Health – Page 7 – Nourish-n-Cherish

🌿Loud Walks in Quiet Places🌿

Walks : Loud & Quiet

There are quiet walks and there are loud walks in quiet places.

Henry David Thoreau called it, “Taking the village with you.” or something to that effect. What he meant, I think, was that we took the problems occupying our minds and held onto them tightly, and a trifle obstinately, thereby making it harder for nature to soothe and calm. Really! The human mind is a strange thing. Sometimes, nothing sticks, and other times, nothing slides.

“I am alarmed when it happens that I have walked a mile into the woods bodily, without getting there in spirit.”
― Henry David Thoreau, Walking

These walks are trying at best. I found myself fiddling with poetry to try and distract the mind from the village, and the people in it. It was a feeble attempt, and one that requires far more concentration to be approved by Bard/Gemini maybe, but it’ll do. It would have to do.

Poetry: Balm to the Soul

Was poetry not the balm to the soul?

The trees are trying

The waters are waving


The swans are soothing

The squirrels are scampering


The deer are divine

The eagles are evocative


The vultures are volatile

The pelicans are pure


Yet the spirit

Remains dispirited


Some days are trying

For your mind is wavering

Just as I had managed to get nature to work its magic, I was summoned back to reality by three loud gentlemen discussing the virtues of housing all their data in the cloud, and how that reduced their costs. I found myself calculating storage costs and estimating budgets.

I looked resolutely at the clouds overhead and said loudly, “Nope – look at the real clouds!”. I may have startled a little wren foraging for food in the bushes nearby, and it took flight in an alarming manner after throwing me a reproachful glance.

Oh well!

Nature did do its work!

But, I found, on getting into the car, nature had done its work. It may have had to try harder and send a few more butterflies my way, but it did. I was much refreshed in mind and spirit, clearer in what I needed done.

I chuckled remembering Thoreau’s quote on Walking, and spending at least 4 hours a day in nature – a luxury most of us can seldom afford, but we can afford smaller bursts of it:

“I think that I cannot preserve my health and spirits, unless I spend four hours a day at least—and it is commonly more than that—sauntering through the woods and over the hills and fields, absolutely free from all worldly engagements.”

A disruption of ducks

There is a curious rhythm to the days after our India trip. The usual things still occupy our time – school, work, projects, commutes, the changing landscapes of nature, and all the rest of it. Maybe it is the throes of a winter season, or the fact that after the intense ceremonies of the beginning of the month, the quiet is disconcerting, but we felt on edge.

Like the hedgehog, we found ourselves peeking out of our hidey holes to see if life is normal, and finding that it is, were somewhat taken aback. Do you mean to say that we must plan to prune the roses?

Oh well, all right. If you insist, I suppose.

One morning, the son and I finding ourselves at a loose end decided to take a bike ride to dissipate some of this energy.

“Amma! Look – I just saw a hedgehog peep out.”

“Oh nice! It is close to February, so it must be checking.”

“I didn’t see if it saw its shadow though – we were going too fast!” said the son.

It was a lovely day – the feel of wind against our cheeks, the gentle cumulus clouds overhead, and the bay hosting a large variety of birds. We stood there taking in the beautiful sights when hundreds of birds took flight all at once, and then, as though nothing had happened, flocked back to their original place a few moments later. The son and I had a number of ideas as to what caused the disturbance, each more juvenile and silly than the next, but left us cackling all the same.

No one could deny the beautiful shared experience of the disruption – the birds heaving in one smooth cacophony and the humans ashore fumbling quickly to capture the sudden movements and failing miserably.

It reminded me of the book I was reading the previous day, On Duck Pond – By Jane Yolen Pictures by Bob Marstall.

on_duck_pond

As I walked by the old Duck Pond

Its stillness as the morning dawned

Was shattered by a raucous call:

A quack of ducks both large and small …


An understanding quickly dawned:

We’d shared a shock, and now a bond

And I was feeling very fond,

Of everyone on old Duck Pond.

As always the day out in nature surrounded by the fabulous clouds, the sun’s rays, the beautiful lights of the ocean, the stories the son and I swapped on our ride, the birds, first signs of spring in the wildflowers by the bay, had weaved its magic, and we returned home refreshed in mind and spirits.

img_9442-effects

P.S: A group of ducks, as Jane Yolen mentions in her book, are known by a number of names:

A raft of ducks

A paddling of ducks

A badelynge of ducks

Also, bunch, grace, gang or team.

🐳 Whale Grandma or Toucan Grandma? 🦜

I showed the son a text message capturing a conversation between his cousin and his grandfather, Balu Thaatha. Balu Thaatha has the unique capacity to morph into a 5/10/20/60/80 year old depending on his audience’s mental acuities and potential for mischief making and taking.

“I found your Hero pen – therefore, I am a hero.”

“Thaatha! You are just a zero, not a hero!”

I felt for the old man.

“Serves Thaatha right!” said the son rolling his eyes.

“Why?! Poor man is not a zero! Though without zero, civilization will be a zero.” I mused and the son laughed.

“True! True! I meant – serves him right to be at the receiving end of this. He thinks he is Dr Seuss amma. He told me the other day that if I eat jhangri, I will not be angry, as when you are hungry you get angry! What even is Jhangri?” said the fellow.

“Diabetes in squiggles!” I said and the pair of us guffawed.

Later that day, we were going through the book, Grandude – by Paul McCartney. The Beatles star is quite obviously a fun and dedicated grand-father (grandude) and his book outlines the adventures he has with his grandchildren in their quest to find their grandmother, nan-dude.

We fell to discussing the son’s own wonderful grandfathers again: Raju Thaatha & Balu Thaatha. Both loving in their own ways, and exhibiting a pick-and-choose of characteristics between them: sincere, playful, caring, hearty, engaging, mischievous, witty, booming, quiet, talkative, reserved, humourous, erudite, and so many more.

“You will be a wonderful grandma – like a pirate grandma or a nan-dude!”, the son assured me.

I glowed – and said, “Really? Would I be a ninja grandma or a butterfly grandma?”

“Yes – and also a toucan grandma, and a whale grandma, and a tree grandma. You will be a fun grandma. Don’t worry – I have confidence in you. “ said the son. He was licking an ice cream with obvious relish, and no doubt the fact that he was allowed ice cream on a cold day by his indulgent mother colored his opinion of me.

“Marvelous books, isn’t it? Really – I am glad there are books outlining the special grandparents-grandchildren bond. I wonder whether there are good songs, and dances showing that.”

“I am sure there are. Just need to look.” he said stoic as ever.

We were discussing the books:

My Grandma’s a Ninja – by Todd Tarpley (Author), Danny Chatzikonstantinou (Illustrator)

Grandude’s Green Submarine – by Paul McCartney (Author), Kathryn Durst (Illustrator)

Both books are such joys to thumb through. Light-hearted and joyous, they highlight the beautiful bonds between grandchildren and grandparents.

⌘ The Essence of Life ⌘

The Fabric of the Indian household

One of my half written posts from one of my earlier trips to India touches upon the heroines of the Indian upper middle-class household – the cooks and maids. The fabric of the Indian household is maintained through a network of maids – 3 or 4 of them, who swish through the house at various points in time, professionally taking care of the household chores, and keeping a human touch to those who crave for it. I know the aged parents looked forward to a few words with them: a smile, a question, or a comment.

As much as I savored the solitude, and quiet of nature back home in the United States, I understood the tug and pull of humanity in the fast-paced life of the Indian subcontinent, as well. You were never truly alone, even for a few hours, in India. There were maids, delivery men, sweepers, cleaners, neighbors in close proximity, cooks, who were all as much part of one’s routine as the immediate family themselves.

“Did Appa like the avial?” the cook would ask as she entered the house, to which the father-in-law would reply cheekily that it was nothing compared to his sister’s avial. We all know, there is no point talking when his sister’s avial is raised, and she does too. “Ask your sister to make it then – look at him!” she’ll say looking to the mother-in-law for support and she would jump in with glee.

Stimulus🧘🏼‍♀️ 🪷 Pause 🧘🏼‍♀️ 🪷Response

“Life in India is so fast and hectic, isn’t it? “ . We were discussing the fast and furious pace of India with friends. We were each reminiscing our respective trips to India – both made under difficult circumstances, and we were both glad to be back home in the United States.

I nodded fervently, and said wistfully, “Yes – at least during the time I was there, the concept of solitude was rarely acknowledged.”

“Solitude?” And we all laughed. It was true – the populace, and the ways of life make slowing down much harder than usual. It isn’t made any easier with the speed of communications and transportation in cities. The very essence of vibrance that is a huge advantage and a beauty to the civilization was also a disadvantage.

There are times when I have marveled at how the Indian way of life came up with practices such as meditation and yoga, but then I also realize that it was there that it could have developed, for it was required to build still pockets of serene moments into one’s life. in fact, the concepts are nothing short of brilliant. The pause between breaths is essential to be mindful of, when it may be all you can get in terms of mindfulness. The breath becomes the prana in very significant ways. The pause, when rarely taken, becomes harder to practice, and yet the pause becomes that tiny moment of choice in our agency of life.

There are so many aspects to the Philosophy of Being (I am amused it has such a strictly medical sounding name: Ontology)

Keeping ontological explanations aside, if The Nature of Being comes down to simple techniques of breath, fluidity and movement, it makes the simplicity behind it all brilliant.

For many years I had thought of this quote, attributed to Victor Frankl in Man’s Search for Meaning:

“Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space lies our freedom and our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our happiness.”

-Quote widely attributed to Viktor Frankl, Author of Man’s Search for Meaning, but not sure: Between Stimulus & Response

Back home, I savored the morning air, as I stepped out for a brisk walk embracing the nippy air. I felt like I could finally hear myself think, and I had a beautiful walk weighing and thinking of such topics as courage, resilience, choices, decision-making etc in the context of our work and personal lives. How one helps us evolve in another sphere, and how we are as human-beings are nothing more than the function of life’s ebbs and flows.

The Tides of the Year

It is already that time of the year when people are making lists, and reminiscing the past year. I don’t feel like it has been 12 months since we last did this exercise, if we are being honest. I just wrote out all the books I read in 2022, is it already time for me to do the 2023 list? I feel strangely like a student in the headlights before the final examinations. Wait a minute – I was supposed to have read this and that. My bedside table is sagging, with half-read books, to-be-read books.

I planned to write about this topic and that book, and well, that possibility too, if it comes to that. My document with burgeoning ideas and drafts looks worse than ever with half completed phrases and paragraphs. In short, it feels like a construction site : a promise of feverish hectic activity, but a dull ache between the eyes while thinking of shaping it all up.

Looking back over the past few years, it seems to be the same song sung : pace of life, the months whizzing by, and all that.

However, this year seems to be tinged with the dawning realization of the opposite and inevitable too. Maybe it is our phase in life. What I mean by that is, in increased conversations with elderly people, it is obvious that the elderly amidst us face the opposite problem : one of filling their time while holding onto their anxieties of their health, and the inevitable frailty it involves. Acceptance of our mortality has always been one philosophers have addressed. But will we remember all these concepts when it is our time? I wonder.

rain

In the exuberance of youth, and the arrogance of our health, we often parry the times when we do have to set ourselves down to a slower pace, and imagine a life when we are not in control of our circumstances. The pace of technology, while helpful in general, seems to be a source of anxiety for many, and I don’t blame them. I feel the same way – on my recent visit to India, I was confronted with both sides of the coin. On the one hand it was fun to watch everyone from the roadside vendor selling chaats to the large department store going with options such as PayTM and Google Pay. But on the other hand, it was unnerving for older people or NRIs like us who needed to have all that set up within the country in order for smooth functioning.

I remember reading somewhere that it is not just us and our bodies that are changing, but the situations and the world around us changing too. At times, it feels like the combination can feel like we are being pushed and pulled by the tides back and forth relentlessly. We need to weather the tides, ride through the storms, and look out for the light on gloomy days.

weather_storm

2023 had its share of hikes, bikes, runs, and walks. It had a fair share of travel managing multiple responsibilities across work and our personal lives. Not to mention the frenzied feel of to-do lists and the sinking feeling that nothing was never quite enough. But in spite of all this, it felt rewarding: it gave us the feeling of spotting the rainbow in the storm.

I liked this quote and wanted to share this here:

“Half of me is filled with bursting words and half of me is painfully shy. I crave solitude yet also crave people. I want to pour life and love into everything yet also nurture my self-care and go gently. I want to live within the rush of primal, intuitive decision, yet also wish to sit and contemplate. This is the messiness of life – that we all carry multitudes, so must sit with the shifts. We are complicated creatures, and ultimately, the balance comes from this understanding. Be water. Flowing, flexible and soft. Subtly powerful and open. Wild and serene. Able to accept all changes, yet still led by the pull of steady tides. It is enough.”

― Victoria Erickson

The Past, Present and Future of Jobs

“So, you work at a job that essentially takes away your own job?”, said the son.This is the kind of meta stuff that he finds exciting.

The Thanksgiving week-end was rife with conversations about the corporate drama that in yester years could be equated to the coups of thrones. Would the CEO go? Would the Board of Governors go? Would they both go? Who would be their replacement?

Last year the world popped their popcorns and watched the unfolding drama of an unraveling Twitter with Elon Musk and his hostile takeover of the company, now rechristened X, though the URL still points to twitter.com because the TFE team was probably let go.

This year, it seems much of the dramatic action came from OpenAI CEO, Sam Altman. In modern day Wall Street wars, CEOs, (or C-Staff) and the Boards of companies provide for much of the action. Will the market hold? Will the Sensex drop?

What happens to the interest rates?

One of our friends was explaining to the children about their own roles – technical roles in which they enable AI to be utilized intelligently. One was working on images, another on code frameworks itself. A niece who was majoring in biology told me how they were already being encouraged to use ChatGPT to generate code for them. They only needed to see the results of the datasets fed into the model.

age_of_ai

Fascinating as it all was, I was left musing on the future of work. It seems a rather recurring theme of late. There are image generators to replace artists, code generators for software engineers, of course plenty of writing that can be replaced with intelligent prompting. So, why not the design and maintenance of these systems too?

I picked up the book from my recent library pile:

The Worst Children’s Job in History – Sir Tony Robinson

worst_jobs

The book was truly horrific and true. If anyone was wondering about the future of jobs and feeling glum, they could actually be grateful that the past nature of our jobs are well behind us.

Every job not only held misery, but a generous helping of walloping, not enough food, abysmal conditions, no thought for safety etc. Compared to those jobs, the present day conditions of occupying ourselves and our children seems fantastic. I only hope this trend continues for, our current nature of jobs is about to upended again.

It seems with the speed of technological challenges, the cycles with which our jobs are upended seems to be quicker and quicker.

A couple of generations ago, seamstresses, tailors, knitters, bat makers, ball makers, farmers, equipment handlers all saw their jobs upended by mechanization.

Then the next generation saw people’s fortunes needing more specialized skillsets such as coding, scientific knowledge etc.

Recently, call center jobs, desk phones, phones that were in the family room all went away, to be replaced by cell phones. Those of us who remember having to take a friend’s call in the living room with three uncles, five aunts, three cousins of varying age and maturity levels, two grandparents and a maid, will forever envy the children of today who quietly buzz out of vicinity taking their phone calls mysteriously with them.

The next wave of AI seems to be disrupting industries that I’d hoped would not be. Creative industries that are already hard to make a living in: storytelling, image generation, writing, etc

Will our grandchildren read books about us in this era and feel sorry for us that we had to slave in front of our computers all day long to accomplish certain things, spend days getting tests done in medical labs to determine what was the matter with us?

What would the future of our jobs look like?

More importantly, in this quest for bettering the use of our time, do we hope to become at peace with who we are without being defined by what occupies our time? If so, maybe we should start equipping ourselves towards that, shouldn’t we?

Let me know your thoughts.

Books:

The Worst Children’s Jobs in History – Sir Tony Robinson
The Age of AI – Henry Kissinger

🍁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.

fall-COLLAGE

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.

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?

🍁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?

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.

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.

IMG_2457-COLLAGE

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.

Books:

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