"He’s a strange bird, but I know him."

This morning my friend Shreya was befuddled by a reluctant toaster. Or perhaps her 4 year old insisted on wearing shorts to school in winter (as 4 year olds often do). Whatever it was that unfolded in the house of the harried mom in the early hours, it made her take to FB and declare

“Nothing that's meant to happen is happening! So I'm asking The World, can it explain itself??."

From the warm recesses of my comforter, where I’d only opened one eye to meet 6:45 am, my arm snaked out to snag the iPhone charging on my nightstand. Ostensibly to check if I had time for another 40 winks but really to check in on FB (yes, I’m a junkie). Shreya’s angst was from 5 hours ago, the time difference between us. But I still felt the motivation to tap this out (mainly to yank her chain  even on a dated event but also to speak up for our already beleaguered planet):

The world was spinning gently when it looked closer at it's people
chanting on their prayer mats, chanting under steeple.
Then judging mats and steeples while intoning a sombre 'om',
Unspeakable acts of hatred that I won't put in this pome.
Killing and greed supposedly for the furthering of our Race,
That seems better gone when you see this side of its cruel and brutal face.

Eons of growth and changes in the original primordial mass
Just has to mean a little more than human chaos en-masse.

The world kept spinning on as to it's people it then asked,
"nothings working the way it's meant to: Explain YOURSELF…and fast."

In a separate but not entirely unconnected incident (bear with me!), last night my husband saw this on the public library bulletin board:

Amidst the ‘WTF?!’ vein of responses it elicited from his FB friends, were his own 2 cents:

the point is not to pick up new friends, but to not remain strangers. In fact, it does not prohibit you from not staying strange ! People can look at me, say "he's a strange bird, but I know him".

The mystery of our (16 year long) union was a wee bit lessened when I realized that this ad was part of the same ‘Hi’ campaign I blogged so giddily about recently. Hubby’s take is a lot more restrained but none the less potent for it. To me at least.

In between the incomparable yet nonetheless valid tragedies of soft toast and senseless slaughter lies the essential truth: shit happens and in oh-so many ways.

- The world neither explains nor rights itself, no matter how politely you ask.
- You never know which way your bread will land: buttered side down feels like your default until you meet someone without any bread (so to speak).

But imagine that you’re plodding along trying to taking stock of all that is right so you can get through all the 'wrong'. With sanity more-or-less intact.

You look up and a strange but friendly face is looking into yours.
A ‘Hi’ comes your way.
Someone opens the door for you.
Another offers you their spare plastic spoons.
Yet another chases you down the platform to return the one glove you dropped.

Doesn’t that just take the cake?

To be able to say ‘he’s a strange bird but I know him’.
Hey Shreya: I think maybe the world is explaining itself after all.

PS: please check out
The excellent folks at the REACH campaign with the poster above at http://www.reachma.org/
My freind Shreya's hilarious blog at http://ibnlive.in.com/blogs/author/3503/shreyasen-handley.html

Oyon-isms:
As i'm putting Oyon's latest Lego 'creation' into his 'museum':
Oyon: That's delicate Mummum. Be careful please. It's also fragile you know.
Me: Isn't that the same thing?
Oyon: No! (with a condescending snigger) Fragile means it's shiny.
Me: (laughing quietly to myself)
Oyon (with dawning self-doubt): Or maybe not. Anyway, I KNOW it's delicate. I know THAT. 

Ash to go

That most of my human-nature related insights and epiphanies should occur at the commuter rail station is not surprising. Other than the 5 minute walk from North Station to my office , on the Boston end of my train ride, this is after all the only time I get a daily glimpse of other slices of humanity. Or at least the slice that goes to work in Boston. Once there, we're all usually hunched up against the wind tunnel effect, scurrying with heads down to our separate workplaces, suspended within those little bubbles that large(ish) cities so easily and instantly conjure.

This particular February Wednesday I met these folks on the platform in Waltham:

The Catholic observance of 'Ash Wednesday' is as intrinsic to the socio-cultural fabric of the Greater Boston area as the Pilgrim hat icons (on everything from Highway signage to tourist kitsch) that boast of the Mayflower's historic arrival. Irish immigrants followed the Mayflower Puritans a few hundred years later and brought with them Catholicism. Driven by Ireland's devastating Potato famine of 1847, the Diaspora arrived and grew not only in size but in a unique sort of eminence. Boston Irish Catholics came to own a spirit of industry, inquiry and even government here. Three guesses as to President John Fitzgerald Kennedy's ethnic heritage. That's not to say that all Catholics here have Irish ancestry (the so called 'Boston Brahmins' are apparently descended from the Puritan founders) but many, many do. And I think of them whenever I think of Catholicism.

Ancestry (and quick trip to wiki grade Irish history!) aside, a forehead anointed with a smear of ash on any given Lent Wednesday here speaks not just of early morning Mass and Faith but generations of tradition in a long thriving community. It's easy to smile when these suddenly-identifiable Christians (I've come to think of them, not unkindly, as 'Wednesday Catholics') board the train preceded/followed by a dark haired Indian wearing a similar vibhuti teeka from their morning puja. I find it heartening somehow that outward symbols of two disparate religions should find not just such similar expression but full acceptance. I haven’t seen anyone spare a second glance at any ash-dotted forehead, regardless of it's underlying skin-tone.

Quick aside (again!): Not having ever faced racism in this country, I wonder at (and am mildly ashamed of) my surprise. Notch it upto skepticism. I often wonder if I haven't faced the racism that many of my peers have caught glimpses of, due to my low exposure to ALL of American society. I figure that attending Graduate school and pursuing a career in a field requiring a certain degree of education ensures I only come across people of a cosmopolitan bent, people used to the sight and sound of non-Americans because of the way we have saturated institutes of higher education and highly-skilled jobs in addition to the 7-eleven 'appu's widely caricatured in American pop-culture. Regardless of my confusion, what I've seen of the American spirit (if I can even summarize the plurality here into 'one' spirit), I like.

Which brings me full circle to the Episcopalians in the cold and slush, clutching their packs of ash to share with anyone who hasn't found time for it yet. For fear of gawking and/or intruding on what seemed a somewhat private act (though arguably, wearing an ash mark all day was probably not geared toward keeping the faith 'private'), I didn't stick around to stare down the actual 'to-go' ritual they performed. But their effort at bringing some peace and comfort to harried Catholics who might have struggled and lost their bid at religious observance, possibly from the due pressures of Life, was touching. They did not seem to be proselytizing and were open-minded enough to let me take this picture.

As a long professed Agnostic (and recently converted Atheist) I make no claim to understanding the joy people find in Faith. I come from a country ripped apart by religion and am aghast at the atrocities carried out in the name of 'tradition', leave alone Faith. I'll never agree that unthinking adherence to unchallenged rituals is a virtue. Especially when said rituals divide people and spread pain and intolerance. I find though that I've remained human enough to recognize the power of positive traditions in transforming lives in small, but significant ways. My intolerance of dogma doesn't prevent me right now either, from seeing the substantive example of brotherhood and compassion in a couple of church-goers offering up comfort and convenience instead of doling out guilt and defaulting to indifference.

They didn’t try to proselytize.

They didn't even call out to passers-by.

They just stood there - cassock edges (vestments? robes? my Christian lexicon is woefully under furnished!) wicking up melted grey slush from the asphalt. They smiled and nodded at anyone who made eye-contact and let their board advertise their purpose.

I wish I had thanked them for what they brought to their fellow Catholics.

And me.

My forehead is bare of any signs of Faith. But theirs did something for me anyway.

Oyonisms:
One evening a few months ago we were on our way to a birthday party. At the first chant of "I'm bored!" on the long, dark drive, his Dimmum (my mom) challenges him to count to 100.
Then to 200.
At 131 (or so), Oyon pauses and wonders out loud what comes after 1000.
I ask him to guess.
"Thousandty-one. Thousandty- two...."

Anyone who's shocked that an almost 6 yr old can't count past 1000: he can't do buttons either. But boy, does he have a great grin. :-)

'Say Hi to your neighbors week' in Waltham, MA.

    At the train station this morning, 3 ft high snow banks narrowed the parking lot drive-through lane to barely a car's width. Thank you, blizzard Nemo. Traffic flow had slowed to molasses. I made it in eventually and was working my car back and forth in the few inches available for maneuvering to squeeze into the last, tight parking spot as my train pulled in and then out (without me). Already irate from a rebellious 6 yr old's early morning tantrum, I let fly a few of the choiciest in the modest confines of my vehicle.
     Prepped to cool my heels and temper inside my frigid car (what, me idle?) for 20 mins until the next train to Boston. Lady to my left, who had no such compunctions, comfortably belched exhaust while putting on her face in the rear-view mirror. Man on the right blasted music with the engine running and a window half open to let out his cigarette smoke. One of those 'Why do I even bother?' moments flashed briefly through my mind.
     Then a dimly heard voice from behind the car caught my attention, saying 'Hi! Would you like some coffee?' . In my rear-view mirror, the bundled up commuter being addressed shook a wordless 'no' and scurried off as fast as the ice and slush would let her. She hadn't even made eye contact with the coffee-bearer. I watched to see what would follow and saw this gentleman (whom I later stalked for a pic):

He moved amongst commuters until his coffee stockpile was exhausted. Then he headed back to this temporary coffee station that I hadn't even noticed before. It was positioned strategically at the bus stop adjoining the Waltham commuter train stop:

He reloaded and set off again, as did a few other young women. Armed with coffee, grins and a cheerful, easy 'Hi!' they doled out these pamphlets with minimal fuss:

I would have been emotionally levelled by the sobering joy of witnessing this kind of pure kindness had it not been that they had an agenda. But just check out their agenda was (excerpted from the back of the pamphlet from above):

 Mayor McCarthy has proclaimed February 9-16, 2013 as

Say Hi to Your Neighbors Week!

Our goal is 2,013 "Hi"s

Will you Say 'Hi' to your neighbors and help realize our goals?

 

              We believe that saying 'Hi' to our nieghbors:
        * Helps create a safer community
        * Breaks the isloation that people experiencing violence often feel
        * Helps us be more likely to look out for each other
                     Don't pass someone by

SAY Hi and ask them to pass it on!

It's a message from REACH Beyond Domestic Violence.
They were'nt even preachy about it. When a coffee recipient responded to the pamphlet with 'Thanks for the coffee! I will try not to be domestically violenced!' in an errant attempt at wit, the coffee-bearer continued to hand over creamer and sugar packs with a grin and nary a word about the seriousness of the issue.

Sobering joy: check.
Emotionally levelled: check

In this age where various forms of social media are so easily and successfully brought to bear on spreading messages, this kind of physical glad-handing probably bears less of a 'wow' factor and  more of a taint of being backward and inefficient. The most casual user of social networks knows that you can spread a message farther, wider and faster with a few jabs of your thumbs on a smart phone than with hours of canvassing. But what the iGadgets and cyber social networks miss is the value of personal contact. Victims of abuse fly under the radar for as long as they do because they lack the connections that might enable them to call out for help. I understand people suffering from depression face a similar debilitating sense of isolation that makes them feel that they are suffering alone, that no-one can 'get' it, that their pain in unimportant or shameful or a sign of weakness.

In these situations no number of smiley pictures in chain e-mails or 'like' tallys on FB can match the value of a smile exchanged in person. Because being there, means BEING THERE. It means that each of us are not suspended in a bubble facing joys and sorrows alike, alone. That there may just be help and comfort a simple word away. That even when you don't receive acknowledgement of a smile/nod/hello, you might have changed that person's day. Or life.

If you suspect that this might be even partially true, why not try saying 'Hi! Pass it on, will you?', walk away and see how it makes you feel?

Or contact these folks: www.reachma.org, allison@reachme.org

Oyon-isms (6):
Trying to say 'Grace' just like his little freind who came to dinner last night (whose family follows the practise, one we join out of respect when we visit them for dinner). She thanks the Lord for 'food, house and freinds. Amen.'
Oyon clasps his hands, squeezes his eyes shut and says
"I hope there is more good news in the news because the bad news is just bad. Um, what's that word you say at the end again, Mummum?"
Amen, kid.

'Iron' tokens and dated ring-tones

A few reminders today of my age and stage in life.
Age = 41.
Stage = harried mom who is recovering her footing and self.

The Twilight Zone theme song
               Squished together with a fellow commuter on my 8 am train to Boston, the haunting theme from the '70s show 'The Twilight Zone' snaked gently into the air.

A baggie full of spoons

Three things happened today to startle me.

7:40 am at the Convenience store
An elderly man held a door open for me from inside the 7-eleven I was entering to grab a cup of Joe before catching my morning train to work. His jacket was faded and well washed. The crease on his faded navy pants was ironed and sharp. There was an insignia I couldn't read on his cap and lapel.
       My head had been down against the bitter cold and the sinus headache pounding at my temples since 7 am. So when the door opened on its own and stayed opened to let me in I looked up, startled, at that weather beaten face and sputtered an undoubtedly strange 'THANK you, SIR!!'. He grinned back a good natured 'Your'e WELCOME, MA'AM' before he slipped out.
    It was not until I  was dazedly stirring the sugar into my paper cup of 'Green Mountain Breakfast Blend' that I felt the first twinge of regret. Why hadn't I squeezed his arm quickly as I brushed past him? I know I wanted to. Or found a few quick words to tell him how good it felt to be taken care of in that small but important way on that particularly painful morning. That his consideration, even if it stemmed from an outdated sense of chivalry was about to alter the quality of my entire day. My headache still had me in it's grip but there was a slight lessening of the vague anxiety of the morning that yet another painful sinus ordeal was unfolding to plague me this dreadful winter. Whatever it was, I felt just a little less beleagueared.

1 pm at the first floor coffee shop at work
Said headache amped up by lunch time as the pseudoephedrine wore off. The chills I'd had all morning were getting annoying too. They sometimes have good soup downstairs and the blind veterans who run the store are nice. My second paper cup of the day held my favorite Italian Wedding Soup whose steaming chicken broth was sure to put a silver bullet in my whiny sinuses. I passed on the  paper bag in keeping with my son's reminder last night to try and be kinder to the earth and edged out of the tiny shop balancing a teetering pile that went cup-spoon-napkin-wallet. My poorly conceived stacking order wasn't helped any by the chills that were still shaking me. I dropped the spoon and napkins right by the front door.
      Another elderly veteran (I'm going to assume my gentle friend from the morning was one, by the way) was rushing out the door that had slid open at just that moment. A gush of frigid Boston air scattering my napkins efficiently all over the grimy floor of the airlock.
      This one was grizzled too. Lined, lean face and shockingly white hair. Dark cotton clothes,  functional parka and a smart bookbag slung over one shoulder. After collecting my things for me, he knelt and unzipped a side compartment in his bag. He pulled out this baggie of individually wrapped plastic spoons and balanced it carefully atop my newly restored pile:

A baggie of spoons at 2 pm

"Don't use the spoon you dropped. The Flu's going around and the Veterans' Health services is just here on the 2nd floor. Germ central." He told me he had plenty more as he zipped and re-shouldered his bag. Apparently he collects them to take to school. (He goes to school! He collects individually wrapped takeout spoons and packs them in snack sized baggies. He pulled out the only one in his bag, that he keeps there for HIS own use at school, and handed it to me, brooking no objection.)

I was still weakly protesting "But YOU need it for school..." as he bounced purposefully out the door.

Later that day, distracting myself from headaches and other woes.
Read this blog post from MadMomma:
http://themadmomma.wordpress.com/2013/01/28/that-girl-on-the-bus/
     She cites a touching personal incident from safer times in Delhi some years ago. It was still tricky to navigate the city as an unchaperoned woman, but not fatal nearly as often as now. For context: in mid-December 2012, a 23 yr old student was gangraped and killed while travelling on a sparesly populated public bus at night with a friend. In the above post MadMomma, an opinionated, articulate and sensitive young woman, makes a public plea on her much followed blog for mass opinion to shift mindfully towards a woman's right to be safe on the streets vs. her responsibility to be cautious. Delhi has always had a shameful history of casual violence towards women so many lay opinions have shockingly but also somewhat pragmatically (if you look at it from their POV), placed on young women the entire responsibility for their own safety. Of course, many reasonable people will see the the fatal flaw in this attitude that excuses men from all accountability. As MadMomma puts it "Every time you think she should have avoided going out late, she should have taken an auto, she should have, she should have, she should have, you’re missing the point. It’s not what she should have. It’s what he SHOULDN’T have."
Quick aside: To me the core reason for this puzzlingly morally skewed attitude in the average population of presumbly not-evil folks, lies in the fatalism inherent in our culture. People who feel powerless to change the world they live in, see reason in making whatever compromises are called for in order to ensure their own safety within an essentially broken system. They make small bubbles of thoughtlessness that coalesce into larger bubble of indifference and unwittingly perpetuate the very disregard they love to hate...but that's for another post. Maybe. :-)

So anyway, I full agree with MadMomma. But I'll remember this blog post of hers because of the shout-out to humanity it includes in the memory she chooses to share. While vocal advocates of gender equality make their necessary strides to alter public perceptions and demand more effective laws, I think we need more positive reminders of all that is right too.

Maybe it's as important to show people HOW to act as we are denouncing how NOT to act. Of course, it's idiotic to assume a man has to be told to not assualt a women but the truth is, that is the culmination of a thousand other mindless trespasses that preceded it, that flew under the radar and that men exercise with impunity on a daily basis. So we don't  want 'eve teasing' and condescension for women but what are we asking for in their place? Just chanting 'respect' and 'equality' does'nt translate to a hill of the proverbial rajma beans. What exactly does it mean?

How about freindship, understanding and the relaxing of rigid perceptions of gender sterotpyes?
Would it be as easy to rape a women when you'd watched the test match last night with a platonic female freind? Would you be able to snatch away a an unwilling dupatta if you'd shared a cup of tea and a chat with your sister's freind that morning? Why not even shift the focus from rape and speak of kindness to each other for a change. Imagine how THAT could trickle down!

What would happen if on one fine day we all woke up infected with a virus that made us be gentle, mindful and kind to everyone we met casually? The old man who offered MadMomma tea and stories that cold Delhi night when she was lost and scared, is still around. MANY such good folk are around. I believe (I HAVE TO believe) they are edged out into the margins of our collective consciousness by the more bestial facets of human nature that reveal themselves to us. Maybe it's because we have a sense of entitlement and expect kindness and goodness as the default state (even as we swear that it no longer is, if it ever was). Maybe bad news just establishes more lasting claims on our emotional bandwidth by virtue of its shock factor. And maybe we need to reclaim the importance of goodness and show it as the wonderful yet easy-to-excercise thing that is really is.

My 7-eleven Veteran, The Spoon-Samaritan and MadMomma's bus driver - they are as much a part of our society as the broken people who haunt our nightmares. For every deranged adolescent who murders innocent children in their classroom there is a 17 year old who wordlessly retrieves an errant soccer ball for a pre-schooler in the playground and kicks it around for a few minutes just to get him to giggle. For every disenfranchised youth who unleashes the kind of senseless violence that can only come from an entire lifetime's worth of cultural conditioning, on a blameless young women - there is a hard working, old bus driver who takes a few extra minutes to comfort and aide a young stranded college student.

I'm willing to bet that these human human's far outnumber the beasts amongst us. I think they nod at us and catch our eye in a hundred subtle and instinctive gestures that even they do not realize they have made, let alone us.

And I think we should each share more stories of people who are good, kind and helpful. Maybe we will all feel more validated, connected and inspired to make the eminently easier choice to be kind to each other. I'm sure that it's actually easier than maintaining a cold indifference.

Today showed me that all you have to do is hold open a door, offer to share your spoons or chat about a hot cup of tea with a nervous young girl.

POSTSCRIPT: Turned out that raging Sinus headache that had me in it's grip was really the onset of Chicken Pox. More here for how THAT experience went.....

Oyon-isms:
Age 6 - "The President should tell all the companies that make weapons to stop. What would they have wars with then? I think that's what he should do."

Of micro-scale scratches and corrugated surfaces

I pulled back the window curtains of my 6 year old's bedroom, intending to let the dawn peek in and help wake him up. This is what i saw:

6 am descends on window graffiti of the night.
Swirls and curls of cold intent, pick an evanescent fight.
Molten rays of sun enact a predetermined end.
Fractals fade away gracefully, power successfully spent.

Of course, I posted up on Facebook - with fittingly cloying pseudo-poetry (see above and accept my pre-emptive apologies). Amidst all the wonderment on my comment thread was an illuminating response to my query about  the possible driving forces behind the curious crystal growth pattern. Bindu, a scientist freind, wrote "Ice crystal growth patterns [are] seeded by corrugated surface (tiny microscale scratches on glass) and dust."

Imagine that.

I've no doubt our century old house has weathered a lot more than it's austere colonial facade reveals. Yet I'd never really thought about it beyond seasonal annoyance at windows that stick and floors that creak with extreme temperature changes. New England weather has exhausted it's repertoire on us during our long residence in these parts. Even a tornado once, to keep it fresh. So it was easy to populate my daydreams with vivid images of a hundred years of howling Noreasters pounding on this large, wavy sheet of glass. This thing that keeps the predatory elements out of our fragile little lives.

But I had never considered the invisible signs of strain. We look through it. Literally. As we are meant to. The faint battle scars that tell the story of a long, hard existence had eluded me with stunning success until this sub-freezing January morning.

And this is the story they told:

A bristling forest of ice calls out to denuded trees below,
Your lifeblood crawls in dormancy as I inexorably grow.
The golden light that succours you, will bring to me my end.
But what a dazzling time I had. I'm ready now, my freind.

I'll never be able to just look through this sheet of glass again.
 

The 'Just Married, Please Excuse' Contest

OR  Lord of the Rings – but not quite the way you might think

 

This post is in response to a contest being held by Yashodhara on her blog 'Y on earth not'. Her new book 'Just Married, Please Excuse' is out. UPDATE: turned out I was one of the 'winners' in this contest though that's not as much of an honor as you'd think given that 50% of contestants 'won' in one way or another. :-) Still, Yashodhara is a very funny writer and I'm glad I made her smile.

We got married twice, like many who have one proverbial foot in the U.S. and another in native India. The first was a ‘City Hall’ affair in California (over my spring break in grad school) where we actually understood the words sanctifying our union, while the other was the usual 3-ring circus affair in India comprising family, food, fuzzy shlokas and festivities.

Fat-finger Fumbles and grammatical travesties

The goriness of brutalized grammar on social websites has now surfaced in my life as an 'issue' for about the 523rd time. We've all encountered these travesties of vocabulary and grammer: they're/their/there, quite/quiet, its/it's, your/you're, to/too, then/than and so on. My friend Nan recently wrote a lucid opinion that got me started (watch this space for a link to it).

 

I seem to know as many victims as perpetrators of said crimes. However faulty grammar is a poor bidder for my emotional bandwidth, perhaps because there are so many more powerful daily irritants ahead in the queue, like judgementalism, boasting and self-promotion.

 

There’s also the fact that with the plethora of devices at our fingertips, a thought has barely to form inside our heads before we spit it out to our cyber communities via cell phone, laptop, tablet etc.

Imperfect recall: what if?

Memories are unreliable chroniclers of facts: sometimes bold,  other times, hazy. Almost always however, they are shape-shifting, shimmery little mirages thrown up by your mind to appease, humor, or...mislead. Are the hazy ones hazy because they are incomplete ? The bold ones trying too hard to convince you? Which ones are true and which ones your own fanciful creations? What do you believe if Belief itself can be trickery?

I read somewhere that the shocking part of Recall is that only a small portion of even our vividest memory is based on actual, retrieved facts. The rest is made up of intelligent cerebral interpolations to fill in the empty spaces and impart the right flavor. Poetic license of the Soul, if you will.

For instance, I know for sure that years ago, my brother really did build a small paper fire in our bedroom in Nairobi. To cook rice in a metal Smarties (like M&Ms) tube behind the bed.
I am less certain however that the rice tasted as creamy, fluffy and yummy as I remember it.

It's much more likely that my mom busted our covert ops at the first whiff of smoke and charred tin.

My brother was 8, I was 3 and I am told that in those days, nothing good had ever come of complete silence from us for over 10 minutes. Our harried and over-worked young mother was in a perpetual state of alertness. She had been primed, among other adventures, by returning to the kitchen one day, after hours of washing clothes in the bathtub. She found my brother lovingly lining up jam jars on the window sill. They were teeming with tadpoles and young frogs he'd 'rescued' from his school drain. She also found me about to start on a baby bottle full of his assorted pond life. My brother's scheme to get me off the bottle was a brilliant, if unacknowledged, success as a few short screams later (not all of them came from me) I was permanently cured of the bottle habit.

Anyway. The point is, she'd developed eyes in the back of her head and a 6th, 7th and 8th sense for what we were up to at any given time.

I'm not surprised though that I remember the taste of that forbidden snack (that never was) so well. We probably came way from the episode with smarting bottoms and sinister promises of our father's fury when he returned later in the evening. That last part was pure bluster, by the way: he was really a lamb.

Yet, our exciting adventure could not possibly end on such a mundane, forgettable note in the annals of my personal history. I'm guessing that history got quietly revised when I recalled our 'good old days' and the episode of the Smarties tube. My brain overwrote the anticlimactic moments with more fitting notes of triumph.

So how do you trust your memories, ever? Not so worrisome with the joyful ones: exaggeration isn't necessarily bad if it stays true to spirit. But how about the dark nasties that everyone harbors in the inner recesses of their hearts?

What if you were to discover one day that the resentment that you feel towards someone has been conflated by your mind? That the anger towards them has been swollen by a hardworking brain filling in the gaps or replacing compassion with angry notes befitting your hurt feelings? Maybe the person's trespass was real but contextually much smaller than it's long residence in your memory has made it?

What if every hurt inside you is only fractionally real?
What if with just one stroke of acceptance, you can banish the majority of your hurts?

What if?

Oyon-isms:
5.5 years old.
To his Uncle Mark as he walked through the door, "Hi Uncle Mark. I just had a tantrum. I cried, yelled and whined for things that were not right. It's called a tantrum and it's not good .Want to see my new 'Lion King' book?"

Bluffers two-step

“I have such doubts!” was the final line in John Shanley's Pulitzer winning play ‘Doubt’. In the movie adaptation, Meryl Streep’s entire wimple clad being shook with remorse as this confession exploded out of her. If only everyone could find such clear expression and catharsis (and a multi $$ movie deal).

Lets admit it: a halfway sensible person second-guesses themselves at least once every day and five times on a Sunday. That's about right when we have sense enough to know that there is so much that we don’t know. Yet the unwritten coda of social interaction and the prevalent culture of confidence requires that we stay firm in our pronouncements even when we suspect they are half-baked at best and plain wrong at worst. And correctly so, I think. If you’re like me, admitting that there are so many alternate possibilities can paralyze you into indecision. Better to stick with your decision, bluff it out and hope that your self confidence and the faith you inspire fools your audience. I think of it as the ‘Bluffers two-step’ where you step outside your bounds of certainty, make defiant eye-contact with the rest of the world, then take the second step forward into your newly created certainly. This is how illusions are created and sold and entire populations dance along to tunes that they know to be off beat. As long as you’re not trying to pull off something ridiculously wrong, it becomes self-fulfilling: off-beat becomes the new beat and if we all dance to it, the world keeps spinning without anyone flying off it.

There are few better staging grounds for this kind of self-fulfilling bravado than parenting a young child. I'll admit that upper management 'brain storming sessions' are also pretty potent.
Case in point, last night I unwisely decided to teach my 5.5 year old double digit addition at 7:30 pm (AKA bedtime), at the fag end of a long and blisteringly hot day at camp. Since he’s watching his favorite movie (‘The Lion King’ these days) in 11 minute sections every night, “what better way to teach addition?” I thought. Especially as he’s been pleading to learn Kumon math (I’ve NO idea why). When he lost focus for the 8^th time in the space of 2 minutes I pulled out my most severe threat - "Do I need to pull your ear?”.

The Ear Pull requires a quick ‘aside’.
Oyon had a short stint with Kumon reading in the recent past (topic for another post) that involved doing nightly homework worth about 30-40 minutes. That is a LONG time to sit still and focus after a long day of 'behaving' at daycare. It doesn't help that for most of his waking hours he is busy roaming inside his significantly active imagination, making up stories, enacting dramas and otherwise being a 5 year old. So in a chapter of inglorious parenting, I had resorted to the 'Ear Pull' as a way to get his wandering mind (and eyes and brain and limbs) to attend to the task on hand so that everyone could get on with their lives. It was a gentle tug, tested on myself,  that induced nothing more than mild and momentary discomfort that redirects his attention. I abandoned it as a regular tool after observing that every day he was acting out right around the 10 minute mark and realizing that 10 minutes was probably his max focus ability at this point. The ear pulling was hurting his feelings, giving me terrible guilt and incidentally, doing absolutely nothing for his focus. I closed that shameful chapter on the high note of restricting homework to 5 pages (but only after my husband pointed that out as the obvious solution). I also offered rewards/bribes for focusing well (that goes into a whole other chapter on Shameful Parenting. Surely you didn’t think there was just one of those?). But I still reserved the ‘Ear Pull’ in my toolbox of 'Measures of the Last Resort'. It nestled snugly in between ‘No TV tomorrow’ and ‘No car or plane toys for 2 days’.

Short on energy and patience as I was last night, out it came at the aforementioned ill-judged moment. As expected, he didn’t pay heed to a duly issued warning and I implemented said Ear Pull. The broken hearted sobbing that then ensued wreaked such havoc on me that I’d have given Streep a run for her money in the ‘doubt’ department. He did momentarily lose some sympathy by angrily shouting ‘I’m going to tell on you to Baba!’ but regained (and doubled it) by following up with a disbelieving ‘That hurt! YOU hurt me!’. Oh my goodness. No one should be the cause of such a look of disbelief and disappointment in their child's eyes!

But how to work my way out of this one now? A complete recant (that my heart wanted) would undermine all future authority. Staying the course (that my mind wanted) risked eroding a little boy’s faith in his mamma.

So of course, I executed the Bluffers Two-step. I asked 'Did I give you warnings? Did I say that if you didn’t focus I’d have to do an Ear Pull?'

One set of leaking eyes, trembling mouth, tear tracked grimy cheeks and curly head nodded an affirmative to both.
First step forward taken: I’d announced that I was right in my choice.
Then I cupped his face in my hands, made nose-to nose contact and said softly “I’m very sorry I hurt you. I love you even when you’re naughty.”
The second step of the dance was complete. The self-fulfilling part came through next as instantly mollified by my apology, he dashed away his tears to say: “I’m sorry too Mamma. I’m going to listen next time. And d’you know what? Now I won’t tell on you. I’ll only tell Baba that you’re the bestest Mamma in the world”

That I  did not deserve to live, was the thought of that moment.
As putridly sappy as his Hallmark card words sounds, it isn't meant as a hearts and roses moment. I neither feel absolved by his undeserved kudos nor believe for a second he really learnt anything from this (except hopefully that no one is above a good apology). This is how unflinching a child's faith in his parents are: faith that they will always love him, protect him, be fair to him. How easily this can be shattered and regained is scary. And the power of apology...man! An apology will get him to back down and fess up and renew faith. Not to mention, it lets Mamma atone for a misjudged move while sticking to her stance.

I gave him an extra guilt induced 5 mins of the movie, though he doesn’t know it (and won’t until he cracks double-digit addition!). And in case my husband’s reading this, “We’re out of Glen Fidditch: I drank the last of it in a toast to the Bluffers Two-step”.

The Law of Entropy

"There's nothing to watch on TV, even when you're watching something on TV" I thought wearily to myself as I clicked through the quadrillion channels we promise ourselves we'll cancel every month. I surfed over to 'NOVA' on PBS, an old favorite from grad school days when FREINDS seemed too puerile and Seinfeld too snarky and cynical for my youthful optimism (I have since learnt to appreciate both shows). At 11 pm on a weekday, after a work day, single parenting (hubby's out of town) and fighting a sinus infection to boot, an old favorite certainly presented the path of least resistance.

 They were discussing the Second Law of Thermodynamics and the concept of 'entropy'. One of the concepts behind entropy is that 'nature tends from order to disorder' and they carefully explained that 'disorder' is actually a 'measure of multiplicity' (from http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/therm/entrop.html#e3). So 'If a given state can be accomplished in many more ways, then it is more probable than one which can be accomplished in only a few ways.' To me this means that things will probably turn out the way you think but not how. So craft all the plans that you want but prepare to watch as they unravel and eventually sort themselves out.

The half-asleep 10 minutes I watched simmered overnight and this morning brought into focus some nebulous thoughts I’ve been happening about how we fulfill ourselves in the unlikeliest ways. For instance, I've always been an empathetic person and thus more prone to feeling sad about the state of the world than is healthy. I’d ago long decided that I'd counter my sadness by becoming a ‘better person' and that self-awareness, planning and hard work is the ticket. Then Life happened and the abovementioned qualities rustled up only overwork, fussiness and frustration. I felt I had insufficient time for volunteerism beyond the few token annual efforts (like sporadically walking dogs at the local shelter, doing park clean-ups, volunteer GIS for disaster relief, writing checks for disasters etc). It was more important right then to focus on professional landmarks, working on the new house and bonding with the husband over shared passions.

Then came our son. Unlike many of my friends, I find that I've done more for others AFTER I became a harassed, overworked mom than before. The way I figure it, I actually feel more gratitude for my life after having been given my son and naturally work harder at giving back. Wanting to model goodness for my son provides me more opportunities to do so. I've invested some critical time into my profession at the key time so now have little more space to give it as well. I still don’t do a fraction of what I'd like to do, but it's more than before. So per the laws of entropy, becoming a 'better person' happened anyway, in spite of me, because there were so many ways for it to happen. I know this is not a truly scientific analogy and I'm not interested in any geeky, scientific critiques of my logic -  but wow. Go figure.

Two days ago my friends, the Subs, became legal parents to LilV. This means that a court declared that Asub was 'forever mother' to the 4 year old perched on her hip and that VBsub, whose hand he was tightly clutching, was his 'forever father'. In the photograph of their bigmoment, there were grins on the Subs' faces as they became a family in every sense. Even though we came to our family via different route, the first family pic they shared from Bangalore when they met their son for the first time, seemed familiar. I remember the first time Shouvik gave me and Oyon a joint hug, collapsing 3 people into one entity without any words. I saw the same thing in their first family picture too and the Law of Entropy called out to me again.

We both got at our but goals in such different ways:

1.  Their parturition was entirely logistical: instead of navigating a maze of hospital corridors and insurance/hospital paperwork, they dealt with bureaucracies and legal systems in two countries. Talk about a tough delivery.
2. Their gestation was over 2 years, not my 36.4 weeks.
3. Unlike mine, their birth plan skipped lightly over c-sections (last resort) and tubal ligation (yes, please if c-section occurs) and landed on precisely how to deal with the foster family to ease the trauma of parting a 3 year old from a loving albeit temporary home.
4. They decorated a nursery and dreamt their share of 'this time next year we'll be three' dreams but unlike me, waited an additional year without bitterness to see it come true.

And here we are now. All parents, all struggling with our roles, delighting in our children, finding happiness where we least expected it as well as where we looked for it and constantly, constantly evolving as we move from order to the disorder that it takes to achieve true equilibrium.

So the next time you make a promise to yourself about how you want to react, what you expect from your hard work and then watch it go down in flames, just remember that it’s not just you….the whole universe is unraveling.

But it will work out in the end all the same.

The wrong side of the bed can be right

Silver Linings:
1. Missing my early train and finding the time to watch my son's favorite morning show with him.
2. A BLT sandwich with just 2 strips of bacon is as satisfying as the default 6.
3. A wonderful walk home from Oyon's school with his father yesterday. We took a differentr oute, stopped 100 times, examined every bug and fallen leaf, soaked up the failing rays of autumn sunshine and watched our little guy sing, dance and hop his gleeful way home. Small pleasures rule.

Oyon-isms:
While watching a cartoon about a  fish: "Wook, that's maach. Maach means fish in Bangla (Bangwa). I wish I had a pet maach."
Ans so the pet campaign begins...

Lessons Learnt:
The wrong side of the bed can be right 
That moment after waking up when your thoughts put out feelers for how the day will be, is crucial. You can chart the day before even opening your eyes by deciding how you will feel. A day started with dread can end in dread because you let it start as such.


Felt dismal upon awakening in the pre-dawn gloom at the thought of another frustrating, dissatisfying day ahead. Did some pranayama while huddled under my comforter and talked myself into emerging and smiling. At work, my stalled analysis freed itself. No dread and the faint gleam of success by 10 am. It only got better the rest of the day. You can get out of the wrong side of the bed but make it BE the right one, I guess

Foregone conclusions, aren't.

Silver Linings:
1. A happy family weekend spent just winging it. A breather from scheduled 'fun'.
2. Lunch outdoors in the sun with friends from work.
3. Successful inauguration of the potty (tho it looks like we might blow the diaper savings on potty bribes!)

Oyon-isms (new category):
1. Chasing a bee with a Dandelion bloom, yelling "Come drink your connector!"
2. On my whispering something to him in a restaurant, "You don't have to whisker Mamma, just use your indoor voice".

Lessons Learnt:
Forgone conclusions, aren't.
I firmly turned my back on sports as a child when my horrendous lack of coordination not only became evident but persisted beyond the rigorous efforts of PE teachers at school. Easier to reject than be rejected, especially at the age where your self-esteem is scrabbling for a foothold and being 'good' at things provides critical traction.
Two decades later in my 30s, those dispirited fogs of failure somehow rolled back just enough to make me first, re-mount a bicycle then, reach for a badminton racket. I should add that both efforts were significantly  effected by the subtle coaxing of an athletic husband who was undoubtedly chafing under the domestic limitations thrust upon our weekends by my foregone conclusions. My low expectations and desire to have some fun helped also to reach the shocking revelation that our abilities can quietly grow and outpace both Time and the mental barriers we put before them.
There's still nothing of an athlete in me but I surprise myself by wobbling along on short bike rides without incident, playing through beginners badminton games and at last nights 'Beginners Tennis' lesson, hitting more than missing. And ENJOYING it all.
Foregone conclusion, are'nt.

Dependable comforts

Silver Linings:
1. Sneak peek at a smartly dressed commuter's heels - peeking out through her holey socks!
2. Evidence that freinds are reading this blog. (Thanks for the comments!)
3. "Love....was'nt meant to provide immunity from fate or grief or pain....But what it does is throw us into the midst of life with the best intentions possible; give us courage, passion, hope.." from 'The Flirt' by Kathleen Tessaro.

Lessons Learnt:
Dependable comforts are good on bad days.
Spring allergies have been in the air and by mid-day yesterday my sinuses finally gave up the fight. Calling it quits and returning home at 2 pm was a smart move: a dark room and bed was smarter still and did much for the pounding head and aching eyes. Nicer still was letting hubby pick-up dinner/put O to bed etc. and turning to a rerun of 'Freinds' for some more relief. Dependable comforts are good on a bad day.