choices

My blog has been plagued with spam views which creeped me out and made it difficult for me to write for a while. It also made me question my choice of putting myself out here in this uncertain space. Questions about vulnerability, being judged and feeling silly came up. But its something I love doing and I am back.

I am looking at Shams Tabrizi’s lines that I have copied into the inside cover of my journal.

‘…Human slowly advances when he accepts his contradictions.’

Often I know I am truly alive by the conflicts raging within my body and heart. Contradictions that cannot be resolved, merely observed. Today I am thinking of whether or not I should continue writing the boiling frog memoir I started. Just about 3000 words written and already so many intense moments and emotions have emerged. Will writing this take me to healing or bring up past events that will tear my life apart again? Will it mess up my current stable relationships? Should I write it as a fictional account or a true story? I must do it, I don’t have to do it. I will find answers but probably not today.

My mind lingers lightly on a confrontation I was faced with this weekend. A friend felt that I had not been there for him when he had needed. This friend had lost someone very close to him. Someone who was mother, father and probably friend in the days of his childhood. My husband and I had been with him when he got the news and stayed with him till he made preparations to leave and was wanting to sleep.

Then deep in our own crises I checked in on him through his social network bleeps and wrote a message there. Satisfied he had many friends around him I put him out of my mind. But he had expected me to follow up and ask how he was. Contrastingly my husband had expected him to get in touch with us once he returned to Singapore. I on the other hand had no expectations from him or from myself about this.

So, three months later when these questions emerged I honestly answered them. He reacted with hurt and made a choice to not take the conversation further and break contact with me.

As is my habit I first tried to understand his viewpoint. I know his choice came from hurt and disappointment. A sense of trust betrayed. After a bit my focus changed to myself and I found that I felt that I had done nothing that required an apology. The lines from Oriah Mountain Dreamer’s 'The Invitation' came to mind.

‘It doesn't interest me if the story you are telling me

is true.

I want to know if you can

disappoint another

to be true to yourself.

If you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul. If you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy.’

I had quoted these lines to another friend in 2002 after defending a choice I had made. She at that time had felt betrayed and abandoned by me. I had admitted that I had not realized she had needed my support and then proceeded to explain myself. I too had been going through a crisis that she had not observed and had chosen to keep my energy close to myself. Both of us had spoken our feelings and our friendship had come through stronger. She being a poet herself had acknowledged the painful truth in those lines and said she wanted to live in a way where she would not betray herself.

To be able to betray another to be true to oneself is not an easy choice. Any betrayal whether of self or of another is painful. But so often we make a choice that will make us look trustworthy in the eyes of another and in doing that break trust with ourselves.  In both these incidents I had made a choice where I had disappointed another and was seen as faithless by them.

But in the first case the relationship was strengthened and in the second it broke.

As I continued to think of the current relationship dilemna I also touched a strong anger within. In these same months my family also had been through strong storms. Besides the stress of moving and of being cheated my daughter had been ill with the high fever of a kidney infection in a foreign land, my mother depressed and in pain and my husbands mother had surgery in both eyes. We were grieving the loss of two well loved pets. Friends whom I had not seen in a year wrote or called one of us when they realized what we were going through. But this friend did not contact us at all. There are different sides to any story and its good to be reminded of that.

Every conflict teaches me something about myself and the boundaries within which i operate. Here, I was left with questions about friendship, what I look for in a friend and what I will give and receive in relationships. It is part of the de-cluttering I began earlier this year. Over time I have come closer to living my core values in relationships and mostly i am happy where I am. 

I also see that to be true to oneself one needs to first know oneself and not be afraid to follow the dreams and questions that might lead through disturbing paths to reach this knowledge. And so I might have come closer to the choice about continuing to write that memoir.

who am i?

i had many ideas in the shower today but unfortunately they all faded away like dreams that disappear when the alarm rings. i am still in a gathering phase and though earlier this year i wanted to sprout and  tried hard to, i know now that i just put myself back as i was not ready. yesterday i did an interesting exercise from deena metzgers book 'writing for your life'. it was about autobiography. take five mins and write your autobiography. re-read and see what major areas you have omitted. write again for five minutes only those outtakes. and write it again and again and again. put the story away and look at it later. i looked at it today and i wanted to write about some insights here but instead i got pulled into doing something else i had seen in her book. and this is what emerged.

right now i am in transition. i volunteer, i write, i do karate and try to find the hidden path. before that I was a conflict facilitator trying to figure out ways to make prejudice disappear. i wanted to work with psychological and emotional violence in large groups. during that time i was also a karateka  who first visited the dojo because of a dream. before that i did yoga and vipassana meditation and worked on my dreams every day. i studied process work found soul friends and grew as a world citizen and a human. before that I was a teacher of environmental studies in a school where electrical failures were a symbol of a space badly needing restructuring. before that i was a teacher of physics in the same high school i was a student at earlier. one of my students gave me card that said that my way of teaching physics was mind altering and i was happy. but during that time I also was a student of psychotherapy and got boiled like a frog in a slowly heated pot. before that i was a student of education who was bored into a mindless stupor by sitting in large classrooms and often escaped to the pub downstairs and drank beer instead. before that i was a human rights activist who wanted to understand the ‘truth’ and bring powerful political parties to justice. before that i got pneumonia and watched Bombay burning during the riots and felt my social consciousness awakening. before that I was numb and self absorbed and didn’t even know it. before that i was a mother, unfortunately not a very good one. Before that for a while i was nothing, a drifter trying to find my spot on this earth. i was a friend, a sister, a wife, a daughter, a lover during this time too. before that i was a student of physics at the university of michigan and i found my partner and married him. Before that for a year i was a student at st. xaviers college in bombay and hated it and cut more classes than I attended and was reprimanded by the department head. before that i was a student at the jb petit high school for girls where I was the best in my class at math and physics. I thought i wanted to be an aerospace engineer. i read science fiction and dreamed of living on a space ship and meeting alien races. before that i lost my father and changed my identity and became the class brat but made some new friends. during that time i ran about wild, climbed trees, disappeared into our back garden and pushed everyone away. before that i was just beginning to feel rebellious and began confronting my mother and teachers whenever i could. before that i was introverted and shy and till the third grade nobody even noticed me and i had very few friends. i hid under the bed and read adventure stories and comic books of superheroes. before that i hated school. before that on my first day of kindergarden i clung to my kashi bai and wept. before that i have very few memories but one clear one is about letting the parrot out of its cage because i hated caged things. photographs of long hair tied in plaits, a squint and a worried frown.

autobiography in reverse. in one paragraph. it tells me a lot about who i am or was or might be.

try it out? 

lost and... found?

my plans are not going well. there are times when i can plan, make a schedule and move ahead quickly and do what i wanted to. those times nothing stops me. not physical or emotional pain, relationship conflict or external forces. all obstacles i push aside and just get going. this is not one of those times but for some reason i am feeling no pressure to hurry. there is an urgency but no pressure and i am wondering about that.

i began reading hindu myths by wendy doniger on monday. i think i chose her book for she seems to just translate the myth with all its strangeness and ambiguity and not change it by interpreting it or putting her own bias into it. the book seems to allow the myths as they were in the rg veda or puranas to speak for themselves. though as she herself says these myths were part of an oral tradition and there is no way of dating the myths or even knowing how they were changed before being recorded. 

reading these myths is unpleasant. they are sexist and often brutally bloodthirsty. reading too many in one go i feel might even desensitise me to violence and pain . the first one in the book, a creation myth, mentions incest and how 'the' father slakes his desire by raping his daughter and from that union life begins. i want to vomit. its difficult to read them and not disgustingly throw the book down the garbage chute. its aslo disheartening to notice how male domination goes back so far back and how there are a disproportionate number of male characters (gods, demons, humans) in them. what hope does the collective hindu psyche have with this as part of its heritage? more on this later.

meanwhile my daughter found a free e-book - the first of a trilogy titled when 'women were warriors'. the book is a waking dream and perfectly balances the hindu myths. the book, as the title may suggest to some, is not about a mere role reversal where an oppressive matriarchy holds power and dominates men. it is a beautiful telling of women's stories that are gentle and wise. unlike the hindu myths which also contain wisdom but are filled with violence, these are like songs for my soul. the hindu myths beg to be interpreted. this book just wants to be felt. or so thats the impact of the first hundred pages on me. there seem to be many important themes and questions within the book, many archetypes that pull me in, but they are taking their time to unfold and slowly breathe within me. more on this too later. 

for now, i had begun the task of reading the hindu myths and magically another book which showed me a way in which i would want to re-write these myths has fallen into my hands. lets see where it takes me. i don't know why but sometimes, especially at times when things are not going so well, i look for signs that i can interpret as prophetic omens of hopefully good things to come.

on tuesday i woke eager to take my plan from the day before forward. first on agenda was some physical activity and after long i took my sai out to play. the day developed in an unexpected way when i came back after a sweaty hour and looked for my new canvas sai cover to put them back into but could not find it. this cover was very special to me. i had looked for one like it here in singapore but all i had found was a large bag like semi-soft case which i had to carry around. finally when i went to okinawa last year i got this soft canvas cover which slips into my back pack. i loved this cover and on tuesday i could not find it anywhere.

i was shocked at the impact this had on me. i suddenly felt drained and all the losses of the year - particularly the death of our two hamsters - all the things out of my control came flooding in and hit me like a solid blow to the solar plexus. our apartment is small and the search for it didn't take long. at some point i knew it was gone but i could not let go. my daughter reminded me that i could easily order one online but i just wanted it back. it became more than a sai cover. it became a symbol of everything about this year that i needed to grieve and all that i had felt unfair and unjust. irrationally i spent the day crying over it and thinking of places it might show up in. but i could not find it. 

my husband and daughter were amazing. they respected my feelings but no amount of support eased my heartache. i hungered to just get it back.

magically that evening my husband found it in the linen closet with the duster cloths. it must have got washed with them during the non-move and in the chaos of those times hid away among them. i was deliriously happy. something dark and heavy within me lifted and hope floated in. i imagined that the losses of this year would end. they may not,  but my whacky mind still soared uncontrollably when it was found.

actually my life makes very little sense right now. the choices i made and the paths i chose five years ago are haunting me. i seem to want to go back to bombay and be closer to my mother and sister. perhaps its just because my mom has been unwell and i want to be there with them while she is healing. perhaps there is a shift in my priorities. perhaps i am remembering who i am again. there is an urgency to know but strangely still no pressure. is this what feeling like i am where i need to be feels like? i am attached to this easy feeling lasting but who knows what even the next hour will bring.

today

monday may 13. i have arrived on this day with a faint trace of a plan for moving forward. its a very strange feeling. i have made many plans for a while but most of them either to do something that i had to do (often to take care of something that i had made a mess of) or sometimes, and i feel embarrassed as i admit this, just to fill the time so i don't feel the hollow emptiness of the day. yes, plans made to avoid feeling the depth of the sense that i am drifting and drifting compass-less through vast unknown seas. sometimes i close my eyes and imagine what it might feel like to be lost at sea with each wave undistinguishable from the one before. i have felt this way internally for a while even as i have been busy doing 'things' over the last two months.

pain levels began to decrease on thursday and i felt hopeful of my back healing and my mind finding calm sanity.

but friday was another one of those strange days that has become the norm lately. oftentimes in life days are quite 'normal' and fall nicely below the hump of a bell curve plotting the ordinariness of days. but lately my days have mostly fallen at the 'very bizarre' end of the curve creating a large hump there and probably shifting the curve itself so that is the new norm.

i woke on friday to find that the internet connection in the apartment was on the blink. nothing i did allowed me to connect and  attempts to restore it further disrupted it. i had no choice but to flow with this even though my day normally begins with answering emails and reading news online. some part of me angered, felt persecuted while another i curiously found said 'hmmm, so what should i do with all this extra time.' and with that thought i observed another part of myself glad about the disorder and wanting to loll in the muddle.

for a long time i had identified with wanting so badly to put the crazy days behind and finally start finding routine, structure and meaning in my days again. for long this had eluded me and on friday i finally let go of this desire. we had plans to see iron man that evening but when we arrived at the door of the theatre we were told that the projector was on the blink and we could get a refund or see another film. how often does that happen i wondered? we saw another film and went to find some dinner. finding something - probably part of a paper napkin - in my soup unsettled that.

i had moved by then into a part of myself that witnesses events without being entangled in them. i surrendered finally to whatever trickster winds had been disrupting my plans all this year welcoming the crumbling patterns and beliefs i was. 

so to arrive today to a whisper of a plan is unnerving. i dreamt last night of walking over the rooftops of beautifully carved ancient temples, revelling in the intricate details of the sculpted images. i knew when i woke that it was time to find a way in.

i have three projects i want to grapple with this year; to revise and edit my fantasy novel, to gather people together and work on re-writing some of the most oppressive hindu myths i know and to explore the time i was boiled like a frog. all of them tug at me a bit but none really have the wonderful whoosh of energy that would pull me in and along. so maybe just spending some unstructured time with each daily might point me where i need to go?

i also know that i need to keep that part of me that loves disorder happy. but the paradox of this is that if i plan disruption into my days then would merely be another form of order, right? i am beginning to realise that there are more chaotic blasts ahead but i am leaning forward, throwing my arms wide and letting them blow my hair all over my face.

nothing much to say

chronic pain and i am drifting.  unsure of who or what i am. feeling like a mass of particles that are trying hard to come together but achieving that only for moments. its strange what i can and cannot do when i am in this pain. maybe that tells me something about myself?

i can wake up and make a cup of tea. i can do household chores and also easily do the part-time work i do. that surprises me because the work requires listening and reflecting and asking sensible questions. but i think that its so much a part of me that i can do it even while some other part of me is totally focused on the pain. listening to someone else's pain takes me away from mine.

i hurt my back in feb and with all the going-ons between then and now i did not give enough attention to it for proper healing. then i re-injured it in the dojo last thursday and the pain level shot up from around a three or four to an eight. 

of course the first thing i could not do was my physical activity. no gymming, no running and no karate.  descartes said 'i think therefore i am.' sometimes i only know my body exists when i arrive fully into it and when i am practicing karate is one of those times i know i have a body. now instead of feeling a body i only feel pain. i feel pain therefore i exist?

on saturday i had signed up for a fiction writing course and in chronic pain i arrived wondering if i would get through the day. the body and mind can accomplish more than i give it credit for. i could sit through the day, participate in the activities and have good conversations with others despite a pain level of 6-8 throughout the day. but that was where it ended. alone, i could not focus enough to write at all after that. part of me feels 'i write therefore i am' and so i felt lost and wondered if i existed and my self scattered away in little bits floating in a shape that was not at all me.

murakami's  'what i talk about when i talk about running' had been calling to me for a while so i began reading it on the friday after i had the injury. most times when my concentration is weakened by pain i cannot read. i watch tv or stare out of the window. but the book was speaking directly about two things that i too hold important in my life. writing and physical activity. i enjoy pushing my body, setting challenges for it and accomplishing them. murakami runs almost daily and he wrote the book when he was forty and found his body was slowing down, not able to achieve what it could  before. that touched a cord within. at fifty-two i feel i cannot do what i could last year.

i have set myself a goal of going to a gasshuku in koh samui every march. in the last two years the number of training hours has increased from an original sixteen over four days to more than thirty over seven. this year i struggled through the week and i did not like what i was feeling. maybe next year i will have my mojo back but meanwhile its hard and especially with this back strain i feel old.

i had always believed that the mind would continue functioning when the body began giving up. i am not so sure anymore. i haven't been able to think clearly or write over the last few days. perhaps writing is still something new to me and i am still in my learning phase around it? i wonder at what point something becomes a natural part of me? and i wonder if that takes away from the newness of it? does it take away from creativity and joy that comes from beginners mind? 

on monday the pain had gone down to about a five but i felt worse than ever. the constant pain nagged at me and i felt very depressed. i ended up fighting with my family. the pain had weakened my capacity to hold intense feelings. we all blew up but luckily our 'learned natural' ability to love, care and reconcile with each other kicked in.

yesterday i visited the a and e. the pain was scary and i wanted answers. my pressure was 162/94. crazy high. pain drives blood pressure up. the x-rays showed no injury to the spine and i was relieved. but i was disoriented and got on the wrong bus. i got off and found a little chicken rice place and ate a plate of the best chicken rice i have had in a while. i slept like the dead when i got home.

today the pain is still about a five. i wanted to write but i had nothing to say and no words to say it with. but still i wanted to write and so i did. wonder when i will have even half hour of no pain? 

oblivion - a few beginning thoughts

oblivion - mental blankness, amnesia, indifference, unawareness.

yesterday we watched oblivion. like the films name - as i watched a part of my mind went blank. i was left flattened and empty by the film.

it was a promising story line in some ways but was so badly scripted. it had good visuals but no depth in the characters and what bothered me most was how stereotypically the male and female roles were crafted in the film. the male technician goes out all day and does things, solves problems, has adventures and gets messy. the female stays in, perfectly coiffed and dressed, makes dinner and will not even be coaxed into one last adventure. she tempts the male with her sexuality into forgetting, moving him away from his memories and from his 'source'. the second female lead, or was she the first, just listless and adding nothing much to the drama of the film. neither can do anything without the male. and of course those endless days, each similar and routine in some way, the deeper purpose of which is forgotten and the only hope is to return to something completely unknown in the near future - a reward for services rendered in an almost slave-like way? a promise of eternal happiness? 

how many of us live just these lives? robotic and unfeeling. how many families are just 'clones' of every other? living for some promise of 'tomorrow'.

why are so many films made of horrible scavengy aliens wanting our planet? they are our shadow. we are the scavengers, the predators, the spoilers of paradise. the way we treat our own planet why would any race want it? is it not more likely that if we had the capacity to, we would go scavenge other planets and leave them as polluted and depleted as we are leaving ours.

but what disturbed me most was how insidiously anti-woman the film was. even among the rebels - the only ones who knew the 'truth' and remained aware - there were more men than women. and i completely missed the symbolism in the end. a man flying a white sperm like object into a large black triangle pointing downwards, a dark womb lined with 'eggs'. he needs to destroy it for the triangle holds that alien something that is evil and controlling. yikes, how much more misogynist can something be!

symbols do really seep in unknowing into our consciousness and shape our feelings, attitudes and behaviours. i have always found hindu stories and myths very misogynistic and blame them for the shadow patriarchy that exists in india, normalising horrible crimes against women. my daughter is writing her masters thesis around this and has been reading hindu myths. the creation myths are filled with incest and violence. they are shocking and i wonder if this is why men rape their five year old daughters, nieces and neighbours? yesterday she asked, 'do men hate women so much to have written such myths?' many talk about a goddess culture that preceded this patriarchal one with a pantheon of strong male gods and sidekick goddesses. later she asked 'was matriarchy so terrible and oppressive to men and is that why men hate us?' 

i think such questions are really interesting and glad she and others are focusing on them academically. i guess my speculative fiction writing is also an attempt at looking at such dynamics and trying to envision what an egalitarian world would look like. not a patriarchal world where with a few strong women characters, but a world with total equality. eager to see where my imagination and where my daughter's research will take us.