Starry Starry Nights

Every now and then when life gets on to me, I switch out all the lights and stand under the open sky. Every year in the month of August, we go away from city lights to watch the meteroid shower, sprawling  on the ground, scouring the sky to see the elusive shooting stars. There is something about feeling your whole body connected to the earth, while your eyes are reaching out to the stars. You feel complete. Skywatching, looking for constellations sets my immagination in active motion. The magnificiently sequined sky is  the perfect company when you feel overwhelmed with your life.

Sometimes we need the right perspective to comprehend the magnitude or insignificance of our issues. Night is deceptive though. The sky seems quiet and calm, yet when you focus and scan the sky, you realize that it is active although unpretentiously. There is the occasional plane passing by to an unknown destination, triggering your imagination as to where it is coming from and if there is someone at this very moment looking down to connect with the earth. Then there are satellites passsing by actively  relaying information, just to  make you realize that it is not just fantasy land out there.

Taking refuge in the cover of darkness, the deepest thoughts shly come forward to meet me. Daylight brings distractions, mindless activities that we have somehow defined as living. Light dazzles us with her beauty, captivating us to only focus on what is defined and real. Yet at times I prefer nights - with the antics of the moon trying to gain our attention, or just the freckles of stars , chattering away in the silence of night.

There is a calm, a certain peace when you sit out in the dark - you don't need to close your eyes to shut away the world. Your heart safely engulfed in the embrace of darkness, opens up and this is the time when you contemplate on life, on your day and the very purpose of your existence.

Try standing under a sky, sprinkled with stars. Forget about the overwhelming scientific facts about how far they are from us, just look at those twinkling eys communicating cheering us in the night, and all your issues, all your fears dissipate. Everytime I feel that life is spiralling out of control, I stand under the sky - full moon, half moon, crescent moon or no moon, no matter what trick the moon wants to play, the sky has the key to open up my heart. Just like the woods and water clear up my head, the night is where I go to face my fears, to realize and accept the insignificance of my existence

Friendly Reminder

“A friend is a person with whom I may be sincere. Before him I may think aloud. I am arrived at last in the presence of a man so real and equal, that I may drop even those undermost garments of dissimulation, courtesy, and second thought, which men never put off, and may deal with him with the simplicity and wholeness with which one chemical atom meets another.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essays: First Series

Relationships are complex, and it is what makes us human beings so interesting — our conflicting emotions. My older son is a gamer — in layman's terms — he spends more time on virtual world than real developing virtual relations. Recently, he decided to go and meet his friends —  friends he had never met in person before. A paranoid mom that I am, I used Google Earth to  ensure that his friend wasn't living in a drug infested area and all the other crime mystery scenarios than only a mother's mind can conjure. I feel the need to confess that he is 20 years old, very level headed and an adult to the core. To cut a long story short, he had a fun-filled week connecting with his virtual friends in real world.

What is friendship? What draws us to other people ? Why do we open up our hearts and souls to some - maybe only a couple of people in our lifetime? I grew up in an era where you met friends face to face. When you leave your country, you leave behind friends. Friends who knew you before you had your adult mask on. Friends who could see through your bullshit - who knew and accepted you unconditionally. As I grow older, I realize that letting people into my life and making new friends is  a challenge. I have always been selective in letting people into my life. Time, for me is the most limited and precious resource. It makes no sense to me to spend it on people and things that do not make me happy.

Relationships in middle ages is harder to maintain. Everyone has so much on their plate, kids, family, that time needed to open up your soul to somebody becomes a rarity. Our relationships are our strengths as well as our weakness. Our relations can be one of passion, of being related by birth, but always for any relation to last, there needs to be trust and love or in short friendship. Friendship is the crux of all relations.

I have been very fortunate in my life to have some fascinating people who have not only uplifted my spirits when needed but also inspired me to be a better person. There is something about sharing your darkest thoughts with someone, opening up your heart knowing that your vulnerability can be used as a weapon.  When you share your darkest thoughts, let your guard down, bring your goofy unhinged self into spotlight, you are basically giving the other person power. Power to hurt you, power to lift you. Yet there can be nothing more precious than two souls connecting — understanding each other, accepting and even loving the follibles that others might find irritating. Love binds friendships, and trust keeps it alive. Being a good friend requires you to put your friends needs before oneself. To take turns to comfort, to listen, really listen, and never ever judge.

In this world where loneliness is rampant, where we are hesitant to even take our masks off for a minute, finding a true friend is a blessing that we cannot be taken for granted. 

Neapolitan Ice cream

Women are complex - we are intricate and mysterious - so mysterious that it takes us years to finally figure ourselves out - that is if you are lucky and introspective enough or just plain and simply shallow. There have been times in my life where I have had a Eureka moment, when I was absolutely certain that I could possibly do a bullet point PowerPoint slide to describe myself, only to realize that I had spoken too soon.  If you had asked me a couple of years earlier, I would have said that I am made of pieces - all the experiences of life quilted together.   But as time goes by and incidents trigger my particular case, I feel I am more like a layered cake or Neapolitan ice cream.

 Childhood and youth in India were a seemingly fairy-tale like, till I was of marriageable age - which in those days just after graduation. The traumatic events that followed in search of a "groom" is a story for another day - suffice to say that I still get nightmares where I am going through the whole process of "arranged marriage". Like most people, I avoid discussing painful events of my life. In hindsight, there were many things that I would have done differently. Apparently moving on is not one of my strengths and in many ways, I was the rebellion bride. I could have been more cooperative but just the whole concept of being paraded still has the power to disgust me. For all my talk I have lived a traditional lifestyle, yet I continue to question authority, traditions, religion and push beyond known boundaries till it is uncomfortable. The boundaries and restrictions taught by India is a part of me, settled deep down like a layer - undisturbed covered now with the free thinking of living in the west.
I am at time amused by how much I have evolved over the years. Although at present "the westernized me " is more predominant, the realization that whatever happens, however much I try and integrate into the western world, I will always have my layer of  India with me, makes me more true to myself.  I cannot blend my past with the current life, it is hiding somewhere deep, surfacing at times when a blast of nostalgia comes over. I used to think I lived in pieces, a part of me just like other immigrants left with the loved ones back home, but I have realized that we may be just leaving behind shadows of memories,... Memories are all illusions, they are distorted versions of our experiences. All my experiences in India and later in the Middle East, are a part of me - they are me.

I might have spent my youth in India but the West - Canada is where I grew into being an adult. Life happened - My chocolate layer is here - and I am laying it out perfectly over my vanilla. It is not blended, but it is who I am. The Western society opened up my thinking. Taught me to be open up, to be more tolerant.  I still remember calling up my dad and telling him that I saw a woman driving a semi-trailer 15 years ago. A woman did not necessarily have to be a doctor or teacher.  It was an eye-opener. The West is where I truly understood the meaning of equality of sexes, of freedom - freedom from labels. My teenagers are having a different life, single flavoured, but hopefully my expreiences from life in East will be be the colourful sprinkle that will brighten their view of life.