Once upon a Tote

Once upon a Tote

I stumble upon stuff galore

Unsent letters, Unspent notes

Stashed up chamomile tea pouches

That took a beating 

Around the confines of the bag.

Once upon a tote

A lip balm found an invisible cranny

To expire and smell rancid

By the time I rediscover it.

Random receipts from the grocery store

That slip through the cracks of memory

Gift cards that are perhaps used up

Or never used.

Once upon a tote

A novella takes refuge

like it were a rescue camp to start anew

In the hands that lovingly caress her

And flip through her pages like 

Her nerve endings are being aroused

Like she is being made love to!

Once upon a tote

Numerous need-its

Perish, never to see sunlight again.

Perhaps, somewhat like the possessions 

We chase to make us complete

The baggage we accumulate 

In wishful thinking 

Of a brighter tomorrow

On the other side of this dusk.

Once upon a tote

Resides the urgency, the panic

The over preparation 

That consumes our days

While they slip by

Like unsent letters and unspent notes.

Like rancid lip balms and crumbled tea pouches.

This 'Once upon a tote',

Upon the peg of the future

Hangs for dear life

Wiling away the present

In the ironic absence

Of wanting to get there

While existing here.

 Pic Courtesy - Musa Ortac - Pexels.

And it Begins.

I walk to drop the kid to school today. I do it every day, or I am supposed to do. I took a break past couple of days due to some acute pain in the back. 

Today, I didn't want to make it a crunch for the rest of the family. I didn't want to piggyback on the neighbors for the drop/ pick duties.

I didn't want to drop either. I wish the pain understands timing and it doesn't encroach the daily grind. It doesn't. It cares less. So it was my turn to rise to the occasion and understand the timing and not let pain do any encroachments, though truth be told, I loved the pause I took, which wouldn't have happened if not for the pain.

I step out and it felt like Mother Nature was all set to reward me for my will to step out. The whole place felt like there was an outdoor air conditioner  running to keep the breeze cool and not cold. And there was an ambient lighting set up to make the visual look bright but not hot. I remember it is September and wonder if the naming concepts are understood by Nature or if Nature is understood by the naming concepts us humans adapted- cause, it was only a couple of days ago that the sun burned my skin ruthlessly while piercing, poking and itching the exposed skin on my legs while I walked to pick up the kid. 

Come September and the whole vibe changes - looks like Summer is backing off, taking a bow and saying "Until next year" and fall is ready to fall onto me like a blessing waiting to happen. 

I mean, September is a special month - and at the risk of sounding utterly narcissistic, I have to admit, the speciality of the month has nothing to do with the fact that it happens to be my birthday month. September is stand alone cool - and my birth occurring in this month has nothing to do with the standalone coolness. But instead of going around in circles and bothering my non existent readership (hello - readership! That gave up on me like I gave up on this blog - I totally get y'all. Don't feel bad that you abandoned me) I should admit that I took a vow to resurrect  my writing escapades no matter how much I seem to write out of the blog, by the virtue of writing for a living.

There's a beauty in things that we do without a binding and a co-dependent equation. And the whole essence of the beauty lies in the fact that we do such things due to one driving factor - love. Unconditional love. 

And I for one thing, am an unconditional lover. No, I don't need any validations and testimonials on that belief cause I know and I don't need another pair of eyes to examine it or another heart to acknowledge it. When we are silent, and we care to honestly look at ourselves, we hit ground breaking, life changing revelations.

Oh, and the weather I tell you - is stellar. If I had been any younger, or any agiler, I would have broken into a song dance sequence right there, smack dab in the center of the side walk but I swear, I held my rapture intact till I came home to dance instead, in words and expressions - right here on Doodling words. Art is a kind of dance if we come to think about it, Thought too. Life too. Vows too...

And on that note, I vow to dance, step in step of this madness called life. With love in tow - everything is a happy dance.

Photo by Tobi from Pexels

 

Verse

 

When you ask for my phone

I hesitate.

You insist and persist.

Of course  you win!

What's mine in here? 

There are no boundaries.

I feel encroached in thought 

And the tangibles alike -

Phones, laptops, soft toys

And such!

Since you win, you have it your way!

I didn't quiet care how you'd use

Err, or abuse it!

Thinking of the smudges you made 

On my slick oil pastels.

On them and with them

You dab and dabble creating a mess

That I take forever to erase!

Now what did you do?

I don't bother to check.

You come back, pulling me by the wrist.

My sore bones refuse to budge from 

the lean on the headboard

And the stretch on the bed.

But since you persist

I can't resist

Forever!

"You need to look at the sun"

You flash my phone and withdraw it

Before I catch a glimpse.

"You shot the sun?" I enquire

"That's why you should come and see!" 

You persist!

I drag my feet through the foyer

"Look" 

You sherik!

"That isn't the Sun you silly"

"That's the moon".

"Moon?"

"Yes - Sun doesn't rise at Seven PM, does it?"

"Ohhhh..." you emphasise the interjection

Like you finally get what I say!

But the mother in me, soaked in hormones

Internally swoons at the encroachment.

And brings it a paradigm shift!

There are teachers to teach you

Preachers to preach you.

Let me just lead by example!

For you to stop and stare

To capture and Share

The full moon that shines by our home

Moon, Sun, Salamander, Whatever - 

It's enough that you stop!

It's enough that you stare.

It's enough that you pause in this grind

And care to Share!

Pic - By my 8 yr old, captured on my mobile.

This n That - Mary had a little Lamb

Mary - The Holy Godmother. 

Cultures honor Her as the ultimate. Her holding a little babe, veiled and smiling - Perhaps one of the most recognizable visuals known to humankind.

I grew up in a predominantly Hindu place, in a practicing Hindu household - but Mary manifested in the  nooks and crannies of my little world. The name rung here and there - among my mom's students. Among characters in movies and plays and most importantly, Her form graced to greet me everyday I walked into our school campus - that's probably why I She continues to be a strong visual seared into my psyche.

She became synonymous with Mother. With Protecting and nurturing.

Now who hasn't heard the nursery rhyme - Mary had a Little Lamb? The lamb in question was on a stalking of sorts - following Mary everywhere she went, sporting her fleece that's as white as snow. I didn't think of the Lamb as much as I thought of Mary, even though the rhyme conjured up a lumbering little lamb, cute as a button, white as snow and fluffy as cotton -  when all these images and wordage confronted me time and again. Mary continued to be the protagonist. What's up with little lambs anyway - the one in question just follows Mary. Some end up being sheared for their wool. Some end up on the dinner plate. Isn't Lamb a symbol of sacrifice if Mary was a symbol of magnificence?

And then, the sucker for allegories and metaphors that I am, I suddenly, at long last, stumble upon a realtime Mary and a real time lamb. Both in question, very close to my heart - both a part of me, both an extension of me. I suddenly realize, the rhymes and the monikers were metaphors too, masquerading around me since I was a child.  All of a sudden out of the blue, I remember Ramana Maharshi - his words of wisdom, ringing in my head - that Grace is right here, and all we need to do is see it. 

Mary - by the way, isn't always the young, glowing mother - she isn't a female even. She could be an 80 yr old man spotting a silver beard, or a 33 year old man struggling to make his mark. 

And the lamb? The Lamb isn't male or a lamb. He could be a she and the she could be anything but little. 

But the thing is, at long last, Mary and the Lamb go in an infinite loop of having each other. We can't say who is stalking whom or if there's any stalking to begin with. 

Cause sometimes, we don't know where Mary begins or the Lamb ends.

Life is such a copy cat. I wonder if it sports anything original. Sometimes it imitates art. Sometimes it even imitates nursery rhymes. 

Or may be, I got it all mixed up.

But Mary and the Little lamb are mixed up in an entirely different plane, at a different level of evolution.

I just know enough to spot them, and blog about them to keep this going....

Pic - Helena Lopes, Pexels.

Verse

 I was supposed to muse over the alphabet

Counter set to one month. 

What all reasons I have to shun it -

Not one, not two - but a million.

The daily grind, I say comes in way - 

The must dos, the mundanes, the many digresses

It's been over a year I'd abandoned this space

While in abandon I wile away the limited, numbered days.

Hobby this is, I say to myself. Now I write for a reason.

Treason this is, to keep away, for getting it out -

Helps. It just helps.

With what? With regulation, moderation, revelation and another tion I cannot think of 

From the top of my head.

But down there, at the Bottom of my heart, I know, This is where I belong.

Getting em out - while letting them loose

To fly across the blues - the ones above and the ones inside alike!

Now does the wing span cover miles like a metal bird does

Or just inches in splash of color, and delicate as petals 

Matters not - size, shape and make 

As long the flight it takes!

Day 5- Revisiting Laws of the Land

  I remember reading about Murphy's laws in the column of a magazine that a dear friend subscribed for me as a gift! This said subscription opened a new window into my small town girl world. There weren't computers readily available, the world wasn't connected through smart phones and social apps. The column used to be on the last page and I, Keeping up the tradition of doing things my own way, used to flip the last page first to get a fix of these fun tidbits. When I look back at my teen self, I do a lot of discoveries about how I was. One thing that alarmingly stands out is how neutral I was to everything I experienced...So did I marvel at the word play of Murphy's laws or did I believe in them? With massive resonance I can say that it was the former.

This exercise of writing a 1000 words a day started off with hopes that I'd keep my bigger writing goals in focus. Talking about them explicitly might not do me any more good than I am already doing by procrastinating the said 'bigger writing goals' so we'll leave it at that :) Now back to the 1000 words (give or take) on hand - so yesterday as I was browsing through the grocery isles and running my errands, a sudden epiphany of sorts struck me. I have to gently bring into focus that whether I commit my thoughts to a paper or a blog or not, I do have a lot of thoughts that cross my mind - yeah, the chronic thinker thingie - but let me not digress to the 'thoughtless' zen state I oh so sincerely want to achieve and stick to the epiphany and write about it. That might not end up very ironically - imagine writing about silence in a unnecessary elaboration! Unsilencing the silence. LOL and what a plot hole that would be?

Back to the point now - "Any thing can go wrong at any time" the Murphy's law marinating in my conscious memory sprung up to the conscious present of my grey matter. What followed was an aha moment and a smile. The knowing smile that blooms over one's face when one knows what to write about and is sure that there's no 'block' blocking the self imposed daily exercise. Notwithstanding, I did dodge the 1000 words last night...what I did though, was this. I opened my blog and started writing and promised myself that I'd revisit it and complete it before the day. Which I didn't do. I have spilled my putting off bug into the third day of February but I did log back in as you would see momentarily ;)

Okay, gingerly back to the point - I thought of this - what if we have to rewrite Murphy's laws? I did start a mental rewrite of one law and that's what started this whole banter.

"Anything can go right at anytime" - I'll do a little punning here "Anything can go write at anytime" (I didn't think of the pun when I thought of the rewrite though! Note to self - It pays to keep up a commitment that doesn't need to be kept!) So back to why this thought occured to me - DId I kind of say I was / am always neutral to life? I did right? and I am right! But just for argument sake, what if I chose to be polarly positive - I think I do look for the best in everything - probably a little too much, which explains the non ambition I exercise in my day to day life! A little stupor becomes a lot of stupor..that kind of thing :)And the best of the worst case scenario is that I justify it and how. Put all the weight on being content, sell the horses and sleep! (That's an adage in my native tongue, to indicate deep slumber. I thought why not translate it to add a few words to my count? Zeez, I Know. Talk about the desperations of life. 

But talking about life or about the laws, I did realize one thing. It is all what we choose to look at no matter what lies in front of us. We don't really need to allow Physics, Chemistry or Murphy to define that for us - but I do suggest not to jump off the cliff just because we defy Physics. Common sense, we shouldn't probably defy - but none the less we can write our own laws and live it up with a gentle tread, on the planet, on the people and more importantly on the self - our own self that is!

Tomorrow if I am short of ideas, I might mince a few words to make the counter move - but who is counting? Or may be I should ask the more pressing question - who is writing? 

Wait...Let me rephrase that - Who is reading?

That put things into perspective. And my writing and its necessity isn't contingent on the last question. It is imperative to keep commitments that are not needed to be kept. It is imperative to stop and scan at a broken signal - somewhat in the same way! And the best part is anything can go right at anytime. Or write! Suit yourself :)

Photo by Daria Shevtsova from Pexels

Day 4 - What happened to day Two?

What if Sunshine is your best friend? The potency of the crux of solar system questioned you about your location - If it is the Earth days that you go by or something else, if you had relocated to somewhere out of this green globe? What if you, in an attempt to dodge the confrontation said - How about Jupiter or Neptune? Only to know that moving to any of these would  make your attempt to escape even more silly? And Sunshine himself comes back and says - "Neither would justify - Their days are shorter than here!" And you have your Oops moment, not just because you flaked out on something you said you'd do, but also because your knowledge of Planetary science is equally questionable. Tch, tch, tch!

Then, this is what you do. You promptly open your laptop, log into your blog and stare at it like a lost child, not knowing what to do, up until you use the very nudge that prompted you to keep at a commitment you oh so proudly, metaphorically and poetically proclaimed to world wide brethren.

It isn't easy, this discipline thing, and I say this, despite claiming that writing is the most enjoyable job I appoint myself with and words are my best friends. And the actual reason of writing a 1000 words in here is an attempt to write several thousand words elsewhere - no prizes for guessing how filled up with words the elsewhere is by the way!

Truth be told, and in my defence, I did log into the blog on day two and day 3 - and even thought up of the ponders and uploaded my customary images - but then I don't remember what sidelined me - It was life perhaps, by and large, or it was laze. One of these - mostly life I want to say, though in heart of hearts I know this is open for argument. I come up with all excuses, like a textbook loser - I am working two jobs lately, IT employee by day and Movie buff by night - well, to be honest, this movie buff thingie has more to it than parking my backside on a couch with a bucket of popcorn but that we'll save for another day, or we'll just let it be. The point here is that I have a jam-packed day. How am I to make writing 1000 words a priority? And let's not forget the laundry, the uber duty and the three meals a day routine added to the corporate slave repertoire. Where were we at - again? Ah yes. Excuses.

While we are at excuses, I have to confess, that my life in the past five years had been a series of excuses forged carefully to  dodge all accountability to myself. It probably qualifies as a art form - this whole carefully curated package of excuses and procrastination generously sprinkled with stupor and candor about all that stupor. Only the other day when the numerical 2022 peered at me through my smartphone screen calendar, it suddenly struck me that half my life is most certainly over - and another half, I am not even sure of having. Shouldn't this realization change something in you or about you if it had to have the effect it had to have? Did I hear a yes? Right??

So the Monarch ordered something and no wonder he has filled up his book shelf with manuscripts he authored himself - and me the mere mortal wanting to be the Monarch is wasting away a limited, endangered resource, which happens to be time in general and life in specific.

Now, I make a vow yet again (do I hear a faint murmur from somewhere that vows are made to be broken? Ah..nevah mind. The great Saint Ramana Maharshi said that we'd all do what we are born to do - so I put the responsibility of me writing on the likes of Sunshine (Remember? I talked about him while we started off on this blog, he is the very reason I am here, punching in these keys) and on destiny and the path I am born to tread.

On retrospect, I do need to give myself some sort of credit - after all, the soul with the attention span of  a two year old, kept this blah alive for 18 years (and hopefully counting)

So back to the Monarch I go, to his discourse the course of my life adheres to.

And no, that isn't a vow.

By the order of the Monarch - Day 1

Monarch could be King right? Albeit a milder version of the magnanimity. How does monikers matter anyway - when metaphors rule the roost. So let me call him the King. And let me tell you what the King ordered.

Do I really diss numbers? Or do I do it just use dissing as pretext to go into a mental stupor? Oh yeah, that gets me to my non-ambitious spirit but I should not digress and go back to King's order. But I'll tell you why I brought up numbers in the first place. Or this particular number. 1000. Yea, One thousand. Sounds like a sentence by itself doesn't it? And somehow this number had been haunting me for the past few days. "A journey of a thousand miles" some podcast highlighted it - in a rhetoric fashion of course, but it still was a journey none the less...and then when I landed myself in search of inspiration, I ended up face to face with the King himself. 

The king's ransom, if I might call it that - or the treasury wasn't open for me as yet. There's a price for admission and I need to pay it. But while I hovered around the gates to be let in, I caught whiffs of his wisdom. And from those whiffs emerged the number 1000. As metaphor in my mother tongue, I had to struggle to take the number literally and converted it into my currency. One thousand words I was to pen.. Or in this case, key in. How does the medium matter much anyway? I just attend to what was prescribed and I dust the blog and type away. 

In the process of penning a thousand words, I did some soul searching. You know where it started? Right around the block. The writer's block that is. And then I made a discovery of sorts. I had, all these years, used my creativity (If I an call it that myself) as a companion. I didn't really explore its potential as an expression. That's probably the reason why I leave it alone intermittently when life comes in the way and I prioritize cooking three hot meals a day over writing a thousand words, or even a dozen. I might not be a creature of ambition but I most certainly am a creature of duty. When my duties keep my company, I send my creativity to the attic, stacked alongside of the Christmas decorations that are dusted once a year. I resolved that it has to change. Why? Because I realized half my life is probably over, and I have no clue if there is another half. It could just be a quarter or less. Or more. No clue. What I have now is what I have. A moment at a time and I resolve to write a word per moment. 

I am not good at keeping promises I make to myself. I always falter. Am I not reliable? Of course I am. I just don't hold myself answerable to myself and that's a huge huge plot hole. In fact, it is a crater, a black hole perhaps, that sucks life and spits out nothing. Not the metaphorical nothing. No, not that. But actual nothing, the zero, zilch nothing. But you know what, no matter how I look at nothing, I see an epiphany. So let's leave nothing to nothing and go on the journey of a thousand words - if only metaphorically.

That's what the King ordered. I am not ruled by him. Heck, I don't even know a sliver of where he rules or how he does it. I know he is King. For now, that knowledge is enough. So would you be my witness to this odyssey of a rise, or a fall? Who knows what's to come? But a moment at a time, a word per moment, just one word!

I don't want to wait until Christmas to dust my mojo. It's a long way away - or it might appear before I blink a few times. Any which way, the mojo is unloaded, unpacked and would unfold....

By the order of the Monarch, the caterpillar lazes and grazes on the milkweed. Amen.

 Photo by Charles Haacker from Pexels

Newness

 I start off with a misnomer

I should have called it Oldness

I was supposed to write

Was I born to yield or fight?

And was I to express, to muse?

Or in the silence, I was bound to myself amuse!

I lounge by in sunshine

Counting my confetti poppers

Those need to be launched, to be released

To honor a life that can't be accounted

So to the oldness I bow

For letting me linger around a little more somehow

In a blink and miss matrix..

I was supposed to write

I wasn't supposed to yield, I was bound to fight

The flight of nothing I shun for now

And muse on a misnomer - like I mentioned above!

Newness is oldness with an identity crisis

I hope not!

Resonance

I am supposed to weave a repose in words

String phrases spelled in the vocab of emotion

 Pick them sentences like cherries from an orchid

Toss them in a salad of expression.

I am supposed to thrive in articulation 

Scream out loud through this keyboard  

Punching letters and forging meaning

Relating myself within and beyond

I am supposed to have a way with eloquence 

Feelings should don the colors of the literal

Extracting the abstract, diffusing the quiet

Bare it all kinda way, stripping my soul on display 

Then I feel this urge to be still

Letting those ripples of verbal waves

Subside into the abyss of the ocean 

Dwelling in silence, muting the noise.

I am supposed to speak 

But somehow on this path of a worldly scramble

They sound like bickering 

And thus, I shut up, and thus I sum up

This sojourn in lines

While the echoing insides urge me

To just be..without the blabber

 

luvVerse

These structures 

Like the abstract 

Lugging me along into a void

Trust me it isn’t as dark as it sounds 

Nor is it empty and dull

What if I said it is Full

To the brim?

There was a time when chronic intellect 

Was the aim of the day..

Now al I seem to care is to care not!

These structures, the constructs, the constraints 

Looking like connections

But being decoys

Somehow, now - they stand decoded!

And I was supposed to scribble in silence

Dabble in space…

But here I go…

LuvVersing..

Ceasing to fast forward or reverse!