Can dawn and dusk be friends; a continuum; two millipedes, entwined like lovers, caught forever in an embrace, and not be
two opposite poles
of a day,
what is the difference between them
anyway?
One east and one west?
One birth and one death?
Did not Buddha say
opposites are
one and the same,
two sides
of a single frame.
And yet, I suffer
cradling the notion -
one a beginning,
the other, an end.
A secret of fulfilling life is recognizing, and being at peace with the impermanence of its moving parts
Last month, we spent a week in Lisbon. I was there for a work trip, and J., on a vacation. And now, only a month after we returned, I have an urge to go back. It feels like that when we left, and dropped our keys in the return box at the hotel, something was left unfinished.
Perhaps we did not get a chance to have an unhurried evening sitting on a bench on the boardwalk along Parque Das Nações and watch the dusk descend gradually and see lights in the city behind come aglow, one by one first, and then in droves.
It feels like that before leaving, we did not get a chance to feel the spaciousness of time and say a proper goodbye.
Leaving Lisbon was not the same as leaving Geneva back in August where on the last evening we sat on a bench under a tree along the lake and had an unhurried evening. For a few moments, we felt the indefinable grace and connectedness that life sometimes brings.
Leaving Geneva felt like a natural part of being there, and for that matter, of living.
Not so for Lisbon. Leaving Lisbon was a blur; a rush through the airport to the boarding gate.
And now, I feel the urge to go back, and this time before returning, slowly close the gates, hear the latch click, and whisper that it was wonderful to be here and to be with you. The next time, when returning, I will have the sublime feeling that I may not return again, but it is okay.
A secret of fulfilling life, after all, is recognizing, and being at peace with the impermanence of its moving parts - hairs imperceptibly turning gray; joints beginning to ache; skin starting to fray; or, visiting Lisbon for one final time.
A lesson when summer begins to slowly turn into autumn,
like hairs imperceptibly
turning gray,
is that,
a fulfilling life, after all,
is learning,
and to be at peace with
the impermanence
of its moving parts.
Somewhere within, lurks a fear of endings or of their anticipation.
What would be beyond,
when a poem ends
thoughts wonder?
An emptiness?
A rhythmic ticking of clocks?
Long hours of boredom
punctuated by brief respite
of unappetizing lunch,
and then, dinner?
The heaviness
of the thought of
repeating it
all over again, tomorrow?
Is there a name for this fear
that one can inscribe
on an index card and carry?
Google tried,
but failed.
Perhaps, we could name it
Finistophobia -
an emotion of fear
generated by
anticipation of endings
often followed by
a sense of a never “ending”
emptiness.
Our love is pious you had once murmured,
these lips will not cross
invisible lines
drawn in the sand,
but then,
on a seemingly
innocuous day,
our fingers brushed
reaching for the tumbler
in a moment of thirst.
Water poured
and the lines blurred.
Seasons are passing by. Another summer is slowly transitioning into winter, and squeezed in between, is autumn. One can feel the slight chill in the air and hints of winter months waiting just around the corner.
And in six more months, it will be four years since I have been to India. Thanks to Covid, the normal progression of events has been on hold since 2020.
If I was in India, this would have been the time to take quilts (razai) out from their storage, where they have been slumbering through the months of brutish summer, and afterwards, through the humid months of monsoon, and spread them out in the October sun.
Each year, no matter what corner of the world I am in, during this time of transition from summer to winter, the childhood memories of those quilts spread under the sun return. In my mind's eye, I can see my face buried into their soft warmth and taking in the aroma of naphthalene balls that were put inside to keep cotton eating bugs away.
That aroma, the warmth of soft quilts on my face, and the touch of a friendlier autumn sun after the long summer, was also a secret message from the universe. There was a feeling within that there is something more to autumn than meets the eye. I was too young to know then but those moments were a subtle reminder of my finititude.
But eventually, we do become aware that immersed in the expansiveness of space and time, we are just a blip, and the realization gets harder to ignore. For some, it becomes an ungluing experience, for others, it is some just moments of meh. Perhaps, this divergence in perceptions is an outcome of chemicals in our brains; the efficacy of serotonin and dopamine pathways differs between people.
The sense of our finiteness within the spaciousness of space and time, and trying to resolve the dissonance it creates, has spun off innumerable philosophical traditions. It has spawned religions for us to seek solace from our finiteness. It has fathered nirvana, hell and heaven, reincarnation, and the desire for universal connectedness.
For me, perhaps the resolution from my finititude is that the atoms in this body are a product of billions of years of cosmic evolution, and the same atoms will continue to be there for another billion years to become the part of many many many forms that are yet to come.
Perhaps, recycling the constituents of my body into a future tree, or another living being, a raindrop falling from the sky, or the air someone would breathe million years from now, is my reincarnation, and my redemption from the finititude.
Perhaps.
Autumn is a beautiful, magical, and a nostalgic time of the year. The change in color of leaves, the feel of slight chill in the air, and if I am in India, the time of festivals of Dussehra and Diwali, brings a desire to take it easy and savor life.
Autumn is the time of the year to start slowing down and get ready for the introspection that winter brings.
And obviously, it is time to bring out the quilts and bury my face in their soft warmth under the sun and take in the aroma of naphthalene.
Someday soon, I would land in New Delhi once more, but until then
It is time again
for autumn rites -
let quilts be free;
feel the ache
of another year
on the verge to say bye;
sense the impermanence
in fallen leaves;
and hear geese cackle adieu
before south they fly.
Ciao.
It is time for autumn rites - let quilts be free; feel the ache of another year on the verge of saying goodbye; sense the impermanence in falling leaves; hear geese cackle adieu and south they fly.
It is the season in India to bring out the quilts from their tombs hoping they lived through the brutish summer and humid months of monsoon,
and spread them
under a gentler sun
of the October sky.
It is the season
to bury faces
in their warmth
and take in the aroma
of naphthalene
that rises from within
It is the season
for the autumn rituals
of letting quilts be free
And of feeling the ache
of another year gone by.
It is the season in India
to learn once again
of impermanent self.
Senior sheets in the closet
have their crispness lost,
mature towels
worn down to 300 gsm.
