H is for Hurting on High Line #AtoZChallenge

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.

This year, I'm participating in #BlogchatterA2Z  powered by theblogchatter.com 

The attitude of greytitude

Good morning dear Readers.

I hope all is well with you and your loved ones.

"I'll post every Sunday if we are still observing self-isolation in May." I had thought at the end of April.

I'm not ready with a brand new post today.

So, sharing an older one which seems to resonate with me these days.

Wishing you all a peaceful and healthy Sunday

Arti. xx

What is grey?

Is it a minus or a plus?

Is it the fading of colour from lush black hair?

Or an adding of salt and pepper to their ripeness? 

Is the lack of colour a reminder of my mortality?

Or a timely reminder to celebrate the years lived?

How you look at grey is entirely up to you.

I'll be celebrating my forty-eighth birthday soon. I've been greying for a few years now. After almost a decade of henna application regimen of once a month, I switched to hair colour when the rate of greying spiked. I convinced myself that No Ammonia written in purple letters on my box of shop bought colour meant it's almost chemical free and therefore harmless. I was wrong. My hair didn't take to the colour like I'd hoped it would and so I'm back to applying henna twice a month. The henna I use these days is organic. Yes, I believe the claims made by the packaging.

I've thought about greying naturally many times. To not bother about covering up my ripening roots. To celebrate rather than hide my luck to have lived this long, and mostly in good health. I'll be a year older than my mother ever was when I turn 48. 

But this pull of vanity makes me pick up that brush, load it up with goopy green henna paste, slather it on my head, paying special attention to the pesky roots, the obstinate growth above the temples that NEVER changes colour, no matter how many layers of colour or henna I put on it. Then there's the 4 to 6 hours of waiting, wearing a drying henna crown covered in cling film or shower cap. A couple of sheets of kitchen towel are twisted and stuffed into the edges of the shower cap to stop the henna from leaking on to my forehead or ears or clothes or the floor. The washing off of henna takes time. The bath gets super messy. All in all, it's a very messy and tedious process. 

Of course, this can all be replicated in a salon. I don't have the patience to sit for long periods of time in salons and my middle class Punjabi upbringing runs strongly through my veins. So, if I can achieve the same results at home, I'd rather wear my crown of crusty henna for a few hours every fortnight while I cook or watch Netflix or read.

The question I struggle with is why do it at all? 

I admire women and men who are happy with their greys. My husband is one of them.

I'd like to be just like them when I grow up.

I keep promising myself that I'll stop colouring my hair after this next milestone in my life. Our son's high school graduation in May. Our daughter's university graduation in June. Our holiday in September. That dinner at a friend's last Thursday. Yes, you get the idea. The pull of vanity is strong with this one. 

At times like these, I take refuge in the shade of greytitude (a term that popped into my head on one of my morning walks): a state of being that allows a person to be kind to themselves. It's when grey mixes with gratitude. It's when after having lived a few decades of accumulating material comforts, one realises how important the free things in life are. Not just important, but essential and irreplaceable.

Greytitude has to be cultivated, like a habit.

So, I show myself the kindness I find easy to give to others. 

I remind myself  that I have hair and it's healthy and the choice to colour or not is mine. When it feels right, I'll stop. For now, I'll cover my greys. But, I won't let the greys cover me with self-conscious gloop. I've lived my thirties is boxes of what will people say. It's time to discard those suffocating boxes. 

Today, as I sit at my kitchen table to write a post after almost five months, I look out.

Doha sky is wearing a soft grey blanket. Winter has arrived very late this year. 

The month of December was warm. Both our children were home for the holidays. The four of us were together under one roof after almost a year. Our collective chatter, arguments, silly jokes, leg pulling, telling off, accusations, sharing of news, making of plans, meals at the kitchen table, pizza slices in front of TV, saving and then savouring of favourite episodes filled the house to the brim with the warmth of family.

January arrived. The children left.

An empty nest. A quieter home. 

The clearly defined lines of mothering, the black and white of raising a family have been blurring into the greyness of what next. What does my role as a mother of adult children mean to me? to them?

Like a drop of dark ink in a bowl of clear water, I feel my world of parenting disappearing into a bigger, wider world. I feel like that drop of ink: spreading one molecule at a time, mixing with the water, losing my essence as a mother to the world that my children now inhabit. A world where they don't need me or my cooking. The black and white world of bed-time stories, school runs, packed lunches, help with homework, PTA meetings, school plays and proms has disappeared like that drop of ink. 

I sigh deeply as I type this post out. The drop of ink may have disappeared, but the water carries the tinges of its colour. 

Greytitude comes to my rescue again.

It's time to take down the scaffolding of mothering.

I celebrate the diluted inky waters of my new role as a mother who gets more Whatsapp messages than hugs.

I rejoice in the 'miss you too' and 'love you' sign offs.

I look forward to the next time this home will house us all in its fold.

In the meantime, I celebrate the open pastures of time where I can frolic with a book, volunteer at a hospital or at a special needs school, enjoy long languorous lunches with friends or just sit and stare at  sparrows in the garden as they flit from a purple petunia to a buttery frangipani, cheerful in their tweets and sprightly flights. I can do whatever I choose to do with my time, which is no longer bound by the knots of school runs.

I choose greytitude: an attitude of gratitude as I enter my fuzzy, soft, warm grey years.
I choose to be far away from hard lines, from definitions, rules that stifle, clothes that restrict, make-up that covers up more than it shows, people who find faults with everything, human stories that only focus on the ugly and the offensive. 

Instead, I choose to savour my grey like one savours the soft pink and white splendour of cherry blossoms or the orange and red of an autumnal birch. For like the seasons, my greys  will dissipate in a blink of an eye. Whether I will be blessed with the bliss of a snowy winter, I do not know. 

In the meantime, let me relish these grey pauses and welcome the peace and quiet of my home of brick and mortar into my heart of flesh and blood. Let me sit in silence and dip into my inner well often so I may draw from it the milk of human kindness. Let me ground myself enough so I may have the strength to share the warmth of my  grey blanket with a soul in need. 

Let me line my attitude with the warmth of gratitude.

Leaving you with these most beautiful words written by Guru Nanak Dev ji, sung like a dream by Shivpreet Singh and sent to me by my dear friend, Vidya. Her name means knowledge in English. I smile.

Wishing you all many moments of peace and tranquility.

Valley of Flowers -- Nanda Devi National Park

"Choosing to see beauty creates more beauty."

wrote Katrina Kenison in her recent blog.

September 2015  turned out to be a mixed month for me. It began with a mother- daughter trip to the valley of flowers and ended with this mother hugging her daughter under a tree in a car park behind her daughter's hall of residence at her university. It was time to turn the next page of my book of parenting- the one where I would not be living under the same roof as her-- no wake-up calls, no what's-for- dinner, no you-don't-understand-mom and no reluctantly given hugs.

I knew I'd miss her, but I didn't expect to feel this physical tug, this dull ache -- this tangible evidence of a mother's love. 

Ish, a blogger friend of mine, had shared her response to the question some people asked her when her son moved many miles away from home to start uni:
People: Do you miss him?
Ish :       I have two blogs, you know.

Secretly, I'd thought that would be my response, too, as the past few months had seen me blogging more than usual. I was quite sure that I'd slip into blogging more deeply and just carry on. It hasn't happened that way. 

It's taken me more than a week to just gather myself. 

I'm behaving like I did when I first fell in love. 

All love hurts the same way. It hurt like this when I first left home to go to university. It hurt like this when I first fell in love. It hurts exactly the same when your first born moves out. The same heart strings get pulled and tugged.

'They come back, you know!' joked the gentleman serving coffee on the aircraft on our flight back to Doha. Both his daughters, he told me, had split from their husbands recently, and were now living with him and his wife.

"It's driving her nuts!" he grinned and moved to the next passenger on board.

For me, for now, I miss my baby. One thing I'm thrilled about is the time we spent together before she started living on another continent.

Thanks to April's beautiful words, I've enjoyed putting this post together. She wrote, "Change is as inconvenient as it is inevitable. Taking a lesson from Autumn, I think the best thing to do is to make the rearranging of our lives colourful. Take care."

Here we are then, a photo essay of sorts of a journey that turned out to be a jewel.

A train ride (shorter than expected) and a 12 hour long stint in a mini bus (longer and harder than expected) brought us to our camp in Auli. Camp is a misnomer really, Glamp would be more appropriate: proper beds and furniture, a bathroom with running hot water, a dining hall with chai and chicken curry.

Early next day, we were well rested and ready to embark upon our first leg of the trek; from Gobind Ghat to Ghangharia.

Come with me on this trek: see the sights, smell the flowers, meet beautiful people, gaze at the wonders of mother nature. 
(by the way, I've decided to only mention the names of the flowers I remember- the rest you can google:) 

Balsam flowers ...
we came  across yellow and lilac balsams on higher altitudes.

Sun-dried tomatoes

Pilgrims with tips: this lady and her friends piled us with tips on how to tackle the Hemkund Sahib trek. Such warmth and such love-- I felt it then and I can feel it now...more than two months later.

The Himalayan Teasel 
local name: Phulee

Amaranth plant or chaulai.
We used to eat delicious chaulai ke laddoo when we were kids. Chaulai ka saag is also commonly eaten in Doon.

Georgia O'Keefe comes to mind...

A Bee Colony...or an entire Empire?

After almost nine hours of trekking, we reached our camp in Ghangharia. 
The dining room window...

It rained buckets after we reached, so the night was cold. 
Arshia and I slept with all our layers on--
scarves, woollen hats and gloves!
Early next morning, after a hot shower (bucket and mug kind) and a hot breakfast, we were off to explore the Valley of Flowers.

 I can see the map of India...can you?

You know you're in for a grand time when you are greeted by eager Asters at the park entrance.

and a tree trunk doubles up as a resting spot.
(we were told that bears bring their cubs here to hibernate)

Wallich's Geranium

local name: Ratanjot

Himalayan white birch: the epics were written on the bark of these trees. 
The tree itself is a marvel to behold.  
Touch the bark and feel the sap coursing through its trunk. 

I stood there for sometime, catching by breath (of course) and gaping at its beauty.

These dark flower heads are one of the three variety of Brahamakamal found in this region.

Balloon flowers.
These remind me of Chinese lanterns.
Locals eat the tender leaves and shoots of this plant.

A botany guide met us when we started the trek of the Valley.
She is not yet twenty.

  Me: Is this your job or your passion? (referring to the guide work)

Yogita (the guide): This is my work, my passion, my love and my everything. I come here because it makes me happy.

Yogita: My grandfather named me Yogita because he could see how capable I was with flora and fauna around here.

I love her for her untainted confidence in herself.

Suddenly, she starts scrambling up this hill and comes down with a treat for us to taste...
these berries taste like Iodex ( muscle relaxant) and smell like it too when you pop them open with your teeth. 

Yogita rattles off Latin names of all the flowers we come across like she's reading items off a menu in her favourite restaurant- without taking any time to process. The flowers and berries and plants she points out to us seem like her old friends. She knows everything about them. And she's not yet twenty!

Her foray into guide work came by as an accident. A seasoned guide overheard her talking about some flowers and suggested that she take it up. The devastation of 2013 floods wiped out Yogita's parents' newly built house. They ran up the hills with only the clothes they were wearing to save their lives. She wants to go to college but she needs to gather enough funds to do so. So here she is, saving up money with her guide work.

Yogita: I want to publish a guide book so that people can find out about these flowers on their own when they visit.

She becomes my hero. 

These  berries grow very close to the ground, 
hugging the mountains.
Have you ever seen a blue this blue?

And here's a tasty treat spotted and offered by our guide, Yashpal. He called it the local strawberry. It looks more like a raspberry to me, but it burst with sugary sweetness when I popped it into my mouth...yum.

When leaves pretend to be petals...

Cobra Lily --gone to seed.

Forget- me - nots

Vajardanti-- it's used to cure dental and gum diseases.
Do you remember the Vicco Vajardanti ad?

Himalayan Fleece

Impatients aka dog flowers aka balsams.
Notice the little fairy light like flowers in the background?
Happy Diwali:)

This stunning beauty caught my eye just as we were coming to the end of our wanderings.
I forget the name now but I do remember the long list of medicinal benefits our guide rattled off when we spotted it-- it's used for its anti-inflammatory properties in 
Ayurvedic and Tibetan medicines.

Just this once, I googled the name. It's called Aconitum Balfourii or by its common name, the Indian Aconite.

I could stand there for hours and watch this mesmerizing blue dancing in the breeze...but we had to keep moving...

And just like that, we had reached the end of the valley. The cold glacial water was just what I needed to dip my tired feet in. The water stung like a thousand needles but I stood in it long enough to feel my feet go numb.
 All the aches and pains of the trek seemed to have osmosized. 
I felt refreshed and ready to head back.

I'm not sure what I'd hoped to get out of this mother-daughter trek. I was happy that my daughter chose to come along with me, to be part of what I like to do, to see India the way I see it, to feel the pristine beauty which is lost in the metros. Maybe, I had secretly hoped for her to witness the India of my childhood--unpolluted by the grime, greed and garishness of some of its metros.

I feel that I got a lot more than I'd hoped for or even imagined. I could see it in the way she spoke about her trip when we got back, first in Delhi, then in Doha.

All this talk of religious intolerance in India, the Paris bombings, the never-ending violence on Palestinian soil and the pain that hogs world news these days makes me want to head to the mountains forever. I want to escape from this vulgarity of humans- cloaked in the guise of religion. 

Are the asters that dance and the sunflowers that bloom and the balsams that sway Hindus or Muslims or Christians or Sikhs?

I'm happy my baby who will be nineteen next month saw how beautiful God's intentions for his Earth were and are...how magnanimous the Universe is and how unbelievably lucky we are to be able to enjoy all this. What are the odds of us being born on the only planet we know which supports life as we know it? Why do we insist on letting it all go to waste? Why?

The whys trouble me. And the what haunts me...What sort of world are we leaving behind for our children? As usual, words penned down by wise people calm me down. I read. I breathe. I go for a walk. I look around me and feel grateful for a healthy body, a happy and loving family and Whatsapp (for keeping the connection strong with family-- for FREE:)

I'll end this post with these wise and wonderful words from The Parent's Tao Te Ching by William Martin.

****

Go for a slow and mindful walk.

Show them every little thing that catches your eye.

Notice every little thing that catches theirs.

Don't look for lessons or seek to teach great things.

Just notice.

The lesson will teach itself.

and my favourite line from this book...

Don't mistake your desire to talk for their

readiness to listen.

****

It's been a long gap between the last post and this. 'Back to work' has robbed me of my blogging time. The weather in Doha is gorgeous right now. Long walks outdoors are helping me to fill my cup of creativity, so I do hope I'll be able to write and share more frequently in the future.

Thank you dear reader for being here:) Enjoy the flowers...xx

For more information about the flowers in the valley, check out:

http://www.valleyofflowers.info