Dear reader,
It is a rainy day in September as I type. I didn't set out to write this letter but as often happens, words poured out quite on their own.
Lately, I’ve been experiencing a lot of ennui. Everything seems like a tedium, a loop of cobwebs from which I struggle to extricate myself.
I feel very lonely, recently a friend texted me. Loneliness seems to be the overarching theme of our times. Another friend sent me this:
Text by : twitter.com/Le0gursky/
The antidote to loneliness, perhaps, is to be found in the little wonders of the everyday. To perform all our tasks with as much love as possible. To consider one as part of the world that surrounds us - soft grass, air, the trees themselves, the bees. To feel gratitude for them. When so much belongs to us, and we to the limitless Universe, how can we in truth be lonely?
…
When I wrote this letter, I had spent the entire day on my bed. Only one thing had seemed possible : reading. And read I did, with much relish. Twas the only way to escape the misery that benumbed me.
It rained heavily that morning, swift currents that rendered everything invisible. But in a twinkle the sun was out too, shining just as fiercely. From my perch upon the bed I saw this play of water and fire. Later when I had looked up, the sky was bluer than I had ever known. I could only gaze in quiet wonder.
Night fell, and in the warm light of the half-moon, I had peace.
Seeking Balance
Lately, I’ve seen my balance go out of whack. I was exhausted, uninspired and crotchety. Information overload and its ill effects on mental health are only too real. Consequently, cutting off social media has been a boon for the well-being of my mind. I spend that extra time playing with water colors, reading and actually talking to friends. I don’t get anxious comparing my life with others.
I explore and grow at my own pace.
I invite you to engage in a few tasks of self care over the next couple of days. If like me you’ve been down in the dumps, here’s what you can do:
Little joys
I woke up today to a single white lily blooming outside my window. In all this overwhelm, it is the little things that have been keeping me sane. The flowers my mother grows on the terrace - blooms of Portulaca; bunches of Roses and Hibiscus. Breathtaking poems I chance across. A Drongo alights on a pole in the evenings, launching into delicious song. I wait for his performance every day.
A small Pomegranate tree grows outside my room. Today the raindrops had clung to it tenderly, glistening beads of silver. I eagerly wait for the first fruit to form upon its soft body. It is a kind of magic, is it not, how a leaf will fold in upon itself and in due time become a fruit?
Joy can be found in the smallest of things, dear reader.
…
A friend recently introduced me to the band Opa Tsupa, and I’ve been hooked since. Their music has given me much cheer on gloomy days. Here are some tunes to lighten you up. Make whoopee!
On My Shelf : History delights me no end. Time has imparted it a tint of nostalgia; a yearning arises that had until now lain buried in some corner of one’s heart.
John Lang was an Australian barrister and an inveterate traveller. This account of his travels through 19th century Mussoorie is full of adventure, among them his rendezvous with the Rani of Jhansi, who he represented in court against the British!
Poetry Corner
A play of light and shadows
1. At Blackwater Pond by Mary Oliver.
At Blackwater Pond the tossed waters have settled
after a night of rain.
I dip my cupped hands. I drink
a long time. It tastes
like stone, leaves, fire. It falls cold
into my body, waking the bones. I hear them
deep inside me, whispering
oh what is that beautiful thing
that just happened?
2. The peace of wild things by Wendell Berry
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
3.Introduction to poetry by Billy Collins
I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
like a color slide
or press an ear against its hive.
I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out,
or walk inside the poem’s room
and feel the walls for a light switch.
I want them to waterski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author’s name on the shore.
But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.
They begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.
4. Be drunk by Charles Baudelaire:
You have to be always drunk. That's all there is to it—it's the only way. So as not to feel the horrible burden of time that breaks your back and bends you to the earth, you have to be continually drunk.
But on what? Wine, poetry or virtue, as you wish. But be drunk.
And if sometimes, on the steps of a palace or the green grass of a ditch, in the mournful solitude of your room, you wake again, drunkenness already diminishing or gone, ask the wind, the wave, the star, the bird, the clock, everything that is flying, everything that is groaning, everything that is rolling, everything that is singing, everything that is speaking. . .ask what time it is and wind, wave, star, bird, clock will answer you: "It is time to be drunk! So as not to be the martyred slaves of time, be drunk, be continually drunk! On wine, on poetry or on virtue as you wish."
5.The moment by Margaret Atwood
The moment when, after many years
of hard work and a long voyage
you stand in the centre of your room,
house, half-acre, square mile, island, country,
knowing at last how you got there,
and say, I own this,
is the same moment when the trees unloose
their soft arms from around you,
the birds take back their language,
the cliffs fissure and collapse,
the air moves back from you like a wave
and you can't breathe.
No, they whisper. You own nothing.
You were a visitor, time after time
climbing the hill, planting the flag, proclaiming.
We never belonged to you.
You never found us.
It was always the other way round.
…
The clouds are burgeoning with thunder, dark clouds that have taken over the entirety of the sky. I sit by my window and wait for the rain to arrive. My heart swells in anticipation.
Until next time, whenever that may be.
Love ❤
Shreya.