'That everything that grows is life'
Reading corner
A Name is not a Knowing
by Salil Chaturvedi
A name is not a knowing
You have to hug a tree
Feel its bark,
the texture of its leaves
To understand how it invents tiny capsules of desire
and puts them into seeds
with just enough wisdom
not too much
Enough to know
that the outside is the new inside
That everything that grows is life
that spaces are expanding
that too much of life is but a death
A choking point for a new beginning
and that all beginnings are old, old, old.
My sister is now mostly smoke
and some ashes
A few tiny bones on a river bed
She was gone much before she went
Now she has put the sky below me
and the earth above
On the knoll from where I can see
that peacock, Mandira.
the pink flower bushes, Mandira.
the hidden partridges, Mandira.
the pipit songs, Mandira.
the wind among the grasses, Mandira.
A name is not a knowing
You have to hug a tree.
Healing notes I write this as my cat is asleep on my lap. She is a gentle, loving, quiet, bratty girl that has been in my life for nearly a year and a half. Watching her grow has been such an essential part of my growth. It was the same for me with my dog, Layla. The difference though is, when we had Layla in our lives, I had many many people who also cared for her. Many of us who juggled our work, leisure and travel schedules around her. With the cats, it is mostly me for now. Which for many people feels like a lot, but for me it has honestly been a relief.
I have now lived alone for more than a year and it has been such a tremendous year. I think of it has monumental in terms of how much progress I have made, being with myself. But also learning to look after two adorable babies through it all, has been rewarding.
I bring this up cause I have been thinking a lot in therapy and otherwise about how animals have held me in my worst times. Many times while growing up when I didn't want to return home, I would close my eyes and think of Layla. Her tail wags, her smell, her love filled eyes. Now when I travel, no matter how long I am away, or how difficult the trip has been, I look forward to opening the door and being welcomed by my beautiful babies. The past few months have been hard on us as they are in a new phase of their life. Yet, coming home to them, to this safe space I've built with a lot of care and energy, feels amazing.
A part of me knows that I needed to build a space of mine to process some of the experiences of the past few years. I also needed to be in a space to remind myself that I can create safe spaces for myself - something a large part of my life I didn't believe in. I also needed to remember the warmth, kindness and love of friends and loved ones. It has been a rebuilding space that I desperately wanted for many many years. It is not that it didn't exist before but I think I often turned to spaces which others had already created. Making a safe space for me, taking care of others apart from me, has been valuable.
I credit a lot of this to the solid therapeutic support I have received this past year. It has been one of the hardest years of therapy for me - having to visit and reprocess memories is.. just.. exhausting. But I feel better equipped for the decade (ahem - hello global warming/time is a scam as my friend R says) ahead of me.
Food experiments
When breakfasts are hard to eat, I love making something special aka sweet. I whipped up these french toasts which are layered with homemade strawberry jam.
I let the strawberries cook for 10-15 minutes with a single stick of cinnamon till it was pasty. I continued to let them simmer on low as I whipped up a mixture of 2 eggs and 200 ml milk with half a teaspoon of sugar. I soaked each slice of bread in the beaten egg mixture till the bread was soaked through.
Then I cooked them till brown and placed them in my bowl. I drizzled some of the strawberry sauce from the bowl. I kept making pancakes and layering it with a little of the sauce. And done :) I let the sweetness of the strawberries do the magic so didn't add any sugar :)
Dear you,
Women across the country are protesting and resisting. <3
Gives me hope like never before about collective action,
community and holding space for each other.
Love, kindness and warmth,
Nidsitis
'I’ve been circling for thousands of years and I still don’t know: Am I a falcon, a storm, or a great song?' - Rainer Maria Rilke