Day 12 - L for (a) Lot

Out of the blue

And the conventional

He send you the cue

He wouldn't need a virtual network

A postal pigeon
An actual mail box,  

Or even a manual messenger!

Swiftly through the skies

Re purposing a foil balloon

He darts it,

Right to your doorstep.

The message from the stars

Awaits at your threshold

With flowers and smiles 

And a monkey as an aid

Holding a red heart

With the thought written

Loud and clear!
'Love you very much'

Out of the hundreds of balloons

That are let go into the air

He hand picks one

The unusual, applicable one.

Time and again He proves his prowess

His circle of security

Around my existence

His shadow of love

On my being!

And how can I believe 

In coincidences or happy accidents?

When tailor made

Premeditated blessings

Drift from nowhere to my door?

Love, His all encompassing, all empowering shield

Embraces, owns and reassures thus!

Pictured - the balloon that made to my doorstep, carrying a message from the skies and a muse to banter about.

***********

On the other side, Bessie's mom makes her debut! 

Day 11 - K - K for Knowledge and knowing

Day 11 didn't come easy. I mean, I was on the top of things till day 10, scheduling the posts ahead of time and sometimes waking up 3 am with ideas that dumped into the brain like they would through a leaking roof on a pouring day. I almost thought I found the fountain of inspirations and I'd never ever have to look far and wide for ideas to create.

And I couldn't have been more wrong. Last night, I had an intense urge to pry out my eyeballs - I mean, I don't mean to scare you, but that's how horrid the spring allergies had it on my eyes. The significant other forbade me from it saying "Ignore it and it'll go away. Think it isn't there!" Guess what? It worked and for the first time since the onset of my allergies in 2007, I had a 'no swelly, watery, blackey eye' situation thanks to my adhering to that idea of thinking it isn't there. I took it a step further and applied that thinking to the writer's block too...Guess what? It didn't work a second time. SO despite the sneeze fest I woke up to, I embarked on my hour long walk in the spring weather, daring the pollen, the sniffles, the tears - only with one hope. That I'd get a ponderable thought on the way. 

Well, I did find numerous other thoughts cross my mind, manifesting into knowing from knowledge. If you live in the area and spot a lady crouching on the side walk while looking like she is shooting nothing with her smart phone as you zoom past on the Boulevard - two things! First off, she isn't not shooting nothing. She is probably trying to focus on the emperor moth or the rolypoly with her camera set to portrait mode. Secondly, she doesn't need to be reported to the neighborhood watch. Armed she is only with the camera and sometimes she forgets her surroundings when she focuses on bugs! Please be informed! Now back to the point - so I did find a ponder under M, R and even Z but no K in sight!

It is dusk right now and a little voice in my head that heeds the 'manifest all you intend to do' sits at the desk and tries to think up something meaningful for K. I wanted to go full blown 'discourse' mode but decided on outsourcing the elbow grease to Matt and Bessie. I did end up sketching them in different scenarios having different conversations. The above one isn't up to the mark but for now it seems like an accomplishment. 

In my humble existence, I gathered some knowledge but not until later did some of it culminated into actual knowing. And when ever that happens, I feel utterly blessed to have learnt it the way it is to be learnt - sooner or later doesn't really matter - because knowing is also knowing that the universe provides us with the right insights in the hour of need. 

I'll snort some allergy relief spray for now and pray that I'd know all I need to know for the coming many days of this challenge and stay put on the road to finish, dodging the torpor that comes along with spring! From the absolutely bucolic but utterly brutal spring weather in the territory of Gold, I bid adieu for now :)

Day 10 - J for Juxtapose

On the sepia soul founding
Layer some sod of the body
Sprinkle petals of feelings
Voila, there it is 
The intersperse of this being.
Scattered along the assortment 
Is the peekaboo of reflection
Textures of experiences
Forming a riveting yarn
Weaving these many musings
Standing testament
Of the nips and slashes
Sighs and Chortles.
And then, the path
Reveals to you the visual 
Like a road map to yourself
A little joyous green 
Bordering the morose grey
Topped off with the serene white.
And that amalgam right there
Inspires, arrests, manifests!
In articulation - yet leaving some unsaid
For the lack of wordage.

Day 9 - I for I am Inane

Here I am, on the ninth day of the fourth month, tackling the letter I. Lately, a part of this I are Bessie and Matt. I am supposed to reconfigure them, pep them up, revamp them, re envision them but something out there gets in here in the brain and I am keep second guessing if this is really a good idea or I'll be the idiomatic "Laying an egg" being demonstrated in action.

But that is how this messy mind works. Thus the need to meditate. Meditation is simply doing nothing. And it is not just literally but also figuratively as in not thinking. I was asked to do this simple exercise of keeping a watch on my thoughts for a minute. I was yet again, (truth be told, I can never get over)stupefied over my bandwidth of inanity. Thoughts are supposed to expend the vital energy. It's all confusing right? There was a time when I thought my thoughts define me. There was a time, just in the recent past, when I had such great pride in multi tasking - until I realized, there isn't something called 'multitasking' - while I listen to music and sketch, I am either sketching or listening to music. Though both are being done at the same time, the mind shuts off one task to a mechanical level and the other to a conscious level. There could also be a third scenario, where in both the tasks get mechanical and the mind wanders into the lanes of the past or future, carefully replaying or imagining a thing bygone or a thing that might never come into being. 

Sigh...what simplicity. Do nothing. Think nothing. Stay still. practice Silence, a commodity that is increasingly endangered in the modern day bedlam. 

I try. I flex my 'doing nothing' muscle so it builds the strength to mitigate the tricks of the mind. 

By the way, illustrated is the very first draft of the comic strip I wanted to sketch today. I'll revisit this with some conviction and seriousness and precision and intent.

For now, I am in the eternal haste to jump from one thing to the other, do two three things at a time and feel all galvanized by the trickster mind. But then, I'll flex my intent to shut it and let the Source take over.

Reminder to self - It is all inside. Sub vocalization, thinking, analysis - such over rated stuff! For now I'll go and do nothing. Let's see how that aids the doing of the right thing.

As simple as it sounds, Doing nothing is the toughest thing to do out there. Try it for yourself and see if you can shut that pesky mind off for five minutes, or even one.

Day 8 - Happiness is yours for asking

This is what I call life coming a full circle. You make your little Bessie live a life with an imaginary friend philosopher and guide Matt, and you yourself make conversations with imaginary readers in here - talk about life imitating art or vice versa. No one knows what imitates what, like the rhetorical question "Egg first or the chicken?" But it gives you immense joy all the same. Which brings me to the ponder of the Hour - 'Happiness'

If there is anything I teach my first born on a repeated basis, I teach her just this "Don't depend on anyone for your happiness. It dwells inside you. It thrives in the way you look at life and not in the way life looks at you." A few months ago, when I blogged about a quote that read 

"He said it's all in your head. I said, so is everything but he didn't get it" 

I have to confess that I didn't get it as well for the truest sense of it. I knew that most of our lives are lived out of our heads but I didn't fathom the fact that absolutely all of it is lived in there. The responses we choose, the reactions we nurture and the perspective we look at things with, would make up for this experience called life. I think it is actually kind of unfair to vest our happiness in a person or a goal or a dream for that matter. It all leads to that same spiritual road I embarked upon lately - that we are a speck of the infinite and all the intelligence that the nature has within itself, we have within ourselves. It is just what we choose to dwell upon, give power to and choose to flow with. 

So pretty peeps, keep a guard on that savage brain that generates the narrative to every occurrence outside of us. It is the mind playing its maze to make us lost in the drama of this illusory cosmic plan. And, Happiness is there within. Seek it inside, in silence, in stillness and in being aware - and pretty much every care we face is solved!

And, now to the afterthought on the underpinning of my comic strip - It is still in the "I just want to do it" mode without putting enough effort, but I see that Bessie looks messy. A heroine needs a better facade for sure - and that Matt, he needs to be more extinct and exotic. I'll work on some Trex sketches today and see how they can evolve for tomorrow for day 9 In I for "Imagine"

Day 7 - G for Guts galore

I cannot believe a lot of things about myself. This isn't being said in an egotistic way - but in a  "I really cannot believe how audacious I am" way.

Above is the first draft strip I drew for today's entry. It is kind of daunting to do it just with my Calvin Hobbes volumes as instructions. I wish someone taught me the logistics of sketching and creating a comic strip. I am consciously trying not to look for any online sources to keep it raw and straight from the gut - like the rest of everything I do. 

I notice that I missed Bessie's hands and the drawings are not fine. I should work on the text part as well. And, to top it all, Matt and Bessie could change into something entirely different as the days pass. That being said, Matt has a chance of morphing into a T- rex. A 9 out of 10 chance.

In the meanwhile, I'll work on being more patient and taking my time sketching. With this first one, I was in a frenzy to complete and see if it is really possible to do what I intend to do - that is creating and sketching my own little characters playing to my own little tunes - though they might sound offtune and offbeat, more often than not.

What's life without a little gutsy side?

Here's to the seventh day - An attempt sprinkled with haste but topped with guts.

All hail Human hopefulness.

Day 6 - F - From Pushkhar ghat to Pacific coast

This Dude, Rocking and rolling
His heavenly luminescence 
Hanging over the earthly orb
He followed me all the way
From Pushkhar ghat to Pacific coast.
I kept thinking to myself
Isn't He a celebrity?
A public figure that has billion crushes
And a gazillion worshipers to boot?!
But like my shadow, he kept chasing me
And only rested at the night
I have a feeling he stalks me even then
When on the moon He spreads his light.
A true soulmate perhaps,
Walking hand in hand
For better, for worse, for richer for poorer
In sickness and health
He held my hand
And in his absence, he reassures a fresh new dawn.
Sorcerer of the first order
His rays lending sight and life
To the entire orbits of orbs 
Hovering around him 
Like their existence depended on those revolutions.
Yet, he becomes my buddy
Playing peek a boo with the fluffy clouds
Painting rainbows to send me cues
To follow his footsteps and shoo my blues.
His flinty embrace lending me warmth
His torrid temper setting my skin ablaze
What a spirited lover this bloke
 Dreams come alive with his gentle stroke.

And thus, like a smitten maiden in separation
I await him, longingly looking in His direction
He comes day and again
Rewarding my wait - 
Never a betrayal nor a deceit.
They all look out for him, creatures big and small
But this mighty mate of mine
Tricks me, but treats me all the same
Spinning me on a make believe world
That he is mine forever more
And I am His furthermore
For who walks this way, step in step?
All the way across oceans and continents,
From Phushkar ghat to Pacific coast!

Inspired by my endless awe for the almighty Sun God. Featured - a personal video of Him rising over the Montery bay, CA. 

Day 4 - D for Decoyed (by the view)

By the little town off the bay

Blue waters spooning the skies,

Endless horizons diffuse ahead

A soul grazes on the elegance

Lost like it is finally found.

The plans go awry

Bessie waits patiently

Cuddled with Matt

Secure in some cozy grey corridors,

Waiting to be formed,

That disciplined child of a slipshod parent.

That's the thing by great fortune

Genetics defy the conceptions of the mind.

As do plans and pledges.

So for now, it is the worker Bee, all besotted 

Wrapped in herself
Wearing the borrowed Queen Bee tiara

Stuffed with the fluffy tissues of the scenery

Unwrapping the present,

Feet up, spirits high and the heart smitten,

Living an intended pun.

Pictured - The inspiration that dodges the plans of drawing Bessie and Matt

Day 5 - E for 'Even if' instead of 'But If'

Day 5 - take thousand and five. I kind of stopped gasping at the passing of time lately. I remember 2009 like yesterday, wondering how quickly the decade went by and it is - well - 2019. So day 5 sounds like a smaller progression, but given all the things that demand my time lately, I am glad it is day 5 without even a remote idea of wanting to flake out. I'll pat my back, if I can do so myself. May be that's the best way of doing it, By ourselves. As I noticed, if we don't love ourselves, we somehow convey it loud and clear, like we have a tattoo on our heads screaming "I don't love myself, you don't need to love me either" - Unfortunately, it acts as an instruction for others sometimes. So love yourself people - pat your backs, apply emollient stuff on those cracked heels and wear a tiara, even if it slips on to your eyes - in which case, close your eyes and re-purpose it as an eye mask and take a power nap. But be humble - like it goes - "Be humble, or be humbled! ;-))"

Paragraph 2 and we are on the digress spree. So I was supposed to pack off Bessie and Matt for a few days, till I got back home from the break. The things I got to see today were nothing short of an immense blessing. It was numbing. In a very good way. Beach, Bridges and Mountains - all in one place, sapphire waters, aquamarine skies, emerald meadows, wildflowers in shades of citrine quartz - it looked like the planet had a party dress code to doll up in jewel tones. It is hard to get things done when one is in multitasking mode, But then there aren't a lot of things working in my blogging and sketching favor anyway, so why let this deter it? Right? There isn't enough talent going on here, or imagination, or even preparation anyway so the 'Even if' sentiment comes into play.

And as I googled to take cues from Watterson's work, many out of focus details forayed into focus. I think the referencing taught me a thing or two about sketching kid faces. Chubby, eyes close to give the 'cute as a kitten' look, foreheads taking up sizable real estate and just a little fleck of a line for the mouth. The hair becomes the signature of sorts - so, in the process of evolving Bessie, I am still clueless how her hair has to be worn. 

OSoon as I thought Matt is getting there, I realize he looks like Hobbes dressed in a Simba costume and ready to go trick or treating - all that is missing is a jack-o-lantern basket. And just as it couldn't get any more complex, the little brain kept egging a new idea - what if Matt is a dinosaur? I could make him a T-rex with some spikes on the back so we keep the 'Anne Giddes baby pictures' feel intact. And I have to confess, Barney always looked like a toad in an 'amp it up' mode to me, so we might be looking at a toad dressed for October 31st also, but limited resources peeps, limited resources! But as I blog and sketch, there is a fair chance that Matt could become a T-rex and thanks to little blessings that amid all this confusion, his moniker sticks. Nay, there isn't a second thought on it. Matt Damon has to be honored. Full stop. The oil pastels didn't let me go into finer details as they were too smudgy and rich but that shouldn't be the issue of the hour, at least not until I get the final drafts of all the characters ready - speaking of which, I remember, I didn't even the scratch the surface of the supporting cast.

I'll wrap it here, my little monologue. I cannot really begin to thank blogger for hosting this balderdash for so long. They say - dance like no one is watching! Guess what is more liberating?

Type like no one is reading. And it gets that much more easier when no one is reading, easy peasy lemon squeezy :) 

Now this isn't a dismissal for the ones who read, you know who you are, kind souls and you should remain the friends in need.

Signing off from the blessed Golden state - Long live 'Even ifs' - let them live long enough and abundantly enough that buts and ifs get a run for their money.

Like Jordan the great said - Just do it :-D

Day 3 - C for Cut it, curb it - and Life is all cured!

A good ten months ago, I got a memo to really examine what life was all about. If you are a spiritual seeker, it is believed that the universe puts you through the right experiences to evolve and rise above the hokey pokey of human existence. I had those things come and knock on my door and suddenly, I was face to face with the rhetorical questions - Who am I? What is love? What is truth? I started looking far and wide for answers. And in that quest, I probably read the most I read since I was literate. Amazon recorded a meteoric rise in its stocks, and you know why! I was lost in anything and everything related to spirituality -in fact, I, for the very first time in a long enough existence, sat myself to meditate. It was kind of unfortunate that I had spiritual seekers and mediators all around me, but not until it was my time, did I even consider having a closer look at this practice. 

I didn't discriminate - I read Osho, Sadhguru, Toltec wisdom, Celtic wisdom, numerous philosophers, several interpretations of the Gita, Allan watts, Eckhart Tolle, Dr. Weiss, Gary Zakov,Michael Singer, Thich Nhat Hanh and  online resources, watched every Ted talk that skimmed the surface of spirituality and reflected upon every bit of wisdom available to humans to achieve the peace that we are supposed to have treasured within us, as an innate quality. I didn't as yet, finish the Holy Godmother of them all - The autobiography of a Yogi - but you get the drift.  

The kith and kin had mixed reactions. Friends found me lost and changed. Close family had a laugh about it "A phase" they nodded in slow motion as I went about my findings. Some ran the opposite direction every time I opened my mouth suggesting them to try some of the tricks of the trade to achieve peace and joy. 

I started noticing that I was going through a deep cleanse. It was like the surface tension of the mind stayed put like an impenetrable membrane, (not always, but for a good 15 minutes every time I sit and do my sincere attempt to meditate, and that is pretty much an achievement for starters) keeping all turbulence at bay. I am taking little baby steps, but I seem to have enormously aged in the process, I became more tolerant, more loving and accepting of life as it arrives, no questions asked! I falter, but I stay aware and gently pull myself up to awareness, and I hope I evolved, ever so slightly, but evolved to love better and live better.

So if I had to nutshell every thing I read, it is this. Now. Stay in the now. Shun the past, don't dwell in the future. We have an eternal moment - this moment. This moment in which what you are doing is happening. How simple is that? Is there any mincing words in there? Stay in the moment - curb the thought that dwells in the past or into the future. Don't resist what is - give in, surrender. Go with the flow, cause Karma is nothing but resisting what IS!

So simple - but then, as I stayed aware and examined my thoughts, I realized, this is much much bigger than just what it seems like - I felt like those clowns attempting a comedy trying to imitate the trapeze artists in circus. Those wise souls make it look like a cake walk and of course, novices like me would feel it is all figured - until one knows it isn't figured. Curbing the thought for even a few minutes is something that requires seriousness, practice and a strong intent - that's where meditation or mindfulness kicks in. I can go on and on but I know it would probably scare the very few ardent supporters I have in here - so for now, I'll keep mum. And that brings me to the next practice. Silence. It is liberating to stay still, not talk, not even sub vocalize. Try it if you didn't and you'll probably gather energy to rip apart the house and rebuild it - as the mind they say, is the untamed monkey that keeps jumping from one branch of thought to the other, one worry to the other, one narration of being a victim to one narration of being a sob story, one judgement to one opinion as if we are moral paragons. 

And then, I realize, that creating a comic strip is almost as hard as meditation and keeping the mindfulness practice. I spent a better part of today sketching and re-sketching Bessie, ever so often referring to Watterson's works. Boy am I charmed? My admiration is scaling new heights and so is my determination to do my mediocre best an keep up the commitment. Though I do not have sketches to upload today,as they are one too many and none are in their final draft glory, I am happy to record that I did good learning and devouring the multilayered experience of enjoying my favorite Calvin and Hobbes. 

I know it is all a hodgepodge, but the bigger picture is that I am doing it! :) And as far as the answers to the rhetorical questions go, according to a very wise soul - We know who we are when we know who we are not. We know what truth is when we know what truth is not and we know what love is when we know what love is not!

And between knowing myself, and understanding love and truth, even in a very feeble way, I stand here, finally attempting to do the things that matter, with truth in my attempts and love in my heart!

So, C is for curbing the endless chatter of mind and specially the mouth and curing every malady there is - and I mean every bit of it to the last of it.

I'll come back with the Devotion to Do it - and some drawings in tow for day number 4 :-D

Ciao.

Day 2 - B for Box be gone!

 Chole or Chickpeas are an integral part of the Indian pantry. Growing up, my mom made a dry and delicate version of chick peas, tampered in mustard seeds and garnished with freshly grated coconut. This is the quintessential South Indian fare for the uninitiated. As uninitiated as I was, it took me a good two decades to stumble upon the gravyed and vamped up version native to the north of the subcontinent that was supposed to be paired like a match made in heaven with fluffy deep fried baturas. Talk about comfort food. It took me a few more years to get really gutsy with the gastronomic and do something as out of the box as I am infamous for being. So on the fateful Friday evening, when the creative side of me was pining for an adventure, I blazed up my cast iron pot and started prepping for some pindi chole, north Indian style until the wicked idea to use wine in the concoction graced my grey matter.

Now, this experiment was to be consumed and probably was to be judged like an item performed on the stage of "America's got talent" . If it were a scribble on my writing pad that could be shoved under the carpet or a flopped oil on canvas experiment using the palette knife that could be tossed on the top of the armoire, it would have been a little easier..but Life isn't easy, or fair or a judgement free zone for that matter. And I'd never been discouraged by judgments anyway (grin). "If push comes to shove, I'd order a pizza and dump this in trash" I convinced myself but I wanted to take a calculated risk. I tamed down the cloves and the cinnamon that might clash with the delicate flavor of the small lot pinot noir wine that was carefully uncorked and ready to flow into my LeCreuset. 

As a mix of finely chopped onions and tomato puree simmered in olive oil, I threw caution to air and drizzled the wine in. It seemed to blend right in, giving an appetizing bordeaux tone to the monotonous mix. I was doing a happy groove and mixing it away treating it like my magnum opus of culinary creations. As it simmered away in the mixture of chickpeas and gravy, it gathered a rich texture as it sported a luscious color. I was half tempted to hide it and order pizza when it occurred to me that I need to taste it before I toss it. 

I am happy to inform that the experiment was a grand success. A success that didn't leave much of an evidence in the serve-ware. The first born questioned me like a police interrogation if I were to reconsider feeding alcohol to her. "The alcohol evaporates the minute it touches the pan" I reassured her and she, upon due diligence, agreed with me and took a bite. My out of the boxness was once again embraced by my lovely family and friends that graced at the dinner table to be my guinea pigs :))

Thus I gather the courage to branch out in using wine in a south indian baby eggplant dish. I'd keep it on record once it is made and endorsed.

In the mean while, I also sketch versions of Matthew - Bessie's litte buddy. And then suddenly a little voice in my head goes "Hey, why can't Matt be a giraffe instead of a lion?" Truth be told, I am very fixated on the idea of that mane I tell you - It would look like one of those Anne Giddes photographs with a sunflower framing a little baby's face. But with a ridiculous head like mine, anything is possible, Matt could become a hyena for all I know.

For now, Matt is a lion. And I am digging version hashtag 2 - I really love the look of a sunflower as head gear! 

And, I still cannot believe I am as unhinged. Creating a comic strip, and that too by calling Bill Watterson as an inspiration? Do you get this brazen eccentricity? But on second thought - even my Mom doesn't get me sometimes :)