To sip a little bit of 'soothe'

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 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.


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