Month: November 2023

🍁I Found A 🍁🍁Million🍁🍁 Bucks 🍁

“It rained last night, did you hear?” the son said the first thing in the morning as he crept groggily downstairs. 

I confessed I hadn’t. It had been a late night – one fraught with beeping alarms, low-battery carbon monoxide filters, very cold temperatures, and a spate of international phone calls. I remember peeking out at the full-ish moon before finally collapsing into a warm bed, but not much else.  In fact when the alarm went off in the morning, I was in the midst of a strange and confusing dream in which somebody was giving me a recipe. I can’t remember the details, but I also remember my first thought being – what a strange recipe!

Luckily I shook all memories of frog chutneys and slime pickles aside and made for the open air. The air was fresh – the Earth beautiful after the rains, and I was not going to miss it.

I was rewarded with brilliant cloudy skies, rain-drop topped leaves, and quiet birds shaking their wings and beaks throughout. 

I stopped to marvel at the casual beauty that lay there in front of me – the lake not realizing the perfect reflection it provided to the mountains in the distance, the fall trees closer by, and the still groggy white heron on the opposite shore. All just there for anyone wanting to see it. Sleepy, dewy, cloudy, misty. 

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I stood there trying to remember the chemical names that were responsible for the brilliance of the colours reflected before me: carotenids, anthocyanins and tannins. I wondered at the wisdom of these trees: realizing that it was time to stop photosynthesis and let the tannins and cyanins or whatever take over without any fanfare, and producing the most breath-taking show for the world to revel in. 

🍁Carotenids : the pigments for the orange and yellow colors

🍁Anthocyanins: the pigments that are responsible for the purples and reds.

🍁Tannins: responsible for the brown color.

Almost instinctively, I looked around and found myself alone. Alone in a bustling suburban area – the only one who took a quick detour and stopped to admire the lake on my way from somewhere to somewhere. It felt nice. Special. Like I had won a million bucks.

November is already on its way out – 2023 is already on its way out. The trees have put their show on, on time. I gave myself a little scolding: My Christmas tree was not up yet.  “But I did have some beautiful poinsetta plants beaming their reds at me in the morning, that was something! “ I said to myself heading to a small park bench, and there: I found a million bucks. 

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I left it there for the next lucky person to find, and went on my way, a smile playing on my lips.

Who said the universe did not have a sense of humor?

The moon in the willows

With the full moon approaching, the beautiful waxing gibbous moon was often visible – a pale disc, even as the sun is setting, and sending hues of oranges and pinks sky-over. It is a beautiful time of year. November fall colors are in full glory, the occasional rains make for good cloud cover, and the nip in the air makes for an energetic walk whether we start that way or not.

On one such evening, as I frisked about, I looked up at the sky. In one breath taking moment, there was the moon shining through the spilling branches of the willow trees. I took a picture, but of course, it captured nothing of that moment.

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A few steps on, I smiled as a small wren pipped in and out of the gingko trees. The gingkos are all cloaked in a golden yellow. All of them are waiting: waiting for an older gingko who has still not changed colors completely. In Oliver Sacks essays, he writes of the communication patterns between these beautiful trees who have lived to tell us tales from the time dinosaurs roamed the earth to now. 

Read also: The night of the Gingko : By Oliver Sacks in the New Yorker magazine.

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It must be marvelous dipping in and out of the fall colored foliage like that. Imagine living in a nest surrounded by the golden glow of a gingko tree, or the multicolored heaven of a maple tree. Oh! To be a shape sifter would be marvelous.

Back home, I nursed a cup of hot coffee as I peered into the sunshine outside. I shushed the daughter as she came over to see what had me quiet. There it was: a big fat brown rat, sunning itself. “Ugh! Go away! Go away!” the daughter said, but the rat did not think it necessary to budge. I tried opening the door loudly, and it moved towards the shadows of the trees  hesitantly. The daughter gave me a stern look, “What would you do if it ran inside Mother?” 

I admit I had not thought of that possibility. “In my experience with rats, they scamper away, not towards you. Unless, of course, you were a cat, and the rat was infected by toxoplasma gondii.”

I looked at her with what I call a winning smile. She ignored this, and went her way. I let the rat be, and went about composing a little poem in my head. What I mean to say was it was a marvelous day to be outside. Thanksgiving can come in various forms. It can come in the form of 

The moon in the willows

The bird in the gingkos, and

The rat in the shadows.

True Heaven on Earth

“Just try them! True Heaven on Earth is right here!” 

I find myself telling the children versions of this multiple times( in response to which I have multiple sets of eyes rolled at me). Parenting helps develop a thick skin like nothing else does. 

I roll my eyes right back at them and I am fairly sure I do the e-roll better than they do. I learnt eye-rolling as an art form as a young dancer from a pretty young age after all, I say with pride. The daughter disagrees: 

“Too much flounce – it should be subtle,” says the daughter. 

“That way, you can always deny you ever rolled your eyes?” 

She has the grace to laugh at least – “Yes.”

The son’s style is still developing, and therefore a lot more noticeable.                                        

Back to the problem of True Heaven on Earth, though, I use this term mostly with respect to fruits, and flowers – the marvelous, wonderful variety of them that we enjoy. Ephemeral joys, yes, but also eternal. 

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The children do not seem to recognize the joys of fruit-eating and it is somewhat of a disappointment. For once, I am  grateful that my childhood did not have easy access to chocolate. Maybe I too might have succumbed to chocolates in favor of the variety of fruit flavors.. 

Novembers in California smack of persimmons, apples, and pears. The satisfying crunch of these fruits after a day crunching leaves outside? There should be a word for that. 

In the spirit of grateful Novembers, I beamed around the home relishing these gifts of heaven spotting the home. Flower bouquets and fruit baskets fill the soul like nothing else does, and I was pampered enough by friends and family for gifting me with these over the past few days. The fruits and flowers smack of the bounties of our planet, but they also manage to evoke a sense of gratitude for the thrill of friendship and the memories of shared experiences.  

“All in one bite or one sniff!” I say.

“You’re weird!” the children chorus, and I agree whole-heartedly. Where the children are concerned, it is a compliment and I shall graciously accept.

I hum and prance through the rooms with a bounce in my spirit, and a shirt that proclaims ‘The Earth laughs in flowers’. Ralph Emerson might have said it, or a truly marvelous poet who attributed it to Emerson to give the beautiful phrase longevity. With the internet, I am never sure. Either way, it works.

🍁Sauntering🍁,🍁Strolling🍁, 🍁Scrunchfesting 🍁

The son and I pranced into the house with our bouquet of fall leaves. We went for a walk to feel the nippy November air on our faces. While out there, we ran after leaves fluttering down in the winds, and indulged in the inevitable scrunch party. 

“No one saw us jump and scrunch in the leaves, Appa!” he said entering the house wind-blown and happy.

“Are you sure?” said the husband, accepting the beautiful bouquet of fall leaves from us, and giving it right back to me with a flourish.

“ I saw some neighbors scuttle inside looking dubious at the activity outside. You sure it wasn’t you two?” 

The son guffawed loudly at that. I scrunched up my face – but was too happy to care. Who could when you’ve just been able to look at views like this?

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Seems only yesterday we were ushering in 2023 and now we are already looking at the final curtain calls of the splendid trees before the closing of the year. As usual, if I throw my mind back the year felt differently at different points in time. Bleak, dreary, joyous, hectic ,the travails of aging with parental figures, friends, events, work, school, volunteer work and so much more.

There is a book called the Secrets of Infinity in my library – Edited by Anonio Lamua, it is a gorgeous book. It gets taken out and seen every now and then just for the sheer brilliance of the topics and the range of topics in them. But there is one thing the book doesn’t quite put the finger on: the feeling of infinity in the repeating seasons of the Earth, the different joys of each month. 

The Tibetan Infinity Knot and the Ouroboros come close in their symbolism – but one of more to do with our actions and therefore Karma and the other a destruction/creation paradigm. 

“So, how do the leaves turn color?”, I said with a flourish revealing the book Summer Green to Autumn Gold – By Mia Posada. The book’s illustrations managed to capture the natural beauties outside, and we settled in to read the book contentedly. 

We flipped the pages comparing the leaves we had in our precious bouquet to the ones in the book. The final reveal of the pigment colors gave us the different colors.

🍁Carotenids : the pigments for the orange and yellow colors

🍁Anthocyanins: the pigments that are responsible for the purples and reds. 

🍁Tannins: responsible for the brown color.

“Trees must be beings of infinity!” , I said sighing happily and the son rolled his eyes.

The Light of Being

The evenings have been drawing in earlier and earlier. As if the natural tilt of the axis weren’t enough, there was a time change thrown in. The result is that my evening walk is in the company of the glittering stars, and I am grateful for these little reminders of light – as far away as they may be. 

One evening I found myself thinking of this and that on my evening walk. The stars twinkled above, the leaves crunched below. Though I could not make out the colors just then, I could imagine them well enough in my mind’s eyes – bright reds, yellows, deep maroons. 

Californian Novembers are magical indeed. 

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Where our northern or eastern counterparts would already be bracing for the winters, our autumn cloaks are just getting started. Our gingkos have only just donned their beautiful cloaks of buttery mellow yellow, the maples and oaks, their swirling cloaks of ruby reds, and thick velvety ones of deep maroon. I wondered when the cold would start and looked up at the stars instinctively. 

Albus Dumbledore seemed to wink at me through the stars: 

“Happiness can be found, even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light.”

– Dumbledore in the Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban 

I swished on for a bit pondering.

Deep in the epipelagic layers of the ocean, there are creatures who have taken this to heart. In the twilight zone, the only light they have is their own. How must that feel to them? The deepest darkest nooks and crannies of an unforgiving ocean made accessible only through their own bioluminescence. 

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In one fell arc bypassing lands and atmospheres, the stars and the bioluminescent life in the oceans seem to share a Light of Being. 

What are our sources for finding the light in ourselves – the means of switching on the inner lights? Good friends, warm meals, bracing walks in nature, the finest ideas in literature, art and music. Hygge. A halo that reflects the warmth and light within, in the harshest of winters, and the coolest of springs? If only we could all cast our own little patronus.

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Books: 

🤕 Boo-Boos 🤕

Do you know when you start to feel your age? 

An innocuous question popped up on my browsing sites. Really, sometimes I wish these systems weren’t omniscient. I might’ve searched up the best way to dress a flesh wound, but did that mean you use my demographics, cross-reference it with my potentially weak hips thanks to my age, and wrangle up half-baked questions and answers on when you actually start to feel your age?!

Preposterous.

If only someone would sue the internet for this nonsense. 

I feel fine. 

So what if I am slightly wobbly while descending the stairs after a fall two days afterward? It is perfectly normal isn’t it? I mean I am not a teenager anymore or in my twenties or in the decade after that for that matter. But so what?

A children’s book I’d picked up a few days ago from the library beamed up at me. Books: Ever the saviors I tell you.

The Boo-Boos That Changed the World: A True Story About an Accidental Invention (Really!) by Barry Wittenstein and Chris Hsu 

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The book is about a man, Earle Dickson, whose wife gets a lot of boo-boos. While a competent enough person with dressing of wounds and such, she is also aware of how hard it is to take care of wrapping the bandages and cutting the reels of cotton etc by herself, especially if one of the hands are injured. 

Thus was born the handy Band-Aid. Husband and wife worked on the design together and pitched the idea.

Luckily Dickson also works for Johnson & Johnson – the business that could take up an idea for boo-boo betterment. 

Despite the brilliance of the idea, it did not take off as easily. People still seemed to prefer the old-fashioned way of tending to their injuries. That’s when they hit upon the idea of Boy Scouts of America – a place where folks regularly hurt themselves, and wanted to get back to having a marvelous time as quickly as they could. (Children! The best boo-boo handlers in the whole world. I remember glorious years in which scraped knees and elbows meant nothing, other than a dusting off before running that next race to the eucalyptus tree down by the road. )

That did it. As Boy Scouts embraced Band-Aid, so did the rest of the nation. I beamed up at the son, who is a proud Boy Scout and had helped me with immediate first-aid with the boo-boo.

He then ordered some first-aid supplies off Amazon, and the site flashed that it would be available at my doorstep in a couple of hours time. We looked at each other, and said, “Wow! We are spoiled brats huh?! We just wait for it at home and peel-and-stick.”

https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/557760/the-boo-boos-that-changed-the-world-by-barry-wittenstein-author-chris-hsu-illustrator/

I stared back at the browsing link being recommended to me: So, when do you start to feel your age?

👻 Maybe when you realize that getting a boo-boo and taking off soon after is harder. 

🤕 Maybe it is when you groan your way downstairs from a simple boo-boo from days earlier. 

😈 Maybe it is when you yearn for that beautiful moment just before the boo-boo.

👻🎃 I Am Hopeful Because 👻🎃

I sat on All Hallows Eve bathed in an orange glow, marking and judging entries for a literature contest. If ever there was a content pumpkin contest, there I was, readymade. It was quite an enjoyable task, and I sat quietly reading stories, poems and essays on the topic, “I Am Hopeful Because”. 

Throughout the evening, I waddled out of my desk to open the door and bellowed, “Who dared to ring the bell? Ho ho ho!”. I thought I was doing pretty well till the son asked me why Santa was ho-ho-ho-ing on Halloween. Oh well!

Halloween is one of my favorite American festivals.  The house was reasonably well decorated. Pretty soon, penguins, vampires, mermaids, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches all come knocking on the door despite the ominous sign by the door that read, “Knock if you dare!”.

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 The son and his friends had a roaring Candy Exchange Business going on the side I understood later. He came into the house looking flushed from the cold, and bursting with news. Apparently, he’d been able to auction a Kit-Kat for 2 Twix, a Ghirardelli white chocolate piece, and an M&M packet. He also had instituted a monopoly on all the Sour Patch Candy, and found himself bartering and trading like the fellows on the stock exchange. I smiled. 

“How was your evening?” he asked. It had been one of those rare Halloween evenings when I had stayed put inside the home instead of gallivanting with the revelers. I love the atmosphere of Halloween as regular readers know, but this time a minor biking accident had me sitting inside, while the Halloween revelers roamed the candy laden streets. They mapped best routes, best homes to hit for the best candies resulting in rounds of discussion. It was all marvelous.

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I did miss the magic of the halloween streets with moonlight filtering through the clouds, black cats slinking through the streets, raccoons wondering what all the fuss was about, and chattering children racing towards lit up porches for some Halloween candy. But it was also a surreal, beautiful evening. A reminder of the joys of winter evenings, of warmth drawing in as the evenings became colder. That first feeling of Hygge. 

I told him that I was hopeful because the evening was full of well-behaved children. The children all seemed to be so happy to receive a piece of candy, even though they all live in an economy and a community where far too much sugar is available for consumption. One or two of them even returned a couple of pieces of candy when they’d had a few more than they thought they wanted. 

The sweet honesty of these children in times when we are constantly reminded of our flaws and failures was refreshing, and the gentle interactions through the evening with adults and children alike, was very pleasant indeed.

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“We’re all mad here.”

– Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland