as a response. "But mother, this is what kids in 2020 do. They have tiktok videos, dub themselves to pretentious bits of dialogues and bask in the glory of full blown narcissism" I mean, she didn't say this verbatim but that's how the translation sounded to me.

Again, I would not know what got into her, but the kid said she'd want to open another Instagram "Singing" account this time around. I'll risk sounding like the mother I am, but this kid does have some singing talent. Playing the piano and learning Indian classical vocal probably set the precursor to it. I finally was seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. The kid uploaded parts of a karaoke that spoke about 'herself' - now when she played it for me, I asked, "Is this original?" - "You expect this to be original? Really?" came the answer. I mean, the lyrics were this self glorified fetish of pain that teens subject themselves to these days, and I thought, it could be original. Anyway, She got them up and aired and the likes and comments came in.

Shortly afterwards, she came down saying, "Mom" you got to love someone like N as a friend. Now the N in question is a girl that went to school with the firstborn for a few years now. They knew each other as little kids. "So I asked N which one of these three parts she liked and she gave me a critique. N is so transparent and frank mom" she added. "So if someone offers you advice, you are not offended anymore" I opined. "No, I see the point. People are entitled to their opinions and we cannot and should not attempt to change them. Even when my teachers reprimand, correct or scold me, I don't get offended anymore. I see their point. I extract the lesson and move on"

This tidbit of wisdom didn't dawn upon the fourteen year old backside over night. There were instances when she would come home blowing her nose to a beet red, offended that someone didn't include her in something, someone made condescending remarks about her dress sense or someone else thought she was too shy and introverted for her own good. In the capacity of a mother I used to feel bad for the kid but never really sponsored her pity party. I would casually dismiss it and say "People talk what they want to talk, don't ever place your self worth in someone else's hands"
"Be careful whom you let to access your emotions, specially the negative ones. What irritates you defeats you, what angers you conquers you" This pep talk sometimes used to continue into the wee hours of the fated night of heartbreaks. During the course of these parenting ordeals, I used to learn my own new lessons trying to help her cope with her challenges. Isn't life complicated enough, does it not have enough drama by itself? Why should we sit and produce/direct more complications and drama by giving traction to what others think?

When I saw her handling all the good and not so good of the feedback she was getting with great aplomb, I gave a second thought about the 'narcissism' I see in the current generation. We probably put our self worth vested into someone liking us so much that rejection and criticism pulverizes us to miserable beings and words of encouragement inflates our egos making us think we are the next in line to that Grammy or that Chanel supermodel contract. The more we seek for outside validation to fulfill our emotional needs, the bigger our needs become. "Love yourself" I catch myself telling her. "know yourself" "Ground yourself" "Learn to say no" "Learn to take a no" "Learn to understand your limitation, and learn to accept them"

Paddle your own Canoe. It's only us that are responsible for our well being. We cannot burden another human being, no matter who they are or how close they stand to us in life, to make us feel worthwhile, or loved, or happy!

On that note, I have to add, I learned this a lot later than the first born did. But I am glad there's a road map to the offspring in the mistakes I made, the overlooking I did and the trail and error of the decades I put behind me.
Life, dearies, is a subtle teaching of wisdom posing as everyday mundanes. I hope we had access to blinders that guard us from the unnecessary and beams of spotlights that guide us to the necessary. In the absence of these both, we are responsible for our own blinders and beams. Let's manufacture them and rock on!

Place your happiness no where else, except in your own hands! That sums up my P :)

Day 15 - O for On a Tangent - On a Swoon!

Jo and Joe meet, somewhere, where the the script demands. It is seamless, not forced - a play of fate that is meant to be. Jo is bright and confident, Joe is shy and sincere. When such matches happen, the world freezes. Perhaps only for Jo and Joe. The violins play - perhaps no one hears them except Jo and Joe - But isn't that enough?

They sneak out from the judging world, like little kids bent upon extending their play date, looking for silly excuses to prolong their rendezvous. Jo throws caution to the wind and dances in the open. Joe plays to her tunes. The giggle and snuggle, holding each other close in chaste security. For a moment, time stands still - no one feels it perhaps, except Jo and Joe. But that's definitely enough!

They chase each other in the filtered sunlight of the nostalgic room. They feed each other's soul, smiling all along, oblivious to the plots of life. They eat out of each others hand, smooching tenderly and making a divine connect, fusing their eternal souls in that reverie. Destiny pauses - the world keeps spinning, but Jo and Joe pause too...losing each other to each other.

They fight a bit too, and Joe pacifies his Jo. Pleading in silence, offering flowers, groveling at her feet. Jo gives in her act - she cannot stay mad at her Joe for too long. Their losing in each other brings forth a new entity - of progeny, of love,of support! There's a load of caring, a heap of concern, a sprinkle of lust, a sparkle of giving - all mixed up with forgiveness and understanding. Joe and Jo - true destiny's children.

They prank around like best buddies, offer each other a shoulder like philosophers. Carrying the loads of their emotions in unison - holding each other close like they would hold on to their own lives.

Joe and Jo set out on a roller coaster ride, they brave the high tide, they chase the rainbow, they talk, they listen, they nurse loss together, they grow faith in that pairing - sometimes, they just hold each other's hands. And all those challenges step back. No one notices perhaps, but it really doesn't matter as Jo and Joe only exist for each other, in each other, always and forever!

They had heartbreaks, tears - those too did pass. They just did pass. As nothing stands a chance against love for the sake of love.

Such stories, such divine designs - but there's a free will in there, that Jo and Joe write for themselves - the subtle art of loving just because.

Such stories exist! Art, dearies, imitates life! Have faith in art, have faith in life! Be a Jo to your Joe or a Joe to your Jo - there's no other magic than the magic of love. Amen :)

A-Z April - Day 14 - Now to Nothing

Nobody and Nothing 

Had a date in the Now.

They sat in the seat

Of each other's soul.

They conversed

 In pure silence,

The companionship

Launched a thousand fireworks.

The space in between them

Had Magic swirling in bliss

The connect was fluid

Grazing the being's abyss.

Specks of gold glimmered in the ambient light

A swell of joy and a hue of white!

Where all us humans look for the stuff we seek

In Red herrings of owning and wanting.

When Nobody and Nothing merged into one

All identities dismantled and heaped into a blank!

They expected zilch and emerged as one

Into this thing that looks like a  void!

But what do us humans know?

We are confusion masters.

Our vocab of joy is such a disaster!

So I stand by Nobody and Nothing

In that miracle called Now.

And then the truth unfolded

And I got to see How!!

A-Z April Day 13 - M for Mind be gone

I started meditation a couple of years ago. One day, all of a sudden, I dropped everything I did and sat still for ten minutes. Now, I wasn't able to completely switch my mind off - it kept thinking its usual thoughts, plotting its usual plots - but I sat there, in a sincere attempt to unglue myself from my mind. The results were astounding. I mean, this is no tall claim. All it was was just ten minutes of silence, with the spine held straight. At the end of it, I felt like I passed through a quick flash and could sense a well being spread to my every nook and cranny like a gentle aroma.

It's been two years since, and the soap opera of the mind does do its rounds in the head corridors. I go with the flow, let it do what it has to do and I do what I have to - which is to identify myself as different form the mind rodent and gain an internal balance back. I fail sometimes. Miserably. But by and large, the anchor of these meditating practices does make a huge HUGE difference.

Not too long ago, there was a time when I called this blog as "Chronic Thinker Chronicles"
And when I explicitly labeled myself that, it goes without saying that it was a badge I was proud to wear. "Thinking" I thought, had defined me in the most profound way I could imagine. And then the new road, the new understanding, the new perspective! In a flash, I laughed at myself for the biggest delusion I was subjected to. Thus  'The Disillusioned" tag emerged.

It is funny how our minds are our commentators, our glasses through which we see the world. All the sensory perceptions are guided and guarded by the mind. 'My thought' 'My opinion' 'My perspective' 'My preference' 'My understanding' - It is all this mad frenzy to fit that Me into everything we see - And as a result, we torment and abuse ourselves. We create mental pain which creates physical disease.

So now, the ever learning moi knows where to park the mind - but the might the mind has is something else - it makes its existence felt no matter how hard I try. But I try. I don't give up - I listen to this pesky little voice, I play along sometimes but I know I am playing along. But one day, I'll make it stand there, on the other side of the line, never encroaching the real me that is inside, the one that doesn't need an I to feel empowered.

Its all right there, crystal clear, we even seem to know it in theory. Mind the mind. Don't let the mind mind you :)

A-Z April - Day 12 - L for Let's make sense

The other day, That was actually more than a month ago, before the shelter in place was implemented, The second born and I were getting ready for her pre-k drop off. As I juggled her bag, water bottle and her cuddle toy that she was to share with her friends during circle time, I instructed her to find her jacket and wear it so we won't be late. 

I kept an eye on her as she collected the jacket and slipped her little hands into it. This was one of those knit jackets she has. "Did you get your jacket on?" I asked. 

"But this is a sweater!" was the quick reply. 

Over the years of being a mother, I realized one thing. I don't get into a banter when there is a bait for such. So I said - "Yes, it is a sweater. Did you put on your sweater?"

"Yes I did!" came the cheerful answer. As I was dashing to the door to load this tot in her car seat and drive away, the much dreaded banter took the front seat. Now 'sweater' is a term she picked up form her grandparents back in India. It isn't very mainstream in the US. So over to the banter now - 

"Amma, why is a sweater called a sweater?, do you wear it when you sweat?"

Now, what better would you expect of my child right? But I really was thinking to myself how to approach this discussion. I answered - "Actually, a sweater is something you put on when you feel cold"

"That doesn't make sense" She added. "The name is so funny!" "Why would you call it a sweater then?"

That dear brethren, is why I don't engage in QA sessions with a four year old toddler, or even a 14 year old teen - I mean, the topics of dissection would be different but you have this frozen brain moment where you are torn in between feeling dumb, or confused or both!

While I dropped her off and drove back home, I had this plethora of things that are named in all confusion hit me from right left and center. For instance, why would you call a console table a console table? It is just to one wall of your entryway - consoling what?? I mean, why do we have to name things this way? 

I mean, I am sure there is etymology to all this nomenclature but what if we take this senseless naming and look at it in our head space, the space where we name everything that we are put through.  if we were to make sense out of everything, do we really need a name tag to it? When we go through an experience, there's a lot of residue that it leaves back - emotion for instance, or a judgement. A wound sometimes, or a smile. But what if we examine a mistake and instead of being stuck with that name, give it a twist and call it a learning? What if we examined a failure and called it a stepping stone, what if we look at an enemy and called them a 'team player' that teaches us something?

Or what if we didn't try to make sense of everything and just let them be - let them come, pass through and leave without a turbulence, without this confusion to name them and hold on to them - what if we just let them go and seamlessly move on to the next moment without the residue of the sense that we made out of it?

May be we could look at a hurt and be so stuck with it that we miss the 'blessing' it could be if only we were not so bent upon calling it a hurt.

Today, I didn't have the urge to write. I was in that 'leave me alone mood' brooding over nothing in particular. May be the air quality is a different kind of heavy now - with all the transmission of fear, uncertainty and emptiness we experience in this global pandemic that had literally reduced us to prisoners in our own home - with no parole in sight! Whoa - that was a heavy thought. But when I remembered how a sweater was named so confusingly, I got this new angle to look at my lack of 'mood' to write.

Yet, here I am, with an entry. Trying to make sense. May be I should just abort that and be in the moment, welcome it as it is, live it as it is, without this commentary. After all, we don't need to name everything and shove it into our baggage to lug it along! 

Let's leave sense to the senseless and live!

What the Trope this life. Thug Life - So - L my dahlings is for Live after all ;)

Pictured - the packs of mackerel going somewhere - They don't have a name or a narrative for that journey. They are just at it. Living it up!

Shot with my smartphone in Montery Bay Aquarium - CA. 

A-Z April - Day 11 - K for Knowing

Once, I walked 

kind of lost

Didn't know where the paths would guide

No wind wanes to lead the way

No lighthouses to shoot a beam.

I stood, froze in my track

Snuggled with fear.

Lost on a road unclear.

Isolated, muffling a tear!

I looked up at a speckled sky

Shimmering in its cloudless glory

I held my hands and said a prayer

"Lead me from this clueless despair."

A little flutter in the heart

Made me take a step of faith

There I saw a bridge of knowing

Leading the light to somewhere bright!

Step after step, led me ahead

With faith in my breath

I tread

Wondering where this knowing led.

When I reached the other end of the bridge

The lost, I found right within

The insides of my own being.

Pictured - The Bay bridge from my friend's apartment window.