Unstructured time

It is so difficult to manage unstructured time.
Yet I don't think I would like to get back to the regular 9 to 5 routine.

When I quit my job, I asked Thiru if he had any advice for me

 "Manage your unstructured time well, " said he " or it will overwhelm you."

Twenty years later….

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It is so difficult to manage unstructured time.
Yet I don't think I would like to get back to the regular 9 to 5 routine.

Hold to your own truth...

All the true vows
are secret vows
the ones we speak out loud
are the ones we break.

There is only one life
you can call your own
and a thousand others
you can call by any name you want.

Hold to the truth you make
every day with your own body,
don't turn your face away.

Hold to your own truth
at the center of the image
you were born with......

....By the lake in the wood
in the shadows
you can
whisper that truth
to the quiet reflection
you see in the water.

Whatever you hear from
the water, remember,
it wants you to carry
the sound of its truth on your lips.


David Whyte
my favourite poet whose work has profoundly impacted me.....
And connected me to myself

Sometimes the words are too many, 
or too deep....

But here they touch the deepest part 

"Hold to your own truth
at the center of the image
you were born with"

Perhaps, there is no ONE truth, 
or perhaps there is....

As long as I stay true to the longing and not turn my face away from it...

Living with zest..whereever that happens

Turning forty has meant, 

turning introspective....

Somehow turning twenty or thirty was not like this.....
......there was an aggression 
about life
about future ...
for self and others!
Goals to be achieved, 
Imaginary battles to be fought before the Mt. Everest was conquered!

Today there's a need to give others, and myself, the space.

There is also an urge to give back what I have got.

Mellowed down, I definitely have!

Yet, if I were to reflect on myself and life, 
I have been a maverick: 
sometimes rebelliously so
at others , meekly !

and the oft repeated, oft quoted Robert Frost's lines seem written JUST for me!

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I --
I took the one less travelled by,
and that has made all the difference


So am I living life to fit in or stand out ?

Neither.... 

its living life with zest

wherever that happens!

sometimes i wonder

Sometimes I wonder how will life be when I am gone?

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Will my phone miss my resolute fingers as they tap away?

Will my morning cup of tea remember my sighs of appreciation?

Will the wonderful handloom prints recall my ecstatic caressing touch?

Will the pillow remember the numerous outpourings, late at night?

Will the moccasins miss the warmth of my feet?

Will the corner chair and the tall yellow lamp recall all the happy and sad moments, which it allowed me to outpour ?

Will the jackfruit tree recall how I cried out my loneliness to it , late into the night?

HOW WILL IT BE WHEN I AM GONE ?

Will i be gone ?

Too many of us

There are so many of us who are resigned to life....

I too move into this zone occasionally ;-) !

To reflect back on life twenty years back :
Did compromise/resignation/listlessness 
or 'मेरा-क्या?'attitude towards my self exist in my dictionary 
or have I imbibed that over the years?

Among my women friends also , sometimes I sense this listlessness,
which is covered up with vehemant statements like ,
" I do not want to be like those ambitious career women who neglect their home and children!!!"
or drowned in lame remarks like -
"I have compromised my life for my children and husband's career, but I am ok."
"I can't do anything because of my family."

I do not believe that you need to be working to be alive ,

or stay at home all the time to nurture your family and children!

Each of us need to take our decisions...our priorities are like each of us....unique !

I guess there is never an IDEAL situation, for a working woman, a stay at home mother/wife ....or any one!

I just get very upset when we ( including me ) sometimes use others/circumstances as an excuse not to live life!

I am 13 now, MOM !!!!!!

I have been reflecting upon my changing relationship with Soumya.

She has been extremely excited that she turned thirteen this January.

I have been happy for her!

However, this momentous event of her life has also left me a little confused...

How do I relate to her, now ?
I can't baby her or talk down to her...
she rebels!!!!!!!!
and I am usually at the receiving end of this rebellion...

She is not an adult, though she says she can't wait to "grow UP"

One part of me is becoming more and more aware that I am mothering not a 13 year old teenager, but an image of my daughter!

I so desperately want to understand her changing needs, but I do not know who my daughter is, any more !!

Richard Brown of Naropa University says it so beautifully,

Children need our attention. But they are harmed if we smother them with well-intended, but self-serving attention. Children need us to be genuinely present with them; to be appropriate in that moment of life. We need to let go of our point of view and become them for that instant.

Such selflessness is not easy. We protect ourselves from the rawness of childhood with an armor of ideas, projects, and strategies.... We need to have the dignity and humility to look into the eyes of the children and not be afraid to see them exactly as they are. 

We must nourish children for their own sake, not just so they will live according to our view of childhood, no matter how noble the view."