To begin well- is my hope. I am trying to rekindle an old habit- blogging. I used to be an active blogger more than a decade ago and now it feels like it was eons ago.
To shake off the inertia is not easy. Though writing has always been pleasurable except for a few instances, because I took a long break from it, it’s not easy to resume where I stopped.
Feeling rusted and hunting for the right words. Thinking that my writing has suffered during the hiatus. The self-critic in me has gained strength in all these years.
Even when the only one desire that has always been constant, burning like a little fire within me, how could I put a full stop to it? I don’t know how and exactly why I stopped.
There is no point in looking back. Especially today when the New Year has just begun. The New Year is a beautiful concept. It’s a gift of positivity, it’s a ray of hope.
It’s just another year but the prefix ‘new’ changes everything about it. What would make it new? What does the new mean?
If it has to live up to it’s description, I must treat it anew and try everything possible to maintain the newness of it.
That’s my insight today – the insight that occurred to me as I started writing this note. There’s hope because a year is a long time. A long time to make about a change – in my life, in inculcating a new habit or a bunch of habits. Let’s see.
I wrote this at the beginning of spring. It’s a pleasure revisiting this in the middle of fall when the leaves have said their good-byes and the birds are busy migrating to warmer skies.
Who said things have come to a standstill?
The daffodils opened a few weeks ago
‘Fluttering and dancing in the breeze’,
They whisper tales of hope
When I went out for a walk in the woods,
I spotted a yellow and white bedecked carpet
And felt my heart leap
As the wildflowers hummed cheerful tunes from forest beds
The birds have laid eggs
In the exhaust vent from my kitchen hood
Their constant chirrups punctuate the quiet of my kitchen
As dishes sauté and simmer on my warm stove
Bird nest in my kitchen vent -drawing by Mariann Joseph
Last evening, I spotted a little bunny
Camouflaged by sage stubble
Nibbling tender grass in my backyard,
The kit hopped around with measured caution
A tiny squirrel appeared on the fence
Watching and thinking-
‘This little fella on the ground looks like me,
He may have bigger ears, but for sure my tail’s bushier’
I was walking back home, after more than an hour of being in the woods. It was October, and the day was warm for fall standards.
For me, the woods are always dark and deep. Quiet and still, except for the birds that chirp and dart from one tree to another. Sometimes, they just choose to perch on a branch and stay comfortably there for what feels like ever.
Sugar Maple Park
As I came out of the woods and entered a paved road, I noticed a little battalion walking towards the woods. A grandpa with a bunch of grandchildren, it looked like. The boys were jumping around, two of them holding grandpa’s hands. I couldn’t take my eyes off this group. I could feel the love and warmth they exuded. I continued to do what I do when I encounter such scenes. Keep looking and fill up my heart with their happy emotions.
The grandpa looked content. One of the boys sported a mischievous grin. So mischievous that I couldn’t but pay him more attention than the others. As soon as he understood that I was paying attention, his grin turned to a near laugh though I couldn’t hear the sound of it. ‘Maybe he chuckled’, I thought.
Sixteen Mile Creek, Oakville
I told my husband, who was walking alongside, that the little one was up to something. “The grandpa probably knew it, but he was playing along”, I suggested.
That’s when I noticed the boy with the mischievous grin stick something behind the grandpa’s t-shirt. Within seconds, we passed them and I turned to see what it was. Dried thistle flowers or Burdock burrs, as they are called, not just one or two, but a handful of them neatly stuck behind grandpa’s t-shirt!
I stole a glance at the grandpa who greeted us as we passed them. His smile was beautiful and he seemed blissful in the company of the little ones. I turned to look at them disappear into the woods and caught the little boy turn and look at me. More grinning and more mischief in his eyes!
The moment and the discovery brought alive the granddaughter in me. I suddenly thought about my grandpa who left us two years ago. I am almost 43 and I had my grandpa till I was 41. He was 100 when he left for the light. I have 41 years of memories with him, or a few years less, considering I don’t remember the first few years. Does one feel enough about the love of grandparents? I surely don’t.
I am grateful for all the beautiful times I have had with my grandparents, but I wonder what it would be to have them for a few more years. Would it make me feel younger?
My maternal grandpa was the last of my grandparents to leave. When he left, I felt the grandchild in me become less important. I felt that the grandchild in me started fading away, slowly.
One of the happiest moments that I would recall is a particular situation in which my grandpa had to introduce me to a third person. A neighbor, or someone visiting. He would proudly introduce me by saying, “She is my granddaughter.” After I became a mother, and after the responsibilities of being a parent weighed me down, ‘she is my granddaughter’ made me feel lighter and younger.
Now, years after he left me, it’s moments like the one in the woods, unexpected encounters with other grandfathers that would bring back memories of time spent with my own.
“Look at that big tree by the side of the road. See, it has no leaves, no flowers and no buds. But it has bird nests. It has two of them.”
“Look closely- do you sense emptiness in and around the nests? The birds have flown away, and it must have been at least a few weeks, isn’t it?”
“Look how windy it is today, but see, the tree holds them dearly, even as the winds pull its brittle branches along. When it snows, with its thin branches, it’d try to cover the nests. But to shelter whom; does it even know? To shelter this painful vacuum?”
“The only knowledge the tree has is that it gave the birds a home once upon a time, shielded it from rain and shine, and from the cold autumn winds…and that, today, the birds aren’t there, they have gone far…The tree pointlessly hopes that one day, the birds may come back…”
“You talk only from the trees’ point of view? Don’t the birds have their story to tell as well?”
“Tell me, what is their story? Won’t you? Are you one of the birds yourself?”
Fall is here and everyday when I step out, my surroundings remind me of the brevity of life. And more.
Over the long weekend, I had been to Ottawa to see the fall colors up close and personal. Though this is not my first fall in the North American soil, every time I see nature wear her shades of fall, I am enthralled.
I tell my kids- look at her. She knows this parade of colors isn’t forever. She puts up her best fall show while knowing fully well about its impermanence. Who else could tell us about the fleeting nature of all things beautiful and endearing?
More than just the evanescence, the story of the fallen leaves is a lesson in leaving, in saying goodbye gracefully. When the leaves fall, they don’t fall all at once, but leaf by leaf. Or, in batches, giving us ample time to watch them fall in rhythm. Unless the wind takes them here and there, they stay put, under the shade of the tree that’s bracing for the stillness ahead.
In nature’s instruction manual, the leaves must disappear and become one with the earth that holds the tree, her roots and her bark. But in a city-dweller’s rule book, they are to be cleaned, packed and sent away to rot in a faraway pile. While the tree looks on, her leaves are taken away.
A tree produces the leaves that it needs. It’s a step in her development and growth. It’s to play her role in in the larger scheme of things, of life and nourishment. But interestingly, she takes responsibility for what she produces. She uses it to put out another leaf, a bud, a fruit. In a self-sustaining forest system, the trees provide for each other.
It perplexes me how we don’t take responsibility for what we create, produce or use. We have redefined nature’s laws of impermanence and brevity. Some of the things that we produce, use and throw, stay on the surface of earth for hundreds of years. We are okay with it. We don’t even stop to think about it. We think it’s someone else’s problem. The day we stop to think and take a pause is not far. Hope!
From a hammock in the forest My tired body sunk into a hammock High on a mountain where trees grow Where grass feels free to scale high Where fallen leaves roam at ease Sunlight came in selective bursts The branches wouldn’t let them all pass I received what I needed though Enough to show me the long lines In the stillness, silence came by No holds barred, she motioned, No strings attached, she hushed, Take it all, you need it, she nudged I soaked in the moment’s beauty When wind turned the pages, And the trees shed a tear or two Of yellowed leaves falling gently The green rustled and ruffled, Like youth crying for attention The browned ones danced about While the wind held their hands I wished that moment wouldn’t arrive, But go on forever and ever rather The joy of life…
Whims and fancies 