Return of the Ramble

 

I fly past a daily grind

Don't let it trick you - this flight.

It isn't anything graceful.

Rather a lumber

And a tumbling down

From chore to chore

For more to some more

Of Godforsaken things.

I love them mostly

Or believe I do.

Except the dishing part!

That, I love? I do not!

Suds in the sink, form and pop

As I watch them in preoccupation

The visual seems to register

And then doesn't!

Pop - The reminder.

Pop up, that is

Of the ramble that awaits here

To be doodled

Almost in an urgency, 

Like someone somewhere is waiting

To see what I would ponder about

And string in aplomb

Or settle in stupor

Scattering scrambled words to make a note.

I ramble, and I roam

I settle as I reach home -

The one that is abstract

A heap of wordage that cocoons me

And aids my metamorphosis.

If you are here,

Who ever you are..

I know not!

But you should know

I draw from you, as much as I write for me.

For us may be?

In this doodle where words and pictures blur

And become one.

Just like you and me.

Photo by Andrew: https://www.pexels.com

Verse

Up there

The things I reach out to.

In the other realm

Birds made of feathers,

Made of metal.

That graze the skies

Serenading the blues

I wish to take a swoosh

Defying gravity

Going about, looking down 

And letting out a laugh

At the mirage that it is, 

The illusion, the deception 

The Laugh in question

Is to acknowledge 

That I am an idiot - 

By choice.

That I partake in the parade

Knowingly, with full consent.

Now, isn't ignorance a ticket

To some slack?

I neither have  the ticket, nor the slack.

Awareness they say

Even when paired with ignorance

Is a virtue.

(Ah, there goes the vicious cycle again,

The urge to defend and acquit the culprit.)

I look up to let in

And the 'let go' when I look down

Waits patiently in queue.

I don't have forever

That should be the message on a sticky note

Displayed conspicuously

In my eye span.

Reminders galore

Up there

The grazing branches of trees,

The little critters buzzing in the morning sun

Promising the light of the creation.

There's a vast space out there

To spread and rejoice

What do I choose?

A dungeon of delusions

Landing me back on my bum

Right into where I intend not to be.

What fetish, I make out of this maze.

Photo by Valeriia Miller: https://www.pexels.com

 

Talk

Would you  get me

If I talked in pictures?

I said nothing

And flashed images.

Would you get me

If I talked in silence

Filing my nails.

Polishing them and stealing a glance

From the couch I plonk in 

As I wait for the varnish to dry.

Would you get me

If I said I had to say nothing

But I was fibbing

And am dying to pour it all out!

Would you get me if I sat idle

Did nothing!

Said nothing.

Just lingered around

Like the smell of a fragrance

After the person had left the room.

Would you get me if I am trying not to be gotten

Sulking, throwing a mute fit of sorts.

Would you get me if I ignored you

As a means to get noticed by you.

Would you clean my mess

And hug me for 30 seconds.

Yes, just 30 seconds.

That's all it takes to regulate emotions

I was told, by someone qualified to tell.

What amusement it is

That all that can't be gotten 

While wanting to be gotten

But pretending to not to

Can be cured with something

As simple as

A hug.

 Photo by Whicdhemein - Pexels.

Nomenclature

 I am the tiny little dog

The female dog

There's a word for it - Bitch.

But somehow it feels like an expletive 

To use it  publicly.

They say 'Bitch', like it is a swear word.

A bad word.

'Bitch' is an insult kept in a cuss, wrapped in abuse.

But the tiny little dog I am

I don't care for treats, so the plans to placate

Motivate, manipulate - if any

Won't fly!

I am too big for my britches. 

Oh I mean, too big for my mass

I have no perception for size.

I treat all as equals. Like soles. 

Err...Souls.

I stand up, pulling myself on my forelegs

Over exaggerating my slight existence.

I don't care much. I don't care enough.

Wait, there's fine font!

But when I do care, when the treats are abstract

And the bonds metaphysical

I die caring.

That's all I do. Care.

Pretty much that. 

And that's plenty much to do

Size is just a measure.

Wealth is just a number.

But love is beyond. And Above.

(Pro tip - Use that as a treat)

I might be tamed.

I am a tiny little dog 

(Yes, tiny and little are repetitive )

(But just so you get the point, that I am really, REALLY little)

There's another word for all these excess words

Bitch.

But that's a cuss word.

Its funny how meanings shuffle

And distort.

What difference does a label make?

I am a tiny little dog.

I was supposed to be house broken,

Well trained.

Friendly.

Quiet.

I swear they even gave me an accreditation .

Good girls don't cuss.

They don't bark. 

Good girls can't be Bitches

And Vice versa...

But I am a tiny little dog.

Screw what the etymology  says.

There's one word for it

Bitch.

Put me and the my word together and it becomes.....

Good girl Bitch.

yikes, that sounds like an oxymoron.

But they are synonymous. Much like tiny n little. 

But whatever!

Happy Birthday - Tiny little Good girl Bitch ;)

Thank you - Photo by Terrance Raper - Pexels.

Black and White.

 

The other day, I was going through a parenting moment with my second born. This child has an over active imagination and a tendency to improvise on things every time she narrates an incident to me. 

For instance, if Mr. Price, her second grade teacher and her had a conversation in the corridor, it would add up in content every time she chooses to repeat it. And she chooses to repeat it at least three times in one go...so you know how the script expands as it gets repeated. I, for the bad cop that I am, keep interrogating her without calling her out, ever so gently bringing the focus onto the details she stacks up on the convo - kind of making her question / correct herself without killing her spirit and her rich imagination.

The other day we had a discussion. About speaking the truth. I was trying to tell without telling, preach without preaching that there's a fine line between imagination and fibbing. Between improvisation and manipulation. But it was a slippery slope, a conversation that was punctuated with a lot of thoughtful pauses and childish questions. Now the subject matter 'truth' seemed to seep all over, creating a lot of ambiguity. 

So why is important to tell the truth? I asked her - after telling her stories that demonstrated the importance of being truthful. No one would believe us if we are caught telling lies too many times - she seemed to get to the core of the issue. Just when I thought my mission was accomplished, I realized that there's some fine font happening here. Speaking the truth has layers to it. That not speaking the truth is not always a bad thing, and in some contexts, it is perhaps very necessary. 

What if we would hurt someone's feelings if we speak the truth? - I brought in an example of when I said that a painting someone made was fantastic when I thought otherwise. If there's no harm caused but good done when we lie, so to speak, it is okay! I concluded. 

The 8 yr old looked like she got it and got about her routine. But I felt like something was incomplete in this conversation, the conversation in my mind space went through things that might go above and beyond telling the truth - I felt the need to tell her more, to tell her in detail that life isn't black and white and everything seems to shift based on the situation. But I wanted to spare her tender self from cryptic philosophies...Life would get to the teachings, slowly but surely. Right?

This morning, when I was walking home with my neighbor - this pleasant lady that doesn't seem to have bad days or bad hair days, our conversation treaded the topic of separation anxiety. It's a fresh school year and we saw kindergarten kids being dropped at the gates where longing stares are exchanged between them and the parents. 

"I saw a kid cry the other day" - I told her. A sight that isn't very common in the part of the world I live in. I could be dated, but when I remember my school days in India, I remember  tantrums and separation anxieties spilling all over the place and kids that cried to no end when they were dropped off at the school gate. Like I said, I could be dated. 

"Oh here?" she seemed to be as surprised as I was when I spotted the incident. "May be the kid didn't go to pre-k" I analyzed. "Could be" she offered. 

Then She spoke about her own experience with a kid crying at the gate - the kid being a common friend's carpool mate that had a similar melt down when being dropped. The friend that came to drop him was clueless as the kid broke into a full blown sob fest at the entrance. The new rules forbid parents from walking into the campus at drop off. "I scooped the kid on to my hip and walked in to drop him at his class, waited till the teacher arrived and made sure some grown up was around to handle him" She shared animatedly "For that moment I didn't think it was necessary to follow the rules. It is a little kid's anxiety in question and I didn't want him to feel abandoned" 

I had a smile on my face. We are taught to follow rules, to speak the truth. But are we encouraged to speak our truth? The things that we see, we feel and we deem as important? Do we stand up for what we believe in and put our foot down and become rebels when the situation nudges us or do we confine ourselves to the rule books?

I remember watching a reel on the Gram - a reel from a famous Bollywood film where a paraplegic goes into a monologue urging all and sundry to break the rules, kiss slowly and live fully as life is short and unpredictable. At that moment, I had a flash of a thought that kind of deciphered the 'breaking the rules' part as an act of abandon, an act of artistic liberties...

But I think this is what it could have meant - Break the rules cause rules aren't always the roads that lead us to truth. And bend the truth cause the what is true need not be right. 

Photo by Alexander Dummer: https://www.pexels.com

Ode to Gobi - (The Cauliflower )

 

I sit here and wonder, looking at thee

How, holy miracle you are borne on a tree..

A plant, a bush or on foliage you occur

I sit here and wonder of the emotions you stir

I fry you - frittered, doused in corn starch

I devour you in November, I devour you in March!

Then I grate you and stuff you in pockets of bread

I gobble up, yummy gobi - with a yoghurt spread

I look to spot you in farmer markets' stalls

There's plenty of bounty but I hear your calls

Beckoning to me to come take you home

Oh tasty cluster of flowers, shaped like a dome.

Now I see how the world obsesses by my side

chopping you to feign grains and calling you the upside

Of avoiding starches and filling the tummies

with flavor and fun and all thing yummies.

Now crust you become, on a pizza of all things

Now base you become and give me happy wings

To launch myself into a vegetarian eden

Your virtues they line up from China to Sweden

Now if I had to pick a food and call it a fave

If I have to look for a  muse and string verses of rave

You come to rescue on the plate and the blog

You serenade the senses you clear the brain fog.

Pictured - Gobi (cauliflower) Parantha from my humble kitchen to accent my humble blog.

Ponder - The Guilty pleasure

 

In all honesty, when I am committed to write and inertia takes over, I apply a short cut. I write in a free form, a verse form. It cuts my work time into half and I am not worried about the coherence of the thought or how clearly it flows, or how grammatically flawless it is. But at the end of it, I get a feeling that I had cheated on the exam. 

Is working smart a vice? Sometimes I look at it as such.

But to ponder I choose today. And the subject matter was lurking in my head ever since  I binge watched the doc series about Johnny Depp case on Netflix. Now my age old attention span is something only I can understand, especially when it comes to confining myself to a screen and holding myself captive to someone else's thoughts. But I did watch through two episodes out of 3 in one sitting and that's some sort of power that subject had over me and I have to care to admit. 

But while I was watching it, my mind did drift back and forth into the awareness that my attention span is being stretched. And I didn't break character after all - I wasn't as captivated as I thought I was because the chunk of my attention was consumed in analyzing why and how this subject is sucking me into it. Domestic discord isn't new to me, I had passive exposure to it growing up in a household that had two class A alpha parents. And I'd be lying if I say I don't actively go through it from time to time as a grown up in a long standing, relatively solid matrimony. When familiarity takes the foreground, there are things that become inevitable - for instances, contempt in big and small doses should be expected. 

Especially after many winters to my married back and two children, I have to say, I am breaking the conditioned 'good girl' mold and speaking my mind without dimming myself just so I accommodate the other party. Empathy I understood, should be applied in two parts - One in understanding why the other party did what they did and not judging them, and the other in speaking up and telling how I don't need to bear the burnt of their wounds if they choose the easier way to deal with their demons by taking it on others. 

Now the Johnny in question might be dapper and debonair , with a few (need a fact check here) Oscars standing proud in his curio. What's eating Gilbert Grape is a film I can watch again and again being partially amnesiac towards my attention span. And Amber might shine like an amber in a no moon night, sporting a smile that lights up the whole court room and making a heterosexual  female (that's moi) watching her with a half agape mouth. But both of them are human. And the last time I checked, no human is perfect. 

Now, I get ever so slightly flustered when 'the love of my life' phrase is thrown around liberally. A lot of things that we assume as love are not love and in a co-dependent relationship such as a marriage, it is near impossible to love in the truest sense of the word. There was a clear give and take in this relationship as with all of them and I don't for one thing need to take sides or cheer one party cause both of them are humans in a marriage. While the proceedings carried on, I had a strange sense of watching something staged and I wouldn't know why - could be one of my biases, could be my skepticism or could just be the fact that there's a civil case of domestic discord, a topic as mundane and commonplace as snowing in north pole and both the parties are privileged and privy to things that most pedestrians are not. 

End of the day, I had no sympathy for either but I do empathize with both and I also do understand, it was a marriage of equals and none who so ever had a back seat so to speak. At the end of the day, what happens between a couple is not entirely know to the couple themselves as we as human beings are not honest with how we look at ourselves most of the times. We don't apply the critique to us that we liberally apply to others.

Now, is the topic the civil case or the guilty pleasure I had watching it? It is said that the human brain likes problems. We fetishize conflicts like nothing else, we like being in tricky situations as it is an addiction to the ego - case in point, we enjoy thrill, drama and violence. We like solving puzzles, sorting through mazes. We do not seem to value peace, quiet and stability as much as we are drawn towards the former - Or I would have let my exhausted, period drained backside to get extra sleep and rest instead of partaking in the pressing issue that's being televised. Pretty people of the virtual world, let me tell you it is the work of the larger than life Ego that's never wrong, ever!

So yeah, that's with the guilty pleasure. That seems to take over most of us unless we have busted the loop and fallen out of it. It is easy they say, the ones that got to the other side - ocher robes and a hut in Himalayas are entirely optional.

The maze, the mind, the madness :)

 

Photo by Jonathan Borba - Pexels

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.