He was all of four years old!

This little boy came in with his parents. He was small - very small.

He was four but looked barely more than two and a half. He was thin and wiry and hesitant. He hid behind his father as he came in- that should have warned me. But it did not!

We always must learn- learn to be in THE moment. To observe. To simply breathe and let the air and the light wash over us. But... we start to make our own stories and create our own interpretations. We must make some decisions, some judgements- before we even consciously identify any facts of the matter. Then we spend the rest of the interaction justifying our baseless judgement. 

How can we do that? We- who are supposed to be intelligent and observant creatures- and the creatures whose power of observation really must determine the quality of life of any soul who walks in through the doors to our chambers. We- the doctors!

But... we learn. We stop. We take stock once more when confronted by new or different information... I did, too.

The father began to speak. And the boy sat quietly- much too quit for the terrible twos or the frustrating fours!

"His speech is not clear." Simple enough complaint. There are not many things that can go wrong here. So I carried out my preliminary examination- tongue fine, teeth good, muscle tone fine, even the ears great. No reason the child should not speak clearly.

Another alert! By now, I was better placed. I was PRESENT IN THE MOMENT... to the child. My eyes were on the little fellow. My ears were eager to hear what he would have to say. I needed a speech sample to move further.

He started moving and placing his tongue unnaturally over the lower teeth and into the back of lower lip. No matter what I tried, the tongue would not really make the excursion through the various parts of the mouth for speech clarity. All the sounds were jumbled and warbled. One phonetic group was completely substituted by the other. Then, there were sounds that defied definition. He could not even enunciate his own name- poor baby!

By now, alarm bells were ringing in my head. I turned to the parents. And told them that the child seemed to be terrified of something or someone. And that the would need not only to work on the physical world of the tongue gaining more flexibility and movement but also his mind being more playful and able to be the child he could be.

I turned back to the child, "Dhruv*!, Are you afraid of anyone?"

I have noticed that direct questions work better than indirect ones in these situations. That the children are no different than adults except that they have fears that overwhelm their little minds much more readily than adults can imagine. And that they MUST speak what is in their head- and they often do- to be free. They can BE free- easily. 

We must learn the art of acknowledging our fears from the little ones, just identifying the fears loosens their grip on our life.

He looked at me- with eyes wide and unblinking. A tear formed at one corner. And then a torrent started. All I could do at that time was to reach out- and hug the baby. I did. I gently asked him again. "Are you afraid of someone?"

He looked at his mother- sitting across the room- and blurted out. "I am afraid of my mother. She hits me. Very badly. And I do not know why." He started sobbing. Tears were now freely rolling down the cheeks. I did the only natural thing for me to do here. I completely ignored the father. And asked the mother to leave us alone for a while. She walked. In dignity. In stoic silence- her head held high in the wake of a storm that her little son had managed to start.

I asked Dhruv* again. "Do you not think your mother loves you?"
He sobbed, "Not very much. She has more anger than love. She really hits me. "

"But you must be doing something for her to feel the need to hit you," I persisted. "I am sure she loves you and you do not understand." To give this little tyke his due, he stood firm on that shaky ground; the tremors were only for his mother.

No.
My mother does not love me.

Now- being a mother myself, I cannot believe that it is possible for a mother to not love her own child. So I wanted this love deprived child to understand that love can have many faces- some of them may not even look like love. But I could not do that. Instead, I asked HIM- "What would make you think your mother loves you?"

He cried even more bitterly.

I had to press on. This child needed to know how he could identify love. And his mother needed to know how she could love him so he could feel the love. Often we do not even know that the way we express our love is not the way the other sees love. We talk French, hoping to understand and be understood by a person speaking German. It is not going to happen! Not only is one language soft and the other guttural, both are totally different in their soul and expression.

I asked him whether he would feel loved if his mother hugged him like I was hugging him. He backed off. And told me- he would not let her come that near because he was sure she would hit him. Now that is really not natural! I asked him what then would make him feel loved by his mother. He brought up a tiny hand, and lovingly gripped his own jaw between his thumb and his fingers on the other side and said- when she kisses me like this!

How clear can a love language be? Gary Chapman would be proud of that child.

Now it was time to talk to the mother. I called her in. And sent the child and the father out. And I asked her. "Why is your son so afraid? What scares him so much?" Now it was her turn for catharsis. She could not speak at first. Then words came tumbling out. "The atmosphere at home! My husband had threatened to divorce me. My mother-in-law was torturing me. Now we are separated from my in-laws and live separately, but I used to take out my frustration of not being able to find love by hitting Dhruv*. I have hit him very badly in the past. And I realize I have really damaged him. I am sorry. I am so sorry. I am so so sorry!"

When Dhruv walked in a few minutes later- he did not have to be told that his mother loves him.

He looked at her and she was crying. He was crying, too.

They both reached out for each other and hugged each other.

And she held his face between her thumb on one side and the fingers on the other... and...

...she kissed him.
Gently.
On his tears.
The salt of his emotion mixing and mingling with the salt of her emotions. The tides rising and falling synchronously. They had found each other. 

And i found myself!

How many times do we try to RULE the lives of our children?

Do this, do not do that!

Speak properly. Now shut up!

Sit down. Stand up. Eat. Wash. Sleep. Wake up. Walk. Run.

There appear to be only commands. Where do those words that the children need to hear as much as us go?

Go back home and say to the ones who matter to you- I love you. You matter to me. I am sorry. I am grateful for being with you. And say thank you. 

Thank the people who make the life you live worth living. 
Thank the Lord for putting them in your life to make it meaningful.

And understand that each day- we must choose. We must choose to live a life worth living, or not.

Understand that the things that matter most cannot be measured. 

That we must find our own love space. And fill it with light. So we are not afraid of the dark. 

True love is forever.

I love you and you love me... And we often wonder what we did that brought us to this! We did not know each other a few years ago. Now we know no one else. We had not the faintest awareness of each other's existence- and now we know no other existence. This is all good. It is all well. And it is as it should be. Yet- there are some punctuation marks that force us to pause and ponder. These pauses make us more alive and aware of that moment which must define a life. They make us more alive in each moment and to each other- complete with flaws and with traits that first got us together. There is nothing else that matters now. There is nothing else that CAN matter now. Only that we are together and we will not have it any other way.

And yet... we must also acknowledge that this is not perfect. I am not perfect. You are not perfect. It is the search that we both undertake that seeks perfection and sees nothing less as possible. Love, they say is blind. no. I assert. Love is not blind. It blinds. Love makes every little flaw and each big one, disappear as if these do not exist. Not that they do not matter. But that they do not exist. However, deep down we both know. We are seeking. And have forgotten to see. It is time to rest our eyes and even our minds. It is time to let our souls awaken from the slumber and simply see what is, not seek what is not.

Will we see each other in this light- just as we are? And will we decide in the depth of our souls that THIS is what we chose? This is the life and the after life that we chose and this is what will bring us the light and the cool breeze in the stark desert of life? This is what will bring the showers and the flowers. This is what will bring the song and the poetry. This is what will be the well spring of life.

We live in each other's awareness. We live in each other's consciousness as the feelings we feel. Not as they are. Not as we are. But as the feelings we each feel. It is time to realise that we are a sum of several things. We are not our feelings alone. We are not our thoughts alone. We are a sum of all the moments that we live and do not even register in our consciousness. We are a sum of all the moments that the Universe has seen prior to us and will see after we are gone. We may be an insignificant speck in the firmament of Life and of Time and we may be THe defining speck without which the pattern of the Space Time just would not be what it is. We are in reality neither one nor the other. We are at once both. This is not very difficult to reconcile with our consciousness; it is only made more difficult by the eyes we look at the Universe with.

In fact, in some alternate Universe we have not even met. We have not fallen in love. We are not aware of each other's existence and know not how much we mean to each other in this one. In this alternate world, it does not matter that we woke today or did not. It does not matter that we breathed the same air or not.

In that alternate Universe the little battle that left us both embittered could not have happened. In that alternate world, the little moment of togetherness that we stole from our day to reinforce our belief in love forever would not have mattered. In that alternate Universe, we could be with someone else. Or still waiting for each other. Or we could have met, and parted knowing this is not to be. But all that would have to be in an alternate world where the laws of our world do not hold. It would have to be a world where we could not survive because the only natural existence for us is to be in each other's love. That would have to be a world where the laws would be completely different. Because any world where we are not together is not a possibility from what we know about each other- even without being aware of the knowledge.

In any world where life exists as we know life to exist- in any world that closely follows our laws- an alternate reality is not possible. It is not possible for any other combination of breaths and moments in a world that we recognise as a world.

So stay with me- and love me tender.

Stay with me and fight bitter battles only as a means to express that undying desire never to be free of my presence. Just as I confess my undying desire to be in your presence in your world and your life.

Love me. For nothing else is possible. The magic is here.

The elegance of being alive, the magic and the mystery of being in love gets overlooked by the business of living and believing there will be better days. Those days will never be. They are here and they are now. They are never going to be in some intangible, distant, unforeseeable future that we are doomed to keep looking for. The elegance of being alive and the magic and the mystery of being in love are defined in each moment we live fully aware that it is THE only moment we live. In each moment a part of our life becomes history. Something that cannot be changed. And in each moment we are at the point where we can define history by making a choice- to observe THE moment.

The most crucial moment of any 'episode' in life is not when that episode happens. The most crucial moment in life's episodes are the moments just BEFORE the episodes happen. In that moment we could fly, or love, or hate or even simply leave everything behind.

But in the mad rush of living a fast paced life- we hardly notice the moments. We only notice the episodes. And we miss the moment of simply BEING alive. The moment that we could go anywhere and do anything. This is the moment when we can touch eternity. This is the moment when we can connect with God. This is the moment when we can finally come home.

And where is really the home? Is it in the four walls that protect us from the blistering cold of bitter winters or from the blistering heat of vaporizing summers? Or is home the pace where we may rest our heads and our hearts knowing that the elements are our friends and we need no protection. That we are one. One with the Earth. And with the Firmament. And it is the place where we discover our own Divinity in love.

And that home is the place where nothing else matters.

Home is the place where we find ourselves because we found us.

Do I hide my feelings?

Trying to post two posts to make up for yesterday. I had severe pain chest and upper abdomen- never felt anything like it before. It made me feel as if all my viscera were going to fall out from wherever they can find a way; and if they cannot, they will strain hard against the resistance that my body's boundaries were posing. It was excruciating and I could not hide it... for once.

We tend to hide how much we hurt, and how sad we are. We do not try to make small of our love and our happiness. We are often afraid to be transparent- because that reveals our vulnerability and our weaknesses. What if someone takes advantage of our weakness? What if someone uses it against us? What if... And we hide it so well, that we start hiding it from ourselves!

But those who know us, and love us- they can see it clearly. When they say it to us- we are not able to accept it, too. By now we believe what we live- the lie. By now our reality is different from THE reality.

And as they say- some of the things that matter most are invisible- gravity, atoms, DNA. Yet they are as real as the chair I sit on, and the machine I type this post on! And these real things, too- are made up of largely empty spaces! How can so much emptiness create so much solidity and tangibility?

No... I am not very good at admitting to me faults- but I am getting there.

No... I am not very good at accepting my shortcomings when they are pointed out- but I am trying to get there, too.

No... I am not very good good at seeing MY invisible- but I am trying to expand my vision- and look beyond what appears to be. I want to reach what IS. And not be hurt by it- any longer!!

And that is what life should be about? No?

How good are you at telling a lie?

This October prompt got me thinking at a tangent... I am not very good at the routine kind of lies... I cannot even lie to save my life- it shows so plain on my face that a blind man can see it! I cannot say that I have completed a project when I have not. I cannot say that I 'forgot ' the form, if I did not! I cannot say I am happy when I am not. And I cannot say I am sad when I am not.

I am an pen book. The pages have bold print. And the rough edges are all worn through from the repeated page turnings. They can be very easily read, and deciphered.

But is that always so?

These are the things that we relate to the external world with. What happens when we are relating to our own selves?

Do we not try to hide our own deepest fears as well as our own weaknesses from ourselves? Do we not lie to ourselves when we try to tell ourselves in moments of utter despair that it does not matter? Of course it matters! WHat ever that IF is! It matters - and that is why we find ourselves in the space where we want to FIND some happiness and some joy. We lie to ourselves again! We tell ourselves that we will be happy once this is over. We will be happy when...

But it never really works out that way. And we lie to ourselves again! I TRIED EVERYTHING! BUT...

And the chain of lies goes on. It is all going on at a level that we do not often recognize. A level that lies just below the conscious- there if just dip in-and not if we just go on.

So... I guess I am very good at telling a lie!

And it is time I caught myself. And stopped myself. And told myself what IS and separated it from what my story about that reality is.

I need to free myself up!

I hate to pretend!

I hate it when I have to act as if I am having a good time when in fact I would like to just walk. I hate it when I have to say I am OK when in fact I am all broken up inside and trying to make sense of things that refuse to be made sense of. I especially hate it when I have to BE fine and happy, when inside I feel like there could be no one as alone as me!

No I do not love acting. I hate it with all my heart and soul. And I wish I could get away from it all.

I hate the fact that most of our actions have to pass through the filter of OMG! What will XYZ think? I am supposed to be happily married with a lovely family and a wonderful job. I also have lovely friends. And all this should make me happy. So I must look happy!

How can we give so much power to a single person in our life that they can break all our delicate china as if a bull was let lose in the china shop? How can we still love that person and hurt so much that we are ready to even lie to ourselves and tell ourselves it does not matter. Of course it matters! It matters that when I need help I do not get it, and when I ask, it is not available. It matters that I must go through life alone. It matters that I am unable to act calm and let the storm blow over.

I hate to act as if I am having a good time, when I am to. I hate to act as if I know I am loved , when in actual fact, deep inside I yearn to feel it once more.

I hate...
I hate...
I hate...

This blog was written for the NaBloMo October. Any resemblance to characters or events- real or imaginary is purely incidental.

God bless a woman who feels with her heart and lives with her feelings to carry her through the storms and tribulations of a frail and fragile life.

I had a severe chest pain in Landmark- and I was thinking this is the worst diaphragmatic spasm I have ever experienced. I wanted to rub it into relaxation - and it further tightened up making me almost double up in pain.

I thought- what can be the worst case scenario? That I will not be missed? But as Sanjay says- once i am gone- what does it matter anyway?

So yes... I hate to pretend that I matter, that I am happy, that ... when I am not!!

What does a face show?

There are faces that speak, and faces that whisper, and faces that simply keep quiet. But all faces can be heard, if only there is a listening ear, a feeling heart. 

The smile that just lights up the corner of the eyes... The Wonder that is writ large on the upturned gaze and the love that flows fro half open lips... But all this is seen, and heard by those who want to see and hear.

There is my face- once an open book for all to read- to see and know exactly what was going on inside my head and my heart. The fear, the apprehension, the love and the adulation, the pride and the sense of achievement- everything was as plain to see as the red blush of embarrassment. In fact, when I used to be upset- my nostrils would flare and deflare- automatically. It was easy to understand that I was going on rough roads. 

Then one day- al my cousins teamed up- and my nostrils were a tell tale give away- they declared to all and sundry- I was the laughing stock! And I was all alone! 

Sitting there on the stairs, I remember crying all alone- and wondering if I could ever belong! Then came my grandmother- grand and royal. Her presence was at once overpowering and protecting. It was as if she had picked me up in her hands and cupped them to hide me from the cruel world! And she told me somethingI rem,ember to this day- "No matter what- a warrior does not shed tears. No matter what a warrior does not give up. No matter what- a warrior goes on- And you are a warrior. "

And then she looked at me tenderly. Sat down beside me. And said it once more- "No matter what- a warrior goes on. And... You are a warrior."

And then she explained to me why it was alright to smile when you wanted to cry, why it was alright to go on when you wanted to stop. She told me I was different from all her grand children- and she said it with a certain pride that can be felt not described. She touched me on the shoulder and told me to remember that I was the only one who could help anyone I chose to- including myself. She told me to remember that I could choose to be weak, or vulnerable- but only to myself. And that the warrior in me was stronger the any she had seen in her life. That I needed to respect that warrior, that I needed to trust that warrior, that I needed to BE that warrior.

There after- it became easy to not let my nostrils flare when I was upset. It became easier to hide that I was hurting when I got hurt. It became easier to be myself INSIDE and not let the world in. It was easy to become opaque, unreadable, and strong.

Today- I can choose to be the open book, or the closed one- on demand. 

Today, I can choose to be the warrior, and the woman who is not afraid to show her emotions. 

Today I can choose to be anything I can be...

In a moment.

It is that moment that opens the doorway to eternity- the moment just before anything is about to happen. In that moment anything is possible- to read, to be read. To see, to be seen. To understand, to be understood. To love, to be loved.

It all happens in one instant. In one moment. 

Of being myself.  

The sun hides behind the clouds, too!

, originally uploaded by naturewalker.

The sun hides behind the clouds. And we see neither the light, nor do we feel the heat. The basic nature of the life giving force of the start is to shine. It still does but behind the clouds. But the sun keeps on shining!

I have to then, wonder... whether it is the sun that hides behind the clouds or the clouds that try to cover the sun? The clouds loom and swirl and hide anything they can cover. And then- in the next whiff of air- they blow away, and leave behind a clear, unmasked, bright day.

We do the same with our days, and our faces. We do the same with our hurts and our pains. We do the same with our deep inner feelings, and our shallow superficial looks!

We hide behind the mask of being happy when we are upset. And we wonder why no one can see that we are upset and hurt! We hide behind the mask of being strong and self sufficient and wonder why we are not nurtured and cared for! We hide behind the mask of being busy and wonder why we are alone. 

We hide? And the sun keeps on shining... 

We hide? And the clouds blow away...

We hide? And the skies become clear...

We hide? And the masks come off!!!!!

We think we will be safe if no one realises just how vulnerable and fragile we were in that moment. And then- the mask becomes our face. It becomes us. At least for a little while. 

We soon get tired of being strong. 

We soon get tired of carrying a persona that is not us.

And we take it off- and we find a clear, pristine lake of placidity, and peace in being who we are- at least for some time! Because even this is not who we are- are we? 

We must change from moment to moment and from persona to persons. We must grow. We must nourish our spirit to BE and to find itself. We must recognise that what we observe today- if we observe at all!, is simply one aspect of us that covers so many others that it takes on the role of the clouds trying to cover the sun. We forget that we are still shining, albeit behind a cover. The world cannot see the glory, not feel the warmth unless we constantly keep peeling off the layers. 

And we peel off one layer- only to see another one underneath. 

Life is a game- we must play several roles in it. Each has its own face. And must pass into the next phase to allow the spirit to grow. 

Life is the onion- which when peeled reveals several layers- each with its own cover. And which makes us cry, sometimes with a smile at the irony of it all! 

Each morning that I wake up and look at myself in the mirror, I find a person who is different from the one who went to bed in my body.

This woman must apply the lipstick well today because she needs to brighten up the day. And this day- she needs to just let herself float in the whiff of the perfume. No colour today. Another day- the sun appears too bright outside- so she must apply the proper sunscreen. What are all these? Masks? Are they not?

And they appear so real that appear to be us!