Merry Christmas

“I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. I will not shut out the lessons that they teach!” 

~ Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol

Here's wishing you
joy and laughter, sweet and spice, sun and ice.
A mixed bag of all things nice.

Merry Christmas, dear friends.

I wonder...

"I always wonder why
birds stay
in the same place
when they can fly
anywhere on the earth.
Then I ask myself
The same question."

~ Harun Yahya

I wonder a lot these days. Of open skies and floating marshmallow clouds. Of a free mind and untroubled waters. Of people who are true and their hearts green. Of rippling meadows and yellow-white chamomiles. Of birds and their unhinged freedom. Of humans and how limited our horizons are. 

Bukowski's bluebird

"there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too tough for him,
I say, stay in there, I'm not going
to let anybody see
you."

~ Charles Bukowski, Bluebird

Turns out, there has been, after all, a blue bird sitting idle and unnoticed in my photo archives. I know it's not a bluebird. I know it's a stellar jay, the darker and shabbier cousin of the pretty blue jay. I know it belongs to a green, green land and scented, mossy boughs. I also know, if it flies here (ah, the utter foolhardiness of it!!) and cages itself, it'll forget to sing.
But does any of that matter now? Perhaps not anymore.

Change

"All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another."

~ Anatole France

I wish I could frame and structure my emotions better than what the great poet has already said, and how beautifully. Achingly beautiful, actually. How very ironic it all seems - when the whole world around me is undergoing a spring makeover and getting dressed in the splendor of a newly sprouted green, inside, I am groping for ways to embrace this whole other kind of change.

Change, however insignificant or huge, has never been my forte. An annoyingly stubborn creature of habit, I can crack and burst under the slightest of pressures, a trait I have continually loathed. Last week saw the beginning of the much dreaded goodbyes - bittersweet dinners and parting gifts - and as much as I would wish this all away, I know it's out there lurking around the corner.
However this time, I'm still in one piece and that is quite unusually strong for someone like me. The feeling is yet to sink in, although the countdown has certainly begun knocking at the back of my head. I don't know if this is good or bad but trudge on I must, belting my emotions for a proper unleashing, for some day quiet and befitting. Whether this is being brave or just wallowing in denial, let it just be. It's only a handful of days anyway.

The sparrows have come back in flocks and broods. The bird-feeder, never left a moment alone, swings in joy from the dance of their communal meal. Jostling for space while eyeing that next precious morsel, the patio fills in with their noisy chatter. The furry little guy has returned too from his long winter sleep, scurrying up and down the mossy branches, sometimes even hanging upside down in the most precarious of positions. Plump, promising buds on my potted azalea stir to burst open, the full-bodied May bloom of which I won't be here to see. Unfamiliar birds grace the berry tree, just like new future residents will inhabit this apartment. Chocolate-pecan scones, the last of the homemade goodies to come out of my oven here. And thus, the temperamental baker signs off. Of course, for the time being only. 

Of birds and berries

As I try to compose a post, something lighthearted and weekend-y, it snows in little white drops. Like a bunch of mint candies hurled from a confused, careworn sky. Out of habit I gaze dreamily outside my favourite space - a glowing canvas of tall evergreens, ruddy autumnberries and golden big leaf maples framed by the window. I wonder how empty and forlorn a look the place has suddenly worn. One that was bursting with the cackle of thrilled, berry-struck robins just an hour ago. How madly elated they looked, equally rampant and restless in their perch and take off as well. Sitting, picking, nibbling, fluttering, all at the same time. 

I could not understand what was their hurry though. For, if I were one of the fortunate them with a pair of wings and a whole tree laden with the juiciest of treasures, I would have lazed there for days. Drawing manna sip by sip from the plump berries, dancing in between shades of the leaves and boughs, what a life it would be. 

But the mere mortal that I am, I had to resolve to the next and the only best thing - run for the camera. I could only catch hold of these two saintly souls, one contemplating and the other with a clear look of disapproval of the peeking patio-paparazzi. 

Happy weekend, y'all! 

"What is this life, if full of care,

We have no time to stand and stare."

~ William Henry Davies, Leisure

No more walls

"I am an excitable person who only understands life lyrically, musically, in whom feelings are much stronger as reason. I am so thirsty for the marvelous that only the marvelous has power over me. Anything I can not transform into something marvelous, I let go. Reality doesn't impress me. I only believe in intoxication, in ecstasy, and when ordinary life shackles me, I escape, one way or another. No more walls."

~ Anais Nin

Flight

A black-headed gull in flight on Liberty Island, NYC

Last night Rumi spoke to me, in my dreams... "I want to sing like the birds sing, not worrying about who hears or what they think." Or was it the wee bit o' crack between sleep and consciousness?

I wake up and wonder - how hard is it to be a bird? To fly? Just spread your faith and glide on it, as if you belong there. As if the sky is yours and its feathery, fathomless infinity your clothes. Wear the engulfing yet liberating azure.

At times the brisk air catches you unaware, shaking a string of stories and songs. You might waver and fall, but fall you must. For as a phoenix you will be reborn, shedding the ashes of rejection and rise again from the very embers that had gulped you so thoughtlessly once.

And when in mid air, just remember - the ominous land and the embracing skies are balanced by you, within you. Soar higher or crash. It is just you.

Of monsoons and memories

It is almost a year and some stubborn bouts of homesickness since my last trip home. I remember the monsoons had just waltzed in, washing away the dirt and sins of a merciless summer. How deliciously green everything looked! Shining with innocence and stripped of pretense, the very air smelled of love. And by love, I mean that first teenage crush, the galore of unexplained giggles and the ignorance that it can never end. Blessed foolishness!

The feisty gulmohar, in its blazing orangeness, played the perfect coy mistress to the hilt. She was the star of the garden and who were the dashing paper-kite butterflies to resist such charm?! What a grand garden feast it was! The pomegranate tree carried a confusing weight of both the blossoms as well as the tiny fruits, as if in a hurry to greet the rains. Amid all this burst of life surrounding me, a mean viral fever tried hard to dampen my joy, but in vain. The bedside window wasn't good enough when the earth was crooning its most romantic song.

The plump mangoes had fallen of their branches, impatient to rest on the fragrant, rain-kissed earth. How we had devoured them - raw with salt and red chilly flakes, chutney-ed, juiced, pickled. There is something about mangoes that always brings back childhood memories, of summer vacations and grandma's old house. That is the place where stories are told and memories are spun, where parents cease to be themselves and allow you to make a clown of yourself.

The rains also brought a winged guest one afternoon - an enchanting kingfisher. I had never seen one from such proximity and thus was thrilled beyond imagination. It sat on the same branch for about an hour, in its blue finery, as if brooding over its hapless past. Sometimes it made annoying faces and ruffled its beautiful feathers, as if I was a paparazzi interrupting the precious meditation. I was only too fortunate to have a treasure trove of some perfect birdie shots and how effortlessly! As if the kingfisher knew it takes only moments before I would get tired from perfection, it flew away, perhaps to some faraway distant place.

Just like I did after a fortnight.