The Timing

A new acquaintance of mine came across this blog recently. Among all the posts, he thought my poems are a huge box of surprises. Some pleasant, some ordinary, some fleeting, some profound and some extremely touching, that is what he said. What touched me most was his remark "What makes you write like this, it is so unlike you!"

I have been wondering since then. There are a few moments when words flow with ease, like a river wanting no direction, no speed and yet there is this strange momentum which makes the lines worth a smile or a tear. On countless other occasions, I find not one word to pen down for the many things inside me craving for a say. All I do then is wait for that one right moment. 

Poetry to me is mostly impulse which for reasons many comes with a lot of patience. It is about wanting to learn and wanting to write better every time I begin to write one. It is not the mood or the feeling, neither the meter or the rhyme. It is all about timing :-) If it matches with that of the reader's, nothing like it ;-)

Picture Courtesy

-R.

The Party

The best thing about the oldest of our friends is that their advices come when we most need them, often even without asking. Everything they say or recommend are enough to put things back on track. They can break our heart open the way it needs to be. There is something apart from motivation in their words, their actions and the way they put matters across. Knowing them pretty well we often fight, judge, and come to conclusions. At some point we may even think that they may not be the best in town for help or for any kind of solutions, we may lose hope but the truth is whether we realize this or not there is our guardian angel in one form or the other in them. Their casual comments, subtle remarks and sometimes just one thinkable thought is enough to give us that one push. One such friend of mine asked me today "Why don't you live life like its  a party?" I have been thinking since then, and I am glad that I am:-)

Considering where the worm in my head came from, I could not stop sharing this strip:

Picture Courtesy

“I want a life that sizzles and pops and makes me laugh out loud. And I don't want to get to the end, or to tomorrow, even, and realize that my life is a collection of meetings and pop cans and errands and receipts and dirty dishes. I want to eat cold tangerines and sing out loud in the car with the windows open and wear pink shoes and stay up all night laughing and paint my walls the exact color of the sky right now. I want to sleep hard on clean white sheets and throw parties and eat ripe tomatoes and read books so good they make me jump up and down, and I want my everyday to make God belly laugh, glad that he gave life to someone who loves the gift.” 

-Shauna Niequist-

-R.

Black Out

Picture Courtesy

Wikipedia usually makes thinking easy, but today it threw a bouncer. Think of a world without free knowledge it says, well if we actually are thinking of buying this idea or taking it even for free it definitely is a difficult  one. I am hopping back from their page with much despair, each visit more than the previous.

Knowledge never comes free, information may and Wiki has been more than kind to us in giving it. But today it just proved that even the best of our support systems can give up on desperate days, and we better learn to deal with it. I am running now to my books, well you?:-)

Another thought if you can take it, imagine a world without knowledge. Do not break your head, more than half of the world lives in it and is doing pretty well by the way. Sometimes ignorance is  the ultimate  bliss, if you chose to act on it. Take this Calvin Hobbes advice. It works, really does.

Picture Coutesy

-R.

The Leaf

"The chief beauty about time is that you cannot waste it in advance. 

The next year, the next day, the next hour are lying ready for you, as perfect, as unspoiled, as if you had never wasted or misapplied a single moment in all your life. 

You can turn over a new leaf every hour if you choose."

-Arnold Bennett-

At the start of this year I gifted the favorite corner of my home a money plant, with a wish that the climber covers and brightens up the entire window frame, hopefully in a matter of few months. It is growing devotedly, without me having to contribute much. A change of water now and then, that's all. The most beautiful thing about it is the stuff that this plant is teaching me. Most of the lessons of life are right in front of us, in subtle things, in surreal moments.

Watching this plant, I have learnt that there is always new to come. All it takes is patience. I have learnt that it requires not much from the outside world to grow from within, if you have it in you there  is nothing stopping you. I have learnt that I can grow without throwing demands. I have learnt to hope, to hope for the good always :-)

-R.

Lumpy Life

Picture Coutesy

"One of life's best coping mechanisms is to know the difference between an inconvenience and a problem.

If you break your neck, if you have nothing to eat, if your house is on fire, then you've got a problem. 

Everything else is an inconvenience. Life is inconvenient. Life is lumpy. 

A lump in the oatmeal, a lump in the throat and a lump in the breast are not the same kind of lump.

One needs to learn the difference"

-Robert Fulghum in 'Uh-Oh'-

Every other quote that I come across sends something up my neuronal circuit, but this one just rewired and set it right. To be frank I have been the kinds who can complain about anything and everything, anyone and everyone! Of late with life's lessons hard and well learnt I can or at least try to decide what qualifies as a problem and what as an inconvenience. 

We often spend our time contemplating about icky people and circumstances, I do about multiples! It is a difficult process to prioritize among that lot, and there is where the lump usually appears. What matters more, who deserves our time and attention and how satisfyingly enough we give it is what which decides where our life goes. We fall and we fail, but not all of us raise and move on. Life is lumpy, very. But to know the difference, well there lies the catch;-)


-R.

Let's Explore !

Image Courtesy

“Wow, it really snowed last night! Isn't it wonderful? Everything familiar has disappeared! The world looks brand new! A new year...a fresh clean start ! It's like having a big white sheet of paper to draw on! A day full of possibilities! It's a magical world, Hobbes, ol' buddy...let's go exploring!”

- Calvin in Bill Watterson's 'It's a Magical World' -

Newness is a relative niceness, that is exactly what I learnt on the eve of this year. Celebrating it with the ones I met for the first time right on that night there was this strange thought reeling inside my head of how every day of our lives can be so beautifully unpredictable.There is so much that happens in our world without we having nothing much to do about it.

The number and the kind of people we come across, the circumstances that we get into and the places we  go, well just think of it- the good, the bad,  the better, the worse, the best and the worst. We do our part, and yet there is so much that remains which can actually decide whether we have lived right and enough. At the end of the day its all about the moments which make us feel that.

Wishing many such moments this year to the ones who visit A Canary's Diary and make this place worth exploring. Live,laugh, learn and have fun.

A very 'HAPPY NEW YEAR' to you all :-)

-R.