What Feel Like Miracles

February 24, 2025

            Thank you for your prayers and healing vibes and thoughts, and for reaching out privately and sharing your experiences — either with knee pain or with dealing with elderly parents. The latter helped me understand the reasons for the choice of prioritizing this visit over self-care. My leg improved gradually; it felt miraculous considering the pain level was so high despite strong painkillers given to me by the ortho. I stopped the physio as I did not feel able to trust her but kept the icing/heating going and today my pain is about level 3 and I am not using any painkillers. I am astonished. The second antibiotic course completed yesterday—Phew! I still cough but it’s not phlegmy and frequent. 

            And so here I am almost at the end of this trip. The emotional low has shifted, not only because of health improvement but because of a few other things that happened. 

I had formulated goals for this trip on my flight. I have only completed the top three, but I am ok with that. Since I am essentially a storyteller I will tell one here. 

            About a year and a half ago, I wrote a short story after a Bombay visit. It was about sisters and a particular dysfunctional pattern they were stuck in. Of course, the pattern came from my relationship with my sister but the other elements of the story are different, including their backgrounds and personalities. I put that story away for long after I wrote it, but it seems like it acted upon me in the mysterious way that journalling or stories, whether read or written, act upon me. 

            During the visit in January 2024 (though I had forgotten about the story I had written) I noticed the pattern as it began to arise, and I decided to not participate. Dysfunctional relationship patterns between two independent adults require both to participate. I am guessing that this refusal from me was a shock to her that she didn’t know what to do with, and as the days went by our relating felt less authentic and distances began growing in the relationship. I couldn’t leave Bombay quickly enough, and I don’t think I blogged about the trip except in passing after I had returned. I made another trip here in September/October last year too. Before that, my sister and I were arguing a lot on phone calls, but the trip itself did bring us together as we were focused on the best care routines for my mom, which would also not stress my sister out too much. I did blog about that. 

            But despite this when I returned the relationship distance grew once again and often phone calls were terminated with a sadness that pulled me down for days. I tried to bridge the gap but couldn’t. I deeply hated that and dreaded this trip here. I made those goals on the flight hoping some focus and structure might help with the long, long days here. The top goal was to get back to authentic relating with her, the next was to help her with the prep for the trust and tax documents. The third was to meet a friend who I hadn’t met in a few years. The list went on further, but these were the most pressing ones.

            Goal two was worked upon—slow and steady and we have almost completed it. But I had lost hope of achieving goal one and three with my two body dysfunctions. My friend who also struggles with chronic body issues made a huge effort and visited me at home yesterday! What a sweet joyful reunion. She’s the first friend to who I could reveal myself completely to and feel accepted, at a time when I was going through one of the worst crises of my life—even though I had known her only a few months then. A magical, soul connection, and slipping back into that was effortless.

            And here I come to the biggest miracle of this trip. Unexpected and so very precious, and I think this too came from that story. I read it again recently and things began clicking and clicking internally. 

            Until Friday last week, things were thickly fraught and delicately fragile between us. That evening we had argued about the way she handles the house help but underneath that was an argument about what agree and understand meant to her and me. For her, they were the same and disagreeing meant one hadn’t understood the other, so when I disagreed she felt I couldn't understand her and it hurt. My experience was different. I might understand someone and the motivations behind what they desire and what they do but I might not agree with it. She seemed stunned to hear this, but didn’t say anything and we changed the topic. 

I had urged my sister to go away for the day with a visiting cousin that Saturday. My sis is a control monster in the home, and I made detailed notes about what and how she wanted me to manage the day. She returned with a huge smile which vanished almost instantly because I had messed up on a couple of things (maybe more but one major one to her). I told her she needed to let go when she was out and trust I would do the best I could. She frowned and went away. I began talking to my cousin, someone I had spent many summers with. She’d spend a month here or I would at her parents’ home. My mom and hers came from a family of nine but they were closest in age and remained close after, even though they married into different cities. We caught up about each other's current lives and reminisced about those summers. 

Suddenly my sister returned. Her face washed and hair combed. She gave my cousin her phone and asked for her to take a picture for her. Then she came around my chair and engulfed me in a close embrace. She never initiates hugs. I couldn’t smile for the first picture because I was so dazed. So, my cousin took another and that is and will remain one of the most precious memories of all time for me. 

When I look back, I can see the small steps that led us here. I can see that a lot of my changed ways of listening and talking to her came from some written or unwritten parts of that story. What happened completely lifted me out of the mild hopelessness I was feeling and a sweet delight filled up the gaps between us and the holes within me. The story I wrote does not end this way, but I won’t tell you what it is in case you read it someday. And I also know this ‘fragrance’ might not last between us, but require more work later, as all relationships do, but savoring this today is beyond priceless. 

I don’t want to say anything beyond this today.  

Once again thank you to so many of you for your warm wishes.

Worst Trip Ever

February 18, 2025

            How do you write about personal terrible things in a meaningful way? It’s not that I only share great things that happen to me, but ongoing chronic body symptoms can sound whiny. I could write about other things on my mind, but constant pain and discomfort are hard to completely ignore. I’ve avoided writing the mostly weekly post because I am not sure what to say or how. 

            I took a flight to Bombay a week and a half ago. I had a very slight cold and a knee/ankle pain level of two. I was walking normally. The day after I woke with a cough and my sis called up a doctor. She put me on antibiotics, a syrup that disoriented me, and some kind of decongestant that also made me woozy. Nothing helped much and the phlegmy coughing went on and on and on and today too it continues despite seeing another doctor, last week on Friday, and more meds. I avoided meeting my mom, afraid of passing on the infection to her. My sis felt comfortable around me, so we chatted and hung out a bit together but as the cough worsened, she too felt anxious about being around me. Yet I wore masks and helped her with the work she was doing. Unfortunately, this involved a lot of standing and my bad leg worsened and even now with reduced steps, icing, heating and, and some physio, it is unstable and I cannot put weight on it. It also crumbled under me three times and each time I felt intense pain that aggravated the symptom. Now, I fear I have damaged it further from the point of not needing surgery, to I might need it now. Can that happen or is it a fear I have? That we all probably have when ill—imagine the worst while hoping for the best. 

            I’m trying to make sense of why I didn’t prioritize self-care and made this trip. If I been thinking clearly, I probably would have postponed, got some physio and strengthening, and then come. I think I didn’t want to disappoint my sister who was so excited about my being here. I feel guilty to leave her with so much here and I wonder what to do about it. The only thing is to be here whenever I can and help as much as possible then. 

            But this time I came and got both a chronic respiratory infection (Bombay flu made worse by smog) and worsened my leg to the point where I can’t walk. I keep hoping both will get better but some part of me knows they are unlikely to —the first until I leave this smoggy city and the second I don’t even know when, and what is wrong. I hope I don’t have to get another MRI but it looks like I might. So ya, worst trip ever. Not because I got sick but because the respiratory infection kept me from sitting with my mum which is the main purpose of these trips. 

            I need to reflect on why self-care didn’t come first and the levels of stupidity fueled by other emotions — like guilt and wanting to make my sis happy — led to this flawed choice. I don’t know if you have made choices to please someone when you have been ill which have led to you being iller? What made you choose what you did? 

            While sitting by myself a lot this time I found I couldn’t focus on reading. I brought two books with me Barbarian Days, a surfing memoir and Tender is the Night. I did a few sketches, and watched the news but mostly watched videos on making art and on art materials which hopefully I will never buy because I doubt if I will use them as I have a ton of unused stuff at home. I am one of those who is addicted to art materials which I use a fraction of and then while clearing give away to others who do use it joyfully. 

            The news preoccupying me has been people killed in stampedes in India while visiting the Maha-Kumbh, a huge festival on the banks of the Ganges that occurs only every few years when a certain configuration of planets happens, and the coverups involved so the people of India remain unaware of the numbers that died. The other news is Trump and Musk, particularly the meeting with Modi—the press conference and Modi’s speech where he said MAGA and MIGA become a MEGA partnership. I have been thinking why both America and India need to be great again. What was great about them at one point, what supposedly went wrong so they are now not great, and what the two leaders' method of making the countries great involves. Do the countries become great or do the methods make things worse. Of course, there are polarized opinions in both countries about this. In India, the method of making India Great seems to be to create fear, and victimhood and bring back regressive Hindu cultural ideas (like caste and gender oppression, and xenophobia), and mobilize Hindus towards a Hindu State. Of course, it leaves a trail of religious division, hatred, and violence which the country will take decades to recover from but supposedly it will Make India Great Again. I love seeing how more people are speaking up against this but even more still advocate it and Modi is set to remain in power for a long while yet. 

            It’s fun to watch satirists make fun of both leaders. Though in general, I don’t like comedy that depends on putting someone down. 

            If you are the praying kind please pray for my leg. If you are the type who sends positive healing vibes please do that for me. Love and Thanks to those who do pray. There are all sorts of chronic pains and not all are equal. This leg pain which leads to impaired mobility is unbearable for me. A lot to process on so many levels.