Shed-petals and a pause

Yesterday I saw a blossom storm. 

The GIS application I was working on had been frustrating me all day before finally giving in to my debugging efforts.
About 5 minutes before I had to leave for my train home. 

One of the biggest challenges of doing iterative problem-solving in my job is that its often 'two steps back for one step forward' . My breakthroughs are almost always timed to make me miss my ride. 

Peeling back the cover. Just a teeny bit.

On our computer hard drive is a video of my Mother-in-law (MIL) playing with 7 month old Oyon. He is struggling with the lid of a transparent plastic box full of his favorite blocks. His pudgy fingers are clumsy though, seem to have a mind of their own and the blocks remain tantalizingly close yet out of reach. He lets loose a series of those peculiar baby grunts that are pre-amble to frustrated wails. In our home video, my MIL waits a beat while he makes another futile attempt, then gently takes the box, pries open a lid corner and places it back within his reach. Baby resumes fumbling but now manages to work a fingertip under the crack then peel open the entire lid. A delighted coo follows, then the entirely satisfactory clicking of blocks being struck together then a  droolly silence as like everything else those days, they get mouthed. Between his previous struggles to get at these elusive toys and now, something shifted just enough to let him translate intent into action. I had just witnessed one of his first significant experiences with persistence and innovation, enabled by the natural instinct of a practical woman who might have smoothed his way entirely (by opening the box for him) but chose instead to help him help himself.

Other Mothers

As Mothers Day looms (Sunday, May 11th here in the US), my thoughts are wandering from my own motherhood to that of others. Perhaps I'm somewhat primed by the live reading I was recently part of - 'Listen To Your Mother'. I came away altered but more by the stories the other mothers shared, than by any catharsis of my own.

Every year I look around in disbelief at the complete immersion in Mother-love, Mother-respect and Mother-spending that this day brings in the U.S.

Boston Strong

There was an unusually grim faced gentleman across the street from me today in Boston as I (and he) waited for the 'Walk' sign. He caught my attention first with his grimacing face, second because he was wearing shorts on a day when the predicted high was just around freezing and third, because descending from his left shorts leg was a prosthetic limb.

Fearlessness - Listen to your mother

My picture was in a newspaper recently. I'm going to be part of a public performance on April 26th called 'Talk To Your Mother' celebrating the many facets of motherhood. (Buy your tickets from here!)

The paper in question is the Boston Herald. A tabloid, though one with the impressive provenance of having earned 8 Pulitzers in its broadsheet days of yore.
Yes, I'm skipping blithely over the 'tabloid' part and dwelling on its blue-blooded lineage. Because I can. And because my pic could appear in worse places. 'Wanted' posters come to mind.

The Boston Herald,Monday, April 14, 2014

Things I heard today….

Waiting to board my morning train to work:
Cop on a bike: “Beautiful day today”
Train conductor: “They say it might rain”
Cop on bike: “Don't care. Just glad to see the sun.”

Missing a flight but not Hope

"The shadow makes it look SO real!"

Oyon (7) has the sharp little ears of kids his age. Eager to make sense of the world but without the requisite input, his antennae seem to constantly be picking up small details that he then mosaics together his own way. So he hears a lot that we choose to not share with him - from kids at school, snippets of radio and the general conversation surging around him.

He's completely into aircraft and flight again, undoubtedly fueled by the recent trip to India. So I assumed that it was only a matter of time before he heard about the missing Malaysian Airlines airplane and demanded to know more. In the interest of peace, I broached the subject myself as he played yesterday after homework. 

Say 'Hi' to your neighbors week

'Hi' again Bob Thx for the coffee!

The good folks at REACH are at it again.

The temp this AM at the Waltham commuter train station was an unnerving (for March) 12 degrees F per my car though my stinging, frozen face scoffed and pushed it down another few degrees. Yet Bob from last years event (here he was in 2013!) undauntedly offered me a hot cuppa with a warm smile and that quintessential connector word -

 

                              'Hi!'





          

 

Listen To Your mother....and maybe your Father too.

Usually when I hear "You've been selected !" it's followed by unlikely schemes for improbable vacations or offers to participate in time (and soul)-destroying surveys. Imagine my surprise when this time I found I'm about to perform at a wonderful public event called 'Listen To Your Mother'! After a pinch or two to check that I hadn't succumbed to jet-lag (just returned from a trip home, to Kolkata, India) I realized that indeed, I'm part of 'Giving motherhood a microphone' .Year 5 now in 32 cities all over the US.

My casual dalliance with Facebook Free Fridays (FFF)

About a year ago I hit a wall. Of noise. It was my Facebook wall.

My FB community has served me in unexpected ways, from forging new connections with old acquaintances to exploring hobbies that would have otherwise gone unexplored. From being in touch with breaking news to gleaning insights on current debates. From reading heartwarming stories about the goodness still around us to cute kid stories from doting parents. From reading inspiring recipes to getting links to great web articles I would have otherwise missed.

Perhaps more valuable than all of the above has been the ability to engage in discussion, debate and musings with people who, if not real-life 'freinds', have taken on that mantle through meaningful FB interaction. In the midst of busy work days and hectic after-hours,  juggling home, work and parenting, it's provided an easy release. Escapist entertainment like reading or TV can only go so far as they require free swatches of time. But there are always free minutes lurking in-between tasks for instant 'conversation' and stimulation that is unparalleled in real life. I know that the dynamics of communication get permanently warped when diverse people who don't know each other can jump into the fray and exchange thoughts with impunity for the social graces. But it's uniquely liberating too. You won't have to see those faces at the water cooler the next morning or share a meal with them that weekend, so it's easier to be frank and speak your mind.

Keepin' it real.

Blog stats
Signed into my blog account and got a thrill to see the following stats on a 1 day old post:



They're reading me in Brazil! 

73 people in just 1 day!

As I furiously patted myself on the back and let the gentle shower of validation wash away my writer's insecurities, these sobering thoughts washed up.
1. "They" are not reading me in Brazil. Precisely 1 person - a freind on a work trip with nothing else to do - is. (Thanks Saikat!)
2. The 'Don't track my own pageviews' option in my account was not turned on. Undoubtedly, I'm reading my blog.
3. Technical difficulties made me delete then re-post the link on my FB wall, which is where I trap my unsuspecting victims readers. Some followed the second link to the same post  (from a combo of loyalty, coercion and boredom) and were double-counted.
4. The tally counts the people who landed on the page but not what they did next, which was hopefully not surf immediately away.

The water in that comforting shower ran out. I'm now trying to pretend that it never even happened. While re-checking my Traffic stats.

Listen To Your Mother: First Un-born

The kidney-shaped hospital tray is a deep, cheerful red. It's a stunning mismatch with both its contents and this moment in my life. Empty and tired, I try to focus my bleary, post-surgery eyes on the advancing tray. Gripping the kind hand of Nurse Janice while struggling for clarity through the anesthetic fog, I peer into the tray. A single thought takes shape: who knew a two month young fetus could look so perfect? Whole. Real. And utterly unaffected by its own untimely demise.

Listen To Your Mother: Kolkata, Kenya and a faded coverlet

My mother was a housewife. Not a 'homemaker' but a wife who stayed at home. The mom part went without saying, though I'm sure I said it a lot anyway. It was “Maa! Maa! Maa!” for me constantly until I turned 6 and went to school for the first time. She defined my world in every possible way.

We left Kolkata, India when I was around two. It was known as Calcutta back then. As the oldest son, my father had the responsibility of supporting a large extended family in the traditional Indian way. A young electrical engineer in state employ had only so far to go in the early '70s though and East Africa needed electrification.

'Not happy'

The other night, I tuned into a documentary titled 'Happy'. It achieved my desired end and put me to sleep within minutes but not before I'd caught the requisite opening scene of a poor rickshaw driver in Kolkata, India (my hometown). He grinned happily while describing the joys in his subsistence level existence, full of confessed privations. The fuzzy thoughts running through my head as eyes lids dropped was "That's not 'happy': that's 'not sad'". In the light of day I recalled and altered my reaction: the interviewee WAS speaking of his simple sources of joy. That I'd read them as being illusory said a lot more about my entitled, elitist perspective than any weaknesses in his skills of self-expression. And that brought me around to this topic of 'happy' that had been buzzing around my head for a long time. I've read bits of Daniel Gilbert and Gretchen Rubin (authors delving into 'Happiness'), news magazines and zeitgeist tracking online sites and have a dawning awareness that deconstructing our 'happiness' is now part of our cultural fabric. At least for self-identified 'thinkers'.