Dancing in the rain...

It was raining when she returned home...
I opened the door.

"Where is yr umbrella?"
"How could you be so irresponsible...look , you are completely wet!" 

I began to raise my voice visualising those numerous visits to the doctor, 

the all-night sessions with wet towels and cough syrups,

the delay in my project as I sat through the night, attending to her...did she even know that the house-help was on leave the whole of the weekend?

"Chill MOM , What's the problem with getting wet in the rain ? " ....
she sneezed, wet hair plastered on her head and water dripping down her exuberant face, a very unusual sight for her!

In her own way she was carving out her fun, her free-spiritedness.......

I opened the door to my wet and smiling teen who could not control her glee for getting wet in the rain.....

I needed to be free, more than her !

Quietly reflective : the introverts in my life

Reading "QUIET : The power of introverts in a world that can't stop talking." by Susan Cain.

What an eye-opener of a book for an exuberant, wordy, out-in-the-world extrovert like me !

Am taken back to around a decade ago when Soumya was all of five or six and was labelled 'shy' 'anti-social'and 'snooty' by moms n children alike, just because she took time to open up socially in her gentle quiet way. Like me, these people could not understand that she just had a different way of looking at life and was much more than those labels which boxed her into a space which screamed : ' YOU ARE SO QUIET....SPEAK OUT !'

Thanks to Uday, a quiet person himself, that she has, and continues, to blossom in her quiet, resolute and reflective way : teaching me many a lesson in calm and centeredness.

Would recommend this book to all : introverts, extroverts and ambiverts...Check the link http://www.thepowerofintroverts.com/

One of my biggest learning in life has come from the three introverts who inhabit my space : my daughter, husband and father-in-law who balance my chirpy over-stimulated go-for-it presence with reflection, centeredness and depth of thoughts.