I slept through the whole day today after an early morning meeting. Woke up a couple of times to eat a bowl of day-old biryani. Did 100 counts of climbers run or whatever that thing is called. Smeared some leftover paint on a sheet of whitepaper.
Then felt sick, very weak. Head started spinning. Slept.
Hathras. Didn't want to wake up. Couldn't work today. Don't feel like working tomorrow.
That's it.
Today I worked on two things - one turned out good and the other turned out crappy.
Not feeling too good. I really, really need a break.
Anyway, what's done is done. Tomorrow we will see what happens. Will try to soothe down with some things that I enjoyed today:
1. Homemade sabudana vada
2. At least the stuff I had on my plate got done
3. Did manage to meditate
4. Would have been far more upset about something but I did lose my cool. It wasn't too bad.
5. Had a shake/ smoothie with almond milk, bananas and custard apple. (Sometimes I feel dizzy from the lack of sleep, I think. This helps.)
6. Everybody I know and am fond of - family and friends - are alive and healthy...as in COVID-free.
7. Gave in and ordered a dress today. Just woke up feeling low and angry and saw this pretty lavender dress on www bhaane.com, marked down by 50 percent. Ordered it. Not really nice I guess since I had promised myself that I wouldn't do that. But it's okay. Will give away some clothes tomorrow.
8. I seem to be handling the self-loathing quite nicely. If not nicely, then definitely much better than the last time. It's tiny progress. I'll take it.
Nivyunsh looked around the house. It was big and pale green. If you lived inside a smooth, sickly algae, maybe that's what it would look like. He had come to meet Drehaji, a man who apparently could give people something that helped matters. He didn't know what he exactly needed help with or what Drehaji could give him - but it was apparently very important to the folks at home. Evertime his parents told him about this thing, they coughed blood and started crying. It must be important, except that Nivyush could not even remember the name of what that was.
Still he sat there with greasy thumb prints on an old tie. He had to get home to his colony in 30 minutes. This tie was borrowed from the drunken neighborhood tailor and it had to be returned soon.
Drehaji walked in and smiled at Nivyunsh.
"Hello."
Nivyush stood up and smiled. "Hello sir."
"So, you want a job?"
Nivyunsh blinked. He wanted what? Oh yes - a job. That's what his family was giving him grief about. They hadn't told him much about what it was exactly but apparently, it solved problems that he didn't know he had.
"Yes sir. I would like a...job. My parents think it will be good for me. But to be honest sir, I don't have an idea what a job is."
Drehaji looked unsurprised. People like Nivyunsh were born after the great Shaisman phenomenon. After the moon had melted, an entire generation had soaked in the molten lunacy. They seemed to have forgotten a lot of the things the collective had spent all their time accumulating. Concepts of job, legacy, steadiness...and interestingly fatigue.
"Will you travel to Dog?", Drehaji asked.
I really put myself through the wringer for the assignment that I just finished. Whew! Now lots of hard work from tomorrow as well.
But it's work I am excited about and slightly terrified of.
I have a feeling that this period, although taxing, is preparing me for something else, something big. Really need my strength.
Squirted colour all around on paper to just get the angst and knots out of my head and heart and journaled some, went for a longer walk than usual, are Indianised pasta, meditated a little.
So tired and spent. But...really...this one assignment felt monumental! (That's my squirty squeezy stuff.)
It was raining really hard and it was pitch dark. The park was empty. The dogs had scooted out and were sleeping in the cabanas outside the park and I was there because - well, you do some things to feel alive. But I started feeling afraid before I started feeling alive.
The lake was grey, placid, and menacing. I could see outlines of frogs of all sizes hopping about, the trees and the marsh was overrun with trees, bushes, and leaves and branches that looked more muscular than I remembered them. The fishermen weren't there so there were no reassuring sightings of the net or warm light from the lanterns. There was one streetlamp that was flickering. Clouds of mosquitoes whizzed strong. From a distance, they actually looked like pretty winged constellation. The mud squelched. My stomach was a litte tight. Mouth a little dry. Increased the volume of the music I was listening to. Walked forward towards the boggy darkness. Walked into it.
There's a stretch that is as menacing as it is wondrous. I have spotted fireflies there after the COVID. I have also spotted insanely beautiful white flowers, so beautiful that something deep iside warns you that they must be poisonous. The trees and bushes there cloak a spot of the marsh where empty boats stay still. They are usually untethered but they go nowhere.
I generally don't feel unsafe there. As in I am no afraid of robbers or men acting up. But I always sense that soething in those bushes, deep into the marsh, something has eyes and it follows me. It was so dark that I wondered about panthers prowling there. What would I do if one of them just sauntered across me and blocked my way. What if I looked up and against the rainy sky I spotted the shadow of a Big Cat on a branch. I don't know if I had psyched myself but I started smelling something - wet, meaty, predatorial. (I realise as I wrote that that it is sexual and that very well may be the appeal of what else this description could apply to.) But it was the silence that was scary. Sure there were sounds. Rain was pouring down, someone on my mobile was trilling away, I was panting, frogs croaked...and yet something else was there. I really thought that something is going to walk out of the dark bushes. Walk out. Not creep out. Like this would be a meeting we had planned for and I had consciously forgotten but my sub-conscious remembered. Maybe this deep tangle of memory and instinct is what we call destiny.
Nothing happened though. I finished my walk. I got home. Was feeling feverish with relief. Ate something and slept after working for a few solid hours.
Woke up to a strange sense of someone watching me.
Outside the window was a pitch black cat. With eyes that seemed to recognize.
I dislike cats immensely and stuff like this is no way for me to feel any stirrings of love.
Yet, the way it looked. No, not looked. The way it saw.
The black cat (or any cat) totem in shamanism stands for intuition. The stuff you meet when you go through the dark, I guess.
Before the dark becomes a portal, it is a mirror. And you see something you don't recognize.
It feels as if a conscience is a very expensive thing to own. It costs you a lot.
Anyway, I a feeling so exhausted with whatever has been going on. But maybe it's best that I write about some happy things.
I made it for a walk today. The best part is that I found my old pair of Zara shorts made of distressed denim. I'd bought this ages ago in Pune with my mum. I'd bought this and a very soft, cozy black and white polka dot tee-shirt. It had long sleeves and a wide boatneck so you could wear it slightly off-the-shoulder as well. The chicest part was that it had a zip at the back. It wasn't really quired because the top itself was flowy and cut really loose. It was so cozy. I used to wear it on flights all the time. Then I wore it to go jogging. Then I wore it to bed. Then it got holes and I kept it away somewhere.
The shorts are really smart though. I like denim shorts with distressed details. I like distressed denim overall. Maximum two small rips, preferably at the knee and maybe a little bit higher. Not near the crotch or anything but I really like it.
Anyway, the walk was good. It wasn't raining and the sky was a beautiful, deep orange and pink shade. Earlier this afternoon, I was just looking through my mum's sarees, cotton ones. They are so pretty. Mum really had great taste...actually more than taste, she used to have such joy to surround herself with beautiful things. Sometimes when things feel a little off, it helps to just run your hands over things that were passed on from the past. Earlier, I could never understand why people collected antiques or were interested in tracing their roots. I think I understand this now.
Maybe the more you live, you see how fragile things are and how tough it is to hold on to something - like one's sense of justice fairplay in commerce or the sense of loyalty in love and friendship. Sometimes it feels like these are some Latin words or words in some obscure language that meant something at one time but not anymore. Maybe that's why when you see a pretty saree or a lovely shawl or a 150-year old table in your house on an ordinary Tuesday, it's a little bit of solace - that the story didn't begin with you.
There's relief in that.
It was a good, good Sunday. Got a nice, long massage from the Urban Clap lady. She was really good and very sweet. I had been feeling low on energy and sore for a while. So the shoulder and back massage was really something. As she worked on me, I could feel bunches of tense, little knots. Then she massaged my head. She told me that I should always get my head massaged last after my body has calmed down. Because I store a lot in and around my head space, apparently. I asked if this is something they learn in massage school. She said that this was something her grandmum, who was a midwife, had told her. All people usually live disconnected lives. Some are not connected to their minds. Others live predominantly in their head space and don't inhabit their body. So one must first massage and calm down the part that offers lesser resistance. I don't know how she could make her 'diagnosis' of me within 2-3 minutes but it felt good, light, deep. It felt like you're floating on your back in a warm ocean with a full moon in the sky and velvety rose petals shower down on you. Mmmm. So good! It's a drunk, lush feeling.
I got my period today. I like this time of the month. It feels very nourishing. I think I usually have such a pit-bull approach to work and deadline, that I don't quite give myself the three inches of void that a task list needs. I like that about myself. But sometimes, one gets hardened. During menses, I feel like a hard granite wall inside of me becomes clay-like. I like that whatever else is happening, whatever other metric of productivity is following, the womb is dancing to it's own rhythm. That slight ache that keeps you a little woozy, that makes you take things slow, have a warm cup of kheer, take a nice, long bath, wear soft, loose clothes... little by little, one creates such a universe of cozy comfort for oneself. It's very nice!
I also spoke to a friend after many months. It felt so solid and good! She and I worked together in Pune and we'd go for coffee and donuts to a local place called Peter Donuts. Sometimes the somber Korean owner would be there. We'd see a bunch of Korean kids and teens working through their homework. We'd pick our coffees and cinnamon or white chocolate donuts, sit in her car, listen to the radio, and eat in silence. Dappled afternoon light would form pretty patterns across the windshield, sometimes a pretty, bird would fly across, we'd chat, and get back to work.
One pocket of peace that I picked during this time.
Here's a recap of my day.
The contract with that clause that I had a contention with? That deal is off.
So I was contemplating who I should contact for work. Then I realized that I was planning to take the rest of the year off. This would require me to get my other invoices cleared. One of which involves working on a portal that I can't figure out how to use. This portal has a Help section that is a study unto itself. I was so mesmerized by it. Spent a lot of time just looking through those Help pages for recreation. Doesn't say much about me, am sure. But I was fascinated. I had to call someone up to figure out that portal today but I got another email with some documents and a cryptic message, "Go through these. Then we'll talk." So I got distracted.
Then I got another message where a person I am working with asked me if I could submit something tomorrow instead of Saturday. This person has been straightforward and responsive. So of course I would oblige.
But I still took some time to look through pictures of 'Babies of Instagram'. Babies are so cute! There are these clips of laughing babies that are such a joy!
I am now relying on a trick I used many years ago when I had a really bad anger problem. If I am upset with someone, I imagine them as a baby. Then I don't stay as upset. If someone is not replying to a text or mail, I imagine that person to be a baby distracted by toys who falls asleep. If there's someone who is getting short with me, I imagine that person to be a baby with a nappy rash. If it's someone who wants a ton of things to be done for free, it's a greedy baby reaching for the second bottle of milk when he is still on his first.
It really works. Imagining people as babies is really what had kept me going through tough times in the past.
Speaking of imagining adults as babies, my father is really acting like one. Won't eat on time. Won't sleep on time. Today he insisted that I record some ants carrying sugar because it was so magical. He pointed out that a crystal of sugar was maybe twice the size of the ant but still the ant was carrying it. While all that miracle of life was sweet and we did have the sort of father-daughter moment could be the subject of some Iranian film, it was a little worrisome. He regarded me as quite the killjoy for wanting to clear up the spilled sugar and remove the ants. But I did record those ants to humor him. While zooming in,I noticed the cracks on the walls. I spoke to someone to get the walls plastered and he said he will take 25k to plaster the walls of one room. At which point I thought of giving those ants tiny pails and paster to do the job themselves. They were obviously displaying great skills there.
My set of the Epigamia vegan curd with jaggery arrived and my dad and I enjoyed a cup each. Then we drove to the market for a bit. Today is Mahalaya, the day when Durga Puja preparations begin. I would have loved to go to the Kali mandir for aarti but it was closed. My father likes rasgullas so I asked him if he wanted some. He said that since I wasn't going to have any, it' was fine. And of course, since my dad said no, I just had too go and do it.
The test of my character really was to enter a sweet shop as a vegan. I love phirni. LOVE. And there were pots of it in small earthen pots garnished with a single rose petal. There were large juicy rasmallais and plump rasgullas and delectable gulab jamuns in that luxurious treacly syrup. To make myself feel better I thought I would just get some laddoos for myself. I wanted to bu a few laddoos quickly and get out and not ask too many questions because I knew that if I asked anything, the answer to that would mean that the laddoos were off-limits. And sure enough, the halwaee started waxing eloquent about the laddoos as he packed them. "Madam, asli ghee main bana hai." I tried to ignore him and then he kept pushing stuff under my nose insisting I smell the desi ghee.
I told him I could not take the laddoos if they were made of ghee because I don't take dairy or dairy products. He looked at me as I had told him I was terminally ill. He asked me if I wanted to take Tropicana juice instead. (I did, actually. I like the pineapple flavor.)
Tomorrow I had planned to go to Haji Ali for some righteous fruit and cream - the stuff I would gladly come back from the dead for. And then remembered that 'cream' is off. So I will have to give up Haji Ali fruit and cream forever.
Nothing has hurt quite as bad.
1. Had another call with the legal team of the company I was discussing the non-competition clause with. I could feel my stomach burn with anger. Had to keep calming myself down. They are doing their jobs. My security and well-being is my responsibility. I thought it was fairly obvious that the dye was set. It wasn't working out. I was going to end the call and they said...but wait. Let us discuss. We will revert. When I was younger I would have been chuffed about this. "Oh look! I am so important. They are waiting for me." Now I am not. This has nothing to do with me. They have their policies and culture. They wanted someone who is now not belonging there. Is this worth the inconvenience?
2. Meanwhile I started on another smaller assignment. It felt so good! It was fairly basic but I do feel that after every 5 years or so, experienced people must go back to the fundamentals. If nothing else, to scrub off the jadedness.
3. Today the cook had made 3 of my favourite dishes: bhakri, a sabzi made of dill and grated coconut and a thin gravy made of besan. It was yummy!
4. I have been on an ad script for a long time now. I quite like how it turned out. But not sure if the client will like it because it has already undergone several iterations. But this was one, juicy project. I liked how it stretched me... really stretched me.
5. My temper is really high now and my dad has to bear the brunt of it. The very morning that I am struggling with a project is when he will need me to help him with Microsoft Teams. Microsoft Teams is so shitty! It is the least collaborative platform ever. What are those godawful rooms or crap? And just as my dad is struggling here, his colleagues are struggling elsewhere. Today I just told my Dad to not talk to me unless he shifted Google Meet or Zoom. I mean...I never knew it was even possible for Microsoft to create anything more inconvenient than formatting in Word. But...who would have think?!
6. Tomorrow seems like an easy day. (So of course my dad will not be requiring my assistance with MS Teams). Maybe I will take my father out for ice cream. I think that's why I am losing my cool...the new veganism. Diet does play a role in such things. But actually no. I get very antsy around my father. If I acted this way with my mum, COVID or no COVID, I would find myself out of the house with luggage packed. My sweet, fiesty mommy.
7. I will initiate a Public interest litigation against family WA groups. I got out of mine when I realised that I would like to depart from life still having fond feelings for them.
Today was quite peaceful. I had to wrap up some work in the morning, which I did. I had to sign some papers for work that would begin tomorrow but the non-disclosure clause was really restrictive. I cannot afford to sign these exclusive contracts with companies that also bar people from working with your competition for 2 years after concluding the contract. Well, they are paying well. But it is not going to wor out in the long run, given how quickly I start feeling suffocated about such things. Anyway, I told them that I possibly could not negotiate with them about this. The HR person was really sweet though. He said that he is trying his best to see how this goes. I had refused another offer for this contract and the HR person was aware of this. So he said what he could do. It'll all work itself out, am sure.
Otherwise, I take the break I want for the rest of the year.
Then I spoke with another friend. It was such a delight! She is in Pune now (having traveled from Bangalore) and I was so tempted to rush across and catch up with her. But she is a really careful sort and even at home, she is staying in her room. So I don't want to get reckless.
I had to send something to my landlord and I asked him if the new tenants could collect it from the gate or some such. He said that there were no new tenants. I couldn't explain the twinge I felt. I felt that the sweet little flat was waiting for me and I wanted to go back there again. It was a small flat but I really liked it. I just had a sleeping bag there, a kettle, an induction cooker and some vessels. (I fact it was so sparse that when my brother and dad had visited me once, my brother looked shocked and asked me if 'I had been robbed' and my dad had looked pained and said why I was putting myself through all this. I didn't know what they were talking about. I looked around I saw a fully functional, fully complete setup.)
I had a lot of candles and I would often unwind with candles flickering at night and going for a long walk in the middle of the night around the apartment complex. The flats next to mine had small kids who would bang on my door and laugh and run away. The spot in the verandah in front of my house would get a spot of sun, which in Bangalore is like finding gold. Some ladies - mums of these kids - would ask me if they could dry their clothes in front of my house. I could see the courtyard from the verandah. I'd see kids being dragged to their school bus early in the morning. Or little kids play football with tennis rackets at tea time. I used to travel so much from Bangalore to Mumbai because mum was not well. And I had hoped that she would see my place. But well that didn't happen. But that home - it really was a home where something inside of me softened.
Yes, I did have a life that involved high heels and dresses (at times). Late night cab rides and early morning walks at Cubbon Parks and hanging out at a friend's house in the same apartment complex. But this flat satiated me. I don't know how many people can relate to this - but I don't feel sated until I have had rice and daal. White rice and yellow daal. Even if I have eaten a fine continental meal outside, I will still come home and have white rice and yellow daal. This flat was that - the white rice and yellow daal in the midst of the buffet life I lived in Bangalore.
I didn't get a chance to say goodbye. I was in Bombay during Covid and my friend arranged for movers and packers to wrap everything up. I had said my goodbye in my diary, though. A home, an home, is like a heart that allowed you stay wedged in it for a while. I don't care if it was 'rented' or if it was 'my own'. When a heart allows, it allows. There is deep honor in that.
Stay well, P-302. I send you my love.
As it turns out, there is a section that is not affected by the pandemic - the freelancers. You see, all kinds of companies and big businesses have been hit adversely. So they really need to negotiate with a freelancer for the last penny, and of course, paying an advance is out of the question. And paying immediately after delivery is a "Surely, you're joking" situation.
Although the grave Coronavirus has affected corporate India, the freelance populace continues to live a sweet, innocent pandemic-free world where money is not required for a transaction. Let's say feedback is delayed by 5 days or 10 days or 20 or who knows, how much time. As a freelancer you don't need to know because your time, effort, and energy is the dissipating, amorphous stuff that Russian scientists observe in somber Netflix series. (It's there - but not really.) So,let's say, in those 10 or 20 days or candy-floss infinity, the freelancer goes to the market to buy vegetables or medicines. Said person does not need to pay in cash. We can buy a pound of veggies or some antibiotics by sharing our version of "who killed him" or "she needed security because those shades she was wearing was vintage Dior - you know what "VINTAGE DIOR' means,, right?
Now, freelancers tend to make rather outrageous demands. Some have been known to ask project managers for project plans, which is why it is fit that they must be punished by delaying feedback, payment, or response to the question. Also, our near-exasperated situation coats us with such miraculous charisma that should we fall sick, hospitals would bend over backward to take care of us. We wouldn't need insurance and we wouldn't have money. That, of course, will be stuck with the Finance Department of some company manned by Russian scientists, the sort who observe amorphous gases with gravitas.
Freelancing is the new vaccine. It's the stuff that a plummeting GDP can't touch. We operate in a dimension where hunger or rent don't feature, neither the sickness or failing health of a loved one. If we need to donate money or help out someone, we talk to a Happy Void and help is provided.
You have our sympathies, corporate India. On behalf of any of us freelancers who have expected you to show grace and courtesy to inform someone of a delay in payment or feedback and such things, I am sorry. We, in our ivory towers, forget how difficult it is for you to retain humaneness in this sordid and difficult time. We wouldn't know. We only get paid for the time we work. Not for the time we wait. We also lose money if we don't deliver as per expectations. Even if the expectation is: "I want something good really quick." So we cannot possibly understand the duress our constant request for communication and more details puts you through.
Really sorry, pals! You are deserving of your own hashtag movement: #Only your lives matter.
I had just written three paragraphs complaining about something but...not required.
This evening, I connected with a college friend of mine. She had loaned me the book, "The Innovator's Dilemma" by Clayton Christesen years ago. I haven't been able to read it. That's the one thing I am really worried about - I haven't been able to read a book since ages. But one lives in hope. So I just started this. Let's see.
I like reading the Prefaces and acknowledgments of books. It takes a lot for someone to start and finish writing a book. I have bee trying so hard to get that done. Okay, maybe not trying 'hard'...but trying for a long time. When I had moved to Bangalore, my deal was to use my resources to not take up work for 8 months to a year, live simply, and write something.
Well, that didn't happen.
Anyway, soon. Actually, I am thinking that next year, around June, I will start the book. Rather I will finish the book that I started in Pune.
My head feels so heavy. Yesterday I was waiting for feedback on one project. Today I am waiting for feedback on another one. I think I should learn to wait well. I wonder why that is not taught in school. Sure, they teach you to be patient but not really how or more importantly why. I have become better now. But there is a lot of learning to do.
In my experience, people who can wait properly, calmly, productively - they really win. Win big. I feel they get the ability to alchemize time. There's a line in the 'Course of Miracles' that goes: "Those who are certain of the outcome can wait and wait without anxiety."
Speaking of being certain of the outcome, I have been trying to learn cartomancy -predicting with the use of cards. Playing cards, not tarot. So far I have been a 100% inaccurate. It still is something. Then one just does the opposite of what I predict. (This reminds me of school when friends would try and identify the questions that would appear in the exams. Some approached this rather futile exercise with rigour - they would go through past papers and all that. I would not. I would take guesses and it is remarkable that whichever question I would identify as a likely one would not come. Not just that question - that entire topic wouldn't be feature in the test. My friends really caught on to that. I wasn't very happy about this of course.)
Anyway, back to cartomancy. I was chatting with my brother and I asked him if he had any questions I could do some prediction for, since I need the practice. And since I really am new, he should pick something simple, low stakes, etc. So he told me to ask the cards if I was any good.
If I coud block him, I would. But now that I think of it, maybe that is a sensible thing to start with.
Taking a break for a couple of hours before getting back to work. Have been losing my cool with Papa and really not liking it. Anyway, when it burns like this, thought I would list a few things and memories that soothe me:
1. Chat with my friend, J. With the weirdest suggestions of movies, jokes that she forgets the punchline of, songs whose lyrics she bungles up without fail, travel destinations that I will gladly go to with her, even if I don't know where they are.
2. The one cup of coffee that my father makes for me.
3. How Ma and I would go to Taj Lands end for white jasmine tea and coconut cookies. We would go in the evening, sit by the window and look at rains lashing at the city. The palm trees would sway with such fierceness that you think they would slash the pink and purple evening sky. Slowly the lights in the atrium would come on. The piano man would come, smile at us, and sit down and play.
4. A baby's sweet powder-puffy head and chubby cheeks and firm and happy grip.
5. White, satin sheets.
6. The slice of almond and walnut vegan cake from a teeny bakery in Pondicherry, where the owner had sketched out a rose for me on the napkin.
7. Goa. The solitude at Anjuna, the gypsy-wanderings in Pandolim, the quirky little sewing college in Panjim, the carnival-type music playing in buses, the gorgeous sweetness of dodol, the beaches, the forest, the rest, the rain, the sea, the light, the splintered treasures of shells and starfish, the sense of long ago...Goa.
8. Watching my mum sleep when I worked through the night. Suddenly she would wake up with a start because she always had nightmares. And whenever she saw me, even in that lost dreamy state, she would smile. And I would pat her back and she would go off to sleep again.
9. The late night walks in Bandra with Az. And then we would catch a rickshaw and zip around to Juhu beach and have an icecream.
10. Tears that flow out when you are full. Just squelchily full of loss, longing, and love.
Today the morning began with a friend telling me about a lady's young son who had been suffering for a while. He was raising money for him. His mother used to tend to ailing elderly people (that's how I had met her... when I was looking for someone for my Ma). But she had lost her job due to COVID. Her other kids were out of work as well.
I was expecting an invoice to be cleared but the company I had worked for (a small company) told me that the project was put on hold and they would arrange for my dues to be cleared soon. But I have worked with them and I like one of the two people I worked with. And also in times like this, it is important to remember why I started. To work towards building an alternative system that works well, is nourishing. I just got the feeling that I would have to write this off for now. One of those two people had been good to me and was willing to be good to me.
The other place I was expecting money from...well, let's just say that money is stuck for now which wouldn't have mattered ordinarily. But I could not share as much money as I would have liked. Anyway the boy passed away. So... not saying that having money would have saved the boy. But it just might have.
Some days you just feel defeated.
But I do believe that the boy is in a better place. And the rest of the family will spend the rest of their lives saying this to themselves. Still. A place with my mum will be a happy, welcoming place.
Conducted an introductory session on something work-related yesterday. It was nice but I don't know why it left me very exhausted. I had planned to work yesterday but I did some browsing for work and then went for a walk before meeting a friend.
The walk was so nice! There were so many people, kids, and dancers. There's a place in the park that has a section where people work out, etc. There were nearly seven groups of young dancers with their music systems. They were blaring their respective music and dancing. I don't know how they even kept track of the music and their beats but they did it. I was telling this to a friend and she said that it is easy to keep track of music if you practice o something. Sometimes I find her a little contrarian. Whatever I say, she will always something to explain another point of view. That exhausted me more. So I hung up. Also, because another friend was picking me up and were going to for a short drive.
In the car, my friend (who's a doctor) was telling me about how a patient expected her to be different in person than how she was on social media. Interestingly, I get that quite a bit as a blogger or as someone who writes a lot online. Some people expect me to be bigger. Some more happy. Some not as happy. Some smarter. Some not. And then they get disappointed when they encounter a different person and want me to explain why I am different from what they expect me to be. I don't know where this sense of ownership comes from. I guess I used to have it for Salman Rushdie. I love his work so much. So when all these things that Padmalakshmi said about him - I don't know why, I was very wounded by that. I wanted to ask him why he did what he did, etc. This was log back before I actually started writing publicly myself. Then I understood why he said what he said, what he did why he did - and more importantly, why questions like, "I thought you were different but you aren't" is not a valid statement. I feel when people consume more than they create, they put themselves in a place of being an authority without being vulnerable themselves. That is the offset of a consumerist nature - a tribe of bloated, entitled cowards who don't have the guts to sit with their own broken selves and look for some distraction to pass on their pain to. I am carefully using the word 'Coward' here. For me cowardice is not ignorance. You don't know that you are consuming 18 hours of TV because you feel abandoned by your family or helpless in a relationship Cowardice, fr me, is when you go and comment on someone's make-up tutorial dissing the video, not saying anything constructive, feeling marginally better, and moving on to the next movie or lamenting on how Netflix or Prime or why this website or person or podcaster is not offering you something better for FREE.
It is not easy to escape them. So that is pointless. But it is very important to not become one of them. That is the struggle. Maybe that is why I am feeling so exhausted.
My doctor friend - will call her Gyp - is working damn hard. When I listen to her life is when I really believe that something is weirdly off about mainstream medicine. How can establishments dedicated to health expect their own people to work so many hours on end with such short breaks, no time off, etc. Gyp tells me sometimes about the measures that doctors take to just cope with a regular work day (this is not even the pandemic stint. This is a regular work day). But not just medicine - this kind of a mindless dichotomy seems to exist everywhere. I tried working with a start-up that wanted to do things about mental health (something that I am interested in - would like to make a difference). And the way they were treating their own team was appalling. How do we not see our own blind spots. In the past, I have done a few things to try to 'improve the world' and got into trouble and my parents in quite a few sticky situations. (Two sticky situations, involving the police.) My father and my ex-husband, used to tell me that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. In fact, my ex-husband used to say that unless I can sit with the anger for at least 3 hours, then to not pick up that cause or individual to fight for. He used to say that I would do more damage to the situation by being angry and inept than being simply angry or only inept.
Oh well, one tries. But like that saying goes, "Hearts will never be practical until the day they are made unbreakable." We make sense when we shatter.
It's a Saturday and I have to finish three assignments and get started on a fourth. Hopefully it will leave me some time to go for a walk in the evening or dress up and go meet a friend. Papa made me a nice cup of coffee with almond milk (I am trying to be vegan). Then he made his glass of karela slices in hot water. He has asked me to try that forever now and I have stubbornly refused. So now he sits in the living room reading a paper and I sit at my dining table looking around.
Outside the front part of my house, there's a huge moneyplant. Our old family help had planted that years ago, easily 20 or 30 years before. The leaves of that money plant are humungous but in a sweet benign way. Their dominion across the window sill is steady, unyielding but easy. No force there, no strain, no tension. It saw space, it grew.
Outside the kitchen window, one sees the leaves of the guava tree. The tree has become so massive that it's branches spread across the width of the window and the leaves shine with a juicy luminescence in the morning. (I don't know why I wax so eloquent of these things in the morning. But it is a testament to a happy cup of coffee that one will see beauty everywhere.)
The sun is out today and I have located my navy blue dress that I bought off a pretty little store in Goa (Calangute, I think). There was a sale and got it for 350 bucks only. It's a sleeveless, cotton shift that comes up a little above the knee. The cut is really something. It gives you an hourglass shape...and I have loaned this dress to a couple of friends who don't have my body type and it looks equally amazing on them.
I remember that the store I bought it from had a lot of chipped shells around their light bulbs. It seemed really kitchy.
There's a lot to get done but I will take my time with it. When enough joy and peace has percolated in my system, I will make a move.
It was a good walk this evening. I was listening to some really peppy, cheery music. I was listening to Taylor Swift after maybe 10 years! A song called 'Me'. She had once sung that on the Graham Norton show. I just love Graham Norton! He really is the finest chat show host in my opinion... Anyway Swift was wearing this lush, plum-purple fringe dress that was so gorgeous! And because I loved the dress, I loved the song.
I did some work today. It was okay. A lot of calls. But they were good. Both calls were kind of collaboration calls which is so refreshing. I like that... Usually I am an individual contributor in a project and since my vibe is usually to not engage with more than 3 interactions a week, I work on my ideas on my own. But I like collaborating on ideas... It was my goal that this stint in my freelance career, I would work with new people...people who didn't know anything about me. I finished a couple of gigs with strangers. They were interesting. And now it's a bit of a mixed bag. Let's see how it goes.
It is so strange, the kind of random visuals that come to your mind when you are talking to someone on the phone. Like one of my clients was giving feedback on some mailer I had done. I just had a thought that he has a collection of antique taps - some porcelain, some copper, some beautiful frosted crystal.
Another person I was talking to...I imagined that he had his first heartbreak when he was seven. I had this image that he was a little boy and had taken a rose to this girl's house and she took his rose, ruffled his hair, sat on her boyfriend's bike and rode away.
A lady I spoke with...I had the image of her embroidering a large bedspread during the pandemic. And as the threads in the embroidery start adding pulse and vitality to the design, she starts seeing the future. This is what makes her a great sales person.
Another guy I chatted with...I got the feeling that he has a sweet, little girl who thinks the world of him. And every monsoon season, with the first rain, he takes her to a lake where he teaches her to swim.
I think I just want to work with new clients so I can hear different voices and imagine different things about them. Maybe someday when I retire from all this, I will send them all a postcard telling them this. "Dear client, This is a postcard from my imagination. Thank you for the work, of course, but also the very first greeting. As the words of the song go, "...the first time we said hello, began our last goodbye.'
I am sleepy now.
