Hello 2010

Billie May passed on, God bless his soul. And they found a woman to yell out the virtues of Oxiclean. What else is there to be said?

Pandora's box

All this concern over intrusive mind-reading technology. I say, let them. If they can see more inside my mind beside the pettiness that disgusts me, I will be happy. Garbage picking. No bottomless pool, this mind. Shallow, void, empty..I do wish there was more to me than this smallness. Would love to be profound. But am bound by my littleness. Would love to be deep but find safety in shallow waters.So go ahead..look into my mind, but don't say I did not warn you.

Black roses, black diamonds, black skies

And what will you show me next? Another shade of black? Color that rubs off on my fingers, a stain that sets in deep and sure..no amount of scrubbing helps..If I rip off the skin, I will find deposits in the tissue beneath.

Should you blindfold me? Or should you poke my mind's eye with a sharp stick? Stop thinking, stop thinking, for the love of god stop seeing. Close my eyes and drift away. Color, color, vibrant color. Black is the color of my blue sky..oh what have you done?

Argentinian Tango from a movie

In a petty and occasionally ugly world, art offers beauty and comfort.

Thanksgiving

It is Thanksgiving today. It is a heart-stoppingly gorgeous day here and I have spent the morning slaving in the garden and getting happily muddy. Pudgy squirrels are chasing each other around on the fence and the dog next door is going crazy from my whistling :)

Plucking out weeds makes me curiously introspective. Weeding was just incidental. I spent the morning in prayer..thankful for all that is good in my life..a beautiful family, friends who are family, beauty, art and love. For food on the table and water from the tap whenever I want it. For a kind and loving husband and a sweet child. And I remembered a hymn we were taught in school in 4th grade:

"...Oh yes we thank Thee Lord for every flower that blooms
Birds that sing, fish that swim and the light of the moon
Thank Thee everyday as we kneel and pray
That we were born with eyes to see these things.."

It is great to be alive! Happy Thanksgiving everybody!

Suspended in time

This morning when we set off for Minnie's bus stop (6 miles from home) the night clouds were fraying at the edges and mist was rising from the depths of the bayou that runs in front of our house. And in that mist were standing deer. Very quiet, motionless. I stopped the car and we sat still for a short while breathing in the incredible beauty of the moment.

Saturday morning

What a bleak, flat header. Sounds like staring at concrete walls, gutters and the plumbing elements at the back end of a building.

It is a cold morning. The temperature dropped overnight by about 30 degrees..it is about 46 degrees outside..unusual for Texas in October. Looking out through the window of course you would never know.

Drenched in sunshine
Bathed in watercolor blue
What a beautiful day
Thank you God.

George Benson's beautiful rendition of California Dreamin' describes it best.

The beach

Ripples in the sand
Memory of the wave that kissed the shore
In the misty morning when the world slept
Little red crabs scurried off
Eddies, swirls and rockpools
Bits of mica glinting in the sun
Laughing, twinkling sand

Rhythm

Day in, day out
Tide in, tide out
Dust to dust
Sand to sand
Rarely, a blinding flash of azure sky.

Weekday, weekend
Pre ms, post ms
Never a good time, is it?
Look in, look out
Stand in, stand out, stand by.

Evanescence

Nothing matters, really. We are inclined to take ourselves far too seriously. Not homes, jobs, cars, money, prestige, pelf...irrelevant in the cosmic scheme of things. When I think of the Universe around me, I shrink to an atom, miniscule, insignificant to the insignificant. It makes cipher of my troubles and puts my life in perspective. When I think of the Universe within me, I realize I am not even me..I am part of the Infinite and my name is Love..nothing else matters, nothing at all.

I am here today, I will be ocean sand tomorrow..maybe a child will build a sandcastle with little particles of me. I will glint in the sun as mica, I will be pulled out by a loving wave- strong as a lover..I will drown in bliss.

On Beauty

Have you ever been wounded by beauty? Have you seen, smelt, heard and felt so deeply that the memory of it branded your soul, seared your substance and made your heart burst with love and joy? It does not take much. For me, all I need to do is look at my child's snub nose and my heart contracts.

A dewdrop perched on the tip of a leaf, waiting to dive onto Demeter. Anthers, petals, sepals, scent..sun kissed. Open my eyes wider, inhale deeper and savor the touch of rose petals on my cheek.

Steve Vai performing 'For the love of God'

Misty mornings

The horizon has melded with the sky. Morning fog kisses the tops of the cornfields. The streetlights are nebulous, casting a soft loving glow. Traffic is slow. The road is slippery. I have to remember to steer into a skid.

The sky is so low today, I feel I am taking off into the stratosphere..the freeway my stairway to heaven. I don't want to go to heaven..it is going to be crowded. Don't want to go to hell..too hot and crowded. I want to be sea  sand..scatter my ashes, please. An abyss in the ocean floor would be nice.

Survival

Some of us are natural survivors, strong and resilient. Others, like me, find survival back-breaking, soul-searching, mind-bending.  Not going on is not an option. And so, I have come up with a survival mantra, an epiphany of sorts if you will. Here is wisdom garnered from nights of wishing to fall into the starry sky..

Wives lose husbands they have been married to for 40 years and more. Like rudderless ships, they flounder on. but they do not sink.  Men become widowers after years of depending on a better half..everyone survives, scarred, scared. Life, relentlessly, goes on. People survive life changing accidents and disasters. Mothers live on after burying their children. I cannot think of anything harder than that. If this is possible, anything is possible.

Healthy human tissue typically takes six weeks to heal and scar. The scar tissue is just a fraction as strong as the original substance..but Time, the great healer, slowly remodels the scar and makes it tenacious and strong. Over years, scars fade. Sometimes, they even surprise us.."Hey, you can barely see it!"

Taking inspiration from nature, I have decided to let myself heal. The scars will fade.

Of cabbages and kings

The other day I was asked: " Mom, may I use Mozarella Firefox instead of Explorer?" To my detractors, yes, I am aware that this is not an unknown brand of cheese. I was careful not to let a peep of a smile escape.

To crown this one, here was another eye opener.." Mom, how come you finish your sentences with exclamation marks while Dad does his with periods?" Lord have mercy.

To love less, or not at all

Walking on hot coals
Inky seas
Shredded feet
Lump in my throat
Asphyxia
A cupful of acrid stale love

Where are my blue skies, my copper sun, my lost cloud?
The demented woodpecker in the garden, bashing his beak on an unloving electric post
Whiplash
Whip lash
A thousand lashes would be less
And still not hurt as much.
Oh beloved God, hold me close tonight.

Nickylee

Nicole passed away last morning. I cannot imagine anything more painful than watching your seven year old baby die. My heart goes out to her family. May God carry you close to His heart through this painful time.

COMFORT FOOD

For those of you who crave hot soup on a cold day, here is a very very easy recipe that started out as an experiment and turned out smashing .

You will need :

• A saucepan & a ladle (non-stick will save you time afterwards)
• 1 can condensed potato soup (I used Campbell's)
• 3 cans/ cups water boiling briskly
• 1 egg/ half cup egg white, whichever you prefer
• Spinach (2 handfuls or so of the pre-washed kind)
• Half a smallish onion, whatever kind
• 1 clove of garlic.
• Half a serrano pepper or a slice of bell pepper or half a banana pepper, chopped fine (this is optional for the weak hearted)
• You can throw in meatballs if you have some in the freezer

HERE'S HOW TO DO IT :

Smash the garlic and chop it up fine.

Chop the onion as finely as you can without cutting yourself.

Saucepan on medium heat, add 1 spoon cooking oil or butter.

Throw in the onion and let it sputter around a bit before you add the garlic. DO NOT LET THE GARLIC BROWN.

Add the chopped green pepper if you want it spicy. Add 3 cups (about 750 ml) water and bring to a brisk boil.

Break your egg into the ladle, poke the yolk with a fork and lower the ladle gently into the boiling water. The egg will become egg-drop.

Add the potato soup and blend it in with the ladle.

Add the spinach and meatballs. Reduce heat and let it simmer.

It should take 15 mins total from start to finish.

Kolkata my love.

The roads are a rutted mess of mud, garbage and lord knows what. My insides shrink when this squalid mix touches my toes. The sky is an unloving grey, sending forth showers of questionable rain.

The traffic is like the mind of a maniac, directionless, rude, pushing forward, ambulances pathetically waiting to be given right of way..but nobody seems to care. Ragged children pester me at every traffic stop, it breaks my heart to see a child carrying a child, with no certainty of food, clothing, shelter, parents or personal safety. If I can buy them a meal or a smile, why not?

Sassy, sexy, smokin'

Is your child growing faster than you would want her/ him to? Join the club. Just the other day, I could pick mine up using one hand only..she was born 2.65 kgs, her knees being her most knobbily outstanding feature, hairy face and crinkled eyes. My beloved brat.

I watch her even as I type this out, her brow scrunched in concentration, playing webkinz on the computer.

Last night when she was trying on her new night shirt (green, with Tinkerbell on it), she came to me for an opinion. I slowly gathered my arthritic thought processes together, trying to focus beyond the immediate problem of putting leftovers back in the refrigerator. I said "Babe you look ssssssss"..and could not find the right word. She kindly finished my sentence.."Sassy?".."Nope, not the right word" said I timidly. "Sexy?" came the next tentative suggestion :-).
As I held onto the banister, I somehow managed to find the long lost "Ssssmokin' !!" and bleat it out. Wow. The next time I will write my adjectives down for prompt retrieval. And her front teeth are not back yet..

Nickylee

Nickylee's family is a living testimonial to the power of faith and prayer. They have been through the toughest days of their lives ever since Nicky was diagnosed with a brainstem glioma in February 2008.

Nicole and my daughter Minnie went to the same 1st grade class. One day on a trip to the school office, I saw Nicole and was taken aback by her obvious esotropia (convergent squint) ..I assumed it was refractive and surely her pediatrician would tell them what to do. I pushed it to the back of my mind and carried on, a niggling doubt bothering me. This esotropia was too dramatic, and it was new. Also, I did not know her mother at all..it was probably none of my business anyway.

When Minnie was making a list of friends to invite for her birthday, Nicole was on the list. "Because she is really nice Mom!" was the reason. The party was at an inflatable jumping zone where the little monkeys could go berserk.

And then I met an incredible woman..Nicole's mother. I do not mean to embarass you my beloved friend, but you have put so many things in perspective for me. Thank you..simply for being what you are..brave, courageous, very very strong ,with unwavering faith in the love and mercy of God.

I wonder how it would be to watch my child rapidly lose the use of her arms and legs, way way beyond cerebellar signs, not be able to swallow, and wonder and worry and wonder and worry...
Would I have half the courage ? Maybe I would.

And Nicole, God bless her and the boiled egg..I am so moved by the incredible power of such a tiny and quiet child. What a girl!

We are all with you, beloved little girl. And we will cheer you on!

Epitaph to Carlos

We did not have a chance to find out if he would mother babies. Carlos died :-(. He rests in the garden in a lovingly dug grave with a paper and crayon 'r.i.p' blanket on it.

Now we have a pair of mollies called Thing 2 and Thing 1 in our true blue Seussian tradition. The names serve another purpose..they do away with the male/ female dilemma. I need to get over my instinctive dislike of the usurpers..Carlos did have a dreamy fish-kiss mouth :-)

Carlos J.Krinklebine

Krinklebine came home in a plastic bag inside a brown paper bag. When the lady took him out of his tank and put him in the plastic bag, I quite literally could feel him shrink and droop. Poor thing. My wise brat advised me to drive slowly so he would not be bumped around as much. Between manic fits the child does have her lucid moments.

It took months of hard bargaining before we finally got Krinklebine. The bidding opened with a wishlist for six, yes, six dogs. Two golden retrievers, one labrador, 2 chihuahuas and 1 beagle. At some point the conversation took on a fishy note. At first her ladyship wanted a male and a female who would apparently mate and reward us with a tonne of goldfish grandbabies. Heaven forbid! When I explained that this could turn into a demographical disaster, my beloved innocent said, "Mom can we have a goldfish?" Aha!

So the next question was "Mom how do you know Karlos is a male? If he was female he could have lots of babies and we could call him Junie B.Jones."

Today when she was getting ready for school, I had to tweak her tail. So I told her that the minute she was gone, I would put Carlos on a leash and take him out of the water and both of us would go for a walk. Here I leave you to envision the scrimmage that followed :-)

On perfume

The test of a good perfume is my husband's nose. Do not think for a moment that the man can smell it. If it is anything other than Chanel, the man will sneeze 40 thousand juicy ones, making me regret my choice! Dab on some Chloe or Davidhoff and sit back at a safe distance to hear the loud anosmic review.

This morning, to my pleasure, I found a scratch and sniff card of Donna Karan's Cashmere Mist in the papers. I am usually wary of unknown perfumes..they remind me of talcum, cats and old ladies. They also have a propensity to give me a migraine. But today I was enticed by the name Cashmere Mist.

Inhaling warily at first, I sniffed a second time and a third with my eyes closed. It was wonderful. If a perfume could conjure visions of snow clad peaks, newly formed clouds, flower-filled valleys and cold crisp mountan air and a very elegant woman somewhere in this picture, this was it. It was quite a revelation, this Cashmere Mist.

And I also realized that I could not wear it. It simply was not me. Perfumes have a thing about personalities. Therefore I will admire it, love it and never buy any. I prefer to stick with my beloved husband-friendly Coco.

Raving about clouds

No I haven't written anything in a long time. Did not have either time or inclination. But the sky is beautiful today and tugging at my heartstrings. If I do not write, I will cry because my heart will overflow one way or the other.

It is a deep azure, the sky. The glare hurts my eyes and I wonder that blue can be so intense, so bright, so clean. I don't know about your kind but Texan clouds are of two kinds..one type bohemian, lost, wandering, in no hurry to get anywhere. These wander the blue skies when rush hour traffic is over, with unkempt white locks and no direction. And then there are the type A clouds that bustle in from the Gulf of Mexico, nasty lookers each one. Scowling, frowning, elbowing others to get somewhere that much faster. They darken my skies and make my green trees look greener, and the sun sunnier when they finally go away.

The trees are still, breathing quietly, watching cars zoom by. Emissions, emissions! What does the oak care if it is a Maserati belching emissions or a battered Ford. It is asphyxiated by both.
But no talk of asphyxia today.

As the sprinklers come on, sunshine plays its enchanting tricks on my mind once more..as each droplet brings me a rainbow. Life is so intensely beautiful and so worth living. Thank you God.

Did you know 'Chrysalis' pertains to butterflies while 'Coccoon' pertains to moths?! I learnt this from my 6 year old. And yes, one more: 'Subtrahend'. God almighty, I have done math all my life long and I had no inkling of what a subtrahend was :-).

Spoken words, written words, lyrics set to tune, nuances and the unwritten. Words have an ability to touch the naked soul, sometimes coccooning and soothing, sometimes slashing and piercing. Who loaded the alphabet with infinite meaning and power? Time?

I have been lucky to have had attended Bertie's drama and modern poetry classes. Nothing before and nothing since has measured up. I have heard a pin drop and bounce on the floor before it finally found the perfect inertia.

Funnily enough, the word 'word' rolls off my tongue vague, dull and ugly. 'Mot' is no better..frenchifying does not make an ugly word glamorous for a change, ha ha.

To the memory of dreamy days spent studying poetry then!

"Here we go round the prickly pear

Prickly pear prickly pear

Here we go round the prickly pear

At five o’clock in the morning."

EARTH DAY 2009

My new year's resolution usually fizzles out just as the year ceases to be quite so new. It dies out even before I stop muddling up the date. Which brings me to my eco-friendly resolves, each one of them. Poor things.

It is Earth Day tomorrow. The day we promise not to traumatize mother earth again. To choose cars responsibly. To walk more. To switch off anything that can be switched off after use. To waste not. To recycle.

Have any of you tried to carry a cloth bag, Mumbai style, to the supermarket? I have. And felt like a total idiot. Not just that, the minute I righteously whipped out my bag at the check-out counter, I felt ten pairs of staring eyes with the unspoken accusation "hot fingers!". To the more genteel of you, this means shoplifter :-).

And then of course there is the matter of packaging. My biscottis come in a plastic wrap sealed paper carton. Each biscotti is individually wrapped for convenience and freshness. Poor mother earth. I am expected to collect every scrap of plastic and save it for recycling. Ha! Like I have the time! Bet half of you would not care either. So the only true solution would be to cut down on packaging! My contribution would be to buy biscotti sold without triple wrapping.

Tonight I am going to dream of disposable plastic bottles. It will, obviously, be a nightmare. Since I will be dreaming anyway, I will find a way to live without them.

Anorexic, Vegan, Vegetarian or Omnivore?

This one is a minefield and I can see some of you rolling up those sleeves even as I put down a few random and ticklish thoughts.

I was brought up as a meat and fish eater by my parents. A few incidents moulded my eating habits as I grew up. One day someone came to our home with a gift of freshly caught fish. I was probably 13 or 14 years old and quite the mommy's helper. Mommy wasn't home. I decided to keep the live fish 'fresh' by letting it swim around in a bucket of water. A couple of hours later, I was wondering if it would be a nice surprise to cook lunch before my mother got home. Only then did I realize that 'lunch' was merrily swimming circles in the bucket. I have no recollection of lunch but I certainly did not kill, much less eat the unfortunate creature! But the incident did trigger off a subconscious chain of thoughts. Disturbing.

If live and let live is a maxim, then eat and let eat is a corollary. To those of you who are horrified at meat eating cultures, all I can say as plants are living, breathing, reproducing,God's creatures too. They are different from us. So are hens, pigs, snails and frogs. I remember a girl from college who regularly used raw egg in her hair for conditioning every Sunday. The slime would gross me out everytime, not to mention the stench. She was very very righteously vegetarian, never passing up a chance to tell us that our food habits made us no better than beasts.

For those of you who tell me to give up my dead birds in favor of dairy produce, ha ha, I have a vivid visual. Imagine milk, fresh,creamy frothy and steaming. Coming out of the cow(unless you have more exotic sources :-)). Certainly not the carton or bottle you pour it out of. Now, as a rational vegetarian, you do realize that it a different cow each time, maybe multiple cows. I rest my case here. The option then, is to turn vegan.

Finding something to eat at a restaurant is difficult enough if one cannot have meat,poultry, seafood, fish, egg and other animal products like shortening. Now imagine taking dairy off your list too. I have visions of crunchy leaves and dandelion greens. Gourmand's nightmare!

Beloved fellow mothers..

It has been a crazy day. And it is on crazy days that I stick my neck out to add to the mayhem.As Spongebob laughs his silly repetitive laugh on the dvd being watched for the trillionth time by my desperately snacking daughter, my thoughts stray from one listless point to the other, occasionally shutting off between stints.

Oh for a glass of chilled Riesling! My neck and shoulder have frozen into a single mass of pain and the nagging thought that just won't go away is that I have to pop down to the store for onions and tomato paste. Good God. When did my mind get replaced by a grocery list?!

More if I survive the night folks..the Riesling has to wait..I have to drive to the store and back, remember?

Peeking over the edge

If I told you that I wanted to be pulled out to sea and drown in bliss, would you think I was manic-depressive...or just unnecessarily dramatic? Would you miss the beauty of it then? The thought of it is mind-blowing, like falling into the universe, an orphan speck.

I used to love the Irish poets for their intensity… but never really felt the pain. Now I do. The pain is exquisite and delicious in a perverse way, the emptiness like an abyss. Every now and then I look over the edge like a frightened child, with covered eyes. My abyss is a million- years- of- sadness deep. One day I will have the courage to step to the edge, look into the abyss and step back unafraid.

Asphyxia. The walls closing in, the ceiling descending. How I hate Maugham for putting it so pat in those coarse words, round pegs in square holes, or was it square pegs in round holes?

And yet I have absolute faith in God who holds my hand and guides me as I walk blindfolded. Happy to be led, while I cling to God’s pinky.

Who walled my thoughts off? Who set the limits? My mind looks for a hole in the walls, my thoughts fall like Alice, into a never ending well. Like Alice, I marvel at shelves even as I fall, fall, fall. The only thing I risk breaking at the end of my fall is my heart.

If I land downside up, does it mean I am high?

Parenting

Easier said than done. How does one maintain a balance and come up with the perfect finished product?

I have been accused of being a laid-back mother, not worried enough. The way I see it, my getting a stroke over my daughter's first grade class assignments, giftedness and talentedness and extra curricular activities will achieve nothing.

This is where I start, working backwards. What do I treasure most? Happiness. Given its elusive nature, what do I treasure second-best? Balance. Yes, balance in my everyday life, balance in my mind, balance in every relationship.

Assuming certain values are universal and timeless, I would like my child to be able to strike this balance when she grows up. Call it maturity, call it level-headedness, whatever. What's in a name, huh?

How do I bring up my child to be a balanced young adult..the thought of middle-school curdles my blood!

Will playing chess help my child as an adult? To think logically and take better decisions? To an extent, yes. But life is not a static chess board. From move to move chessmen change, situations change and each move is complex. Maybe the game should simply be played for the pleasure of it.

Being good at a sport will certainly help with the college tuition. But I have seen a child who was so stressed out by soccer practice and performance pressure, he starting wetting his bed afresh in 2nd grade. It is called regression..a child's way of reverting to infancy to deal with stress. Makes me wonder.

Have you ever heard and pitied a mediocre musician who has no inkling that he is off-key or that his instrument is less-than-perfectly tuned? Be kind, dear parent. All children need to be given the opportunity to bring out the best in them. Children are uncut diamonds, every single one of them. But I beg you, give them breathing space..do not force those hateful piano lessons down their throats. If you want to begin early with the notion that the child does not know any better, at least get a candid opinion from the teacher. There is no room for ostriches in parenting.

A last word..walking to school to save fuel on Earth Day is very nice in principle. But it would send a clearer message with longer lasting impact if we would also ask them to turn off the bathroom lights after brushing, don't you think?

My little brat often lectures me with "reduce, re-use, recycle"..I am trying my damned best to incorporate this principle into our everyday lives so her message has meaning and value.

As for the rest, time will tell.

To my fellow sun-worshippers

Bright hard sunshine filters through the undulating green mosaic canopy. Lighting up the drowsy afternoon. Voices filter through the hazy scented air. Slow ceiling fan chasing lazy bugs.
Lovely sunshine, so lifelike. Hard, glittering and beautiful.

Who cares for sunset? Do sunsets exist at all? Who has time for sunset? Sunshine lasts forever, or does it not?
I want to stand in the sun, to absorb its gold. To bake and blister. Burnt copper. Would I risk so much pain for a few paltry rays of gold? Maybe I would. Just to learn the sun’s secret of eternal beauty and youth.

Hungry sunshine desiccates the earth. It does not spare the desert, does it? How unfeeling can one get? My parched plants must be withering away. Merciless sun, bouncing gleefully off the wounded, scorched earth. And you say women are hard!

The green canopy dances in the sunny afternoon breeze. Little puddles ripple as playful sunshine brings them to life. Glorious sunshine, giver of life. Coming down from the heavens on a golden chariot drawn by seven celestial horses. I wish you could take me away.