Back to normal..

Now that I am back to a streamlined way of living (read going to office, coming back, watching a few movies a day; going to bed on time, waking up early...yes, I said early, going to office again..yaada yaada..), I shall see the facets of corporate life yet again, in a different way.

As of now, it looks interesting; exciting; thought provoking; and above all, asking for lots of hard work. Need to go back to those technical days, when we paid no attention to the profs in class. It does come back!

March 24

this morning solitude..

Sometimes solitude is the only comfort. I never used to believe that in the past. In fact, I spent many years doing everything in my power to avoid solitude. Fearful of what might happen should I find myself alone. Doubting my own strength, unable to trust my own instincts, my decisions, the experiences of my life. Now I sit here, in solitude, and I revel in the comfort it brings.

The phone rings a tune that usually makes my heart leap in eager anticipation. It is the one tune that can rouse me from blissful sleep, my lethargic arm reaching clumsily across the bed to hear the voice on the other end. And yet, this morning, I have ignored that tune several times. The TV remains off, no noise to disturb the solitude of this morning, no intruding voices to interrupt this brief period of time in which I find myself alone and comforted in my aloneness.

I have learned that solitude can be a beautiful gift, allowing me to reflect, to write, to immerse myself in a personal haven of security. But solitude can also serve the same misguided purposes as the companionship of my past. While I used to crave the company of others in order to avoid the fears of facing myself alone, perhaps the solitude now serves as a crutch to avoid facing the fears that inherently come with having to interact with others. In solitude, I can halt reality, if even for just a moment. I can move beyond words of reassurance or words that provoke anxiety. I can let go of the worries, the anticipations, the fear of not meeting expectations. I can wear my warmers, making me smile as I look down and ground myself in the moment. My rumpled hair do not frighten me. I sit with my laptop, sipping in a cuppa, and a beautiful pile of books by my side. In solitude, I can lose myself or find myself, find strength or wallow in weakness.

Several years ago, I realized that it is impossible to truly find oneself in the company of others. Surely growth can occur in the moments we are not alone, but the truest, deepest, most personal growth - that growth occurs in solitude. In solitude, we cannot escape from ourselves. We can escape from others, and indeed sometimes solitude serves that sole purpose. But we can find ourselves in the process. At times by accident, we come to know more of who we are in those moments when the outside world is pushed aside.

In all honesty, the solitude of this morning has many purposes for me. Partly, I do want to escape from the necessity of talking, or interacting, of being encouraged to make decisions about the events of the day. But a large part of me embraces this solitude for the pure essence of what it is. Time, silence, moments of reflection. Perhaps I will reach an epiphany in these moments. Perhaps I will succumb to the bodily exhaustion and bury myself beneath the warm comforter once again. Or maybe, just maybe, I'll sit with this solitude for a while.

this lovely night..

It's late and I should be sleeping. The morning will come early, a meeting in the morning hours followed by an afternoon aimed at marking off multiple items on my to-do list. Then dinner and drinks with a group of friends, a time to catch up on life, share stories of new loves and the grief of loss, complain about our ridiculous lack of free time and the beginnings of another few months of aspiring careers.

It's late and I should be sleeping. But despite the busy chaos of tomorrow, despite my body's overdue exhaustion, despite it all, I cannot seem to abandon the silence and darkness of the night just yet. I love this time of night, when the world is quiet, when the wind beating upon the window sings its own form of a lullaby. I love the darkness, only the hint of moonlight creeping in through the slightly parted blinds. I love the night. Night is when the thoughts come, the creativity begins to flow, the inspiration emerges from its hiding place.

It's late and I should be sleeping. I love the comfort of my body snuggled beneath a thick comforter. I love the comfort and warmth, but I love the darkness most of all. Ironically, the darkness brings a feeling of safety for me. Perhaps it is that the vulnerability vanishes when night descends. I am no longer so visible to the world around me. I no longer feel the pressures to be productive, the expectations to be emotionally stable. It feels safer at night. Safe to laugh out loud alone or feel sad. The judgments and perceptions of the world fade and I find an internal freedom that allows the moments to bring what they may. This does not mean that the nights are always peaceful. In fact, it is often in the darkest hours of the night when the ridiculous thoughts come, when the panic rises, when the overload of daily emotions washes over me and I succumb to their power. But I find relief even in those moments. Relief at the release, the letting go. In these hours, I can be myself with whatever joys or sorrows accompany me on my journey.

So...it's late and I should be sleeping. But I'm not, not just yet anyways. For right now, for just a few more moments, I'm enjoying the night...the silence and the comfort, the warmth and the darkness. I'm enjoying the release and the freedom to just be in the moment.

wake up calls..

I’m not a morning person. I’ve never been a morning person. It’s only when the darkness settles that I become enlivened. And yet there is one thing that has always made my mornings brighter. There is one thing that can put a smile on my face in mornings, times that I cannot fathom why the rest of the world is yet awake.

Those phone calls may not seem like much, probably more a chore than anything else, an obligation done out of fear that I will once again sleep through my alarms and miss some big important event. But those phone calls are so much more to me than that. It’s the one constancy amidst the chaos of my days. It’s my daily reminder of the inherent goodness in people and the tremendous impact that the love and kindness of one person can have on some many others. It’s the renewed faith that I can, and will, make a difference in someone’s life.

Each morning, the incessant beeping of multiple alarms is interrupted by an obnoxious ringing of the phone. But once I have sleepily reached across the bed and silenced the ringing, I am greeted by a voice of familiarity and love. The “fact or crap” questions of the day that I always get wrong, the silly jokes that are so ridiculous they actually make me laugh, the lectures on the healing effects of water ….all seemingly trivial things, yet such an integral part of my daily life. On the rare occasions when I am not awakened by a phone call, I feel some tiny emptiness that is carried with me throughout the day.

Until the next morning, the phone rings, and I am again reminded of how blessed I am to be my mamma's little boy.

Early morn..

Yey! I woke up at 6 in the morning yesterday!

Surprised at such an opening - I am too. So is S who I share my apartment with. So are A & B, with whom I went for a swim yesterday morning. And one of my friends said, "Take a Golden Diary & a Golden Pen, and jot this date down in it - because it will go down as one of the most different days of your life!"

Golden Diary - Golden Pen - Golden Words..... and someone once said this to me that the golden words are not repeated! I guess such golden words are meant to be repeated once in a while, making sure that you do not forget the value of such gold (..which, by the way, is trading at US$ 809/oz.).

Well, such PJs apart, I agree what many people keep telling me - mornings are beautiful (though not as much as the dreams I see), and one should definitely make it a point to make use of it. And it makes all the more sense to do something constructive at that time (or destructive, like S & B, who keep trying a reduction in their tummy levels).

Coming to swimming, I love to tell the tale on how I got to learn how to swim. It dates back to my SSK days (..and believe me on this, military has its own way of teaching things) - my first week in a new school, a hostel, me being a kid not even 10 years of age at that time, a HUGE swimming pool with the uninviting and transparent cold water that I could see all the way to 27 ft deep - you're standing in queue will whole of your class, and the queue is lined up next to the stairs to the high board, which fyi was more than 10m above the ground level. And so you hear the word "Quick March" - the queue starts moving up the ladder, and where the board ends, queue walks right into the water. (fyi, not many in the queue knew how to swim). Those who knew how to swim safely floated through the water and came out; and those who did not have the luxury of knowing swimming beforehand, had the time of their lives! You jump into water, and it feels like a gush of water is trying to intoxicate you. It seems like you're gonna go down, and drown - and suddenly you feel a bash on your back - hit by a long stick that the instructor is holding - you think it to be your saving grace, and try to catch it - it hits your head the next time - you almost lose consciousness, but you start throwing your hands and feet frantically in every direction - and before you know, you've had the first swim of your life.

Yes, you know how to swim now. See, such an easy way of learning how to swim!

PS: I missed the morning swim today!

What about Daytime ?