I am sorry….

Letter to my daughter, to all those in her school and to her entire generation, who think of this this as a normal event,

I am sorry…  

I am sorry that you have been in lockdown at school for over three hours now.

I am sorry I cannot tell you when this will end and when you will get home.

I am sorry this is happening to you and that I can do nothing about it.

I am sorry that you may be scared, confused, just plain hungry or really really need to pee.

I am sorry that some of you have been huddled under desks for hours.

I am sorry that even if I may be circling your school, that even if I am only yards away from you, I cannot tell you it’s going to be okay.

I am sorry that even if I do nothing else all day and am in loops of groups texts, I can do nothing to help.

I am sorry that even if I continue to gather information, it feels pointless, and all I want to do is to hug you tight, even when your teenage self tries to squirm out of it.

I am sorry that each of you was patted down by policemen with riffles.

I am sorry that a middle schooler has the capacity to wreak such havoc.

I am sorry we do not have a supportive social fabric to support our troubled teens in need.

I am sorry that unfettered gun ownership allows a young kid to make threats and that we have to heed those threats as they may be genuine.

I am sorry that access to guns is so easy.

I am sorry our country and lawmakers are not yet able to do anything about this.

I am sorry you had to call me to say you are okay and that they are 'giving you oranges and stuff'. I am sorry you had to act like it was no big deal.

I am sorry you feel like you have to be all grown-up and that you have to calmly explain things to me. I am sorry you feel like you need to be the adult in our relationship today. 

I am sorry that you will probably come home, see my anxious face, shrug your shoulders and say you were fine. I am sorry you will tough it out and let it slide like it is a routine thing.

I am sorry I cannot tell you that this will never happen to you again.

I am sorry that even if I know it is my job as a parent to keep you safe, I can do nothing about this.

I am sorry if my sorrys amount to nothing and my hope for your generation is that you will bring in the change and that you will never have to write such a letter to your children.

 

The life not lived…the ice cream not eaten… and the great, but mysterious plans for the grated Cassava…

September puts me in a reflective mood. I have another birthday, a new school year begins, summer ends, the air gets crisp... And much as I love to watch leaves turn colors, time feels like a slippery, elusive thing – like sand slipping through my fingers at a pace I cannot keep up with; grains that I want to hold on to, but seemingly out of my control… All I can do is brace myself and watch it slip away…

I have a birthday yesterday. I notice my mind travelling to similar thoughts. Yeah… whatever… I tell myself. Several times. It totally snaps the melancholy and also the poetry. Yeah… whatever… Maturity? I wonder. Or “just-not-giving-a-sh** anymore”? Hmmm… Yeah… whatever…

I have a good day. A bike ride, lunch at a Vietnamese restaurant I’ve been wanting to go to forever. Tiny place (James Beard nominated), and they make only two pho or soups daily. My family would have been otherwise reluctant, I milk the birthday card. I take an afternoon nap. My dog curls up on the sofa with me. And of course, I find a wine with my name and age (!!!). Life is good. There is no time for wistfulness.

 

This morning, I wake up tired and sore. I have been attempting to savor every last drop of summer and my body seems to notice – unhappily, begrudgingly. “Live each day like it is your last”, they say. But, they fail to mention anything about the next day when you get up sore and want to sleep for three days straight.

Yeah… whatever… I open the freezer to get frozen berries for a smoothie and notice how limp and watery the bag is. My eyes widen and continue to widen as they take note of watery puddles in the freezer. I open the fridge side. Nothing is as cold as it should be. The refrigerator ghosts have changed the temperatures and they won’t let me change them back. In the fight of ghosts versus human, this human has sadly, no victory to report. The freezer temperature stays at 41 and the fridge temperature at 67.

Everything my yeah…whatevers were trying to dismiss, stands before me in a metaphorical mess. Parts of my life not lived, that could have been delicious, if savored, stare back. Three tubs of delicious ice cream, look shriveled and unhappy, sabudana wada packet that (I swear) looks at me accusingly… shelves and shelves of food, headed straight for the garbage bags.

The puppy, of course, is going crazy. She licks a drop of dripped ice cream, realizes it’s the best thing ever and bounces around herself looking for more.

No, no… don’t put that in the bag… I’ll clean it up for you! It won’t be any trouble at all.
Smells of all sorts descend on her and she’s tries to help clean it up, and sulks when I won’t let her.

See…you should have let me pull that salami straight out of the grocery bag…It’s all going to waste!!

I continue to find things I have not seen in ages and chuck them in trash bags. My dog noses my knee, noses the bag, and makes tortured Chewbacca sounds as she watches me throw the wild caught salmon. This deluge of smells is torture.
No! I can’t watch this happen anymore! That’s the grilled chicken from last night – WOMAN…are you crazy???

I tell her I am just as sad as she is.

I stare at a small, flat packet tucked beneath a bunch of things, “grated cassava”. I stare at it some more. I have no idea when I bought it, what I had planned for it, or even how it tastes. I don’t think I have ever used it in my cooking. It sounds exotic and delicious, even if I am clueless why it is in my freezer.

Resigning to the fact that some things will always remain mystery, I continue with the cleaning. 

Apart, from the mess and the work it involves, I realize all my yeah…whatevers… can no longer shield me from the truth. That of impermanence and time fleeting, and uncertainty and not knowing when something will be gone, and all the wonderful things we set aside for later that simply languish or are forgotten…

********

No, I still don’t know what is wrong with my fridge. But I now understand this, from its contents.

Yes, that freakin’ sand is going to slip through our fingers. So, if it represents ice cream, eat it up, don’t save it for later. Even if it means all three tubs. Call me, if you need help.

Throw away that tube of anchovy paste, the minute you or your kid, grimace at its taste or smell. For it’s taking space of a yummy, happy something. Same goes with the vegan mayo.

Ask yourself if you need to have three cartons of milk going – two hemp (one vanilla, one regular) and a regular whole milk. Same goes with all the different teriyaki sauces. Shoyu, tamari, and soy sauce are all same – one will suffice. Last known, you were not considering opening an Asian restaurant.

If you’re never going to use that delicious looking, organic tahini, find someone who will. Better yet, get them to invite you over, when they make something delicious with that delicious looking tahini.

No. Buying a giant bag of chia seeds does not assure good health. I understand you have to actually consume them.

Same goes for the flax meal, acai juice, umeboshi plums… They do not sit tight in the middle shelf and impart good health, each time you open the refrigerator.

Don’t go the Indian grocery (or regular grocery) store hungry. Those packets of frozen masala dosa that you drooled over and thought how easy, will return home with you, only to sit cozily next to their identical twin boxes.  

If your freezer looks really full, it probably means it is. You will never find that wild caught salmon – and your dog’s unhappy whimpers and eyes, watching you throw it away, will haunt you forever.  

And finally, don’t wait too long to make that delicious cassava something. You may not remember what it was going to be. Make that absolutely delicious cassava something right away, while you’re still excited about it (and may have gone to some specialty store to find it) and savor every last, delicious morsel of it.

Now that part, you may actually remember.

 

A man, a bike and a mission

You can lose everything, but as long as you don’t lose yourself, you’re okay.

~ Dnyaneshwar Yewatkar  (translated/paraphrased)

We hear similar pithy sayings. We agree with similar pithy sayings. We decide to live by similar pithy sayings. And then, we move on to other things.

I wonder how many of us would have the strength to actually live this saying, in a foreign country, when all of our belongings are stolen (other than passport, visa and diaries kept on person). When all we have is a bicycle, no money, no idea how to leave the country of Laos* and reach the next destination, no idea where the next meal will come from and when, and a myriad other concerns.

Or in South Korea when officials shoo him away when he tries to spend the night on a park bench. He finds a hotel, does have money to pay for boarding, but in the middle of the night is asked to leave because he is colored.

Or a village in Kerala, India, when he is chased by dogs in the middle of the night and is beaten up by some villagers and left to die by a river.

Or in Thailand*, where dogs chase and bite him till his leg bleeds and is swollen. He goes to a hospital and is asked for travel insurance. He tells them he has none and is informed of the amount he will have to pay. When he tells them, he does not have the money, they tell him they are unable to help him.

(Not to malign any nations, these incidents could happen most anywhere.)

No. Dnyaneshwar Yewatkar does not lose himself. Instead, he keeps his faith in himself and others intact. Diehard optimism even in the face of adversity, he refuses to lose himself or his faith in human connection or the good in the world and that in the hearts of others.

These and other stories unfold last night and a bunch of us are fortunate and humbled to share his experiences and attitude at a friend’s place. 27 year old, Dnyaneshwar Yewatkar is from Maharashtra, India, and has been bicycling around the world since 2016 to spread the message of peace and friendship to mark Mahatma Gandi’s 150^th birth anniversary. He plans on returning to India in 2020 after having covered most of the world on his bike.

No. Dnyaneshwar Yewatkar does not lose himself or his faith in good. He sees it and believes in it and knows that good is always around the corner. His belief is strong and he encounters the good. He talks about the Muslims in Kashmir, who light lamps in Hindu temples, or the time he spends with Naxalites. “They were very kind to me”, he says with a smile. “People are all the same everywhere,” he continues. Agreed my friend. I know I have said and felt the same, but clearly don’t have his kind of extent of experience to back it up with.

The story I can’t get out of my head is when he comes face to face with a tiger in remote Myanmar one evening. He recounts how he stands there trembling, clutching his bike handles. The tiger is about 100 meters away* and stares at him. Dnyaneshwar stares back, but in a pool of sweat. After about 15 minutes, the tiger walks away into the bushes. Dnyaneshwar doesn’t budge and can see the tiger’s eyes glistening in the bushes. He waits there a while and when he can no longer see the tiger’s eyes, he gets on his bike, pedals hard and nonstop for six hours*, without turning back to look, for even an instance.

In this nonstop frenzy, he takes the wrong road and reaches a small and primitive tribal village in the middle of the forest. There is no electricity, or any means of communicating. The folks in the tribe surround and check him out. Clearly, they have never seen an outsider, who looks like him. He talks fondly of the few days he spends with them, of how they finally figure out he does not touch meat and bring him root vegetables. He joins their tribe for those few days, goes hunting with them, and tribe refuses to let him leave.  

Last night, someone asks him if he encounters more good, or more bad. Unhesitant, he replies, good. It is easily palpable that everyone in the room is aware of the bad, the scary, the pain, and the difficulties he encounters, and is humbled by the optimism and tenacity, and the sheer faith he has to find the good in every situation.

And he does. In Thailand, after the dog-bite and swollen leg, and denied medical care, he gets back on his bike and rides on. He visits a school and is talking to the children about his experiences, expedition and mission, when he passes out. The school officials rush him to the hospital, where he receives medical care. One of the teachers then takes him home and gives him a place to stay till he is stronger. He is vegetarian and vegetarianism is a hard thing for folks in that village to fathom. His face crinkles up with joy and gratitude when he recounts how he saw this teacher look up Indian and vegetarian food recipes on Youtube.

Good thankfully, does seem to be around the corner, for when he is beaten up and left to die in Kerala, some fishermen find him, take him home and care for him till he is back on his feet.

My page, or rather two pages are up and this is only a scattering of stories from last night. His experiences are fascinating and many, and I am sure will turn into a book, and possibly a movie. I can’t wait to read that book.

I remember pondering on the following quote some time back:

“The plain fact is that the planet does not need more successful people. But it does desperately need more peacemakers, healers, restorers, storytellers, and lovers of every kind. It needs people who live well in their places. It needs people of moral courage willing to join the fight to make the world habitable and humane. And these qualities have little to do with success as we have defined it.”

~ David W. Orr

Dynaneshwar may have never read this quote, but seems to be living it. 

*I did not take notes yesterday, and am operating on memory, so some details or places may be mixed up. I couldn’t wait to share the heart of the story, even if the journalist in me wanted to call him and fact check J Guess my heart won, over the head.

Dnyaneshwar will be in town till Sunday and I will be stopping by to give a cash donation to his cause this evening (didn’t have enough cash on me last night), if anyone else is interested.    


 

What is freedom? What does it mean to you?

Today is India’s 72^nd Independence Day. Many years ago, or rather, exactly 22 years ago, I was working on a newspaper story to commemorate India’s 50^th Independence Day. It contained interviews of people as they remembered that very day, 50 years before, in 1947. The mood, the festivities, their emotions, the pulse of the nation; what they did, how they felt, how they celebrated.

These were mostly folks in their late 60s, 70s and older, who had been youngsters on the eve of India’s independence. They talked about the excitement and optimism they felt and the belief they held that India would be unstoppable, once she was free.

They spoke of the freedom they had sought, for so long, as a nation, a movement that had mobilized them and the generation before them and the sweet success they felt and even perhaps a sense of disbelief, as one lady mentioned, that day in August 1947.

That story unfortunately never got written, for something more important came up, but every Independence Day, I am reminded of the interviews and the stories from August 1947, scribbled in my notebook.

There is small chance that I may ever recover that notebook, but the energy and the sentiment of that time remains with me, through the accounts I heard. One narrated of how they rode the Mumbai local trains all night long. All the local trains were full. Everybody was on the streets and celebrating. They didn’t quite know what to do and spent the night simply wandering about the city in groups and it sounded like everybody was doing the same. Some remembered the first PM, Jawaharlal Nehru’s famous speech, “tryst with destiny”.  

I talked to folks who as college students had been part of the freedom movement and even some subterfuge activities. My own aunt told me how she once crushed a piece of paper with some vital information and stuffed it in her mouth and was a subterfuge carrier. Others told me of how their entire college experience was on the backdrop of the freedom movement. I could feel the zeal and vitality in their voices. A strong sense of purpose and justice they sought and the freedom they yearned to move forward.

My father who was only a young lad, remembers how his mother, who seems to have been an activist, mobilized the women in the neighborhood and made a certain sweet, bundi ladoo, to be distributed to children in the city school. The government had given them a certain amount of money, which would be insufficient had they purchased sweets from a store. As a result, his childhood home was thronged with women rolling out laddoos, and the floors were completely covered with delicious golden balls. There were laddoos everywhere and it is his fond and evidently sweet memory. 

His childhood seems filled with memories that speak to the pulse of the moment and the movement. Of his sisters and mother who wore sarees they spun from the charkha, a loom made popular by Mahatma Gandhi, in the wake of the Quit India movement and swadeshi (self-reliance) movement, where the push was to not use products imported from the British. As a result, people spun and wore their own cloth. He remembers rows of charkha in their home and women spinning and also the opportunity he once had to gift Gandhiji, a shawl they had spun on the charkha.

My personal favorite is when he went on a satyagraha, just like Gandhiji would – sat on a mat, declared strike, refusing to eat or drink – an in-house civil disobedience movement, in protest when his mother refused to take in a stray cat or dog that he wanted.

Stories like these speak to the mood of the nation, how entwined even young children were with the movement. How cohesive the whole nation seemed to be. There seemed no room for apathy, everybody had one goal, one unified goal – that of freedom.

In our daily life, living in “free” nations, I wonder what freedom now means to us. Does it mean different things for different people? Every independence day, when I think of my unwritten story, the one thing that strikes me is the passion these seniors seemed to have for freedom, the sparkle in their eyes, the energy with which they spoke about freedom.

The collaboration, the unity, the common goal, the passion it invoked, for justice and human rights; the passion they spoke with, of generations coming together for a common goal, a common good, that of equality and justice and the deep sense of purpose it seemed to have ignited in them.

Sure there were factions and there were the cynics, and the traitors, but the cohesive movement had a strength and a life of its own. 

In our daily life, living in “free” nations, even if we don’t have an obvious goal to move towards, I wonder if apathy has leaked in. In being more focused on ourselves, if we may have lost a larger perspective on our world. For there remain, many other freedoms worth fighting even if we are “free”.

And there are those personal freedoms worth striving for. I know for sure, there are things I would love to free myself from, biases, and beliefs that do not good, the need to conform to certain things for no good reason, fears that I live with for no apparent reason.

In our daily life, living in “free” nations, there are still shackles we live in and create for ourselves – at the personal and larger level. May we learn to mobilize the courage and vitality that lies in the sentiments of the scribbles in my old notebook somewhere – to free ourselves from those too.

Of summers... and raw mango pickles...

The spoon scrapes the bottom of the jar. The faaaar bottom of the jar. Scrape… scrape…scrape… with complete concentration, I scrape out the oily, golden remnants of the raw mango pickle I had got from my mom’s a year ago – a low-spice version. The jar has lasted a year, mostly because I have, ahem… not quite been over-eager to share. Not even with my kid (who is not a huge fan) or my husband, before whom, I may have pushed forth the store bought lemon pickle (his favorite… ahem… really truly).  

I think of the other raw mango pickle I had brought from India on a previous trip. It has been made in a dark earthen pot. Marinated in the mud pot, till the fleshy raw mango succumb to the oils and the salts and spices, to turn into limp fiery goodness. That tiny jar I fear will be my undoing given its spice level. But again, life’s too short I tell myself each time I get a spoonful.

As I watch my twelve-year-old traipse around the neighborhood with her friends, as they scuttle from house to house, make popsicles, bike around, jump in the pool, highlight their hair (ahem…), I think of our summers in India. Raw mango pickles, and raw mangoes certainly form a prominent flavor of those childhood summers.

I think of my maternal grandmother’s garden and the fruit trees in it - mango, jackfruit, guava, chickoo, passionfruit and even an avocado tree. I think of the hours spent in those trees, and a few scars that still bear witness. I think of the times we get into trouble for plucking passion fruits, not quite ready. Not sure why that was a problem really since we happily ate the tart fruit. But the most serious trouble we get into, is when we pluck my grandmother’s prized Alphonso mangoes, while still raw. I faintly recollect being locked up in a room on occasion for sneakily stealing raw mangoes off the Alphonso mango tree. Such a crime!

I remember two friends who are cousins and lived in a large joint family. Their moms make huge, just huge amounts of mango pickle to be stored away in huge jars. A favorite afternoon time activity is to sneak into the jars and get a few chunky pieces of raw mangoes, happily bathed in yellow and orange. I am only too happy to join in. The spice level is high and we carefully rinse the pieces. The true art lies in washing off the spice, without washing away too much.  

But my most favorite raw mango memory comes back to life on my last trip to India when I meet a friend after 27 years. We marvel and laugh at our antics -- Of the five girls, thick as thieves, aged 11 or 12, biking about the streets in the scorching sun. Of meeting on a field, every evening for organized youth sports and yoga activities. Of getting into fights with the boys to determine who gets to play soccer. I realize that may have been our first ever feminist protest as we demand to those in charge for the girls to get equal soccer time as the boys.

This “ground” as it was known, is a large field with mango trees. Memories tumble out and we laugh at the stories of our youth and our summers spent together. When my friend tells me she has a picture of me performing in a skit in their neighborhood’s Ganapati festival celebrations, I am puzzled. She reminds me that’s how it was – we did everything together for a while. Her memory is more intact than mine and I am grateful, for the stories are hilarious and make me laugh, sometimes in incredulous disbelief.

A favorite afternoon time activity for these five girls, is climbing over the gate to the ground, when we know for sure, the watchman takes a siesta. The raw mangoes are stretched out on the thinner branches, so climbing is not a wise option. Instead, we pelt them with stones to make them fall. It has to be done carefully. It means finding the flattest possible stones, preferably with a sharp edge and pelting it to the top of the raw mango, so as to not bruise it too much. A bullseye would be a hit on the little stem from which it hangs.

Ah… the skills I acquired in my youth.
We would then take our spoils to someone’s house – probably the closest house or the one in which the adult present is down for a siesta or better yet, absent. We wash the poor bruised fruit, cut it, salt it, then bravely add some chilly powder and gleefully chomp on the tart fruit snack crinkling our noses, satisfied with our prized wins from the afternoon expeditions.

Minor miscreants, you say? Similar thought run through my head as I type, but I am quick to shake them off. For these questionable activities brought so much mirth and laughter, even when being screamed at and chased away by the watchman. The image of five girls running and jumping over the gate, whilst hanging on to the precious raw mangoes, in the scorching heat, is too funny and joyful to have any negative undertones.

Once, when we have a rather large loot, I take my share of spoils to my mom, to add to her freshly made raw mango pickle. She looks at the mangled and bruised fruit and diplomatically suggests I make my own, in its own special jar. I am delighted. I cut the fruit on an old fashioned wili, a cutting device which is a wooden stool with an arched knife attached. I sit on the wili and carefully cut the fruit, add the oil and spices and salts and whatever else my mom gives me. I feel so proud. I admire the jar and watch the mango pieces give in to the salts and spices. I watch as they change color and the oils and spices trickle in tiny rivers to cover them. This would be my first mango pickle (and sadly, perhaps also my last).

As I scrape the jar some more, I wonder if it’s simply the taste of raw mangoes and its pickle that gives me such joy, or the deliciousness of the memories of summers far away, just like this one, yet so different.

Moving towards the pain

Last night, I hear Jesmyn Ward speak. It is a beautiful talk.

This morning, I read her account in the book, “Why we write about ourselves”. Each of the 20 memoirist has a chapter.   

In her chapter, she talks about how raw and terrifying it feels to write and revisit the painful parts of her life. Yet, it is something that must be done.  I remember similar lines from the prologue of her memoir, Men we Reaped. I find the book. Here they those lines:

My hope is that learning something about our lives and the lives of the people in my community will mean that when I get to the heart, when my marches forward through the past and backward from the present meet in the middle with my brother’s death, I’ll understand a bit better why this epidemic happened, about how the history of racism and economic inequality and lapsed public and personal responsibility festered and turned sour and spread here. Hopefully, I’ll understand why my brother died while I live, and why I’ve been saddled with this rotten fucking story.

I read her advice for memoir writers (I have no plans of writing a memoir, by the way. My life is simply not as significant).

You get the most powerful material when you write towards whatever hurts. Don’t avoid it. Don’t run from it. Don’t write towards what’s easy. We recognize our humanity in those most difficult moments that people share.  

I stare at the words.

Earlier in the week, I have an appointment with a Rolfer. He tells me certain parts of my body and especially abdomen, feel calm to the point of no movement. I sense he is finding nice ways of saying ‘dead’. I nod. I know what he means. It’s years of pain from surgeries and illness that I’ve been protecting myself from. It’s the pain that I don’t allow myself to feel. For to feel it, means to hurt.  

Slowly, we begin to desensitize ourselves from the parts that feel painful. Slowly, we begin to build walls, shutting the painful portions out. Not feeling them, not sensing them. It feels safer, it feels like protection. For it takes too much courage to face the angry painful parts. After all, what does one do in a face to face encounter with the angry parts? How do we assuage the angry parts? With compassion? Where do we find these huge reserves of compassion, this brave compassion, not only to soothe and support, but to feel safe again?

So we shut ourselves and not allow ourselves to feel and go about our daily day. You’re so strong, they tell me. Am I? Or am I a coward? How can I find the courage to move towards the pain, without letting it destroy me?  

In not allowing movement or feeling or sensation, life goes away too, this wise experienced Rolfer tells me. (Well, I paraphrase, his words are more eloquent).

I suppose it’s an obvious thing to do in times of trauma, in a bid to protect and preserve oneself. However, some of us may turn it into an art. Physical and emotional.

A while back, someone tells me that there seems to be a wall around me and that I won’t allow her in. I am surprised to hear her say it. For in my mind, this person has caused me pain and I don’t want to allow myself to get close in the fear that I will get hurt again

But I appreciate her telling me so. I appreciate that she has the energy to move forth. It makes me wonder if I keep myself in a self-preservation mode. I am unsure I will have the energy to deal with hurt feelings should things get unpleasant in the future. That it will knock me down harder than it will her. Does it all come down to how much energy we all have? If so, life is a bitch.  

Walls keep us safe. Walls also limit. Limit life even, as per my Rolfer.

For when we hurt, we build walls. Walls of apprehension, and insecurity and self-preservation. Maybe they serve a purpose. For a while. But to have them forever, may mean to also close out the good, the joy and a certain flow of life even.

So is there really no other option, but to move towards the pain if we want life to flow its natural course? Armed with willingness and compassion, is it even possible, I wonder. And I sincerely hope it is. 

A crunchy new 2018

The new day in the new year is bright, sunny and crunchy. What a perfect start to the new year. Like turning a page in a notebook to find the clean crunch of untouched paper.

In my mind, I stroke the untouched sheet. With tepid apprehension. I wonder how it will turn out. Will it be pretty or just plain, vibrant or boring, filled with things I love or those I dread, with hope and joy or fatigue and frustration? With energy to do the things I want to, or poor health. A bit of everything I suppose.

Like every year. There will be the pretty and the ugly. So will the page be how I assign space to the dazzling vs. the dark. Will the page look the way I see it? Will sparkling streaks shine over the boring grey? Or will dark ones overshadow the lustrous?

For you and I both know there will be both, and how the page looks this time next year, will be how much space and energy I give to the dazzling or the dark.

In my mind and with my actions.

I hope I will remember to look at the parts that I love and give them more space. I hope I will have the strength and wisdom to accept and allow the darker parts to share the sheet, knowing they make the brighter ones seem brighter, that they remind me to be grateful for the good, accepting and knowing that contrasts will exist and even make the page more interesting. (I know… I know… let’s just go with more interesting.)

A friend asks about resolutions on New Years eve. To do more of the things that fill me up, rather than deplete me, I tell her.

As I stand on the brink of 2018, I know there may be grey moments of feeling depleted due to health reasons and other reasons perhaps out of my control. But how much of this exhaustion do I need to hold on to - in my mind and even soul?  

For there are many things that fill us up. That make us whole. That make us sing. Simple things. Grand things. Some we know of, some we will discover.   

These are the lustrous streaks that I hope I will reach out to – especially the easy and simple ones that fill our days with sweetness and brightness. That I will remain open and receptive and not hide behind the lackluster.

Here’s to our pages being sparkly and lustrous in ways we would like them to be. That they be dense and real, that all the holes be sealed and filled up with truth and goodness.  That the dark be swathed in acceptance, and the light of that which fills us up, sparkle forth.  

Happy New Year!!