Breezes of Change

February 27, 2024

 

There is a breeze stirring the leaves on the trees outside. It was stronger earlier and I was mesmerized by the swaying trees. Even then on some trees the leaves moved gently, while on other trees branches swayed with force, and the tallest, slimmest, trees moved almost as if they were trying to uproot and walk.

Today all I want to do is snuggle in bed. A bird yelled outside, probably in the hill park, since 6 am and I couldn’t sleep with the shrill calling, but i smiled as it reminded me of squealer. While I was in Bombay, I had attempted to make several sketches of squealer as he sat seemingly, at least for that moment, content on his resting tree. And last week my artist friend insisted I show him one of my sketches, when I told him that I had barely written in the weeks away, but since my restless right hand had wanted to make marks on paper I had sketched often. 

My artist friend was one of the first people I spoke to on returning. I hadn’t spoken to him in a while, as when I was moving I felt I had nothing to say to him and he was into all these fascinating projects and people which made me feel even more 'boring' than I already felt. I still do feel boring as I still am blocked from anything creative. My friend looked at the sketch a bit and asked if it had been a windy day, and I said yes. He said, ‘The branches are frenzied and the mix of chaos and the still bird makes it a fascinating sketch. Thank you for showing it to me.’

 I am glad I had the courage to share that sketch, which I had felt was so amateur (and it was). It felt good that it captured the moment in a vivid way.

When I landed in Bombay the weeks there felt endless. It was the longest trip I had made there in a decade or more, and I didn’t want to be there. When you don’t want to be where you are the time spent feels longer, stretched, endless, doesn’t it?

Anyway, I gave myself a project to occupy me meaningfully. My mum and I haven’t ever gotten along. My mum, it felt, was always denying me things — material or dreams. My sister on the other hand was denied nothing and that had always been something that kept me apart from both. My project was to get to know my mum and sister better. I knew nothing about my mum, her life, her childhood, and the sense that she might be gone before I found out anything, and would then regret it, felt very intense this trip. My sister too felt the same and the first days, a week or a ten-day, were spent in happy recollections. I made a family tree of her side of the family — she had four brothers and four sisters — as I listened and heard about my grandfather, someone I barely recall. My grandmother from mum’s side lived to be 93 and I have memories of her — some that mum didn’t remember. So strange.

I also probed my sister about her childhood, and it was weird how differently she and I, saw the same event in our lives. Our conflicts, my conflicts and annoyances, about my little sister dissolved as I heard her side of each event. My sister agreed that mum had bought her everything she asked for but as we talked we also realized that the things we wanted were so different and why my mum possibly denied me. An example is that she wanted colourful hairclips, and pretty clothes, and dainty shoes, while I wanted swiss knives, and rugged jeans and boots. 

Unfortunately, it all stopped one day. I asked my mum one afternoon about my dad and a memory I had of them. Her face shrunk and tone dropped. She got up and said she needed a nap. That evening she sat in the corridor looking unwell and said she was feeling low when I asked if she was ok. 

Next morning she told me it is sometimes better not to remember some things. 

So much pain in that one line. Though she didn’t tell me I suddenly saw her life after my dad passed. They had barely been married 13 years and so much disappeared, so much life shrunk after. The enormity of what living in our joint patriarchal family did to her, a widow at 31, smashed all prior perspectives of my mum out of my mind. My mum didn't know how to let me be myself, as she probably didn't know how to be herself either, at least in the family she married into. I saw how much strength she much have needed to bring up three children, to deal with her loneliness, her lack of agency, and so much more that I cannot fit into this page on my screen.

I didn’t ask her to talk after and sometimes by themselves memories of her childhood, of her brother’s and sister’s still spilled out, but mostly we spoke of different things after — interesting in themselves which I might write a post about. Once though a friend from the past stayed overnight with us and that brought up a different set of memories — which too will need another writing session to record. But I felt I did complete that part of my project which was changing my relationship to my mum and my sister. 

The weeks I spent there in the beginning of this year never stopped feeling endless and I dread the next trip I must make this Saturday to live at my daughter’s place  — only 30 mins away — with our cats as daughter and son-in-law go on a holiday. My sister says it is only around the corner and will be easier than going to Bombay, but the distance seems further and the moving there even harder than the first trip of 2024. Somehow all the rest of the trips I need to make this year rush into my already crowded mind, and I am confused about which one I am actually packing for. 

Stillness is needed but a frenzy does prevail. Not sure where I might find that stillness that was in my sketch of squealer being rocked on that tree blown by constantly changes breezes. It is going to be a year of much change. I just know this.

Oh — I did finish two of the eight books I had borrowed last week! 

First Post of 2024 — Yay!

February 20, 2024

   I’m sitting at my desk, a new desk I bought for my new home. I finally tossed the cheap Ikea pull down desk I had used for almost all of the 16 years I lived in my last home. I’m facing a very dark cobalt blue wall that my husband thought was too dark for this small room – he said it would feel like a cave, and it does in some ways. But with the brightness of the sunlight from the open windows that run right across the wall opposite the door, the light oak grey closet finish, and almost matched curtains, the room feels bright. 

I have barely sat at this desk though we moved into this home on December 14, 2023. Too soon after moving in and getting ‘box-free’,  I went on a month long trip to Bombay. I took with me five fountain pens, a whole lot of notebooks, and some clothes. I barely did any writing there but sketched  the trees outside my window with the pens I had taken. I guess I must have missed the trees of Telok Blangah Hill Park outside this window. These are denser and more varied than the ones in the garden in my Bombay home but I saw more birds in the Bombay garden which is a rare oasis in the midst of the concrete of South Bombay. I miss those birds here, particularly a little kite that I named squealer. 

On this desk on my left is a wooden box with stationery I use most — some post-its, highlighters, an eraser, a glue stick, and a small stapler. The lid acts like a tray and in it are today’s fountain pens — three Pilot 912’s (with FA, MS, and BB nibs), a plastic Parker filled with the Waterman purple ink I bought in Bombay, and a Pilot Lighttive. In front of the box lie eight novels I borrowed yesterday from the Library@Orchard and my kanso noto journal. On my right lies my phone and an empty tray which earlier held a transparent pot of hojicha tea and a stained little white cup which is really an expresso cup, but from which I like to drink green tea. 

I went to the library after my physio visit yesterday. I had sprained my hip muscles while moving and the tightness and pain in them had tensed up the lower back, the glutes, and all the thigh muscles. Pauline brought me a ton of relief but told me not to walk or train much, instead try to heal through aqua-therapy.  I had missed the libraries of Singy a lot. I’m not sure why I borrowed eight novels when my reading has been poor for months. I read only two books in the month in Bombay, but I think there is a deeper purpose to this excessive borrowing than to merely kick-start reading. I’m not sure either what the purpose of writing and sharing this as a blog post is, except to start some writing practice — any writing practice, just naming objects around me is a decent start, after three or perhaps four months of pathetically little and uninspired writing. 

These months have been disorienting. The packing, unpacking, packing, and flying to Bombay, then settling into a room where all the light bulbs had blown out since my last visit and where my dry-cleaned bed sheet and cover reeked of a fragrance the dry cleaner obviously thought was divine, but clamped up my nose to the extent that I woke up at night with it blocked and had to spend 10-15 mins sitting in the dark room doing breathing exercises before I could get any air into my lungs again — these things might have created the disorientation. The return here was equally unsettling as I realized that in my hurry to be ‘box-free’ I had put things away without much coherent thought, and I didn’t know where to find anything including my underwear and night things on the first night back. 

The only thing well organized seemed to be one drawer of the two in my new desk, and the drawer with my tea things in the kitchen. I won’t bore you with what is in that desk drawer but if you tried to guess, you would likely guess correctly. My tea stocks are low — just three green teas, a Ceylon, and some chamomile, but I think those feel just right. 

I had given myself a ‘project’ on the second day of this trip to Bombay and I will write about it in another blog post soon. More writing practice, but before that some organizing of this little cobalt blue room is probably a good idea.