“Longing is divine discontent, the unendurable present, finding a physical doorway to awe and discovery that frightens and emboldens, humiliates and beckons, makes us into pilgrim souls and sets us on a road that starts in the centre of the body and then leads out, like an uncaring invitation, like a comet’s tail, felt like both an unrelenting ache and a tidal pull at one and the same time, making us willing to give up our perfect house, our paid-for home and our accumulated belongings.
Longing is felt through the lens and ache of the body, magnifying and bringing the horizon close, as if the horizon were both a lifetime’s journey away and living deep inside at some unknown core – as if we were coming home into a beautifully familiar, condensed strangeness.”
An excerpt from an essay on Longing by David Whyte in his book ‘Consolations’.
I long for the warmth of that hand on my right shoulder, that lovely smile, those big brown eyes and that dimple on his chin.
Blessed is the day you were born. Bless you my darling, wherever you are.
He was born in May. I was 28. A pleasant pregnancy. Normal birth. No fuss, just like him. The Army hospital sent us a bill for Rupees 16 afterwards.
I want to organise a party. I want to sing a song for him even though I know he’ll be embarrassed if I did that. I want to see that look on his face. I want to put together a playlist for the party. Plan a menu and draw up a list of guests. Find a venue and a theme.
Most of all, I want to see him. Wish him a happy birthday and a great year ahead. I want to kiss his forehead. I want to present him the book, “A Gentleman in Moscow” by Amor Towles. I think he will love it.
I want him to know I feel blessed to be remembering him, for all this love. I want to celebrate him and the day he was born.
Oh! The C-word. Can I?? Am I eligible?? Do I meet the inclusion criteria?
Yes. Celebrate.
I can. I want to. I will.
Notwithstanding the yearning, I celebrate the essence of him.
Despite the apparent separation, I celebrate the felt connection between us.
Though the approaching day intensifies the pain, it also pushes the roots of love deeper into the ground.
Despite everything, I cherish the little piece of eternity we shared.
So many years have passed but… I was invited to speak at a national conference last month. I said yes.
National Confidential Inquiry into Suicide and Safety in Mental health (NCISH) 11th Annual conference on the 8th of May 2025 at 10 am UK time. This year the focus is on people who had been in contact with Mental Health services within a year of their death. It’s free, short and online.
A book with frayed edges sat tucked inside the pocket behind the driver’s seat. After an overnight train journey from Sakleshpur to Goa, we were going home in a taxi. No coffee yet. I was not quite switched on. Bleary eyed, I pulled the book out of the elasticated edge. It was Walden by Henry David Thoreau. Some poor tourist had mistakenly left it behind while traveling to the airport to fly back home.
Thoreau wrote this book while he lived in a cabin he built near Walden Pond, hundred and eighty years ago. He was testing the idea that divinity was present in nature and the human soul. He stripped his life down to the barest of essentials and secluded himself as much as he could, living off the land as much as possible. He wanted to find out just what in life is necessary and what is superfluous.
(Picture, courtesy Maria Popova )
Having chosen to live in a place where, for hundreds of miles very few people speak our language, with no cinema halls, restaurants, therapists or book shops, where the food is of one particular kind, but nature is abundant, that question has arisen for me too.
A few weeks back, a quote by Thoreau had whistled right into my heart:
“Life! who knows what it is, what it does?”
Such a beautiful sentiment. I had wished for more of his writings. After learning some more about him and his love of birds, streams, woodlands and meadows, I got busy with other things.
When I brought this question to CORe, it generated a rich discussion.
“What is our relationship with not knowing? What feelings does it provoke?”
Some excerpts from our conversations:
It is a real test of oneself, dropping how things should be and taking each day as it comes. It took me a long time to realise how much my mind was tied to certainty. In Africa, the relationship with death is very different. They have many ways to remember a loved one. They believe they’re still here and it gives them great joy.
Anxiety of the need to know at work. I have to change my mind set to curiosity. Some things we’re not meant to know, such as, where is he? It would spoil it. I must accept that I’m not meant to know.
When he went, I didn’t want to be here. Now I do. I have a life that I want to have. I have lots of godchildren who have promised to take care of me. I have a vision of him and his dad, which I hope will come through in my own death. Maybe when it’s my time they’ll be there, and their peace will be shattered.
Yes. The older I grow, the lesser I know. There is a freedom in that, to be with whatever is happening. It allows for the mystery of life to unfold as it will and it allows me to witness it without conditions, with an open heart. The smallest things. The book that I had wished for a month ago, appears right in front of me after I had forgotten all about it.
We had a proper tropical shower last week. I hadn’t seen such joy, relief and excitement from this simple act of nature before. The magic was in the timing of it. It came just when the coffee plants were thirsting to come into full blossom and release their fragrance to fill the atmosphere with Jasmine. Only in films had I seen one single rain shower give rise to such elation.
Yes. Coffee is in bloom. But I’m sick of my yo-yoing fever and this unpleasant cough. My body keeps stretching out to do all the things it wants to but it keeps getting pulled back into itself because it doesn’t have the strength. Maybe I need to raise my aspirations, then the Universe will provide more energy. Maybe I need to increase my desire to move and dance and sing and travel and trust that the body will be supported in that. Maybe I need to keep writing more of the nonsense I write so that I’m out there in the world of words and the right ones can find me. Maybe I need to keep showing up for myself and nicely saying NO to unnecessary stuff when I need to. Maybe I need to sit still and rejoice in the breeze that’s dancing with the trees. Maybe I should simply tune into the voice of the birds resonating with excitement. Maybe I need to be fully present in my body, a 100% here, unconditionally.
Before all of that, maybe I need to give my body the permission to fall ill, offer myself the care I would give someone I love, be patient and breathe with myself as though I was my own child. Excuse me, I need to make myself another cup of ginger tea.
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