We had gotten away from the immediate hustle and bustle of the city, and were thus allowed the luxury of listening to the sounds of nature. We shushed each other with rather more vigor and noise than was necessary and finally, the room quieted down. The sun was setting outside. Combined with the excellent company, the warm conversations reminiscing some of our pleasant times together, the beautiful light filtering into the room, and the thrumming of crickets all around us, it all made for a surreal calm setting. I could imagine what people meant when they said ‘ports from the storm’ in that setting.
I had no idea how many crickets would be required to produce a racket like that, and filed the question away for another time. That is the sort of the thing that the son would find amusing to find out. In the meanwhile, my friend was telling me about she noticed that at 7 o’clock sharp, the sound of crickets just died down. This was curious. So it wasn’t at sun-down. It was a few minutes past sun-down.
The act of producing the sound is called stridulation, it meant that the thrum buffeting us in the hills was the sound of vibrant life finding a way to thrive in its environs. Much as the hum of entertaintment in the form of games, music and televised stories in our cities is a sign of thriving life of humans.
The sounds of a species do have a story to tell – though I envisioned this line of thought quickly devolving to burps and farts, and wisely held my tongue. Just as my friend said, the clock ticked from 6:59 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. and the sounds instantly died down. An eerie quiet filling the void in its space.
Later that night, after we had played a game of cards and quietened down for the night, a few minutes after lights were out, the sounds of our whispered conversations, the giggles of the children, and the admonishments of the older folks all died out. Just as sudden and just as deafeningly as the crickets earlier that evening.
I smiled, and clearly exhausted drifted off to sleep myself, the lack of sound a cocoon for which I was grateful.
Alberta sounds like a fussy old aunt who sews quilts, and asks you if you’d like some warm milk before turning in for the night. Yet, Wild Rose County, Alberta, is anything but. There is nothing domestic or warm about its mountain peaks, or its glacial rivers, or its expansive valleys, plains and lakes.
Every peak has a distinct…
Actually, it feels droll to use words like ‘distinct’ to describe the peaks of the Canadian Rockies. Majestic, unconventional, foreboding maybe? But it still does not capture the raw power these mountains exude. The peaks truly do appeal to the fanciful too. As we drove towards Banff in Canada, the car was filled with tales of the kind that must’ve inspired the folklore of American Indians for centuries. I resolved to go and look for some of these legends later.
“See those mountains? Don’t they all look like old men?”
“Yes! They are all wizards who went against nature, and then the rivers and lakes learnt of their treachery, cursed them to watch over them as penitence.”
“Ooh! Nice one!”
“Those must be the mountains where the goats learnt their footing.”
And so it went. Through the traffic and amidst the trees with the towering cliffs of mountains on all sides.
“Look at these little bridges? With trees and plants growing on them. Like little bridges for wildlife to cross the highway.”
“Yes! That is exactly what it is!”
“Like the stuff mentioned in the West Wing episode?” asked the son wide-eyed. His interest in all things constitutional seems to be on the rise these past few months, and so we have started watching West Wing again. It makes for wonderful entertainment. If Aaron Sorkin was able to make a series like that based on a Presidency like Bill Clinton’s, I wonder what he would be able to do with a Donald Trump one. (But that saga wrote itself.)
Driving along the Canadian highways with nothing (miles of no human habitation) and everything (bounteous, gorgeous, fabulous nature) on all sides is surreal, and a change that we were grateful for.
Time spent in a beautiful meditation of clouds, is time well invested in one’s soul. I am convinced of it.
The past week had me sighing and exclaiming at nature’s shows. The multi-layered clouds rolled in, and treated the populace to extraordinary shows of the skies.
At times, it would be the shades of gray against the white fluffy clouds as a backdrop.
At others, it would be the inevitable beauty of the setting sun’s rays as it used the clouds as a canvass for their light based shows.
Sometimes, I would find myself after a late night meeting simply looking at the moon flit in and out of the marvelous multi-layered curtains in the sky, to the orchestra of the winds through the trees outside.
One such time, I found myself picking up two beautiful children’s books and flipping through them with contented sighs. If only one could bottle up these little moments, there wouldn’t be angst or turmoil in the world.
The Boy and the Blue Moon: By Sara O’Leary, Illustrated by Ashley Crowley
Both books managed to capture the beauty of the moon’s rays so perfectly.
I wonder whether the animals we share the planet with enjoy the cloudy days. They seem to be. One morning on a beautiful morning when thoughts of gratitude flitted in and out, much as light seem to be flitting through the scudding clouds overhead, I stopped in awe at the birds. This season, I noticed many more birds – maybe a bounteous winter made for a marvelous nesting season for the birds as well, who knows?
But the blackbirds, geese, herons, storks, pelicans, wood-ducks, grebes, hawks, turkey vultures, bald eagles, harriers, thrush, sparrows, robins, woodpeckers, avocets, yellowlegs, hummingbirds, and so many species that I can’t identify, have been flitting and filling the air with beautiful characteristic sounds.
Life seems busy as the conscientious parents take care of their newly hatched young.
As I write this, a mild rain is falling outside – so gentle there is no discernible sound of the rain. The only soundsare those of chirping birds like a soothing backdrop to the drama in the skies: The grays against the greens and the multicolored flowers a unique kind of meditation.
Driving up to the mountains, we passed by the green hills, greener pastures, and entire meadows, and hillsides covered in lupines, daisies, poppies, milkweed, and little yellow flowers (So many varieties!). If ever any one needs their worries and woes to flee, a drive like this is all it would take.
“In every wood, in every spring, there is a different green.” – J R R Tolkien
Yosemite National Park is probably one of the most explored parks in the world.
🪨Every major boulder is given an impressive (sometimes humorous) name: El Capitan, Half Dome, Cathedral Rocks.
💦Every major perennial waterfall carefully charted – yet every year in spring with the snow melt, the number of little creeks and waterfalls that arrive and vanish before the summer’s heat is like trying to estimate how many chips a kid would eat out of a fresh packet.
🏞 Every picturesque spot named – there is even a week dedicated to photographing a waterfall – that week the rays of the sun at sunset make the waterfall look like a volcanic lava flow. Photographers spend hours waiting for that wondrous shot.
Of course in spite of everything been catalogued and charted, nature finds a way to impress and astonish. High up in the Sierra Nevada mountains, we expected to be cold.
But, Spring in the Sierra Nevadas felt like winter left in a huff one evening. No lingering farewells, no tears, no gloom, no fussing. Just packed its bags and left.
Spring pranced in, as though waiting back-stage secretly shooing winter off for a bit of shine in the spotlight,and all the world suddenly brightened and lit up in the sunshine. We were so shocked to have two days without needing thermals, or jackets and just listening to the snow melt from the peaks whooshing down the rivers.
As we walked through the forests of Yosemite, poetic phrases bubbled up. Why oh why does this happen, and how oh how does the world know April is Poetry Month?
This has probably been the most generous winter I have witnessed in the past two decades in California. I felt bad for the number of trees that were felled due to the extraordinary winds and rains coming after years of near-drought, but overall, I was grateful.
Wherever we turned in the massive valley – rivers and waterfalls surrounded us. It is truly a beautiful time. When the power of Earth makes you feel humbled, grateful, and joyous, is there a better retreat?
I sat one spring morning feeling a kinship that felt very Wind in the Willows,Frog & Toad, or any other sweet animal story that comes to mind. I thought fondly of the animal characters in my Festivals in the Jungle series (My own characters Oby Elephant, Jenny Rat, Biso Bison et al ).
Spring in the world means that a whole world sits up and takes notice. At least schools still honor this joyous season with a Spring Break. I am happy (and just a little jealous) to see the story book tucked under the son’s arm as he nestles into his reading nook in the mid-morning with his City Spies book, followed by a vigorous hour of television watching on the couch.
While most white-collar job humans have created have schedules and tasks quite divorced from the natural world outside, the bulk of the creatures that we share our planet with, have not fallen to this folly.
So, it is with glee that I stop typing to peer outside the window to see a bunch of squirrels fooling about and squealing – having fun while chasing each other and gearing up for the year ahead. It is with a surge of protectiveness that I look at the thrushes who are building and fortifying their nest in our patio. It is with pride that I look up and see a crow carry a long string in its beak for its own nest. It is with joy that I wait for the ducklings and goslings to hatch so I may see these stellar parents at work showing us a thing or two about parenting.
The other day, the husband & I went on a hike nearby – out on the rolling hills. Hearts a-flutter, toes a-flying, spirits a-singing, water-bottles a-swinging. We prattled on as we ascended the green hills bursting with wildflowers an all sides. The misty air was enhanced by the scents of eucalyptus and pine. The cows and calves grazing in the hillsides are always a joy to watch in spring time. As we neared one particularly narrow path in the trail, a large cow – or rather an extra-large cow obstructed our path. If I had been in the sub-Saharan areas of Africa instead of the lush green hills of California, I might’ve mistaken it for a hippopotamus. Gentle creature as it was, the husband and I exchanged quizzical looks and waited patiently. The poor animals seemed to have an itch and, having no other option, had scrambled up some steep hillsides to get to the fallen tree by the wayside and was scratching itself against the trunk.
We waited. The cow scratched.
We waited some more. The cow turned and scratched some more.
After some more minutes of this thrilling action, we decided to give the poor animal some space and started walking away the way we came.
Had this not happened to us, I might never have believed. But within a few steps of us going in the opposite direction, the cow called out to us. As if to say, “I am almost done. You can come along now.” Some more quizzical looks later, we doubled back. Right enough, the cow turned to look at us, and then ambled away. Slowly on the path, body language saying- come along now, don’t be silly. Of course you can carry on in your little amble beside me.
One time, I remember, a cow calling out to her calf in unmistakable tones of warning as it came close to us. The calf, like most little ones, was curious to see what was happening. The mother gave a warning, and some time later, as more people ambled up the path, called out, “Come here!” – Not in English of course, but in Moo-in-ese, and the calf thought about ignoring her, but then acquiesced, and agreeably went back to its mother only to get a gentle reward of some suckling.
The language of understanding is so marvelous to behold. The world in the spring-time is a place to soak in all these lessons with a beginners mind #Shoshin.
“In the spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt.”
― Margaret Atwood, Bluebeard’s Egg
It was a beautiful spring day and the senses were rebelling against the small act of staying indoors. So, I took myself to the seat by the window and lifted the windows. A slight chill came in – like a little river of spring amidst the cozy indoor air. But along with that something else came in too – I call it Spring Yodeling and I smiled despite myself. There, in the park nearby, sat a man who couldn’t stop himself singing at the top of his voice – bass tones and high spirits make for an enjoyable combination. I’ve heard of bards mention ‘song bursting forth’ and have heard the robins bursting with song on a spring morning and all that, but witnessing it is a whole lot better. It was joyous to behold.
If I knew the song, I would’ve joined in – but alas I did not.
I might’ve written it off as exuberant spring spirits, if it weren’t for the fact that I got to listen to another yodeler the same day while on an evening walk. It was a cold day with a promise of the rain and the clouds scudding obligingly to make way for some rays of the setting sun. I was walking along a river bed, and on the opposite side was a yodeler, this time with a high pitch and a wobbly track, but spring yodeling nonetheless.
When two spring yodelers show you how it’s done, a little spring humming cannot be far behind can it? And so, it was, that the son and I hummed to a tune, (completely out of tune obviously but joy and music-correctness are two different things). Afterward, after several glances to ensure no human company was nearby and inviting honks from the geese, we yodeled too. It was out of tune, true, but joyous and glorious all the same. We even got a rainbow to peek out at us at the very end. That must count for something right?!
Of course, as I sat by the window ledge writing out this piece, I looked for suitable quotes and this one tickled my musical fancy:
“Blessed are those who yodel – for they shall never be troubled by offers of work.”
I threw my head back and laughed – yes, the hummers of that Spring evening shall not be troubled by offers of work in that department, and didn’t that make it all the more enjoyable?
The feeling of being unmoored, like being whisked around in a merry-go-round was still lingering in the air. The madness within seemed to be reflected in the madness outside too.
I hung off the railing and stood like that for a few minutes. It can’t have been more than a few minutes. For the skies were turning from purple to inky blue and in those precious moments, I stood there watching the world spin around. The river flowed on ahead of me – brimming, swirling, continuous. Out in the distance, a train rattled as it sped away into the bustling city, torn tree branches lay scattered all over the ground near me (the gales of the past week had been more than any of us had ever experienced in the past few years.)
Come to think of it, this winter had been nothing we experienced in a long long time.
The feeling of the world in movement was more and more keenly penetrating. As I stood there, gaining my bearings, a runner came bobbing and panting, his head fixed with a headlamp. I grimaced not at the poor fellow, but at the speed with which he was running. He smiled in the weak light and I smiled back. If, running at that speed, the fellow could smile, I could do so too. However, I felt restive.
The planets peeked out at strategic points amidst the clouds above and the setting sun was a reminder of the 1000 miles per hour rotation that the Earth managed.
The past few days were blurs of meetings, deadlines, gales, gushing rivers, flood warnings, school meetings, preparations for this and that, travel plans.
A week in short where the world felt like a merry-go-round.
I dug my feet in a little deeper – I needed to ground myself. Relativity is a marvelous thing. For I closed my eyes, just taking in deep breaths of the flowing river, and the colors of the Earth around me. Not moving, not running, not planning, not driving, not doing. Just Being. The clock-like ticking inside the chest seemed to sense what I was doing and calmed down too.
Within you there is a stillness and sanctuary to which you can retreatat any time and be yourself.
– Herman Hesse
I opened my eyes, and after a few more moments felt a serenity – the world around me still moved at that frenetic pace, but I seemed happy and more content to be a silent spectator.
Here is a book that spoke to the very depths of the child in me. I am sure many of us have spent time with just this sort of activity, and may be not with such fantastic results to show for it.
I distinctly remember :
❅ ❄️❆Drawing snowflakes of every shape I could fathom ever since I learnt that every snowflake was different. Considering I had never seen snow, that seems like a pretty bold endeavor, but that right there is the charm of childhood and imagination. I am not sure if I would like to find those pages of doodles now – the memory of those warm afternoons is more beautiful than anything I could’ve conjured up.
🍃🍀🍁The shapes of all the different leaves. The leaves themselves dried and carefully preserved within the pages of books. All that remains now is the memory of this precious activity and of course the inestimable happiness of afternoons spent drawing the beautiful shapes into notebooks, after the glorious wind swept mornings collecting them.
🌷🌺🪷The nosegay bouquet of wildflowers plopped into brass vases that spotted the house. How could one not look at that and remember the ladybugs clinging to the leaves, the spider webs wet with dew, the scents of eucalyptus that decades later can still send one back to the beautiful countrysides scented with the fresh rain against the eucalyptus trees?
It is always a marvel to me how our mental maps form around these seemingly innocuous objects. The raspberry bushes by the little cave, the eucalyptus trails by the deserted bridge. If only, we had the foresight to etch these into little maps like the lovely little girl in My Heart is a Compass does. What a treasure that would have been?
The book starts off with a young girl wanting to show her most precious innovative unique possession for show-and-tell. But what is it?
Could it be a trip to the stars?
Or a dive into the wonders of the ocean?
Or a marvelous hike through the enchanted forests?
Pic from her preview on Amazon
By the end of the book, Rose wants to showcase the very best things in life for her friends to see. So she comes up with a marvelous map with the most wondrous her imagination can come up with. (Which can be the most beautiful or the most terrifying, and in this beautiful book is nothing but intriguing and promising)
I set the book down and wondered again why that beautiful feeling of childhood curiosity and the tendency to look at the world as a magical mystical place wanes with time. The imaginary overtaken by reality, knowledge overtaking intuition, logical vs emotional. Our heart is a compass, and in an ideal world should lead us towards happiness.
In the long journey of life, if only there was a tonic to never lose that wonder, but constantly add to it, how marvelous the adventure of living would be!
There is a charm to traveling at this time of the year. We had decided on an Europe trip with 3 countries thrown in to the mix. Which is to say that the rest of the nourish-n-cherish household of spoilt folks enjoyed a trip planned meticulously by the husband. Left with all the rest of the work, I stood in front of my bookshelf dilly-dallying on the reading material. Finally, I chose Bill Bryson’s Neither Here Nor There: Travels in Europe, which was an excellent read.
The whole way to the Airbnb from the Paris airport, the radio was on and the hosts chattered on in French. Considering that I was the only passenger in the car who had ‘learnt’ French, I must say I was aghast that I remembered almost nothing of the beautiful language (except for tidbits such as – one mustn’t pronounce the last consonant, unless the next word starts with a vowel, or the river is feminine while the museum is masculine) I have always been little lost with languages that attribute a gender to everything.
Is a croissant masculine or feminine? I don’t know.
Both Le Croissant and La croissant sound right to me, but DuoLingo assures me that croissants are masculine and therefore Le Croissant is correct. Sigh.
I must say languages and brains are curious things. I was sincere, if not successful, in my attempts to learn French in 11th and 12th grade. I would’ve thought that some things would surface through the foggy decades as I heard the spoken language, or saw the words written in the menu cards in the little French cafes. But nothing happened. I recognized ‘avec’, ‘le’, ‘la’, ‘and words that had a passing semblance to the English language and could thus be fathomed. As I stumbled my way through the language I realized that I had never really spoken French, though I seemed confident enough to butcher the pronunciations. For instance, I confidently addressed the Louvre as the ‘Loo-v-rrrr’.
Apparently, I had it all wrong.
Humbled by this revelation of my poor French, one day on the metro, I was trying my best to listen to the announcements and map the name of the stations to the pronunciation. I can understand my not getting a name like Champs-Élysées – Clemenceau or Maisons-Alfort – Les Juilliottes, but I didn’t get Grands Boulevard. That hurt. Now see, I pronounce it is Grand-ss Boo-lay-vard (so no letter is offended or feels less important). But the French pronounce it as Gron Boolevaar. With the overhead crackling that is a requirement for most metro systems, I heard it as ‘groan bole’, and was looking around at people before the husband said it was time for us to get out and hustled us out. I leaped out before the doors closed behind me and was rattled till the sortie (exit).
The French trip you up in more ways than one. I trust it is their way of having fun with us poor sods who haven’t a clue about the language. For instance, there were so many names that sounded like food, it was astonishing. Who wouldn’t like to get out at Madeleine station? I found myself drooling a bit about the buttery m-s and missed Grands Boulevard.
I remember the husband telling me for an entire hour that we had to go to Rue Ravioli. I thought to myself and smiled that I had never seen this many streets named after food in any other country. I mean how often have we seen a Hamburger boulevard, or a Tomato-Bisque Road? Even in countries that enjoy their foods so much like India, I had never seen a Roti Street or Dosa Boulevard. As I was feeling cleverer and cleverer with the inspired line of thought, I found that the husband was truly hungry was all. It was Rue-de-Ravoli, not Rue-de-Ravioli (the cheese filled pasta).
Nevertheless, the names had a marvelous ring to them.
Liberte
Bonne Nouvelle
Strasbourg – Saint-Denis (a big hyphen followed by a small hyphen)
I took 3 years of French in school, but learned next to nothing. The problem was that the textbooks were so amazingly useless.
They never told you any of the things you would need to know in France. They were always tediously occupied with classroom activities : hanging up coats, cleaning the blackboard, opening the window, setting out the day’s lessons. Even in seventh grade I could see that this sort of thing would be of limited utility in the years ahead. How often on a visit to France do you need to tell someone you want to clean a blackboard? How frequently do you wish to say: “It is winter. Soon it was will be spring. “
In my experience, people know this already.
Bill Bryson
But language has a way of morphing and conjoining, and by the end of the day, the daughter was speaking in lilting French accents, and I was very impressed with her, and unimpressed with myself for I understood next to nothing. Then, she chuckled and told me that she was just spinning her Spanish in French accents. I tell you! The nourish-n-cherish household really knows how to capture the magique francais.
It was the day after the storm. The white and blue of the skies above belied the battering of the previous two days. The torrents of rain lashing down, and the dark clouds seemed like a dream.
As much as I love a rainy day adventure, the day after the rainy day has an appeal of its own. The world seems sparkling and clean, the air still has a lingering moisture in the air somehow making it smell fresher and sweeter. The glistening droplets on the flowers and treetops make for interesting interludes if they happen to drip on your upturned face, and the birds, oh the birds! They make up for everything. Their trilling is fuller, and richer – maybe they are relishing the sweet fresh Earth too.
This particular morning, I looked up at the blue skies with perfectly designed and placed fluffy clouds. There was even a Mickey Mouse shaped one to remind me to smile and think of the happiest place on earth (right then, it was there watching that cloud and taking in all the world around me).
My heart skipped along joyously when I was stopped my tracks by a California blue jay chipping away at the last remaining fruit in a fruit tree.
I know this statement seems unremarkable. But when philosophers tell you savor every moment, I think they mean moments like this one. There was nothing special or remarkable about it. But it had that ethereal ability to capture the past, present and the future in one shining bubble.
All the leaves had fallen with the last storm, the bird was dry and trying to get at its food. This one poignant image sticks with me – of all the hundreds of photographs taken, this moment was one I did not capture. Yet, it seemed to hold the storm, life after the storm and hints of life during the storm in it.
As it was, so it shall be.
What does one say for moments such as this one? I don’t know. Maybe the reason I enjoyed the moment so much was because I had that childlike wonder of shoshinin me when I stepped out that morning, or maybe it was because the warmth of the sun after a cold, wet few days was striking. Regardless, there we are sloshing through life, and when we stop to admire a blue jay on a bright morning, it seems like all will be well.
Nourish-n-Cherish 