A guest in another country

Everyone travels different. But no matter our travel style, we all come back with memories. The souvenirs we pick that follow us home, pictures we look at a decade later - the sights, the places and even the flavors. Yes, we now click pictures of everything we eat and drink.

And of course, posing is a thing now - I’m guilty of it too. Yes. That’s me swinging out of a funicular in Lisbon. Advantages of going in a non-tourist season, I suppose. It’s the new “fun” associated with travel. We try to capture the experiences and all the fun.

In the scurry for the picture taking, I hope we don’t miss out on how the moments feels. The sea breeze on the face, the peacefulness of a view, the enormity and magnificence of a monument and the history behind it, the aroma as a dish is brought to the table, the look on our face as we take in the size of the sangria pitcher.

And yet, when I think back of travel experiences, I often find myself thinking of the people we interact with. Even when there is no “proof”. A local restaurant in the El Yunque forest, two decades ago, where the patron keeps sending drinks to our table. “We didn’t order more,” we tell him, only for him to shrug it off with a “drink, drink…”. We respectfully obey. Everyone else there is a regular, that is obvious. Soon the latino music gets louder, and the dancing begins. Young and old, everyone joins in, and three pina coladas later, when they ask us to join, we are more than willing. This is before smart phones and there probably is no signal in this remote place. So, while there is no “proof” or picture of the sheer joy of that evening, I am able to feel it today, and all the bonhomie, friendliness and the laughter that went with it. I am a guest in this beautiful tropical rainforest and my gregarious and generous hosts are sharing a slice of their joyful life.

In the midst of checking out all the attractions and taking in the very best a city or country has to offer, sometimes I will remember I am only a guest here. Somewhat through the grace of the locals. It is their space, their history, their life that we’re partaking in. Locals who may be fed up of tourists, locals who may continue to be helpful despite that. Simply because of the common thread of humanity that binds us.

A few weeks ago, we manage to get lost in the narrow alleys of Portimão in the Algarve region of Portugal. We notice a hair and nail salon with plenty of customers and decide to ask in there. No one speaks English. The hairdresser pops out, scissors in her hand, points to some streets and gives detailed instructions with many many hand gestures - right, left, a loop, a street to keep going straight, another left - we understand nothing. She understands that we understand nothing.

An old lady probably in her late seventies is leaving the salon, her hair beautifully coiffed. She also understands that we understand nothing. She taps my arm and gestures that she is going in that direction (I think). We decide to follow her. She smiles at us. She chats with us. I think she tells us that we need to walk slowly. We amble along slowly, up and down the cobbled streets at her pace. There is a certain sweetness in this procession.

She says a few things to me. I say a few things to her. We have no idea what the other is saying. My smile and words thank her for showing us the way. Her words are sweet and kind even if I don’t know what they mean. I think she looks at my dress with much approval, and then at my flip flops in confusion and mild disapproval. I admire her coiffed hair and nails, her sense of style, her beautifully polished leather shoes, and wonder if it’s hard to walk with them on the cobbled streets. She stops at a crossroad and shows us where we need to go. She tells us where she will go. Many words are exchanged in our walk, all we understand is the sign language and the smiles. The friendship is sweet and I am grateful that she is such a gracious host to us in her beautiful city.

As we travel through a country and its people, we are imbibed and held in the grace and culture of its people. Some years ago, my then energetic eleven-year-old and I explore Tokyo and take the metro. My kid has a brand-new umbrella that she loves and which she won’t let me carry. In her general excitement, and lack of familiarity with crowded public transportation, she often bops locals in the crowded metros with that same umbrella. Not a gouge-your-eye-out bop, but several harmless thuds. Each time I am aghast and about to apologize when each time, I notice the gracious Japanese bow down to her (!!) with a “sumimasen” (sorry/excuse me). “Wait, wait” I want to say each time, you really shouldn’t be the ones to apologize! I try to bow down quickly with my “sumimasen”.

Yes, my kid receives many bows and sumimasens, and I in turn try to return many bows and sumimasens. My bows are followed by glares directed at my kid, whilst muttering “that umbrella”, beneath my breath. My kid, mostly unaware, rather confused by all the bowing in this hard-to-bow, tight space, decides that this umbrella is now “famous umbrella”. We still have “famous umbrella”, and it continues to remind me of the politeness and grace of the Japanese culture and its people.

If I rack my brains, many stories will fall out, each reminding me that when I travel, I am but a guest in someone else’s country, and that someone else is allowing me to share their history and culture and ethos, and way of life. And I hope that I will always be grateful and respectful of that generosity.

Eating (and drinking) our way through Portugal

We did a thing. An empty-nester thing. We buy tickets for international vacation travel less than a week before departure. Who does that? Not us - oh no, you plan and get excited by your plans, you pore over travel books and sites, read blog posts, and reviews. You find a zillion interesting things and then decide which of the few you are most likely to fit in. Most of our itineraries are fluid and change as we go.

Aah… this itinerary is certainly fluid, mostly because it is all so sudden. We can even check the 10-day weather forecast of the places we want to visit. We change plans and cities based on weather. This has never happened before!

We had been thinking of Portugal for a few months. It didn’t quite happen the way we were planning for it, and I may or may not have been relieved. For truth be told, if given more time to think about it, I would have bailed.

I go back to the past several months, to a few new diagnoses that make my life a little harder, previous symptom worse and a looming uncertainty of what’s ahead. More doctors, new doctors, new treatments, new drugs, I feel stuck in the hamster wheel again.

With illness comes uncertainty and the uncertainty and anxiety are often far worse than the reality. For when things go wrong, you muster up courage and do the do. But in the harrowing haze of uncertainty lies a certain gloom that can suck it all out of you.

But less than a week before travel, once the impulsive tickets are purchased, I no longer have time to think if I have energy or enough good health for this. Ahem… I’m efficient like that, I make time and find room for stress and worry. But the excitement and the craziness of the last-minute travel overshadows it. I feel lucky even if I shake my head in disbelief.

But wait, what am I going to eat? I have new allergies - to everything - environmental, pollen, dust, food, everything - my allergist stops testing for food allergies since most everything shows up positive. There’s no point, she tells me, your immune system is in such overdrive, there will be a lot of false positive. Great, I think, and I want to travel to a new country like this?

I pack all my medication. My medical kit is in my backpack. My angry face rash is an indicator of how bad things are on any given day. I can do this, I decide. It’s not like things are in remission, even I stay right here, in the safe confines of my home. Besides I am not a very big eater (or drinker), but the novelty of things, I do want to experience.

I decide to take it all in, I decide to not let fear come in the way of my living. And I have a whole country to eat (and drink) through.

We do so with aplomb. We find restaurants tucked away in narrow cobbled alleys filled with locals, and a few tourists like us who somehow whiff them out. We’re in luck, it is off season and there are few tourists everywhere. A wait time of 15 minutes at 2 pm on a weekday for a restaurant (surrounded by empty restaurants) is got to be good sign, right? It is. Spectacular. Everyone is drinking their house wines. My husband asks for a glass of the vino verde (green wine). The server looks at him quizzically and says, “only one liter” or “half liter”. Makes sense. Who drinks just one glass of wine in this beautiful weather, with the ocean nearby?

Sardines and Bacalhau a braz and Vino Verde (green wine)

 
 
We roam the cities, we take in the beautiful south, we take in the local tastes and flavors, our senses are satisfied. I am often tired as we walk miles on the cobbled streets, but the sights and sounds and the friendliness of the locals, fills me up. We drive through olive and orange orchards and vineyards and take in the countryside. The famous Pasteis de Belen live up to their name, as do the famous pastries at Casa Piriquita in Sintra. We do a comparison of pastels de nata in different places – well, we mostly gobble them up without really coming to any conclusion.

 

 

A lot has gone wrong, terribly wrong. Each time, we’ve waded through it and stood back up. Wobbly and perhaps exhausted, but upright, nonetheless.

There’s really no knowing what the future holds, but we have today. And anticipating what can go wrong is more exhausting than the going-wrong-of-things. And with that in mind, I decide to eat (and drink) my way through Portugal.

Ginjinha (cherry liqueur) in chocolate cup

Pastel de nata liqueur in white chocolate cups

Festivals, traditions, memories, nostalgia…and the modak mold

Ganapati Bappa Morya! Today is Ganesh Chaturthi. I decide to make modak. I look everywhere for the modak mold. I cannot find it. I bought it many years ago. I have never used it. I remember why.

The first time I make modak with my kid, she squeals, “Modak dough is just like Playdoh”. And much to the disapproval of an older grandmother somewhere, surfboards, flowers, animals, and other shapes are made. Some may or may not have been stuffed with the sweet coconut filling and then steamed.

Ganesh Chaturthi is often towards the end of summer break. My kid and I spend hours shaping the modak by hand. We never use the mold.

Discussions and negotiations may have ensued as to why only the modak-shaped-modaks are put before Ganesha. I tell her that while I may not be particularly religious, I don’t want to stretch it too far. Those disapproving grandmothers somewhere may haunt me in my sleep. That is how things are supposed to be, I say. She asks why. I don’t have the best answer. Tradition, I suppose. She contemplates and then shrugs.

It is a tradition, our tradition, and now a distant memory. Hours spent in the kitchen molding the sticky dough into modak and other shapes. The pure white dough oftentimes no longer staying pure white, the modak often gangly and awkward looking, leaning this way, or that way, too fat, or too thin, a mouth occasionally open. Again, surely not what some grandmother somewhere will want to hear of. 

And in their imperfection, is a lot of laughter and a lot of sticky mess. I may not have taught my girl how to make perfect modak, but I know that she will someday have similar, even if imperfect traditions with her family and friends. Of modak, or other things.

Things change. Things move. Memories are sweet little nuggets in time. Sweet little nuggets that are fun and effervescent. And it may be best to let them remain so – in the past.

Nostalgia is fun. Nostalgia can also make today seem heavy. Best to move away from the nostalgia, I decide. I decide to search again for the modak mold.

And if I don’t find it, I will buy a new one next time I go to India. I may never watch my kid make skateboards out of modak dough again (the disapproving grandmothers somewhere can heave a sigh of relief), and that’s quite okay.

Instead, I will get a new modak mold and make way fewer modak than we did and appreciate the simplicity and the new way of doing things. Of change and of different stages of life.

In that maybe I will learn to acknowledge that change is simply that - change. It need not be loss, and there’s nothing to recover. For with change comes the new as well. And that may be welcome too.

Crying over a grapefruit in a grocery store and other empty nester emotions

 

One week of empty nesting. One week of a certain weird quiet and a wrenching feeling inside that won’t leave. It may have been there for a while, but logistics and excitement and the general hum-ho of the move dulls it. So much excitement, so much movement, so much activity, so much fun. Of youth and adventure and campus experience.

It hits when you come back to an empty house. When the dog plants herself on the kid’s bed and won’t budge. She misses the kid too. She senses something is amiss. Or perhaps, she feels it in your sadness.  

It comes in waves they tell you. It does. It hits at random moments when there is no protective layer of rationality, or reason, or being busy. Raw and unprotected, it hits you.

I am in the grocery store, I see some big, beautiful, grapefruits and instinctively pick one. I hold it, only to realize that there is no one at home to enjoy it. My kid is the grapefruit enthusiast and she is faar faar away.

I need to put it away. Instead, I continue holding it. I hold on to it, I stand there staring at it. My arm seems heavy and I finally reluctantly let go of the grapefruit. Only, to continue to stand there, staring at it. Who knows for how long. Am I really going to cry in the grocery store, in front of a pile of grapefruits?

When did my existence get this pathetic? Or sad? Or funny? For how long am I going to continue to stand here? Are people staring at me, wondering if I may be nuts?

Maybe. And for anyone who may have given sidelong looks to the odd lady staring at the grapefruits, or oranges or strawberries, let her be. She has much to process.

Yes, it comes in waves, and at odd times and least-expected places. For the most part, you are excited for the kid. Up until the moment when you need to put the grapefruit away.   

The fear is real… and yet so are the wonders…

There may have been a poetic (even if somewhat terrifying) reason we went Canyoneering as a family a few weeks ago.

For, given where I stand in my life right now, the metaphors from the experience all seem increasingly relevant.

I had wanted to try canyoneering for a while and had heard of other folks’ experiences. The guided trip I found said “families” and “12-and-up”, which made me think I could do it. Of course, given my luck, the one I landed on turned out to be pretty intense –involving more than 8 hours in the wilderness with eight waterfalls to rapel from and slippery, knee-deep water hikes from one waterfall to another. But again, it was in the midst of untouched nature and incredibly beautiful.

Akin to where I stand right now, it was the only way to be, the only way was forward and the only thing to do was to keep moving, no matter how unsettling, no matter how unnerving.

The fear is real, very real. Letting go is hard, very hard. And yet, all I need to do is to let go, all I can do is to let go.

I stand at the overhang (of the waterfall) and stare down - terrified. It seems physically and emotionally impossible to let go, to simply jump off the overhang. To allow my feet to let go of the known faithful ground beneath me. Yet the temptation of an experience and rainbows in the waterfall lies below me. Only if I can let go.

After the first rapel, I start laughing and can’t stop. “Was fun, huh?” asks the guide. “Yes!” I reply. I am thrilled that I did it, I am thrilled at how much I loved the experience. I also wonder if the laughter is sheer hysteria. Hmmm...  

At another very tall waterfall, I tell the guide I can’t do it. We will have to find another way for me to get down. “Don’t open that window, ” he says. Part therapist, part guide, I know what he means. If I must escape, if I must give up, I know there will be ways. I resignedly move forward.

I’m on a ledge in the middle of a 95 ft waterfall. I’m ready to give up. I can’t do this anymore, I decide. It was all a bad idea. I’m ready to be done, to throw in the towel.

I ask the guide above for help, for what I should do next. I’m slipping on the rocks. He says things. Many things. Many helpful things. I hear none of them. I only hear the gushing of the waterfall.  

I look at the guide below for help and instructions. He can’t hear me, he signals.

I’m on my own. Entirely. Only I can help myself. I will have to find my own courage.

I have no choice. No one can help me. I need to figure this out. The courage arrives – not a brilliant burst, but a more pissed-off, resigned one. But courage is courage and I’ll take it.

It is poetry in motion – an easy understanding of cause and effect and of the combination of letting go and courage. If I can be brave, if I can let go and simply lean back, I can enjoy the moment. Every time my foot slips, or nerves get the better of me, in my fear, and my clenching, I move towards the rock, wanting to freeze. I understand that instead of clenching, when I am able to let go, it is so much easier, so much more fun. I work towards it, towards letting go, for I know that is the only way forward.  

Perhaps, the biggest takeaway is the knowledge that I know I am safe and that things are good.

Even if my knuckles are bleeding and I am scratched and bruised and am making crazy demands on my not-so-strong body, I know I am safely belayed and that I am safe despite all my fears. If I can keep reminding myself of that, I can relax better. The discomfort is minor, the experience is exhilarating, the double rainbows I am rappelling through are real.

And while I can magnify the terrifying moments and let them consume me, there are all really on one side of the scale. There are some pretty awesome things on the other.

And that may be what I need to remember. Especially today. And maybe always.

The fruits of neglect

I look at my neglected vegetable patch. A perfect lettuce stares back at me.

I stare back at it in wonder. It is so perfect and yet I had almost nothing to do with it. Not with its perfection, and perhaps, nor with its being there. Did I sow lettuce seeds last fall or winter? Threw some in there to over-winterize? Or wait, didn’t a lettuce go to flower last fall (due to neglect, of course) along with a bunch of other greens and herbs? I try to remember the going-ons in my yard from last summer.

I may never know the truth. Yet I marvel at the beauty in front of me. Surely, I had something to do with it, and yet I cannot put a finger on what that might be, and nor can I take credit for it.

I did notice it growing, a teeny tiny baby, translucent green, hopeful in the midst of all weeds. As I furiously yanked the weeds out, I slowed down and yanked around it, leaving it in, along with a few other hopefuls - spinach, kale, lettuce, a tiny tomato plant – surely from seed. Sigh…it does makes me wonder how many I perfectly good ones I destroyed in the process… Hmm… but back to focusing on the good and not on those in the green waste bin, decomposing with other regrets. Sigh...

Coming back to the one that made it. I remember pressing down the earth around it to make it stable despite the yanking of weeds all around. Now that I do remember. After that moment I did exactly what a great gardener would do. Ignore it.

Well, maybe that’s what it needed. For me to notice it, leave it in and then simply let it be. To not disturb it, to not sweat over it, or its future. To simply marvel at its existence, perhaps to keep a little faith in it and to be okay whether or not it made it.

From where I stand right now, I wonder if the lettuce is telling me something about parenting goals. At this point in my life and my child’s.

I look at the lettuce for confirmation. For answers maybe. It gives me none. And yet, it tells me a lot.

To loving till it hurts and letting go like it's the only thing to do...

This Mother’s Day is bittersweet. My heart is so fully aware that my child will leave home in a few months. It stills a little or beats a little faster with every conversation about leaving, every preparation for leaving. It’s all very exciting and wonderful, a new chapter, an unknown path ahead waiting for her to make it her own, a certain taking stock of all the work she’s put in, pride in who she’s become. Why then will that little ache inside persist?

I brush it off, I’m not ready to deal with it, I want to stay in the present. It will hit when it hits and I’ll deal with it then, I tell myself. Good plan. I will try and enjoy my time with her (Sigh… I wish I could tell you that makes all the arguments go away. It doesn’t. Sorry to burst that bubble).

Once we become mothers, our lives are forever intertwined in those little and eventually not-so-little beings. A tiny part of our being is no longer our own. Some mothers navigate the giving that small piece more gracefully than others it seems. They remain themselves first and mothers second. They are the ones who put their oxygen masks first.

Perhaps it hits me harder, because somewhere deep down, I suspect she is the reason I am alive. She is the sense of purpose I needed to get out of hospitals and near-death situations. This small, energetic, wonder child may have saved me. A friend had once told me that children need their mothers till age ten or eleven. She was a few months short of ten when I was in a near-death situation. Stuck in the hospital for over a month and a half, I spent countless minutes and energy I didn’t quite have wondering and mostly driving myself crazy: Is it age ten or is it eleven? If it’s ten, whew… it’s okay, she’s almost there. But what if it’s eleven? Sh** I got to get out of here – alive. Sigh…let’s just blame it on the meds and not the innerworkings of my mind.

Will and sense of purpose are strange things. And the human heart and brain will perhaps never comprehend them. I am growingly aware that she would have been fine even if I had not made it. Not to give this all a morbid twist, but it comes from a place where I’m trying to figure out where she ends, and I begin. And we are separate and there is beauty in that. Even if it hurts to separate.

So, if this child kept me alive, who do I become without her? Who am I without her? I suspect it does not have to be a near-death situation for mothers to relate and feel the way I feel right now.

I draw inspiration from the mother bird who pushes her chickie out of the nest. She’s simply pragmatic and knows when it’s time and goes about it without much fuss, song and dance (or writing a blog). She is in tune with nature and respects its laws and lives her life by it. She kicks the chickie out, makes sure it can fly, and resets. Her life starts anew. Build a new nest, lay some new eggs, new chickies…okaaaay, we’re not going down that path, for sure. Whew! True, we will never know her innerworkings, her heartache, her apprehensions, her worries, or if she’s even capable of feeling any of it. Oh, the miracle that is nature.

As I stand at this cusp, watching my daughter’s excitement (and apprehension), maybe I should draw on her excitement and ask myself what the future holds for me. Is this a time for mothers to reset their lives? To take back the piece of ourselves that we gave away. I wonder if there is any taking back. Okay, we’ll leave those pieces where they want to be - how they want to be, to change organically when they’re ready. For I also hear it never ends. Not when your child is five, not when your child is fifty. I suppose there is no other recourse but to live our lives with our mixed bags of heartache and excitement, of enmeshed and separate lives, of loving till it hurts and letting go like it’s the only thing to do.

Thank you, mamma bird - I’m trying to be just like you. Even if that little ache inside persists.

Happy Mother’s Day to all the wonderful mothers - may we figure ourselves at every stage - not simply for who we are as mothers but who we are as ourselves.

Just gratitude

Today is the one-year-anniversary of one of the worst days of my life. My 16-year-old daughter’s car was T-boned and totaled. She was driving. The car toppled over (270 degrees). Some kind passers-by got there, they banged on the window, they asked her to open the sunroof that was now perpendicular to the ground. She tried. It opened a little and then jammed. The man yanked it, breaking it open and helped her crawl out of the misshapen heap of a car.

She was miraculously unhurt.

It was one of the worst days of my life. And yet all I could feel that day was grateful.

My husband got the call that no parent ever wants to get. And yet all I felt was grateful.

The car was totaled. I was grateful it was only the car.

My daughter had a concussion. I was grateful it was mild.

She was in terrible shock. Her nervous system seemed awry. I was grateful I could find healing resources. 

The next day she could barely walk (whiplash, shock, adrenaline rush gone, bruises, soreness). I was grateful I could help her.

My husband and I were badly shaken up. I was grateful for the force of gratitude that engulfed and held us, feeding us strength and fortitude and even allowing us to crack jokes (bad ones, of course) in the ER.

She was going to miss the fencing Junior Olympics. It would hurt her recruitment chances. I was grateful she would be able to fence again.

Neighbors and friends stopped by with treats and flowers. I was grateful for them. Not a single sugary treat went to waste – we had a constant trickle of teenagers.  

Her friends stopped by with their youthful laughter and cheer. She started to smile again. I was grateful for each one of them.

Yes, I find it strange that all I could feel on one of the worst days was an overwhelming feeling of gratitude. I wanted to believe in every God and every superior force that might be and thank them all for watching over her.

I wanted to thank the kind strangers who came to her rescue. The man who broke the sunroof with his bare hands and helped her crawl out. The lady who sat on the pavement beside her and pulled glass pieces out of her hair. The other lady who consoled her and lent my daughter her phone. They were gone by the time my husband got there. They left when the paramedics arrived.  

I will never know them. I will never meet them. I will never forget these people who I will never have known. I will continue to thank them in my heart. With all my heart. Forever.

Now trust me, I’m no born-optimist or anything sun-shiney like that. I am probably somewhat/at-best hopeful but more in a hesitant, waiting-for-the-other-shoe-to-drop way.

I am almost puzzled that my mind didn’t dwell on how it could have been avoided. How she could have come home straight from school, how she could have left a split-second later, or earlier, how the other car could have been traveling slower (and possibly adhering to the speed limit), how… how… how…

No, my mind would not travel to those places, refixing the broken in my imagination, making it shiny and problem-free with different outcomes, something I grudgingly admit, I am capable of. At times, with gusto.

True, I never want to go to that donut place again, but other than that, my mind would not travel to any such areas of could-have-beens. So engulfed was I in the gratitude of the moment. My child was relatively unhurt and nothing else mattered.

I marvel at the wonder of it all. It must be a strength of our species.

On one of the worst days of my life, if my most prevailing emotion can be gratitude, what a magnificent species we must be… 

Rewriting stories

Last month, I saw my naturopath’s resident for bodywork and visceral manipulation. My body was in constant pain, I had incessant headaches, nausea, I wasn’t sleeping well… I was ill at ease all the time. I get impatient and frustrated in periods such as these. For there is no single solution, no single ailment to fix and address. It feels like an avalanche in the present, with roots in the past – decades of illness, surgeries gone wrong, intestinal perforation, months of hospital stay, truckloads of medication, ensuing complications – liver disease, scar tissues… you get the gist. The medical system worked hard to keep me alive, they did their everything, they succeeded. But despite their “success”, I live with what seems to me, unresolved pain and the outcomes of the illness and medical events.

It has been a journey and countless people have helped me. Family, friends, strangers, the medical community, the alternate medicine community who I rely on greatly… I am lucky to be alive and to live a normal life. Which is why I feel a twinge of guilt each time I am pissed at my lot, the aches and pains, and limitations, and the irritation that I will never be rid of it. Never. Ever. Grrrrr…

This piece is not to reveal my inner inadequacies in maturity, grace, acceptance… even if I may be doing a fine job of it so far. I simply want to share something this wise practitioner said to me, that gives me pause. And a certain hope.

We studied my abdomen as she decided what needed the most work. I started narrating the events of the past – of how the surgeon accidentally nicked my small bowel, of how the sutures came undone, and the ensuing mayhem which explains my pain years later.

A lot had happened. And my practitioner was aware. She listened and quietly said to me that my body was beautiful and amazing. That it could endure so much and be who it is, that my inner organs were wonderful.

It was hard for me to receive her kind words. She was speaking of a certain beauty, while all I could see were problems.

She continued hesitantly, asking for my permission to share an idea. The curious cat that I am, on a constant quest to make sense of the world, I was not passing up on perspectives from this lovely person. I nodded.

She said sometimes it is important for us to rewrite our stories. While there was no denying the bad, sometimes we need to shed light on the good occurring alongside. She spoke of a body-mind connection and of how our bodies are listening to our stories and how the healing process may gain from it. And reduce the stress. Once again, she reminded me of how strong I was, how beautiful my body was, to go through everything it had gone through and be what it is today.

I realized that each time I am in pain, my mind probably goes back to that time of botched surgery. I suppose it gives me an explanation of why I feel crummy. A justification even.

And easy as she made it sound to rewrite our stories, is it truly that simple?

Who would I be without that story? Was I willing to give it up? Did I need to give it up? It was one story. Maybe I could see that story alongside other stories of survival and strength, and kindness from others and sheer love. Those stories exist too. And they have always been there. Waiting. Patiently.  

How then, do I own these stories? Wholeheartedly, compassionately, without undermining any of it? In the wake of the other horrible stories occurring alongside? 

Perhaps I will have to be a braver version of myself. Perhaps I will have to give up certain stories that I am holding on tightly to. That may no longer be serving me.

Happy New Year my friends! May we be able to rewrite our stories to bring back our peace. That it gives us strength and brings the power back to ourselves, rather than to the villains of our past – events, circumstances, people who caused us pain. Let our stories be those of the strength we showed in those times. Of our perseverance, compassion, gentleness and courage.

And maybe it will loosen the grip of the ghosts of our past, giving us a certain freedom to move forward in the direction we would like to. In the direction of our true selves. For our true selves can only be radiant and luminous. Happy 2023!

Love,

Ruta