August onwards, life is behaving rather strangely. You know that feeling how...sometimes ‘life’ (as in your life) seems to have ‘a’ life of its own? It’s not always a bad thing, I suppose, but the mood swings that accompany this whistling, winging adolescent trapezing of the ‘vie’ is rather inconvenient.
Here’s what I was thinking – how is it that you may not know what you want; you could be rather clueless about everything. But...BUT...something happens and you become acutely aware of how you don’t want that. It’s funny – the subconscious.
Anyway, I want a quiet life now. It is actually a quiet life now but I want it quieter still. No people. Not even one. Maybe a bunch of plants, a large room where I can sit and watch light and shade shift with the passing of clouds and season. It would be nice to have a pond close by. Or a lake. Winding and rippling and cold. Little leaves would float away on it. Maybe a large-ish leaf would have a ladybug riding it like a raft. Also, it would be nice to see a different kind of forest from the window of every room. Maybe even different seasons.
The French window of the living room would look out to a misty meadow – one that is carpeted with green grass and soft, violet flowers. The sky is this foggy, milky white and grey. The weather here is stilled at that magic moment when everything is ripe and ready for the rain to fall but it doesn’t.
The kitchen has a series of small windows. From here, I can see a storm churning on the beach always. As I brew tea or melt butter for coating roasted vegetables, I hear the howl of the wind and the ghoulish songs of the ocean. Trees crack and large driftwood line up the shore. Shingles and gravel ride up the sides of the house, scaring my black horse, Thunder.
The bedroom overlooks a large wintry expanse. There are supernaturally tall trees and dark, thin trunks. The trunks are in a shade of deep cocoa and have a little bit of sweet, smoky flavour too. Sometimes I climb out the bedroom window, rip off a bark, and chew on it. This world is very stark. Everywhere I look, there is snow and tall trees. Some trees have purple buds and purple berries. They are clustered right on top. I wish I could climb there or wait for them to fall. It never happens. But I have noticed a huge red bird with black wing-tips squawk peck on these flowers and berries. One night, I got my wish though. I slept (that night, I’d put up crisp, cotton lilac sheets that had a pint of lavender sprays on it) and saw that huge bird fly really close to the window and drop a sprig of buds and berries on the bed. I haven’t been able to wash off the stain of the berry juice since.
The library overlooks a garden throbbing with light and fragrances of the Indian summer. I see rows and rows of yellow and pink melons and pumpkins. The skins of the watermelon gleam brightly. Sometimes even the petals of the jasmines that hover over it looks tinted with green. There are lots of dragonflies, bluebottles, and honeybees too. They waltz around the rosebushes, scaring away sparrows.
I have a sprawling bath. It’s tiled in white and lemon tiny mosaic cubes and there are always fresh flowers – buttercups by the window sill. From the bath, though, I can’t see anything outside. But I can sense that there’s a large island that may be getting formed. When I lay seeped in warmed water, focusing intently on the slightest upturned tip of the third petalof the fifth buttercup, I sense that things are happening. I sense the shift of the earth, the slow, deep, sonorous heaving of water, and the grudging almost gluing of land. The island, I know, will be blue.
And Thunder will be happy there.
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-Priya