September 1, 2025
I’m writing from the dining table in my daughter’s home, more correctly the cat’s home, where Yoda has decided to share his bed—the pullout Futon—in the guest bedroom with us. He uses it as his whim calls during the day and sighs and gets off when we decide to go to bed at night. He sometimes visits at night and sits purring on my tummy. Hekate mostly colonises the ‘moon chair’ by the window in the living room. My daughter is ‘keeping’ it for a friend who is away from Singapore for a couple of years. The friend has asked for it to be used and both yoda and heka have made the most of it.
I’m unsettled this visit, which is post my birthday week/month. The most un-birthday week I can remember. I guess I should explain. I have an expectation/hope that birthday month or at least the week or if not that, at least the day will be magical—some problem resolved, some good news, an insight about life, or something else in this vein. This year there was heightened hope for one, any one would do, of these as the preceding year had been full of humbling, unpleasant, numbing experiences, a general lack of productivity, a lot of health issues.
I think it is always a good thing to be humbled, to be reminded of how fragile, and insignificant, I am in the large scheme of life, the world, and history. When I was little, I had this thought that I would leave behind something important that people would remember me by. I meant some scientific discovery or other, as I was a Maths/Science person and my s/heroes came from that field. Then I thought I’d write a book that would be deep, and people would read, put it down, reflect on something I said, then go back to it, and be filled with introspective moments while and after reading. But of course, by my 65th nothing of this sort had happened and though with the unpredictable nature of the future anything is likely I doubt if I will make a scientific discovery. I suppose I can still hope for other things.
Though these days the only things I hope for are good recovery of my knee or some health issue a friend or family member is dealing with or resolution of one long standing problem in Bombay. Nothing magical happened last month and the only insight I had was that nothing about life was in my control. But a beloved teacher gave me a private class on something he thought I might enjoy learning, the day before my birthday, and that was special. Also, my knee inflammation ebbing steadily has been a great gift for the 65th.
The week of my birthday began with paint fumes from first the corridor and then the outside walls of our apartment building being painted. The work was supposed to have completed mid-August but barely a few strokes had been applied by then anywhere at all in the building and when we called the supervisor he apologised for the delay and said the work on our side would only begin in September. We had felt elated that it would be completed while we were away, but in a frenzy of efficiency they began the Monday of my birthday week. I felt sick with a very scratchy throat almost immediately and as the week progressed it turned into post nasal drip, aches, and a slight fever. I had to cancel plans and stay home on my birthday and normally I welcome that but this time I either felt light-headed, because of the fumes or claustrophobic when I had to shut all the windows, and was unable to think. I struggled just to remain in the land of the living that week and I’m not sure if I am thinking clearly today too.
So, I arrived here on Saturday already ill, and unlike other times cat fur began irritating my nose and throat, and I got sicker. Not sure how the rest of the two weeks will proceed but through the fogginess of mornings and slightly clear afternoons, and evenings when I am ready for bed, I am enjoying the silliness and joy of Hekate, her mad morning rolls, her very structured day—get cuddles, eat, play, sleep, repeat and Yoda whose each day is different, sometimes neurotic with wanderings until 2 pm and others where he eats and promptly choses a perch and sleeps calmly through the day. Nights of quiet or yelling, chewing his blue ball, and more or fewer visits to my tummy and either a soft mew fifteen minutes before cat breakfast time or loud yelps that begin an hour or two before.
Just mundane everyday stuff, I guess. I have brought work with me. I’m working on a braided essay (a structure we learned in Memoir class) that came about from my last blog post—what being a white belt in poetry was like. First draft should take a week and then I’m not sure what next week’s project will be or if I will be well enough for one. The allergies are feeling very oppressive today.
So, no birthday reflection though I had an insight about the areas in my life in which I am not being ‘authentic’ and how that is making me feel sluggish, numb, and cut off from the source of my life and creativity. I also realised that in am still in a phase where I desire more hermit-ting than contact. Good to have the booker longlist to get through—some acquired and some on reserve at the library—while the world moves deeper into chaos, and inexplicable tyrannies, and blindness to the suffering of those different from ourselves.
If I did have a birthday genie, then that would be my wish—may all tyrants and their blind followers find compassion and right sight. Yea, really if we were lucky enough to get a birthday wish then perhaps…
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