Day 10 of 27 — Wednesday Evening

June 30, 2021

It’s Wednesday again. The same time of day as when I wrote last week, with the same sort of setting-sun light. Today only parts of the green canopy and very few buildings seem dusted with light gold powder. The ones in shade seem sad and neglected. I guess it's never the same light over the same landscape ever; nor is the observer the same, even when they are. 

 

I started writing a post late this afternoon. I wrote—

It’s so hot but a light breeze cools the sweat on my body. Soon I will need to draw-shut the curtains of this North-West facing room. The sun slants in strongly here in the afternoons and bakes the space. I’m one-third through my twenty-seven day challenge. Last week I was anxious, I wondered if I would be able to write a daily entry. This week I feel relaxed. That trust about writing that dissipated during the pandemic seems to be returning. 

 

I wanted to spend some time exploring what this trust that I could not concretely describe, just feel, was. But I was interrupted…. By a message from my sister… that made me spin… she was going for a lung CT scan.

 

We had spoken long about it earlier in the day. I had explained why she didn’t need it (her oxygen levels averaged at 97, she never had trouble breathing) and why it was dangerous too. She had agreed and then suddenly she decided to go.

 

It’s been a struggle to support my sister in following a course of treatment and tests I myself would shun. I feel her confusion and her sense of ‘no other choice’. She’s been struck with having to figure out how to handle her own, and her helper’s, covid infection. If this had happened a few months ago it would have been easier. Our family doc lost his life to covid a month ago. A huge loss to many, beyond family. He never overmedicated and only used additional tests when absolutely vital. We trusted him. He was a true healer. She’s been following the guidance of a new doctor whose ideas I don’t like. It’s hard to quiet my own opinions and remain open to her choices. Harder still when it is about health and when it is my only sister. 

 

Earlier, I shutdown my laptop, and pounded my feet on the treadmill, then cycled at a high intensity. An hour later, I felt calmer. Calm enough to share my views in a way that we didn't argue. 

 

I am trusting my words, whether on paper, or on the phone. I am trusting I have the right ones and the right tones to say what I want and be heard. I am trusting that even if they go silent for a bit they will find their ‘voice’ again.  

 

An hour ago white clouds formed a porous roof over the city. Now pink-orange clouds stretch into the distance while an artic blue sky peeks between. I want to paint this.

Day 9 of 27 — Conflict, My sis and I

June 29, 2021

My sis has been in the midst of a conflict since one day prior to the day she tested covid positive. A friend, F, whom I often felt was exploiting my sis’s helpful nature, demanded that my sis part with one of her helpers, because, ‘You have two and mine is leaving.’ 

 

When my sis told me about it I said, ‘WTH, she has cheek. Don’t do anything of the sort.’ My sis on the other hand was considering the demand, though she agreed that she would have preferred if it had been a request.

 

The next day my sis tested positive and Bombay Municipal Corporation sealed the house. Nobody could leave and everyone would be tested, they said. When my sis told F this, instead of showing concern, F exploded. She said my sis was using this as an excuse to avoid sending her helper over. My sis tried to explain but F accused her of lying, threatened her with a police case saying she had imprisoned the helper, etc. She sent several WhatsApp’s a day, left voicemails and called the land line which my mum answered as my sis was isolated in her bedroom. 

 

I fumed from afar, and wanted to phone F and tell her off. My style of dealing with conflict contrasts that of my sis’s.

 

The helper tested positive and F’s messages changed. She started saying, ‘We forgive you.’ I wondered what F had to forgive my sis for. My sis maintained her silence. F began blaming her for spoiling a long friendship and decided to block her. 

 

My sis avoids all conflict, while I charge in like a rabid animal. But after several years of conflict resolution training, reading a ton of books about facilitation and spiritual resolution methods, I’ve tempered my approach. I still like to clarify the conflict as soon as possible. I will say what I feel clearly and strongly, but I also listen and journal trying to feel into the other side—things said and unsaid, accusations and feelings driving the differences, and what’s common on both sides. I don't believe that 'time will solve this', but need to have it all out in the open, and can only move forward once I’ve talked with the person involved. 

 

As you can imagine when my sis and I fight it’s a mess. I insist she talk, and she withdraws into silence—shaking her head, crying sometimes because she cannot or does not want to express more. I hate her for it, I hate the distance it creates. I need to feel the closeness again.

 

In the past I always thought that my way was better, because it lead to connection and better understanding of each other. Today though  I  told her that she showed me in which situations her way is best. I would have got angry, fought with F, and prolonged the fight. I couldn’t resist adding though that probably her style is not best suited for conflicts with loved ones. She giggled. 

Day 8 of 27 — Bootless

June 28, 2021

 

Freeing myself of morning pages opened up time for other stuff, but I missed waking to the creamy blank pages on which I write with a different ink—on Monday it’s magenta in my oldest fountain pen—each day, while sipping a strong Assam black tea blend called Irish breakfast. But habits are made to be broken when they become bootless.

 

This blog was a hope, that through the constancy of daily blogging I would shrink the gap between what I feel and think and want to say, and what I manage to say. Then in the first week of writing I realised that this writing was revealing the eddies and snarls my mind and emotional states got into during the pandemic. 

 

Life is lived unidirectionally from past to present to future. Time flows linearly and in equal intervals, or so measuring devices tell us. Sometimes though we experience it differently, slow, quick, circular, entangled, incremental, sharp etc. And storytellers use time in various ways to tell their stories. They move between times and places and peoples to create the most impact. I love stories with unique structures and so when I began the second of my novel attempts I chose a structure of a book I had just read to experiment with.

 

I began the story on April 17^th 2017, sitting at the Cedele—which no longer exists—at I12 Katong. The experience of writing it was completely different from the fantasy books. It was constantly interrupted—by death, forced travel back and forth from India, illness, a newly rescued feral cat, and finally my daughters marriage. It was only in 2018 after the wedding celebrations were done, and a short trip to Naha made to train in Higaonna Sensei’s dojo, that I finally began writing the book. About two-thirds through the first draft I realised the structure I had chosen would not work. I had loved the structure so much that for a bit I tried to hammer my story into it, but to no avail. After a workshop during the writers festival that year it became clear that  I would have to rewrite from scratch. I wrote in a frenzy and managed to finish the first draft by December 28^th 2018.

 

I revised this draft through 2019, which also began with a death and two SOS trips to India, followed by the Koh Samui gasshuku, gall bladder surgery, the Gishiki in Naha, a holiday in Sapporo, another hectic trip to India. Not many months of continuity but I finished the second draft before the year ended. 

 

Today’s blogging was like the writing of this book – interrupted constantly. I wrote the first words at 11 am. Urgent calls from Bombay relating to the covid situation in my sister’s home dispersed my day. I cancelled plans to be available as things unfolded there and put off writing until now, 8:38 pm. Two wispy clouds blend into the night sky.  This is all I have today. 

Day 7 of 27 —Practice and the Pandemic

June 27, 2021

My post from yesterday needs more exploration. As a friend summarised it, ‘Two very different disciplines, but constancy in practice can definitely benefit both.’ Intuitively it makes sense. But perhaps the adaptation from one to the other might need more than just a ‘literal’ translation. Or perhaps I see them very differently.

 

I do write consistently. If nothing else just morning pages. I discovered Julia Cameron’s morning pages in 2011. Many artists swear by them. The stream of consciousness writing, long-hand, of three A4 pages is supposed to get the mental clutter and anxiety out of the way and free up the self for creative or simply productive work. Furthermore since nobody reads them no censor is looking over one’s shoulder and tearing down what goes on the page. 

 

Before I say anything more I will say that the twelve week Artist’s Way program is hugely amazing. It includes the morning pages with many more explorations that really tick-tock thoughts and emotions and rearrange something internally. 

 

But morning pages I think are like the 10,000 hours of practice that supposedly help one to master anything. But do they? Yet fewer hours of deliberate practice—practice with goals, with a plan, with guidance and analysis of mistakes—might bring mastery. When I was a brown belt one of my Sensei’s had said to me, ’10,000 repetitions of a kata (one I was trying to learn then) will not help you if you don’t think about the movements while doing them.’ He probably sensed my wandering attention when he said that. 

 

Doing karate on autopilot does not make me better at it. It might help me get a workout, shift my mood because of the endorphins it releases, but it will not improve my karate. Morning pages feel like that right now (and I reserve the right to change my mind). I think I am done with them. Phew – there I’ve said it. 

 

So coming back to karate and writing in the pandemic. I know part of what was different in both. In those days when the mind became sluggish and foggy my karate practice remained clear and focused. As soon as lockdowns began Sensei’s all over the world began putting out training videos. They were inspiration, they were guidance, and they led to deliberate practice. Besides, being responsible for teaching two two-hour classes each week was motivation enough to keep the mind always involved in what I was doing. And the year of doing this in the year when everything else fell away built a deep trust in it. 

 

Whereas with writing something else happened and if anything I lost trust. I even stopped trusting morning pages. There is more to unearth here. I could go back to the past, the year just gone, and try to ask why and what did happen. I could just continue on with this 27-day deliberate challenge I’ve set  myself and see what it brings. 

Day 6 of 27 — Two or three of my loves

 June 26, 2021

 

This morning I emerged from my bedroom at 6:50 am to the most stupendous sight — a bright round one-day-old full moon fairly high in the blue-grey sky, next to a very tall solid cumulonimbus cloud rising above the distant CBD. I brewed a cup of Ceylon tea and sat back on the sofa and watched as the cloud’s crown glowed red as if from a fire lit from within. Soon the cloud began to grow in width till it was three times its size, and the redness descended to the middle, while the crests glowed a purer gold.  The moon crept closer to it. I had forgotten that these are the clouds that bring us spectacular thunder showers. It was hard to tear myself away from this drama in the sky and I was late and had to run for my bus. But I was still the first person in the dojo and managed ten repetitions of sepai before the others bustled in. Rain began falling while we trained.

 

This 27-day blog experiment is a commitment to craft, to improving writing, another of my passions. I got the idea for it from the most constant of my lovers. One that is there for me in all weathers and ‘in sickness and in health’.  I train only four to six days a week — but I find a way to keep going even when injured—adjusting and avoiding what hurts and doing more of something else, or when ill—one of my Sensei’s had told me that Sanchin could be done even when very fatigued. A backache improves with the warm-up stretches and movement, and everyone knows that exercise promotes healing. What I am saying is that I don’t suffer from karate blocks like I do from writers blocks. I don’t procrastinate or need to feel inspired. I just do it. Some days it flows and some days it’s bad. 

 

I have been moaning so much about how the pandemic has dried up my writing. I’ve been lamenting the loss of words and story ideas. I have made efforts at trying to get them back. Many have started well and then fizzled, and I have become depressed. I don’t know why but the pandemic never dried up karate. I trained through all emotional states and troubles. A writer friend had once commented on this steadfastness and how it could be carried over to everything. Ya of course, I had thought but never deliberately put my trust in writing as I had in karate. Actually karate was the more difficult of the two for me. I was such a slow learner that my first Sensei in his wisdom did not grade me till I had trained in the dojo for almost eight months. Others came after me and got their first stripe even though I was one of the most regular students. So it is strange how often I give up on writing. 

 

Do I love it less? Nope. In fact it is another ‘death do us part’ relationship. 

 

I have overshot my words again today so tomorrow I explore further. The sky is filled with altocumulus or stratocumulus clouds — not sure which. Cloud watching is another of my loves.

Day 5 of 27 — In 14 days, this too will have passed.

 June 25, 2021

 

I just spent ten minutes wandering around our 1000 sq-ft apartment looking for my glass of water. I looked on all the coasters I have scattered on the furniture and then circled back and looked again. It was a while before I remembered that I had put it in the freezer to chill. 

 

It’s been such a day. Stress levels are lower than earlier this morning, but I still feel glazy, blank-ish. I woke and made a detailed list of things I needed to get done. But I feel like I’m in a ‘foetal ball with arms around head’ state most of the time. I uncurl in a snap when I have to deal with things related to my sis in Bombay. There are things on my list—low thought and focus level things—that I could attend to, but every time I think of anything but my sis my head begins to ache. My normally multi-tasking brain has blinkers on for everything but one thing. It would be nice to tick off some things on that list but I don’t trust myself to do anything. I feel like I will make mistakes doing the simplest things, and then fret over that adding to my stress. I did cut fruit, wash up the lunch things, do a sinus rinse and erm… not much else yet. Oh yes, I organised someone to teach my karate class tomorrow morning in case things get more messy. And once in a while my knee buckles while I am walking.

 

They say crisis never is just about one thing. I can confirm this is true from the present situation and from the past. My sis has things erupting in several directions. Some people are simply so self-absorbed and are adding to her tensions. But I am not ready to talk of that yet. Too, much too, angry.

 

They also say that you really know who your friends are and who you can depend on when a crisis breaks. That is true too. I had two friends from Bombay reach out to me, offering help, after they read yesterday’s blog. Friends from other parts of the world offered comfort. Something within knit together when I woke and read those messages. And the seniors in my dojo stepped up immediately to fill any gaps that I may leave while supporting my family in Bombay through this. 

 

I am not saying anything today that we don’t know. But these things should be said often. When people show kindness they change a person’s world. When people co-operate and support others they ‘better’ the world. Yet we laud strong action, that crushes spirits and oppresses, by iron leaders, and call compassionate, collaborative leadership weak. More on that another day.

 

Grateful too that unlike last year when covid positive people were being sent to government quarantine, now people are allowed home isolation if they have a separate room and bathroom. This is the only way my sis could supervise my mum’s wellbeing. Bless Bombay’s Covid War Room.

Day 4 or 27 — Rainy night

 June 24, 2021

 

It’s 10:52 pm. I am shaky today. 

 

The day began with a sense of openness. I went to the clinic for my six monthly blood test. The sweet senior nurse attended to me saying that she had checked my history and was concerned that the last few times that I had been pricked, I had bruised badly. She’s always so nice to me and I told her that. It’s my job, she beamed. 

 

It was over quickly and I took the MRT to Au Croissant  at Stadium to break the overnight fast. I always treated myself to a chocolate danish after my blood test. In fact the entire week between the test and till I got the dreaded result I indulged all my food desires. Cakes, burgers, fries—stuff I avoided the rest of the year—were on the daily menu. I crunched into a flaky almond croissant with a custard cream centre and stared at the world. I felt content. I had the entire day to dream, write, draw. A couple of women sat at a corner table and I began imagining what their story was — friends from school or college, one married the other not, and what lay beneath their smiles. A child swinging her legs and colouring while her mum blissfully sipped a coffee. A couple of men staring at a laptop screen and chatting. A bunch of teenage boys in shorts rushed past.

 

After I decided to walk home. The sun was overhead and scorching but like a lizard or a cat I worshipped it. I climbed the bridge over the Kallang river and as I always did, stopped at the mid-point and stared down at the water. Today the ripples formed curvy diamond shapes and moved quickly from right to left. I lingered. By the time I got home my sister had tried calling me twice but my phone had been on silent.

 

‘I have covid,’ she said when I called her back. 

‘WHAT! How!’

She had flu symptoms for two days and when she couldn’t smell anymore she decided to get herself tested. 

Since last year when India’s lockdown began this had been my biggest fear. That she would get covid and I would not be able to get home to help take care of our mum. It was happening now. 

 

My sister’s had a really tough year taking care of mum alone. After the call I  felt breathless. I needed to be there. I couldn’t bear it that she was ill and tired and had nobody to take care of her. My anger about the increased weeks between doses that the Govt of India had mandated rose up again. She had only had one dose of AstraZeneca. Not effective protection against the delta variant. After a bit I messaged her and she called me. We laughed when I said she was now a statistic on the Maharashtra Covid count charts. Then we got down to practical matters. She slept in the afternoon and I ate bowls of Garrett’s Chicago-Mix. 

 

Later while my spouse cooked I watched a misty rain drift from right to left across my balcony. The sky seemed to have descended to earth today and yesterday’s golden landscape was covered in a soft grey veil. I began to cry. All year I had felt so much guilt and today the last proverbial straw had fallen on my back. I felt slightly broke. 

Day 3 of 27 - A Busy Day

 June 23, 2021

 

It’s 6:28 pm. I’m in a bit of a panic because my mind is a blank and I need to write today’s words. When I woke this morning I felt blurry from sinus pain but my mind was fizzing with thoughts on what I could blog today. Then the day bustled on and one thing followed the next. Now it is evening. A fine blue sky with streaks of white feathery clouds hovers over a canopy of green, lit gold by the setting sun. But my head hurts and not a single idea remains. I groan, I wish I had written them down, but really, the day hurried me through it. I had little control over the hours.

 

A friend who read day one of this experiment nailed the impulse behind it. She said, ‘I think the isolation and stress of COVID have dulled most of our brains, and just getting back to trying to use words on the regular has to be a good thing!’

 

My brain does feel like it’s shrunk during the last year and I felt a need to flex its abilities to express, describe, and communicate. In small, lightweight steps. I don’t feel able to tackle the deeper things I am feeling – like the grief of losing two people I care deeply about in the space of just a few days, about two weeks ago. It is too hard to take the vastness of that and put it into a single blank page. 

 

I also needed to challenge a belief that has grabbed my voice. That I cannot create sitting in one place. I need to wander, I need to sit in coffee shops, I need to be on airplanes, I need to meet my friends. I need, I need, I need – everything beyond this desk and these four walls here. How can I create otherwise. I sheepishly discussed this with a friend who I have a weekly Wednesday conversation with. We try to explore our limiting beliefs. He’s a visual artist and he smiled. He too had grappled with the same. Unfortunately the conversation moved elsewhere without us finding any insightful resolution. So I must scuffle on, see where this experiment leads. 

 

The light on the buildings in the near distance is truly beautiful.  The west side all lit up, glass reflecting the fading sunlight, the other in cool shade. Soon both light and shadow will mix into night. 

Day 2 0f 27 — When words did flow

 June 22, 2021

 

When I started writing fiction in 2012, I could easily write 3000-5000 words a day. My fingers sprinted over the keyword and my body felt light and buzzed. I was so happy. Things were going on in life that made me sad but writing took me to a different place. I had more ideas than I could work on and wrote several short stories and the first draft of what would be parts one and two of a fantasy series. 

 

After racing through that first draft I stalled. I didn’t know how to revise. I read books on character, plot, setting, conflict, suspense, dialogue — and tinkered with the draft, and coloured post-its lined the wall above my desk. Soon I had almost 150,000 words and I knew I had to split the books. I had five very distinct characters and stories set in a world called Aurora with themes around patriarchy, identity and transformation. On Aurora some teenagers were called to four crafts — Warrior, Elemental, Shaman and Healer — by a dream that left them tattooed with the symbol of the craft. 

 

When I felt I could go no further on my own I enrolled in online writing classes and joined a fantasy and science fiction writing group. Armed with more craft tips I separated the books and revised Book One – Rifal’s Story, till it felt ready. I also had a draft for the next book, Two Journeys. Then supported by my writing group, I sent out query letters to agents! Phew!

 

And I was surprised to actually get responses. A few of them fairly encouraging, about the premise, the themes, and characters. One said I needed to improve the beginning as the writing didn’t pull her into the story and three said they liked the book idea but the protagonist was too old.

 

My female protagonist was 33 years old. She didn’t get a craft dream when she was a teenager and only did when she was already established in a ‘career’. Not that old, not really. But in fantasy, I was told, protagonists are never older than 16 and most times you first meet them when they are 8. My story was exploring transformation and integrating new identities in middle age so I didn’t really want to rework the story. Too many coming of age stories about teenagers in fantasy. 

 

But I was ok to let it go—and anyway the idea for my next book had already formed. I had loved those years writing and rewriting Rifal's Story. I was imagining, creating people and a world, societal norms etc. I was learning and expressing. It was joyous and I was constantly euphoric. I don’t remember any long blocked phases or times when the next bit of the story didn’t come to me. And that memory makes this long arid phase even more painful to bear. But I am glad to remember and feel the excitement of that time, something the depressed state I am in today obliterates.

Almost hitting 500 words so will stop. 

Day One -- of a twenty-seven day experiment

 June  21, 2021. 1:40 pm.

 

Things have felt like a struggle for a while – since end February perhaps. And the struggle feels most apparent, most intense in my connection with words. I feel like I have lost my ideas and now even my voice. It’s been a slow and painful process that began during the first lockdown and has since stripped away my fluency and confidence until today when I have no clue what I want to say and how I want to say it. I also find I am reading less which is also a huge loss.

 

My body has also been letting me down. The sinus of course is something I have never been able to deal with well here. At best I’ve coped and badly, as nothing I’ve tried has worked to relieve me of this terrifying feeling of not being able to breathe or think as the sinus pressure crushes my eyes, my nasal passages and tries to infiltrate my brain or rather my mind. Lately everything, particularly smells, seem to trigger an attack. My teeth have given a lot of problems as has my stomach. I’ve also had a resurgence of my vertigo attacks – one is on currently, a milder one which allows me a semblance of normalcy, but have had two very severe ones over the last two or three months which left me reeling for several days. And last week I had a logic defying, excruciating back ache. It suddenly appeared one Thursday evening and no amount of stretching or pain relief medication brought it down. Then on the following Monday after I had made an appointment to see the Physio on Wednesday it disappeared. Poof, gone!

 

The covid situation in India and here in Singy have been on my mind, and the oppressive behaviour of the ruling party of India as also the puzzling behaviour of citizens who never question these rulers. 

 

So my experiment is to write in this blog for 27 consecutive days. I don’t know what I will write about daily but I promise to write. I also will not write more than 500 words on any single day and never less than 200. I will edit but not too much. I don’t know if anyone will read and though I hope someone does I don’t think I am writing with that as a goal. 

 

The goal is simply to explore the disappearance of this word connection and to track my body symptoms and emotions on a daily basis. The hope is an understanding of this loss and a revival of my words and voice.