Dear Readers,
Welcome to the second week of the #Blogging from A to Z April Challenge 2021. My theme this year is based on the Japanese concept of Ichigo Ichie which means--"What we are experiencing right now will never happen again. And therefore, we must value each moment like a beautiful treasure."
Thank you.
Arti
The post today is a departure from the 'feel good' moments I've covered thus far in the challenge. Sometimes, painful moments hurtle towards us like meteors and can potentially throw us off balance, carve out massive craters in our hearts and leave us feeling empty, if we let them.
They are necessary though.
They are as valuable as the happy ones for they show us our other side, the unpleasant part of us; those undesirable character traits which we only see in others.
I once read somewhere that the 'thing' that irritates you the most about a friend, partner, colleague, offspring, sibling is something you're in desperate need to address within you.
It's a bitter pill to swallow. Over the last four/five years of paying attention to what ticks me off in others, I'm beginning to see the wisdom of this odd logic.
Let's take you straight into that moment with a poem called:
Hurting on High Line
Torn and shredded
lay my insides
the womb that had birthed them
travelled up to where my heart used to be
and displaced it.
My children, all grown up
didn't look like their baby photos any more.
At the brink of adulthood they stood
scraping out chasms between us
and filling them with words so hurtful,
I couldn't believe they were mine.
How could this be?
Where had I gone wrong?
What could I have done differently?
No answers came that day.
We went ahead with our plans anyway:
To explore a garden
greening an abandoned spur.
Hurt, the artful Grandmaster
played us like pawns
using indifference and silence to open
her chequered game of blame.
We were putty
in the master's hands
slaying each other on her command.
Hope grew in between the rail tracks that day.
whispering patience on petals
softening the rigid lines of metal
and malleable clay
so seeds may sprout gentle compassion
we find easy to profess for those that don't see us as honestly
as our children do.
***
Not all moments that stick are memorable for the right reasons. My daughter and I had gotten into a nasty argument that morning. We had a couple of days together in NYC and my sister had planned a wonderful day for all of us. So, we went ahead with the plans but every time I look at these photos, it reminds me of the journey my daughter and I took that day in 2019--beginning with pain and hurt, muddling through with start/ stop/start again talks and tears and ultimately reaching love, where we are today--somehow finding our way to each other's point of view
In fact, over the past couple of years, I've come across many of my friends who've shared similar episodes with their almost grown up children.
This is new to most of us as we never had the 'freedom' to be so honest with our parents. By default, we expect our children to follow in our footsteps.
Every generation feels short-changed by their predecessors. Our children are no different.
I'm learning to figure out that the hurt we exchange with our children/loved ones/friends/colleagues when we lash out at each other is the residue of what's churning inside.
A happy person will never inflict pain on another. I'm beginning to see a pattern. The ones who have an opinion on everything or complaint about most things are hurting inside. I'm not here to preach or pretend that such people aren't annoying, but, maybe, they're the ones who need our 'listening' ears and an open heart more than the ones who we always love to hang out with.
Whenever I'm hit by a tsunami of self-doubt, I turn to books and their wisdom.
This time, it was 'The Parent's Tao Te Ching' by William Martin. And here are the lines that helped me:
"Compassion, patience and simplicity
cannot be taught
until they are experienced
And when we experience them,
we lose the need to teach them.
We live them instead.
And then our children learn."
From another page of the same book:
"Children become confused
when parents become rigid,
holding rules above love.
Be consistently flexible.
Hold tight only to compassion."
Question: Should we value all of our moments as treasures and hold onto them? Even the painful ones?
Answer: Wise people illustrate the futility of holding on to pain with a simple experiment. Take a jar. Fill it with whatever you fancy (water, doubt, pain, pebbles, hurt). Hold this jar in your hand and extend your arm. You'll notice that the longer you hold on to it, the heavier and more painful it gets. Something like those moments/memories. Instead, if I use these moments as reminders or guides to look inward, to figure out my truth, to find out why it hurt at all and then let go, I'm able to put the jar down and move on.
Life's too short. I choose to revisit that which makes me happy and learn from that which made me sad once.
After all this sombre soul searching, let's wrap up the 'H' post with some photos of the 'hopeful and happy' garden we walked through that day in September of 2019.
The High Line is a "rail trail created on a former New York Central Railroad spur on the west side of Manhattan in New York City." according to Wikipedia
Have you held on to a jar of water/ pain/ hurt for too long and then let go? If you'd like to share your findings with me, you know I'd love to hear.
