Books – Page 15 – Nourish-n-Cherish

🐘🐘🐘What Elephants Know 🐘🐘🐘

The book starts with the Zen teaching:

Sooner or later we have to see that what we do and what happens to us are the same thing.

A curious saying that, I am sure, has a fair number of interpretations. I was not sure I liked the ones that came to my mind seeing that I was thinking about agency, free will, and opportunities from a few different angles over the past few days.

Intrigued, I ploughed on, and read the first sentence:

“My mother is an elephant and my father is an old man with one arm. Strange, I know, but true.”

– What Elephants Know – By Eric Dinerstein

For a few paragraphs, I could not help but wonder: was the protagonist an elephant or a human? Either would’ve made sense of course: it is a children’s book after all.

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Elephants have always occupied a special kind of love among beings for me. The home is littered with tiny elephant figurines, and soft toys. Hailing from the Indian subcontinent, this is not peculiar or unheard of. It is, in fact, quite common. Intelligent, empathetic, wise, loving beings with a range of emotions, and wisdom, I feel lucky to share the planet with these gentle giants of the land. So obviously, when I saw the book What Elephants Know written by Eric Dinerstein, with glowing reviews from none other than Jane Goodall herself, I picked it up.

I am so glad I did.

Set in the beautiful borderlands of Nepal, this book is told from the first person POV of a young child, Nandu, whose mother is Devi Kali, the benevolent matriarch of the royal stables of the King of Nepal, and father is Subba Sahib, the head of the royal elephant stables. Devi Kali, is the elephant who found the child, Nandu, abandoned in the forests. Nandu was taken in, and raised by Subba Sahib. Thus, begins a gentle lilting story of a magical childhood. The child has his perspectives broadened by education, his keen natural senses honed by a naturalist who collects specimens and conducts research for the Smithsonian museum.

It is a rare pleasure to be able to relate to a young boy, and feel his love for the nature surrounding him. How Nandu manages to save the elephant stables from closure forms the rest of the tale.

Most importantly though, this book evoked a sense of having spent time amidst nature ourselves. That is the biggest achievement of the book – for several times in the week following, I found myself sighing and bringing up the imagery of the thick forests of Nepal. Something that not even the best documentaries manage to do. Maybe it is something to do with the slow creation of the imagery in our minds as we conjure up the descriptions and a version of the forestlands, but it is a worthwhile read.

The creatures of the land, the many birds, and life of naturalists is gently shown to us.

How Daughters Protect Planets

The daughter is home, brimming with chatter and tales from college. I cannot deny that we have been counting down days to have her come home. The house feels different, quieter somehow without her, and I listened happily as she jabbered on a few miles a minute, and gushed and laughed with her little brother. I sat there letting all the flurry blanket me, and smiled.

“What are you smiling about?”, she said.

I said ‘something soppy’ about being happy that she is home again. She looked at me appraisingly and said, “Oh Amma! Look at you. You’ve mellowed into this sad thing who is ‘just happy to have her her daughter home’! What happened to you? What happened to the fierce woman who flew about the place?”

“I am still fierce!” I said.

“Nah! These days – I think she is going to just say something sharp, and she takes a deep breath and shrugs! She really does miss you!”, said her little brother, and I gave him a reproachful look.

A few hours later, she had convinced us to settle down to a week-end movie night of Our Planet II – a Netflix documentary on the state of the planet, narrated by David Attenborough. It is an excellent program of course, and this particular episode veered from the whale sharks in the Persian Gulf to the wildebeest and zebras in the Savannah to the bees in search of their home with equal ease. We sat there mesmerized by the images, occasionally commenting on how hard it must’ve been to capture some of these shots. It had apparently taken 4 years to film and we could well understand why.

“But think about it! Most species are absorbed with staying alive – finding food, reproducing and life resets, for the next generation, right?” I yawned sleepily.

“Yes – Amma & I were talking about that. I mean, if you are a duck: have ducklings, feed yourselves and them, and make sure they are safe. That’s it. That’s their whole life.”

“Yeah!”, the daughter said, laughter ringing in her voice, “Low-key simple, but also every day is just survival! Dog-eats-dog-world. I mean look at us. Tucked into our blankets on reclining couches, watching this on TV, and popping chips into our mouths.”

“We are a spoilt species. “ I agreed. “But I am also glad that we have sentience and energy enough to ponder on more than survival, don’t you think?” I yawned again, ready to head up to a comfortable bed, and thought about that. This extra brain power is probably a double-edged tool. If we hadn’t this extra bandwidth, would we have been happy with survival, and learned to shake down down with our cohabitants better, or can we use this extra bandwidth in ways other than what we have done thus far? Maybe there has to be another leap in our understanding and way of life to truly protect our home and those we share it with.

Documentaries, and books certainly help us along that path, I mused, but a true awakening and action? I yawned another jaw splitting yawn, and decided that my brain power just then had about enough to contemplate sleep and relish in the thought of getting up to no alarms the next day (a rare gift in our busy lives).

As I drifted off to sleep, I thought of the likes of Jane Goodall, Sylvia Earle, Rachel Carson, Gerald Durrell et al, who are voices that help us see the importance of ecosystems. I thought of the question that Sylvia Earle brings up in her book on Oceans: She was asked by a journalist as she stood staring into the vast ocean on the Australian shores, “What would happen if the oceans were to just dry up?”

Flabbergasted, she attempts an answer of the all-encompassing need for the oceans for our survival. Wouldn’t we go the way of lifeless and barren Venus and Mars without the waters of our beloved oceans and its ability to nurture life?

But all of us cocooned in our daily lives of earning our living, and living our lives, and raising our children do not stop to wonder why the jellyfish, and whale sharks are important to us do we?

That is why we need daughters to come home from college. To ponder on the beauty of life, and what we must do to sustain and protect our lovely home: Earth.

Are Raravis Real 🕊?

Several times in the past few years, I have wondered whether we have magical and fantastical beasts amongst us. For instance, are there beasts that hide things from right under our noses just as we start to look for them?

Or wrack spurts like Luna Lovegood says, things that get between your ears and make your brain go fuzzy?

Wrackspurts are invisible creatures that fly in through your ears and cause momentary confusion. As Luna Lovegood seems to be the only character who believes in their existence, we can guess that they spring from the fertile imagination of Xeno Lovegood.

You see for the past few days, every time I was not writing, my mind buzzed with possibilities surrounding mokeskin backpacks, and clever anecdotes involving car keys. Witty writing that I chuckled at myself while I was cutting the carrots, or cleaning the carpet. Yet, for the past couple of days, every time I sat to write a post, not one of these things came to mind. No mokes, no car keys, no fuzz. Nothing.

Finally, in a moment of rare prescience, the next time the mind buzzed, I sent a note to myself : Remember! Car keys & mokeskin purse (which autocorrected itself to moleskin purse, and I found myself meandering to moles and badger and spring filled morning by the river) Honestly, how any writers get anything done at all is beyond my comprehension.

Anyway, where was I? Yes : fantastical beasts that hide things from right under our noses just as we start to look for them. Yes.

The most recent instance happened a few days ago, when I walked around the house looking for something. I kid you not when I say that I tripped over the thing every few days. Sometimes, several times a day. Then, one night, when we really needed it, the husband and I looked everywhere: the garage, closets, medical cabinets, drawers, and found nothing. Not even a whiff. It had simply vanished. So, we had to resort to a near midnight run to the medical store instead. But I guarantee you that next week we shall find the blasted thing everywhere again.

Now, if a magi-zoologist told me that it is the work of the Raravis (biological name: Latebras Vertabrion), I might humor them. I mean, could there be bird that flies in and out with a surreal ability to foresee the future in the short term with a quirky sense of humor? I might even laugh with the bird, and pray for its mercy sometimes. (I just totally made up that being just now – so if there is a being like that in the fantasy world, I’d love to read about it. Please let me know.)

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Here is another raravis-style-adventure: this time involving our car keys.

The son & I also recently listened to Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them by Newt Scamander, narrated by Eddie Redmayne. Some creatures made an impression – we chuckled at a few, wondered at a few others, and loved them all. Who cannot smile at least a little while thinking of Mooncalves – the beautiful beings that J K Rowling claims like making crop circles?Or the moke. I am wondering now whether I put away the carkeys in a mokeskin purse (a purse that allows only its owner to retrieve its contents unless we have a mischievous moke that likes to take its owners on a dance. )

For it went missing so effectively, we had to order another one.

We made do with one key, master procrastinators that we are, till things almost came to a head a few times. Of course, several months later, life went on, and we had still not ordered the spare keys yet. (If anyone is looking for lessons on procrastination, they will be offered next month. )

Anyway, chastising ourselves on this terrible nuisance of having one car key, we finally ordered another one and made an appointment to pick it up. We paid, we waited. Believe it or not, a few days before the spare key was to come, the husband pulled out a backpack we’d used for hiking in the mountains several months ago, and there: hidden inside an inner pocket, not visible to the naked eye, and only discernible by prodding the bag, was the key.

In any case, we now have a truly lovely story for the Tamil saying:

வெச்சா குண்டுமி சரச்சா மொட்டை

Meaning: either a mop full of hair in a ponytail, or a bald head 🙄

P.S: This post just gave me a marvelous idea for a children’s book, and a desire to read the following books again:

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them – by J K Rowling
Book of Imaginary Beings – by Jorge Luis Borges

In the oceans of wonder

T’was the time to plan one of our trips to another dimension, and we were excited. For this time, we also had the company of our family friends who came in from India, which meant that we had planned both a trip to the Monterey Bay Aquarium and the beach nearby afterward for a sumptuous picnic.

At Monterey Bay Aquarium, we can be assured of being grateful to our marvel-filled planet for all its resplendent forms of life: the staggering variety of it, and the true meaning of diversity. For all our time in our daily lives, we seem to devote little of it to ponder the wonders of the world. So, taking a day in which we see nothing but life other than our own, so often so different than our own – with exactly the same conditions to develop is not just wondrous, but necessary.

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There were a few moments in that day that stood out:

🐟 Standing in an entryway where thousands of sardines swam overhead, the son and I noticed that there were a few – very few maybe 5 in all, who were determined to swim in the opposite direction. It seemed to be by choice, since they were edged multiple times in the opposite direction by the other fish. They were packed like sardines after all.

Maybe, every society does need those few who swim against the tide and make their own way – hard as it seems, I thought philosophically. Though, I am the first to admit that I have never studied sardine behavior to corroborate this. It simply seemed like a comforting anthropomorphizing thought at the time. I was feeling contrarian at the moment and these little fishes making their way against the rest of their crowd made it seem like those feelings were valid.

🐟 I have almost identical pictures of the jellyfish exhibit from my multiple visits to the aquarium, but this one was different. The picture of a baby silhouetted against the glass and longingly touching the glass housing the jellyfish caught my attention. Had my more photographically inclined friends been there, I am sure they would have captured an award worthy photograph. What I got was this. I love this picture because it seems to capture that essence of wonder innate in all of us, that we forget to cultivate and nurture.

🐟 Later that day at the picnic at the beach and on a walk by the waters looking at the profusion of wildflowers I could not help staring into the ocean waters. The home to all these grand creatures we had just seen. Their habitats and life in the waters had been beautiful, but so was ours. The tiny wildflowers on either side of the trail were reminders of that. Even if a tiny part of me resented the fact that my attempts at growing these wildflowers had come to naught for so many years and yet here there, able to thrive with no help from mankind.

There is something marvelous about being in the beach on a warm day at the end of May. It isn’t as crowded with the summer sunbathers yet, and the waters are neither warm nor cold: perfect for a game of guess-the-wave -lines (this game is a complicated game where we point to a wave and try to stand as close to the wave on the shore without it actually touching your feet. So the person closest to the wave before it starts receding wins)

I have with me a book on the oceans titled: Sea Change: A Message of the Oceans by Sylvia Earle and plan to wrap myself in the wonders of that world over the week-end.

Life is Elementary

It is when I look back upon the past few years as an adult that I realize how much I have enjoyed the elementary school years of the children. The immigrant experience enriched this time in my childrens’ life for me. I am also extraordinarily grateful for the fact that the schools allowed us to volunteer in the PTA, classrooms and as chaperones during field trips. It gave me a glimpse of their lives with their friends. A chuckle, a phrase filled with colloquial nuance, or just jokes that don’t mean anything to anyone but themselves were all welcome windows into their lives.

I have had a wonderful 12 years of elementary school to enjoy thanks to the age gap of the children. My younger one finished elementary school this year, and now, I feel bereft. There is a little part of me that wants to cling to the innocence and optimism of elementary school. I have always been a clinger – to good memories, to possibility, to energy.

I am also constantly trying to reach for that infinite sense of possibility and curiosity of children. Even if it is hard. Especially since it is hard. Maturity is all very well – but I am not sure I like its jaded companions: caution and realism / pessimism, very much.

Even though the son’s elementary school years were fragmented and bizarre – thanks to the Covid years in between, the children themselves adapted beautifully.

It is in elementary school that the children were happy to see their parents volunteer in their classroom, come on fields trips with them etc, and I loved it. I took every opportunity to interact with young minds and always came far more refreshed than I expected. It is especially easy when the children’s teacher is around, for the children listen to their teachers and behave marvelously. All one has to do then is show up and take in the joys.

I got to read stories, articles, and excerpts from books to the children, and these have been some of my happiest memories in the classroom. I shall be forever grateful to it. Even as a teenager who taught in school during my summer holidays, this story-telling aspect of it has been a joy. I pray that I continue to get these opportunities.

“You aren’t just given happiness, you have to pick it up here and there all through the day.”

― Miss Read, Fresh from the Country

Qi 🧘🏼‍♀️Yin 🧚🏼‍♂️ & Yang 🪷

I remember one rainy monsoon afternoon when I walked into my friend’s house dripping water all over the floor. Their mother (one of my favorite aunts) looked amazing in a saree and I complimented her – ‘makes you look dashing’ I said. She was reading a Sidney Sheldon novel which I found cool in and of itself since I knew very few adults who read the same novels we did. She looked at me and said, “Oh my! Isn’t that nice? I am 43 years old – so I will accept the compliment.”

I thought 43 was ancient then- I mean I knew people are old, but to have a prime number that big as an age must’ve been quite the thing. The sentiment must’ve showed on my face for she laughed and said, “You think that is very old don’t you?” And she patted my cheeks lightly and laughed her way out.

I am in my forties now and feel that way when the daughter and her friends look at me like I am ancient but holding up pretty well. When I tell them about taking reading choices from the daughter and son, I see their look of incredulity for one trying to be the cool reader even when that old, and I can hardly stop a full-throated laugh from escaping my heart and gurgling up through my nostrils and mouth. I hope these children will remember these little scraps when they are in their 40s and chuckle to themselves. The circle of life and all that.

So, it was that I was sitting on the verandah one evening noodling the daughter on the phone and telling her about a book that she’d suggested a few months ago. The House in the Cerulean Sea – By T J Klune.

“You were right! I really liked it. I really like visiting the magical world my dear. Ever since All the Young Dudes from earlier this year, there’ve been so many nice little trips to magical realms, and I feel younger up there thanks to all that. Even as the neurons doddle and wither, I see them perk up with some magic and decide to stay zippy for a bit.”

She laughed, and I was happy with that.

“Did you know they are remaking the Little Mermaid movie again? Better graphics and live action?” I said and moaned.

Why do we keep going back to the same movies over and over again? It isn’t like there is any dearth of stories in the magical realm. Here are a few that I would love to see made as movies.

🐉The House in the Cerulean Sea – by T J Klune has excellent characters, beautiful storylines, and the redeeming quality of beings : love and sense of belonging in a world that constantly is shaping and drawing graphs of absurd belonging all the time. Who doesn’t like a story of children fighting to belong? So what if the children are garden gnomes, sprites, wyverns, or even the child of satan? If all one wants is some heart-warming action, this story has it all.
💊The Apothecary – By Maile Meloy. This booklegger award winning book has a good dose of intrigue, history, potion making, and old magic. Do you want to know about how to create a potion that makes you a bird? Or a nursery that has such rare and unheard of plants that every civilization is aching to get their hands on them? Or a book that has the learnings of generation between its respectable covers? This one has your covered.
🦆Twelve Topsy-Turvy Very Messy Days of Christmas – By James Patterson. This story has whimsy, humor, and magic woven from the lyrics of the Christmas song. The hilarity of the increasing chaos of receiving these gifts in a suburban home makes for pleasant drama and I am sure will make for a fairly gripping movie.

On the 12th day of Christmas

My true love sent to me

12 drummers drumming

Eleven pipers piping

Ten lords a-leaping

Nine ladies dancing

Eight maids a-milking

Seven swans a-swimming

Six geese a-laying

Five golden rings (five golden rings)

Four calling birds

Three French hens

Two turtle-doves

And a partridge in a pear tree

🌝 The Girl Who Drank the Moon – Kelly Barnhill : If you are looking for poetry writing dragons, and love in starlight and moonbeams, here is a story for just that.

These books are charming, witty, intriguing and so, so open-hearted that you can’t help developing alongside them. To accept our fellow beings with all their quirks, flaws and weaknesses.

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“Like in school y’all have literature, math, science, and history, we should have literature, art, engineering and science in our jobs! Help us stay young and all that. What do you think?“

“You are itching for a compliment aren’t you? Fine ma! You are young and remain kooky even at your grand age!”,said the daughter and I chuckled as I headed towards another meeting in which we may not have magic, but the magic from the books and the forced compliment was enough. The qi to the yin and yang of life and all that.

🌲 A Nemophilist’s Booklist🌲

One quite understands Albert in his quest for quiet. The poor fellow leaves his noisy house, goes to the beach, but people follow him everywhere. He has pups to keep an eye on, friends who want him to help build a sandcastle, but all Albert wants to do that day is read quietly. Finally, he does get all his furry and non-furry friends to join him in his reading, and he gets his quiet read after all.

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The preceding week the son captured the feeling perfectly when he said, “Wow! It is only Tuesday! I thought it was Thursday.”

As the week wore on, I thought wistfully of that half marathon run through the forest a couple of weeks ago. Was it only a few weeks ago? Why hadn’t I walked the whole way – enjoying the new shoots of ferns, the ring of trees, the fresh green leaves against the older darker leaves? Still, it was easy to remember the forest, and immersion in a forest seemed like a wonderful option. I said as much to the son and he rolled his eyes, but agreed that it would be a wonderful idea.

So when the week-end finally rolled around: we did the next best thing: went to the library and picked up a few children’s books that could get us a peek into their leafy pages.

There truly is nothing that can come close to actually being in the forest.

Enjoying the breeze – that unique sense of air molecules that just passed the canopy above flutter past you

Admiring the community – that feeling the interconnectedness of the ecosystem that holds the forest together, the mycelia, fungi, birds, squirrels, insects

Being in the presence of creation – that feeling of awe that only the artistry of creation can bring

All of that is part of the old magic of the forests.

Some authors manage to capture a tiny part of these aspects through their illustrations, words, and phrases.

A Whiff of Pine and a Hint of Skunk -by Deborah Ruddell, Illustrated by Joan Rankin
Redwoods – by Jason Chin
In the woods – by David Elliott ; illustrated by Rob Dunlavey
The perfect tree – by Chloe Bonfield

The last book, The Perfect Tree was really a perfect book if one wanted to lose oneself in beautiful thoughts of trees. How does one find a perfect tree? The woodpecker thinks the perfect tree is his own, while the squirrel finds his own tree filled with his secret stash of berries and nuts is the perfect one. A soft smile spread across my face as I flipped through the pages.

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To spend time in a forest is to spend time with your soul. To see the blues, greens, yellows and browns merge together in that trick of light (Komerabi : the phenomenon of sunlight through filtering through the leaves above) is to experience luminescence.

木漏れ日: tree (木), shine through (漏れ), and sun (日): Komerabi

Time For a Spot of Time Travel?

It was time for a spot of time-travel. We just hadn’t realized it at the time, but what started as a movie took us into marshes of history, and from there on to speculative adventures, voyages into books and interesting chats on walks under the moonlight dancing through the clouds alongside the setting sun’d rays. If that doesn’t constitute ingredients for a magical time, I don’t know what does.

We had been out to watch Ponniyin Selvan – 2. Set in a time period in South India a whole millennia ago, the movie had already captured the imagination and attention of Tamil fans with its first installment. Political intrigue, love, betrayal, loss, treachery, assassinations, alongside the brilliant imagery of the sets, the costume design and so much more. I enjoyed the foray into 1000 A.D – I had not read the books that were equated to the (Harry Potter books in our generation) for (Tamil readers a generation ago), and the movie was still transformative in its set designs and plot. Within minutes, we forgot the popcorn and the theatre, and were instead watching mesmerized as the young princes and princess sorted through the messes their lives had become.

Days later, we were discussing all of this, when our discussions turned to the lack of historical writing and documentation in India through the ages. Egypt had the great Alexandria library, and though India was known for its universities and advances in many fields, historical documentation is scant. It is apparent to this day. As quickly as India has grown in the past few decades since Independence, and seeing that the constitution adopted many tenets of freedom, secularism and democracy, it still did not plan to make room for public libraries accessible to one and all. Most advanced nations have free public libraries. (Including the ones that out influenced the early days of India: United Kingdom & United States).

Education has always been hugely valued by the Indian subcontinent seeing that Saraswathi as a goddess of learning and Buddhism as a means to ‘know thyself’ as practically tenets of the culture. To date, there are bookstores and the publishing industry is a thriving one in India. So, the lack of libraries is truly baffling.

I digress, but the point is that historical fiction was and continues to be an interesting genre for this ability to time-travel, to try and unravel the mysteries of a time gone by. We fell to talking about the city of Poompuhar in the Cauvery Delta close to where the Ponniyin Selvan movie takes place, and the husband told us about the fact the funds to find out what happened to the city that was submerged many centuries ago. The South Indian Archaeology department itself was only started in 2005. We do not know when the city was submerged.

Here lies the thrill of the discovery though. With modern techniques, notes from that age, relics and artifacts, so many things could be pieced together.

The son and I read the book, Case Closed? Nine Mysteries Unlocked by Modern Science – Written by Susan Higher and Illustrated by Michael Wandelmaier together.

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In mysteries spread across the world, the book tries to unearth (pun unintended) what happened. Take the case of the missing city of Ubar in the Arabian peninsula. Situated in the Rub’ al-Khali desert, it existed possibly 5000 years ago: a supposedly thriving city on the trade route between Greece, Rome & China, it was last seen in 300 CE.

The Mystery of Ubar was solved in a rather anticlimactic fashion though. It may have been that Ubar was an important port with a fort for protection that was destroyed by an earthquake and sank into the sands, but it may have grown into a city in legend, and retellings of a dramatic nature. However, as historians, archaeologists, documentary movie producers, and space cadets looked through the lenses of time to find out what happened, the journey towards discovery could have been a tale in itself.

How many mysteries like The Atlantis of the Sands are out there?

There will be a time in the future when stories of our time period will be fascinating and what they find about us will be intriguing, though we will never know. That is the thrill of it too. Will our granite slabs tell the story of our technical prowess as well as our internet revolutions?

🪷Happy 18th Birthday 🍀

May is the beautiful month of beauty, warmth , work, and birthdays (including the blog’s birthday)

The nourish-n-cherish saga is now officially an adult in the muggle world (18 years of age)

Over 1080 posts in, the blog seems to have had its own growth.

In the beginning , it was a place for short anecdotes on family and children.

Over time, as it neared school going age, I suppose the blog grew too

It started showing interests in varied subjects: gravitating towards science and nature based subjects for sure, but also retaining that shy curiosity about life and a sense of humor as we navigated the vicissitudes of life.

It isn’t as personal as a diary, so I doubt it will serve as a pensieve, but it serves as a cup of joy from which to sip when in a reminiscing mood.

🧘🏼‍♀️There were times when I could philosophize, contemplate, marvel in safety.

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Whatever it’s purpose was while starting out, I think I can safely say that it has helped along several dimensions (like a snowflake)

When first I started moving out of only personal anecdotes to writing a thing or two on a book I read etc, it seemed to have opened a door to innate curiosity.

Suddenly, I was more interested in varied topics, trying to understand different perspectives, open my mind to areas that I otherwise might not have had the opportunity to, etc. Inevitably, with all this fodder came the benefits of cross pollination, the joys of thinking through things, or the rewards of quiet contemplation.

In short, what started as a hobby soon became a source of such gratification, learning and joy that I could not help sharing with my friends (who, for their part have been nothing short of spectacular with reading, inspiring and encouraging me)

It Takes a Village

There have been times I’ve wondered what it all amounts to.But then I realize that it already has amounted to magnitudes more than I thought possible (sometimes human imaginations are limited.)

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⚡️Those moments when I am spinning ideas in my head, and have to stop mid-stride when a thought strikes.

⛈The magic of writing, re-writing and re-rewriting to get a piece right.

👻The frustration of unfinished pieces from a decade ago because of lack of time.

∫ The joy of tucking a good memory away so it can replenish us in written form later.

🪷The thrill of creativity as new ideas come in – the long list of children’s books ideas waiting to be written (also novellas & short stories) I have wisely given up on the idea of a novel given the constraints of time – but one never knows!

To all of you who have joined me on this journey, whether gamely taking it in your stride when featured, or given me things to think about as part of our stimulating conversations, or inspired me to try new things, or just being there in my life: Thank You!

A Redwood Run

It has been a few years since we attempted a destination run. The type where we run for the scenery, the physical gravitas of one’s surroundings, and the joy of camaraderie among one’s fellow runners. As we ran through the redwood forests, I thought to myself how marvelous it was to run and run like a true child of the Earth without urban buildings, construction noise, and piles of concrete. Even the gray road through the forest felt poetic and somehow attuned to its surroundings. (Well, maybe the double yellow lines were a bit jarring, but the gray road didn’t feel quite so intrusive)

After a chaotic start to the half-marathon, it took some time for us to settle into the run. The traffic jams were horrendous – the husband’s implacable optimism about making it to the start line on time was a bit misplaced, especially when we could see other runners leap out of their cars and run to the start line (adding a good mile to their already long runs). Our group of runners were split between two cars and by the time the bibs were collected and we started the race, it was a good 20 minutes past the race start. To make matters worse, the officials were adding to the confusion yelling to all in the vicinity that they would be removing the starter mats that record time. We were thoroughly frazzled as we ran across – not at all sure it had recorded our run, but we ran anyway.

The son ran a 10K, while the husband and I ran the half-marathon. The son having age and weight on his side flew on, while we huffed and puffed behind him trying to keep up. This resulted in a shin injury for the husband (which, he told me later, almost had him wondering whether he should do a 10K instead. Coming from the sun-is-shining husband, this must’ve been a serious enough injury) However, some stretches and slow miles later, he seemed to be in a better shape.

As we ran on and on, deeper into the forest, there was tranquillity there. A meditative pulse to running through trees that started life when humanity was still contemplating the merits of civilized living. Physical gravitas takes on a new meaning in the redwood forests. Young shoots and ferns, the young greens against the textured markers hues of the older trees, the sunlight poring through the branches high above. I thought of the books on redwood trees – Richard Power’s Overstory – the best one I could think off: powerful in its imagery and cathartic to think about just then.

“This is not our world with trees in it. It’s a world of trees, where humans have just arrived.”

– Richard Powers, The Overstory

Between the 7th and 8th mile, I thought I’d missed the mile marker somehow. It seemed interminably long. My leg seemed to have just given up, and I found myself looking up into the tall redwoods begging for strength. To drink from the infinity that seemed to stretch among those majestic trunks. It helped. The depths of the forest tends to speak to the depths of the soul, and I prodded on, careful not to tell the husband about the injury like saying it out loud would somehow make the injury worse. I stretched, grimaced, and plodded on. Each mile excruciatingly long.

I thought of the gray road cutting the mycelium web underground that sustained these trees for millennia and felt a strange stab of remorse : would the web have found a way to continue underneath the gravel to sustain the trees on either side? I’d have to check.

Cosmos episode for: The Search for Intelligent Life on Earth : narrated by Neil DeGrasse Tyson, written by Ann Druyan & Carl Sagan

But yet again, the forest helped.

Whenever the body felt drained and the pain in the right leg flared up, it felt grounding to remind myself that running this course was one of the best things to happen. For the redwoods were calm, the mists rolling in mystical, and the pattering of fellow runner’s feet grounding. There was a strange other worldliness to running through the redwood forests. Pain (possibly ITB) the only reminder that this was not a dream.

I cannot tell you how marvelous it felt to run the last mile and arrive at the finish line – famished yes, but we had managed to finish! Between our injuries, and a clatter of a start, a horse-wallop of a run, we had finally finished. The son was there cheering us on and all was well.

Having a wonderful set of friends on the journey is always helpful, and though we were scattered throughout the race, and didn’t see much of each other – the glimpses and cheers we did get was hugely inspiring.

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