Build a wall..

A bird sits on the branch, chirping and singing. It is a beautiful day or that's what the bird thought until the sun disappeared behind the clouds. Clouds were dark as soot. The wind started to blow. It was a mild breeze at first. The bird saw two kids giggling, sitting on the window of their house beside the tree. Their giggle eased her muscles. But the pretty scenes started to disappear. What seemed a cool breeze turned into a storm, rising from the dust. The storm was galloping towards the little bird from all the four sides. She was scared. There were no more giggles anywhere near. The children where behind the closed windows now, equally terrified like the little bird to see the storm approaching. A swoosh from the side, a tweak of the branch, and "thud" the nest fell on the ground. Hurt and unable to move her wings, the bird tried hiding under the remaining pieces of her nest. The hours were long and dark, and the whistling sound of the wind didn't let sleep seep in through the breaks of the nest upon the bird's eyes. Teary eyed, shaking with fear, she lay there, all alone in the storm. Her mind wasn't ready to give up, even when her body did. "This too shall pass",thought the little bird until she passed away into a sleep. 

Raindrops brought the bird back to her senses. She looked around. The storm had passed. It's evening and the kids have come out of their houses to play in the field. They looked happy. They were safe and happy. The bird realised why her mom used to tell her "always build a nest, deep in the woods or atleast in the tree where the branches are dense". Mom meant build a wall around you, that will protect you from the storms and keep you safe. 

When we are in difficult phases of our lives, and peers, family , relatives encroach in our space, the pressure starts building up. Its like the moments before the storm when the clouds hide the sun and turn themselves into dark soot-ed clouds. We begin to tremble in the pressure. The stress enervates our confidence from our heart and mind and we start giving up. Stop! stop your fears and the stress it brings along right at the bay and start building a wall. The wall to protect you from getting shattered in the storm. And how do you do that? How do you build a wall around yourself not physically but mentally to protect your body and mind? Well, there is no fixed recipe to this. Everyone needs to figure this out on their own for the magnitude of stress from the peers and outside world are different in different people. 

Another way of looking at this situation is either you can build a wall or you can build yourself stronger. A little sparrow needs a strong nest to survive the storm, but an eagle flies high through the storm. 

May be we can take one step at a time. Step out in the world. And survive. Try to train your mind to filter the negative thoughts and keep them at bay. People are worried for you it seems. Some of them are genuinely worried for you and some of them shall never really mean what they are saying. So in these fragile moments take care of yourself. Live for yourself. Make deadlines, aim high, dream big - but all for yourself. Protect yourself until you are strong enough, confident to spread wings, and fly high. And who knows. you might not be a little bird after all.. you might be an eagle in making..

We are never on the same page....

It has been more than a month since I closed a chapter of my life and came home. A lot of other people did the same. And I thought we are all on the same page. We were being part of the "transformation phase". And I thought we will together cross the bridges. Some did cross the bridges and some took other turns down the road. And I have realized now, we are never on the same page. And how does that make me feel? I don't really know. It's like you are standing on the bank of a river, waiting for your ferry, but you realize you missed the last one that went across. And you find your friends on the other side of the river, waving at you. You are happy to see them but a part of you wishes you were there by their side instead of where you are now. The sun sets, your friends walk away from the bank off to their destinations, and you try walking back home or someplace that brings peace to your mind. 

I don't know if what I am currently feeling is a human feeling already acknowledged or is it just my exemplified anxiety and exhausted hopes that makes me vent these feelings out on this page. 

Recently, I was preparing for an exam where I had to study about plants. There i read something termed as "photo period". The authors of the book wrote that even though photoperiodism was thought of as a light dependent response of plants in the form of developmental changes, it wasn't the length of the day that mattered. What really made one flowering plant different from other was the period of night or darkness it needed before it could bloom. Suddenly at that moment I realized nature's rules never change. The conditions that serve as factors of importance in flowering event of a plant is the same as our growth and development. It is not how many easy work hours you experienced that decide how much you learned. The judge is always the tough times. You never learn an experiment or an application, if you haven't aced your troubleshooting skills. How do you know the level of your patience, if you haven't really been on the wait-list for a long long time? So what if some people got the ferry and reached the other side, if you really wish to go on the other side, you might as well work it out. Don't just sigh about the chances you lost, don't crush your dreams as you hold them tight as you sleep, you need to get your feet ahead. Move your feet and take a step. You might not have the strength to take a leap, but you can still breathe. To keep yourself floating and to save yourself from hitting the bottom of the river, you need to keep paddling your feet. A ferry might not come for you, but if you really wish to be on the other side, what's the last thing you can do? Swim across may be? Darkness might scare you, or the water inhabitants might not be welcoming, but jumping into that river, taking the risks shall be much better than going home and letting your tears lull you to sleep as you sigh with all the breathe you have inside you. You need to take the risk. You need to put your hopes, and anxiety out there and keep working. The result might not be quick but as long as you are staying afloat, you shall survive your battle. Nature shall select you among the people who gave up their battles.

A week back I was still fighting the tears and thinking hard if there is someone really up there who is listening, who will just hold my hand and drag me out of this mess. But then I realized, everyone of us is buried in a heap. May be one part of their life has crossed the river, but the other is still stuck under the heap at the bank of the river. God might keep us afloat while we are in the river, but that can happen only when we get the heap off us, lose burden of negativity, believe and take the leap of faith and jump into the river...and keep paddling. You shall live. You shall reach the other bank, drenched in experiences but you will cross the river. 

So may be we are all not on the same page but we are all part of the book ruled by Mother nature. Every flower needs a specific number of dark hours, that pushes them to grow as they step out into the world to taste the light. Take a sip of the courage you have been storing for a long time and get through the days, one day at a time. Keep your head help up, your crowns need to stay at the right place. :)

The wait

It's a familiar word - wait. Not just for me. I guess all of us have been accustomed to this word once in their lives at least. I feel there is a sweet pain that comeS along with this word. I hear people say that waiting made them test their level of patience. I hear people rejoice the fact that they were able to wait until the good news arrived. For different people this word has a different feeling attached with it. When a woman is expecting a baby and goes through months of tremendous change of her body and mind, the wait is part of the sweet pain. There is a certain level of anticipation and anxiety along with excitement of embracing motherhood that surrounds her. On the other hand, there is a wife, waiting for her husband to come home. Her husband is a soldier, guards the border,keeps the enemies at bay. At home the women alone plays the role of a father and a mother for their kids. She is a sincere daughter in law who takes care of her old and feeble mother in law. There is a wait in those eyes .. The mother waits for her son, the wife waits for her husband, the children still trying to picture their father from the memory of their last holiday together. The wait is their way of life and not just a mere word for them. When I compare my wait with these instances, It feels so meagre that I assume I can sleep over it. But mind understands, heart doesn't. What is it that I am waiting for, you may ask. I am waiting for the rain to  drench The soul of earth. I am waiting for the moment when my life will finally bring a joyous exclamation on my face and not just a mere sigh. I am waiting To become the alchemist of my own life and turn it into gold-turn into a precious lot of celebrations. I am waiting and as I look around, there are many in the queue with me. I guess we are all hanging for the sake of sweetness in this pain of waiting...

Dolce far niente

There is an invisible race everywhere. Birds racing to conquer all the food on the window pane. Cars racing to their destinations, speeding and overtaking. Parents and kids racing to climb up the success ladder. Race is everywhere. But is the race worth of all the things its taking away from us?
This post might sound a bit outta the Hollywood movie "Eat Pray Love". An American women gets mocked for being an American by an Italian old man. The man goes on to say " You know how to celebrate but you don't know how to relax". I guess we are all mocked by the old man at this moment. We keep competing, we keep running; We tell ourselves this race shall lead our way to our dreams. But at the end of the race there is another race, and another, and another until your heart stops racing. We tend to put our friends on hold, we ask our partners to compromise -all for the sake of the never ending race. And in the end we realise, the race has robbed us inside out. I wish we learned what the Italian old man was trying to teach the American lady- ll arte dolce far niente- The art of doing nothing. Implement this in your lives. Every day, one hour let your mind float..wildly amongst the sea of imaginations. No future to worry about, no past to shrug off. Feel yourself independent of deadlines to meet. Set yourself free from the targets, aim,and ambition. Let your soul accept who you are and cleanse you inside out. Once we master this art, we might just erase some wrinkles off our forehead. Who knows, dolce far niente might actually teach us to live, and not just breathe..