Take Me By The Hand Down Memory Lane....

There's a reason why I'll crib, rant and rave about the lack of space at home for all the books that I'll want to buy throughout my lifetime, but still never switch over to e-books for good.

Each book has a history. It goes beyond savoring the smell of a new book or sneezing from the dust of an old one. I've always inscribed my books and made people who gifted me books do the same. They might not be the book inscribing kind but even a few words scribbled has been mandatory for me.

Along with the date and the location that I find when I open an old book, I also rediscover myself from those days of yore.

Recently I re-read a book after a long while and found an inscription by my BFF2. It was given on the occasion of my birthday and a nickname was mentioned that'd fallen into disuse but used to be the norm years ago.

That's the magic of a book...it not only takes you places with what the author's words have woven but each book carries a piece of your history in it as well.

Red dislikes too many trips into nostalgia but it suits me just fine.

Sometimes nostalgia is the only thing that helps you get a grip on the present.

Over and out.

First Family Vacation

What should have been an entirely yippee-yippee moment was so in bursts.
Red and I hadn't taken a vacation in over 2.5 years. Yes, MLM is also 2.5. Do the math.

Plenty of parents we know have traveled with their tots while they were mere mites but we were always pretty damn cautious. We needed (read wanted) the ideal ambiance, support, accessories before we took MLM anywhere. It made it easier for us to cater to him and I guess somewhere we felt we were doing the right thing by him.

But being a SAHM has its cons as well. Mainly the one your kid plays on you but there are days when you can remember the pre-kid days so vividly that you know your brain's telling you to take a break else it'll explode and you'll be responsible for cleaning up the mess.

And so we did. Not clean the mess but took a vacation. All of us. With no child minders around. And that in a nutshell is what we needed. I think what most parents need is some time either by themselves or with each other with no offspring in sight. It helps tremendously in regaining some equilibrium within yourself and with each other. You've become a parent. Nothing is going to change that. What you need to be able to revert to from time to time is being just another person or a spouse or a friend within having nap times, feeding schedules et al on your radar. Essentially, having your guard down and being carefree.

The resort we went to was pretty decent by beach huts' standard. I would have enjoyed it more had I gone there on that long-awaited holiday with my sister, Red, folks or even by myself. But add a child to the mix which includes keeping them off the grass. Making sure they're out of the wicked waves during high tide. That they aren't guzzling down sea water like it's Voss and most importantly hurting themselves on the flotsam-jetsam that accumulates on the beach aka beer caps, cigarette butts, broken shells etc.
And my son usually tries to encompass all these things; if not in one go then gradually and with increasing frequency.

Was the holiday everything I wanted it to be? Kind of when you consider that I just factored in sun, sand, surf and beer. Ok that broke the alliteration but atleast it's honest!
I wanted to go as far as I could in the sea without fear of a great big wave taking me down to Atlantis for all eternity, Red wanted a new experience- he kayaked till his arms hurt. I wanted to take pictures of the surroundings- I did. And I wanted my kid to shriek with joy and delight- he did. Over and over and over again. Till the damn gulls cold shouldered us for the rest of our stay there.

We rode around on a bike and MLM learnt the Indian way of signalling a turn (never mind that it was usually a wrong one), Red lost his specs in the sea and ended up making an emergency trip to Madgaon and buying contacts and shades and making 'Enna Rascala' poses!


Anyhoo, the upshot was that, it was a fantastic trip with plenty of bumps that made us consider the location, facilities available for our next trip. Which I dearly hope will be before another 2 years.

Some Goan snapshots-

A Post Pour Moi...

I have a habit of going back and re-reading a lot of things I've written earlier; mails, blogs, text messages. I'm not entirely sure why I do it though, except maybe to put myself back in touch with what was influencing me back in time. Again, why that is even important or relevant I'm yet to discover. But I do it nonetheless and I realized that I do often have A-HA experiences or a 'Hmm' from this particular exercise.

While going over some old posts I counted the number of times I've used the phrase 'It's funny how...' and while it's an oh too familiar and prosaic stringing of words I've used it very often because things constantly keep surprising me, amazing me even.
My BFF1 often mocks and is even more exasperated with how oblivious I can be to things which are BANG right in front of me. Am downright like the proverbial blind person in the dark room looking for a black cat at times.

And so no surprises yet again, I found it "funny" how a global and yet VERY old concept of 'Carpe Diem' could surprise me with it's intent and depth. I first knew it to be a Latin phrase, then a poem by Ol' Willie but the meaning of the words hadn't really hit me much. And by now you can guess that it has. Pretty strongly at that.
But what's more important is other things not entirely related to any kind of 'carpe-ing' have started pinging inside the noggin too.

Life in the past few years can be very accurately (now) be summed up into these phases-

• Looking for inspiration- I did look for it far and wide and somewhat wrongly believed it to be overtly dramatic in nature. A lot of things happen gradually but the pace belies their impact. A fast moving event's advantage is merely that you get to react to it quicker; doesn't mean it's necessarily in your benefit. A gradually transition into things is often best since it gives you time to weigh your options and keep your eye on the ball. A very wrong metaphor for me because despite keeping four eyes on the ball my co-ordination is like a drunken monkey :-( 

• Seeking out newness- Man! that was the most miscalculated step EVER! Life ought to be refreshed and rejuvenated as often as the need is felt but to give into the need blindly is nothing less than falling down the rabbit hole and ending up in Wonderland. And that was an odd place wasn't it? Jabberwockies, vindictive queens and the irritatingly mysterious Cheshire cat? After a lot of 'WTF' moments I've realized that after a particular age, the mental and emotional elasticity doesn't allow one to snap back to a previous state of normalcy quite so rapidly or completely. A few looks before the leaps don't leave you feeling rueful about things that transpired which could and should've been nipped in the bud or delved into with caution.

• Communication conundrums- Talking about inspiration earlier and today another A-HA experience happened when I was flipping through the channels for MLM's programs. Home Improvement's reruns were on and the lead pair's take on the nature of communication really mad me think- WOW...a sitcom actually made me THINK! Color me enlightened :p I really used to think that I was aces in communicating but being able to communicate what's needed and at the time that's relevant is finally the essence of the matter. I've often held some of my core people as being defaulters in our way of life and it's understanding because they didn't get what I was communicating. But it didn't always occur to me to spell it out for them either. I told them in many ways but being figurative is always going to fall short in front of straight-up words expressed as plainly as the situation demands. Being metaphorical or being non-verbal merely adds weight. Taken by itself, it's fallen pretty flat where I'm concerned.

• Fighting with myself: I keep telling Red that I was FAR more aware of myself and life as a college-going young adult (despite the faltugiri indulged in) than I am now-after almost 5 years of marriage, a kid and God-knows what else! I knew my boundaries then and often tested them without breaking them. And breaking boundaries has too much glamor associated with it than necessary. You don't need to be an adrenaline junkie or be loose cannon. Sometimes all boundaries do is protect you body and soul since crossing over unleashes consequences that aren't necessary for one to experience in the first place. But too much of lamenting and being an emotional coroner is equally counterproductive. In hindsight I may very well realize that I was better off in a particular time/ era of my life but heck! I can't undo all that's transpired either in the meanwhile. So either I make my peace or admit that regular rumination about it will mess me up further. 

And it's not all that difficult either. I can't honestly think of that many incidents that I'd have preferred I'd not been in, experienced at all. Every place I've been in, the people who've made an impact- for better or for worse, still matter because it's made me more aware. And awareness is nothing to sneeze at. Even the stuff that makes you cringe. 

I do hope when I look back at this particular blog, I can think in a contented manner- been there and still doing all these things but in a manner which keeps me satisfied and not looking for any elusive wisp of reality.