Writing

Everybody is missing something.

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This evening I finished reading ‘Norwegian Wood’ by Murakami Haruki. It left me strangely nostalgic, comforted, entertained and stunned. No big words or complex sentences but so very impactful. This simple but profound story of an ordinary young man is written in the first person. It starts with a young death and ends on a painful but soft note. I didn’t know anything about it before I started reading it except that this is one of his bestsellers.

An intriguing figure, Murakami is a runner and a lover of cats, books and jazz music. His love of music led him to run a jazz bar in his 20s. While watching a baseball match at the age of 29, he was struck by the thought that he could try writing a novel and since then, he has written more than thirty-five. His reclusive and humble nature means he doesn’t do many interviews.

His genre is ‘magical realism’ but he claims that his skill lies in creating dreams. He does not see magic and reality as two opposing sides of life. He believes they flow together as he follows the characters in his stories.

I paraphrase a part of the book that spoke deeply to me. While the narrator grieves the recent death of his friend, images came back to him: her touching the hair slide she always wore; her peering at him with those incredibly clear eyes of hers; her sitting on the sofa, legs drawn up beneath her blue nightdress, chin resting on her knees.

While he sleeps on a beach, the tide sweeps him along to a strange new place, a place where he lived with the dead. Here, he could speak with her and hold her in his arms.

And to him she said, “Don’t worry, it’s only death. Don’t let it bother you.”

What’s the problem? She asked him with a bashful smile, “I’m here. Aren’t I?”

If this is death, he thought to himself, it’s not so bad.

It’s true, she said. Death is nothing much. It’s just death. Things are so easy for me here.

From death he learnt that death exists, not as the opposite but as a part of life. That no truth can cure the sadness we feel from losing a loved one. No sincerity, no kindness, can cure that sorrow. All we can do is see that sadness through to the end and learn something from it, but what we learn will be of no help in facing the next sadness that comes to us without warning.

“If you remember me, I don’t care if everyone else forgets.”

  • A quote from Kafka on the Shore.

Resource: Online peer-support for bereaved parents:

Circle of Remembrance (CORe): http://www.core-community.com

This is.

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9 am. The mist has cleared and the Red-whiskered Bulbuls are out with their sweet song, proudly wearing shiny black mohawks. Post-monsoon, the grass has shot up to nearly four feet high, its slender golden heads gently swaying in the cool light breeze. Pearlescent dew is clinging to the edges of the blades of grass. A frisky young jack-fruit tree is now competing with the elderly rosewood that’s been there for a decade. Coffee is brewing. An occasional motor-bike rumbles past. The chikoo (Sapodilla) tree is heavy with fruit. The palm frond is browning and half of it has peeled off the smooth striped trunk. A hint of jasmine in the air every now and then.

I sit here, breathing, looking at the hilly horizon and everything else, just as it is. Not one thing is wrong. Nothing out of place. The blinking of the eyes. Laughter, when it comes. Tears, when they come. Thoughts as they come and go. The Ficus extending skyward, regardless. The copper-leaf shrub being copper. The grass being its verdant green self. The breeze being its gentle self. This moment being open and present to me exactly as it is.

Not a thing missing. Nothing extra. Not a thing needing fixed or changed or made better.

All perfectly natural. Simple. This is. I am. We are.

Room With a View in Santiago

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The old city shutters stood open.

Not to admit the world, for the world was already here; only to let it drift through old granite, through warm air, through the afternoon.

Below, children called, trolleys rattled over stone, shopkeepers laughed, voices crossed and uncrossed like birds above a square.

Nothing argued. Nothing needed to win. The street was not divided.

Beside me, a small dog claimed a borrowed mat with complete confidence that love had already prepared it.

I thought of my son.

I thought of all that seems absent, and of all that love refuses to call lost.

The heart did not deny its longing. The afternoon did not deny its peace.

Neither excluded the other.

Then, without announcement, a smile from a waiter, a bowl of water that had not been requested, churros that had not been ordered, a kindness that carried no invoice.

And I understood, if only for this hour,
that there are moments which cannot be bought because they were never for sale;

moments which cannot be earned because they were never wages;

moments which ask nothing except that they be allowed.

Nothing was missing.

Nothing was excluded.

Nothing was demanded.

Nothing had to justify itself.

The 5pm cathedral bells found their place among the voices, and nothing was disturbed.

Time found its place without disturbing the timeless.

The voices still rose from the street below.

The light still rested upon the granite.
The dog still slept.

Love still loved.

And for this afternoon,
everything already was.

  • By a dad at CORe at the end of his pilgrimage, Camino de Santiago.

Like cloud joining cloud.

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Loss Too Deep for Words

When all that seems real is lost,
where words blur and fail,
where intention cannot reach the depth,
where heart hungers
and soul starves.

Only the warmth in the heart of another
finds the pulse,
like cloud joining cloud,
a delicate meeting
before language.

Seeing and seen,
no grandeur, no pretence.

Not words.
Not healing.
Not intention.

Not reviving.
Not demanding.
Not offering.
Not outside, just there, stepped inside.
Rare.

Once isolated, unreachable,
now golden sun emerging, real.

Only that which is real
can touch that which is real.

Nothing survives
that is not love.

  • By Tony Bisson

(Tony is a bereaved father. He wrote this poem expressing what being in the Circle of Rememberance means to him.)

New things.

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They opened her sister’s tummy and took out a thing that looked like a red chili. Their mother was very worried, but the doctor said ‘all went well’. She was so relieved, she brought her a blue silk purse embroidered with beads and sequins. She had managed to buy a nearly new one for pennies at the village market from a heap of random goods piled up on the roadside.

New things never happened to Amita. She was the fifth of six kids. One girl. 3 boys. Her. One more boy. Most of her childhood was spent in boy’s clothes. When she was seven, she could finally wear her sister’s tattered old frocks. All she wanted was something new.

Amita started complaining of tummy aches that were so strong she had to miss school. She hardly ate anything and became scrawnier every week. She looked sallow. Her parents took her from one doctor to the next. They were exasperated. Finally, the fifth doctor said they would have to open her tummy and look inside. Amita’s dream was coming true. She smiled inwardly. Her operation was scheduled for Monday.

On Sunday night, in her hospital bed she remembered when her aunt had come to visit from Bangalore, she had brought one plastic doll for the girls to share. Its golden hair was pulled back in a tight ponytail. Her head was round with two very round brown eyes. When you lay her on her back, her eyelids closed over. Thick long black lashes touched her pink cheeks. On standing her up, the lids mechanically snapped open. Her elder sister claimed the doll all for herself. When no one was looking, Amita would hold the doll like a baby, rock it from side to side and stroke its cheeks.

On Monday morning, she was super-excited. As she was going off to sleep, the blue silk purse embroidered with beads and sequins danced in front of her eyes.

When she woke up, Amita had a huge red gash right down the middle of her tummy. It was so painful that she could hardly breathe but Amita didn’t care. She waited for her mum. When the visiting hour arrived, her mum brought her a gift – a red silk purse embroidered with beads and sequins. It was even more beautiful than the blue one. Amita felt victorious. She had a new thing, all for herself.  She could hardly wait to show it to the smiley nurse who routinely looked after her.

That night, Amita slept peacefully in her hospital bed, clutching on to her silk purse.

The next morning, the smiley nurse came in with a thermometer and placed the tip of it under Amita’s tongue with a smile. She then started writing her notes. Just then, Amita pulled out the purse from under her pillow and held it up for her to see, her eyes popping out but unable to speak.

“Oh! For me? How kind! Thank you.” said the nurse and received the purse with both her lovely hands.

                                                ****    ****    ****

Resource: This story is inspired by an anecdote from the book “Nonviolent Communication. A language of Life.‘ by Marshall B. Rosenberg. PhD. In Chapter 4, he addresses the heavy cost of unexpressed feelings about unmet needs.