528, 527

There was Bombay, you know? I went there on Saturday morning.  That same morning, I had sat in the car and cried hard because I was broken up with. The plusses of dating kind people is that they are polite and they will be mindful of your feelings. But I suppose all break-ups are ultimately an audit of why you are a little bit off and a little bit wrong. Anyway, I got dropped at the bus stop and took a bus going to Dadar. Even though I tried to figure out just what is so wrong with being 'too sensitive' and how one determines the right limit, I thought of Dadar. The colours, the noise,  the sound, the crowd, the  buzz, the hustle...it is such an uplifting place...or rather it was to me that moment. I reached Dadar and was confused. A guy helped me to get to the right platform. I reached Goregaon and took a rick to my friends place. The rick guy chased me down to hand me back the change I had forgotten about. I watched, tellingly, a film  called Tamasha (which I loved and which made me curious how Imtiaz Ali and Ranbir Kapoor knew me enough to model a character after me), my most affectionate friend treated me to dinner, helped me buy a phone, bought me make-up, and made me laugh. We walked at midnight on the roads of Malad until she flagged down a rick...around that time, I saw a text from him asking me if I would be okay? I guess despite it all, we just try our bit at being kind. I saw that. I sensed that. I said yes. I wished him well. I really really meant it. Because I was in Bombay. Because despite what it makes of other people, it brings out the best version of myself. Because it has the sea. And because the sea kind of makes no bones about being too sensitive. Because how else would I survive? Because how else would I be strong?

Because,  you see, there is Bombay. 

529

Heard this today: "You don't get wet with the word 'water'."

531, 530

Yesterday was a very tiring day. It was so tiring that I am still feel hung over with fatigue. Had a client meeting all day and it was so much work! But overall, it was good.

The drive to Lonavala was just so pretty. That opaque vista and those grey mountains and a sweet tender sky ready to weep! That whole scene looked like it was painted on muslin. I can understand why someone had come up with the phrase 'fabric of life'. Sometimes the world does look like it's just rolled out on a bolt of printed cloth.

The full moon last night was scrumptious. Shopped a lot. Wrote a little. In keeping with J's advice, also lit a couple of diyas around midnight. It was so beautiful. A moon that was lost behind the trees, the soft glow of the diyas, my pots - some standing tall with white blossoms and some shedding leaves that have turned golden. Some leaves are brown now and they fall off and look like pretty paper shells.There was a pigeon perched on a picture and it looked startled on seeing me. I don't like pigeons and I was hoping it would go away. But there was such a deep sense of peace and communion that it just felt right to share it whoever showed up. In my case, it was a pigeon.

You know what I have learned from relationships that don't work out? Or rather that they don't work in the ways you want them to? That we forget those times when the togetherness was perfect - not imagined or hypothetical - but actually, really perfect. Like the leaves that were green and plump and fresh. And one day, these leaves dry up and fall off. And then we focus on the green leaves again. But what if we didn't? What if we picked up each brown leaf that's dead and held it tenderly? One would probably see that even in death, it's perfect. Shrivelled and not what it once was - but whole and complete all the same.

It's amazing how nothing escapes beauty. And beauty escapes nothing.

and

my white elephants guard my palace of ivory and the fears paint the shadows with silent screams.

that is fiction. and that is it. 

532

Maybe ultimately everything because this portrait in watercolors where you're sweet and thankful for all that happened. When the art is done and it's put out to dry.  But just before that, a step before that, maybe it's about keeping a clean, neat audit of why one was not quite right for the other.

Audit to art - the two step process of a break-up. 

533

If there is any one thing I would recommend for today, it would be to head to Pinterest and check out the quotes on Course in Miracles. Very soothing. Here's the link: https://www.pinterest.com/search/pins/?q=course%20in%20miracles&term_meta%5B%5D=course+in+miracles%7Ctyped

I am really weary now. I want to take a year off and do nothing. Not even want or desire anything. Just continually wake up and keep letting go whatever is tying up my intestines and gall bladder and solar plexus and heart. So much letting go must happen that I must feel hollow.

It feels like it has been forever since I have felt light. Maybe that's why I feel there's nothing in life that comes close to feeling as nice as a good dump.

Some changes to diet ought to be done.

535, 534

1. Does it ever get easier? Maybe, maybe not. All my plants are dying. There had been a sweet personal development and now that is in a soup of uncertainty. Memories of those dark days come by and wave hello from time to time. And did I mention that all my plants are dying?

2. Tough project. Tougher clients. This will be hard.

3. But, and it is a huge BUT, I reconnected with J. After a really long time, I called her up in panic and despair and she woke up and soothed me. J is in Delhi now and is a hypnotherapist and sound healer. And on the phone she helped me calm down. It's freaky how she did it. She mentioned that my root chakra is off and one indication of that is my plants dying suddenly. Then she guided me through meditation. It was so peaceful - it felt like wading in a cool lake after an arduous walk on a bumpy road. I had always known this about J - ever since we'd met in Pune - that she was a natural healer. She is kind and patient and funny. Also, many times annoying...but often the best kind of listener. I hadn't met her for a while or connected with her for some time. But this time when I spoke to her, even through my rather distraught state, I sensed her evolution. It was so velvety and durable. If anyone's looking for a healer in Delhi, look up J. Not because she's my friend. But because she's a natural. And kind. And kindness, I have come to realize, is my favorite type of perfection.

4. There are just so many ways to improve one's life. I tried affirmations which worked for the area I was hoping for. That now is also presenting challenges but that's okay. I think it's fair to say that one does get what one wants. But then handling what one has asked for may be challenging. Because I feel when one asks for something, one will get it. So now I intend to make myself stronger internally. J recommended that I do chakra meditation everyday, take deep breaths and voluntarily, consciously, just.let.go. So, now, that's the plan.

Edited to add: J's email is: jagdeep.kaur@gmail.com; number: 08826150876

536 - Stuff it's made of

I saw my soul by candle light,
It seemed all white and snowy,
It felt all shy and mellow and quiet,
Even though it was all-knowing.

I saw my soul on the sea,
Reflected on moon water,
It melted like jazz on velvet ropes
It stood tall at first, then collapsed shorter.

I saw my soul one morning though,
When it seemed to have the most fun,
Burning and glinting off peach trees and ponds
My soul's made of and full of the mighty sun.

542, 541, 540, 539, 538, 537

It was Diwali. I went to Bombay and life was good. I also made a quick, short trip to HariHareshwar, a quaint, pretty beach town a few hours from Pune. We stayed in a teeny room in a smallish lodge because we hadn't booked earlier.

Here's the highlight.

We went to the beach late at night. No one was there. There was the faint, copper hue from a slim nail of a moon. The sea roared. The sand was rocky. But when my feet squelched in the sand and my hands fiddled with the foam, and the beach lay vast and empty and rocky and solid and was both, music and lyrics, and paean and dirge, a quiet yearning inside of me subsided. In the distance, the mountains smudged into the sky and we could see a trembling continuum between here and there.

We had been painted onto some canvas by a Surrealist painter. We were hung at some gallery that was showcasing the theme, "What nights may be possible."

Diwali- the festival of nights.

543

This is all a little bit funky. I don't know why I am feeling so distracted and overwhelmed and upset and weepy today when yesterday it was a little bit fine and it is all just so horrible. When does this exactly get easier? When does the stomach stop churning and when does the heart relax no matter what is happening all around? My phone is out of charge. I feel so scattered that I can barely manage to work. My parents are away and home seems to be on another planet. And I don't even have a kandeel tonight. The list of why I should be at home and sobbing is endless. Anyway, let's try to change things around a little bit:

1.) I had an idea to write a story. Which I will write now.

2.) I had some really nice food today from the canteen.

3.) A colleague treated me to a really tasty meal at McDonald's. I tried there paneer squares and the french fries with the piri-piri masala for the first time. It was gorgeous!

4.) I am reading Elizabeth Gilbert's 'Big Magic'. It is really well-written. I suggest you get it.

5.) I think I will wear my new blue dress from Zara tomorrow. That should be nice.

6.) My office looks so pretty with all the nice, sparkling twinkling lights.

7.) Some clarity on what needs to be done with respect to the next block of work that I will begin to tackle at midnight.

8.) Somewhere out there someone's love story is unfolding. A poem is being written or recited. Or a song is being sung or created. Or people are freefalling and feeling safe. Just to think that such things happen in a world with beef ban and visa regulations - it's enchanting.

The enchantment is the wealth. And it's Dhanteras today. May the goddess Lakshmi make us feel full. Really, happily, crazily, brilliantly, buoyantly full.

545, 544

Since a few days now, I've been feeling very very afraid and hence very, very angry. Sometimes it feels that it's all good and sometimes I wonder whether it will last and then again, sometimes I wonder what remains if none of this lasts.

There is just so much heart-wrenching vaccum in the phrase 'This too shall pass'.

546

Today we had a Halloween theme at work. We had to dress scary or at the very least, wear black. Which I didn't because I got really late so I'm dressed in a printed palazzo and a dull mauve tee while around me, I see people in stylish goth. Anyway, to pull my own weight, I offered to do some kind of Halloween make-up for the team. I'm not good at that kind of thing so I figured I'd be right for the job. But maybe I exude a confidence I don't really feel because for some reason the team thought me more adept with eyeliner and lipstick than I really am. So, I was getting requests to paint cobwebs on faces, the running mascara look, smoky eyes, cat nose and whiskers, Frankenstein stitches, etc. Which I managed, by the way. A colleague would search for an image on Google and hold it up for me while I referred to it and painted faces accordingly. It was so much fun! A face is so beautiful! I finally understood what all those make-up artists mean when they say that the face is a canvas. A dark lip or smudged kajal or fake drops of blood painted near the lips makes a face come alive in a way even plastic surgery won't do.

A new world opens up. I'd like to learn how to do make up properly.

547

It is 30 days since something kind of important happened or may have happened. Let's see where it goes but so far, it has been quite a journey. It has 2 days since I made a decision that sometimes scares me but I felt it was the truthful thing to do.

As soon as I typed out that sentence, I exhaled. So I believe that it's the right thing to do. A friend had told me that whenever you exhale after you have thought of something or spoken about or listened to something, then that is what you believe to be true. Otherwise the body doesn't relax. It's always in a state of anticipation where it is bracing itself for the truth to come crashing down.

The office is getting decorated for Diwali and our bay is of course going to be the last in getting the lights up. What is it with writers and procrastination? Anyway, the HR team had put up sparkly lights the day before and they looked so gorgeous! Last night I was struggling with something for an inordinately long time and every time I got up from my seat to stretch my legs, I saw the string of lights and felt all cheered up.

Life feels good. Now. Now? Life? It feels good.

548: Good things that happened today

I am just writing this down to clear some mental space:

1. We were trying out a new coffee vending machine at work today. I had 4 cups of frothy cappuccino. Quite smooth.

2. I'd ordered Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert. It got delivered today.

3. I had sensed some kind of tension build up in my chest regarding a colleague. I sent her a mail asking her if all was okay. We sorted it out.

4. Ma is home and she is fine.

5. I finally zero-ed in on one area that I need to focus on - possessiveness. Will make my life a lot simpler. I think it should begin with me removing the romance out of a feeling so stilted and harsh.

6. Really enjoyed the glass of very sweet watermelon juice. Pune's getting dusty and hot.

7. Very excited about some assignments - at work and some initiatives I want to start.

8. Fit into a bright green sari blouse which I may wear with a bright yellow sari this Thursday. It's traditional day at work and if I wear a sari, it will be the very first time I'd have worn a sari.

9. Cracked a little bit of a design headlock.

10. Breathed deeply multiple times.

549

One part of being open about being sad is that along with the support, there comes the skepticism. One's own and the world's. Some days, it will be easier to deal with one over the other. But what can be done? Maybe just living one minute at a time. Maybe, every minute thinking only one thought and feeling that one feeling that the thought brings.

I think a lot of peace comes when one shifts to believing that 'one' is not inadequate. In relationships, in experience, in thoughts or feelings, about life. Which brings me to ask myself why am I besotted with multiple lives?

Skepticism. It comes. 

554, 553, 552, 551, 550

I have been away from the blog for a while now. It's November now. I also brought a Bejan Daruwaala booklet for Aries 2016. It feels like five years later already. What is time? Where does it come from?

Where do hurt words go in a relationship? What happens to them? Do you bury them or do they get a cremation? Or they get stashed in some long forgotten cave or naala  to decompose? Or do they stand their ground and nudge out everything else - like peace or affection or even basic courtesy?

What if they come back from the dead? What if they come back as love?