self-love

A prayer

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She’s a friend who’s been sober for more than 20 years. A devout member of the AA, she is religious about it. Even today, her ex-alcoholicness is an important part of her identity and her sense of achievement. It is her story, her life.

At a recent dinner …

“Oh no! This is your glass. I’ve already had half of it thinking it was mine. I didn’t even taste the gin in it. Oh no!” She said to Si.

‘Yes. We made our drinks together before I went to the loo. Your lime-soda was in the pink glass and my G&T was in the blue. I thought you knew. This is an easy mistake to make amidst all the music and the noise. Don’t worry. Forget about it. You obviously didn’t do it on purpose. It just happened.’

“Yes. But …”

The AA says: “No one who has become an alcoholic has ever ceased to be an alcoholic. The mere fact of abstaining from alcohol for months or even years has never qualified an alcoholic to drink “normally” or socially. Once the individual has crossed the borderline from heavy drinking to irresponsible alcoholic drinking, there seems to be no retreat.”

I dread to think of the turmoil within her in the aftermath of that innocent mistake. I can’t claim to understand how she must feel. It came as a shock when she texted us to say she didn’t want to see us anymore.

It made me sad. It made me see the power of our beliefs and narratives, how they can hold us hostage if we let them. I can’t do much except pray for us all.

May we all grow in the ability to love ourselves, and one another.

May we grow in the ability to catch ourselves when we start spinning out.

May we all be able to stay with our experience as it is.

May we all remember, when we’re getting all caught up, to go look at the sky.

May we remember when we’re hurting, that other people are in the same boat. Rather than letting our hurt make us more afraid, allow that same suffering help us realize our shared humanity.

Why do you write?

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Before Day 0, I hardly ever wrote, except for work. Then, this blog became a lifeline.

A friend. A vent.

A hook to hang my days on.

A thing that helped me stay on.

A messenger. A mouthpiece.

A repository of memories.

An unencumbered voice.

A determined choice.

“Have you published anything?” a writer friend asked me recently.

‘No. I am a writer. I write.’

“Don’t you want to be published?”

‘Yes. It would be nice. But for me, writing is an end in itself.’

“Why else do you write?”

‘Because I am fascinated by the terror of a blank page.

Because I have something to say.

Because I want to reach others, especially those who feel very alone.

Because I love the scratchy sound of pen moving on paper.

Because it helps me connect with myself in a tender manner.

Because I can trust the words that come out. I can mess with them. Play.

Because I need to write what I’m thinking in order to understand what I’m thinking.

Because writing wants to happen through me. It can be a wooo-hooo surprise!

No reason. Simply.’

After nearly ten years of writing, in March this year I made my first submission and thankfully it was accepted. A short story, “The Order” was published earlier this month on an online literary magazine, Kitaab.org:

Short Story: The Order by Sangeeta Mahajan

This story made its debut in an unrefined form on this blog and my brother commented that I should try to get it published. That was in July 2018. Six years ago! Gosh! I must be slow.

Who is telling me not to do this?

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“You want to write a book? Who do you think you are? Why would anyone spend any time or the money on it? Who’s interested in reading your stuff? You will expose your inner life unnecessarily. You are not a writer. Don’t pretend to be one. Your book will simply prove your mediocrity to everyone. Even if you manage to write it, who will publish it? I think you will have to go the self-publishing route.” Oh no! This voice in my head. In any case, I don’t have time. Nor the talent or the imagination. I don’t feel inspired. I am not in the right frame of mind. There’s too much else going on. I am struggling with ‘structure’. It’s serious and solitary hard work. As the story is still unfolding, we haven’t reached the end yet. So, how can it be finished? When I sit at my desk staring at a blank page, I freeze. I don’t know what to write about. It’s too big a job and the hospital is keeping me so busy. On top of that, there are unending chores that need done. The summer has finally arrived and I should take the time to enjoy that. The list of excuses goes on and on. There is so much I don’t remember accurately anymore. How do I put that in words? I am up against this project when I want to flow with it. The book wants to come from a place of love. Not angst. I need to take it easy. Breathe. Gently ask my inner critic to come back later, when I am on the second draft. For now, leave me alone with these blank pages. Let me see them as friends who want to help me be fully expressed. I need to learn to connect with my anxious heart, soothe it and be fully present here at my desk. Right now. And start, regardless. Go to the kitchen. Make a cup of coffee. Water the money-plant. Return to the study. Look at the man in a blue and white base-ball cap walking with his tan Labrador in the park across the road. The round green trees and the clear blue sky. I put on the soundtrack of Human’s music on Youtube – a spectacular film by Yann Arthus-Bertrand, music composed by Armand Amar. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uog4eCZTUX4) I am but a dot on this enormous picture inside which I live. Connected with everything. Not separate. In my heart, can I trust myself to be a tiny part of a greater process? Trust myself. Show up every day and work with the mystery. Trust myself.

Blue words

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Woke up at 3 am this morning to attend a Poetry workshop on-line, India time. Himalayan Writing Retreat made it happen for us twelve. Hard to believe so much fun and learning could happen with strangers, sitting thousands of miles apart. Here’s what came out of it. Looking forward to much much more. Today’s Haibun:

She is decimated – an earthen clay pot, once holding colourless water in a colourless circle, now dust. She watches this happen to her, as if from outer space. As she zooms in, she can touch the wetness of what is spilt all over the marbled floor. It is possibly still within reach, this source of life. Drop by drop, she picks it up and adds it into her tumbler of tears. It magically swirls into an aquamarine blue – deeper than the deepest ocean and sky. The blue of life. Yes. It is blue and all of it, her very own.  

She colours her words with it. The words that were once, blood red.

Her walls, her flowers, her friendships.

Now she has this blue, she’s complete again. Fully of this earth.

dancing flame . . .

finding myself

in the mirror again

(Resource: Learn to write at https://www.himalayanwritingretreat.com/)

Now, they are pink.

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The day after he died, our door-bell went berserk. This time the same young woman from the local florist, who had been here thrice already, stood at the door again. She had arrived with yet another bouquet of pure white lilies and roses. She stood just outside our front-door with tears rolling down her cheeks. Had this stranger accessed her own sadness or was she feeling mine? I thanked her and tried to console her, wordlessly holding her hands in mine, not believing any of that was happening.

Our eyes met through the fresh white flowers and films of salt water. She didn’t know me or the young man who had died and I didn’t even know her name. But we were flowing in the same river of humanity. Of loss.

For weeks, every room in our house reeked of the sickly-sweet stink of white lilies. I used to like that fragrance before all this but now it screamed ‘DEATH’. It crept into every empty space, crevice and corner. It sneaked under tables and inside locked cup-boards. It suffused my clothes and hair and got into my body like poison.

All these years later, that smell can still hit like an axe on top of my head when I walk past an innocent flower shop.

On my birthday last week, a bunch of Freddie’s flowers arrived unexpectedly. I thought I had cancelled that delivery but it seems I hadn’t. Roses, lilies and gladioli – but this time, they are a pretty pretty pink. Six days on, they are open and smiling and guess what … no heart-breaking fragrance.

Our long-distance relationship is working. Thank you, sweetheart.