Jun 13, 2019 Daily Life
A Revelation about Holly
June 13th, 2019
By Vijaya Sundaram
June 13th, 2019
By Vijaya Sundaram
I had a revelation about my dog today (one of many revelations in the course of the past few years).
Holly sometimes likes to walk into any dog-populated area with either a ball or a stick in her mouth. I used to think this was her way of signalling to other dogs that she wanted to be left alone because she was feeling unsociable.
Today, over an hour or so ago, I finally took her outside after her long day of boredom (she doesn’t like the rain). She picked up a tennis ball that was lying around in the oppressive darkness. (She doesn’t like going out in the dark, unless it’s our backyard.)
I wondered why she bothered with a ball, since we weren’t going out to play.
Well, we walked up and down the grassy median strip opposite, where she dropped her ball for a few minutes to attend to a certain call. After she did her doggy duty, she picked up the ball, and walked back home with me.
It dawned on me carrying the ball in her mouth wasn’t just about telling other animals to leave her alone because she didn’t want to socialize (since there was no animal to be seen). It wasn’t that, at all.
It was that she wanted to look fierce. Because, if she was carrying something in her mouth, it meant that she had killed it, and that no one would dare mess with her, because of her victim (the ball) in her mouth.
I’m amazed I never thought of that until today.
Yes, and I know you were deeply interested in my revelation, right?
Haha!
May 19, 2019 Daily Life, Uncategorized
Big emotions are exhausting.
I’m going to choose small ones today – like a small bit of happiness that the rain stopped, and the earth smells divine.
I’m not going to spend time grieving that the good earth is in her death throes.
I’m going to smile at the flowers hanging outside my kitchen window.
I’m going to brush my dog’s unruly fur, and enjoy that sensation, and feel gratitude that I can feel things physically and emotionally.
I’m going to eat a popsicle, and delight in it.
Apr 26, 2019 Daily Life, Uncategorized
Post-midnight non-sequitors:
I like walnuts. Also, peanuts. And almonds. Sometimes cashews. Oh, and pistachios!
I like em-dashes.
I like the word “dash.”
Also, the word “panache.”
“Flair” and “Elan” are nice, too.
“Brio” has a dashing feel to it, though not an em-dashing feel.
I like “water” and “water-lilies” and “clangour,” and “clamour.”
I like water and air, although air is too … evanescent.
Apr 15, 2019 Daily Life, Uncategorized
Virginia L. Senders, my m-in-l, now in the dementia unit of a nursing home in Amherst, still remembers the last two lines of “Invictus.” She also remembered several lines from “The Cremation of Sam McGee.” We visited her yesterday, and I read both poems aloud to her. At one point, I unthinkingly read the word “cur-sed” as “curst,” and she said, “I believe it’s cur-sed,” and I said, “Of course!”
And I was pleased, so pleased! She’s forgotten so much, and yet poetry remains within her.
I spoke to one of the attendants at the Dementia Unit, and she (the attendant) said that a few weeks earlier, she’d had a particularly difficult day, and burst into tears in front of Ginny. Ginny beckoned the woman to her, patted her, and said, “I’m sorry you’re having a difficult day. I’m still in here.”
The attendant is a lovely woman, who loves my mother-in-law. She told me she’d googled Ginny, and was in awe of her accomplishments, and sympathetic about her condition. I’m so glad she’s there. She told me some moving things about her conversations with Ginny.
And yet, Ginny’s statement – “I’m still in here” – broke my heart.
Whenever I visit, I take clementines and chocolate, because she loves them. It’s a simple gift, and one that brings a kind of simple, sensual pleasure. This time, I took her a children’s toy as well, a soft lamb, and she took it, and placed it against her cheek and shoulder, then gazed at it contemplatively, and said, “Now, what should I name him?”
I wish I had an accessible home (not one perched on a hill, with forty steps leading up). I wish we had an elder-friendly room and bathroom attached, so we could have Ginny with us. I wish Ginny could have normal conversations with people (I prattle away about my work or about plays, or about S’s homeschooling activities with her, and it’s plainly visible to see her coming alive, remembering a few more things than at the beginning of our visit). I wish she could have daily hugs and not go to bed in a room alone, and in a strange, disconnected state of mind. I wish we had the means to care for her, or to hire someone to care for her inside our home.
Then, I think, at least she has a room of her own, comfort, predictable time-tables, good care, nursing. And it comforts me, a little.
But that nagging feeling of loss isn’t going away.
This is a society in need of a radical overhaul.
And the sadness in those lines when I think of where she is:
“It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate,
I am the captain of my soul.”
Feb 10, 2018 Daily Life, Original Poetry
In The Nursing Home
©February 10th, 2018
By Vijaya Sundaram
I have no words tonight,
None that would suffice, anyway.
I want to be pure and simple –
Simple in thought, word and deed.
The humming of the world increases
In this room, this bed, this confined space.
A lifetime can be summed up thus:
I lived, grew older, fell, moved, died.
Perhaps, the world was changed by me
Perhaps, I was changed by it.
It matters not, not now. At present,
I am content-not content with these:
This bar of chocolate, this clementine,
These earrings, this necklace, this ancient
Gold watch that belonged to my mother’s mother,
That ring, my mother’s engagement ring,
These paintings, full of life and colour,
And talent – mine, my joy in seeing beauty –
These reminders of someone, a stranger
Who lived long ago, vibrant and witty,
Full of ambition and love of poetry,
Pretty and scholarly, and generous
Sarcastic, hurtful, loved, but not always liked,
Always striving to do what was right.
Rain comes down like regret,
And I forget why, although I weep.
The silent woman seated in the other bed
Speaks, and is silent again, staring fixedly at
The silent television, its screen dark.
Perhaps, it’s raining where she sits, too.
__________________________________________________________________
Tags: #Futility, #VisitingMotherinLawinNursingHome, #Waiting
Jan 7, 2017 Daily Life, Ramblings and Musings
My D.C. Adventure With My Daughter
(While Prez. Obama is Still Our President)
As posted a few days ago on FB
©January 3rd-4th, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram
(Note: On our first full day (January 2nd), we’d spent a very long period of time at the National Gallery of Art, West and East Wings, plus the Sculpture Garden, as well as at the Museum of Natural History, both of which places were utterly absorbing and fascinating. I didn’t write about anything at the end of the first day, though, because I forgot to do so. The thing that stayed with me from the National Gallery of Art was the transcendental, translucent painting of the Last Supper by Salvador Dali. S and I stood there for a while, transfixed, spellbound. The thing that made S happy at the Museum of Natural History was, of course, the Dinosaur section, though S enjoyed all of it. Oh, and it drizzled on and off all day, but we enjoyed ourselves thoroughly, despite the weather.)
————————————————————————
Tuesday, January 3rd, 2017, our second full day in D.C.:
We had a damp, but fun day today (our second full day in DC.). LOTS of walking. My daughter is an uncomplaining trooper! So proud of her!
We took the S2 bus into D.C. from the place where we’re staying. Oh, and we saw the White House first thing this morning (upon reaching Lafayette Place), albeit from a short distance. Alas, we hadn’t booked a tour, because one has to do it six months in advance, acc. to the nice young police cop.
Then, we walked from Lafayette Place to the Museum of Natural History, where we spent a LOT of time today (because it’s S’s favourite). It’s an amazing place. And we saw the much-celebrated Hope Diamond, mostly out of a sense of duty. Once there, though, we were captured by it, and everything else in the gemology and rock section. S was delighted by the Dino section, of course. Plenty of beautiful, and sometimes sad, things to see there. The stuffed African elephant killed in 1955 by some hunter made me angry.
Some frustration before we finally got the Hop-on Hop-off DC Trails bus, (which I’d booked the night before), because my phone had died. A kindly woman allowed me to charge it up by allowing me to use her computer in the cafe at the east wing of the National Gallery of Art (where S and I ended up for forty minutes to take a much needed rest, with coffee for me and chocolate croissant for her).
After charging my phone, we tried to find the tour bus, while we walked up and down Constitution Ave, plus parts of Pennsylvania Ave., getting thoroughly confused.
I’m amazed at how my sense of direction (normally very good) vanished so completely. And I got rid of Google Maps, because it didn’t help. Plus, it drained my mobile. Anyway, I felt rather stupid.
It was great once I finally stopped going around in circles, and located the stop to board that danged bus. The tour bus itself is comfortable, and our guide was good. We passed various landmarks and got some good history on them.
Got off at Jefferson, spent a quiet time there. It’s a powerful and peaceful place to be. We loved it. I think it’s always been one of my special favorites. S loved it too. We talked about how Jefferson lived books, and she asked me, “Mom, do you think I’m a nerd?”
I considered her question, and answered, “Yes. We both are.”
She said, “Do you think I need some accessories to be a nerd?”
“Like glasses?”
“Yes,” she answered eagerly.
“No,” was my firm reply, “Thank your stars you have good vision. There’ll be plenty of time for glasses in your middle age.”
She pouted good-naturedly.
(She really, really wants to wear glasses. I love my tween!)
We saw various buildings from the outside, incl. the Washington Monument. No time to go up, alas!
There is so much to explore here, and any one museum takes hours!
Tomorrow, the Washington Zoo awaits (S is very keen and excited to go). Then, the Hop-on Hop-off DC Trails bus. Hoping to catch three or four monuments incl. Lincoln, FDR and the Vietnam Memorial, plus the American History Museum. Also, I really want to go to the Hirschhorn, which I used to haunt back in my time as a chaperone on school trips to D.C.
I might also perhaps try the Holocaust Museum lower level, if we can get in. Not sure if we can do all of this, but am going to give it a go!
Ambitious? You bet!
If I get to half what I want S to be able to see tomorrow, though, I’ll be content.
_________________________________________________________________
Wednesday, January 4th, 2017 – our last full day in D.C.:
What a day!
First the Smithsonian Washington Zoo at 9:14 a.m. My delightful and gracious sister-in-law had introduced us a couple of days ago to the convenience of Uber (which I’d hitherto avoided), and we availed of this to get to the Zoo. And it was a damp, drizzly morning with only die-hard animal-lovers like us up and about there. S was in seventh heaven. We loved the pandas, of course (four of them, one of whom is the one year old Bei-Bei) and adored the elephants – named Suvarna, Maharani, and Kamala. They were sweet attentive and wonderful. We got their back-stories (Suvarna and Kamala, friends, not sisters, had both been orphaned at 1.5 years of age, then wound up in Calgary, Canada. Kamala had her baby, Maharani, who now is a bit of a spoiled, pushy youngling at 21 or 22 years of age, compared with the lofty 41 years that her mother and “aunty” share).
I sang to the elephants (my mother’s favorite song, “Kurai Ondrum Illai”), and they came close to listen!
Then, there were all the other marvelous animals –the wolves, the oryxes, the gazelles, the cranes, the flamingoes, the caracal, various smaller mammals, great apes (my favorites), beautiful sand cats and fennec foxes and more. We were at the zoo for almost four hours.
Finally, we tore ourselves away, and by means of our local Uber-Hermes, winged our way to the place where we’d take our tour bus. We wound up at the Air and Space Museum, where we spent a goodly period of time, and took off in a flight simulator whose destination was the outer edge of a local black hole. We saw supernovae and almost got sucked into the black hole, but made off just before that. We needed to get back to earth quickly, and a convenient worm hole showed up. We swept through it à la something that resembled the opening credits of Doctor Who, and then, Earth swam into view – except that it was an Earth several centuries in the future. We were stopped by the local flying police cars, and then, the simulator ended our ride. Mucho fun!
We took the tour bus again, and this time ended up at the American History Museum. We saw just a few sections of it, but it was all good stuff, including transportation and the history of electricity here. We also saw the original Star Spangled Banner. COOL!
My phone had, of course, predictably died a few times today, but each time I was prepared with my charger, and managed to juice it just enough to either get the Hop On Hop Off Bus, or an Uber. We went back to where we were staying, had supper and then got back into D.C. proper. We were all set to catch our Night-Sights, via the Hop-On, Hop-Off DC Trails Night Tour bus, on which I had secured seats for the Night Tour
We waited at the rendezvous point at the second stop where they said they could pick us up at 7:10 p.m. It was COLD by now, and we were reasonably dressed for D.C., but not for the bitter wind that swept around in eddies like an avenging god, and decided to adopt us as its pet victims, biting and vindictive in its affections.
The bus did not show up. I waited, then telephoned them. Despite my calling them every ten minutes, and getting assurances that the bus was “on its way,” and “almost there,” the bus never materialized at 15th and New York. By now, it was 7:38 p.m. Then, the dispatcher told me to go get the bus at 15th and Pennsylvania. So, our teeth chattering with cold, we half-ran, half-walked to that place.
And the bus wasn’t there!
Did I mention that I have a Stoic for a daughter? Not a word of complaint about how tired she was (We’d already walked five or six miles by that point in the day). No moaning and groaning. No grumpiness. She’s an example to us all.
(And did I mention that my phone gave out AGAIN? Too many damned APPS! I turned with relief to my daughter’s phone, which she’s careful to keep turned off and charged for just such situations. I raise a toast to my good child!)
Using her phone, I waxed wroth, gave the dispatcher a mild earful, and said I would like my money back. He said, in a faint voice, that I should call tomorrow morning about that.
I turned to S, and said, “Let’s forget about the Night Bus Tour, and let’s do it on foot!”
My tween-trooper said, “Yes, Mom!” in cheerful agreement, clearly relieved that my half hour of mild distress followed by five minutes of ire at the DC Trails Bus-folk had magically transformed into a giddy determination to DO this thing ourselves.
So, we walked all the way from Pennsylvania Ave and 15th Street (passing the Washington Monument) all the way down the Washington Mall towards Lincoln Memorial. We paused to photograph ourselves sitting on Einstein’s lovely, wrinkly, bronze statue, and rubbed him affectionately on the nose.
Then we walked and walked till we reached the majestic Lincoln Memorial. It was quite beautiful and brightly lit, and there were clearly determined people like ourselves out there.
A crescent moon hung like a silver fingernail in the sky and added mystery to the setting. Bright white lights glittered along the way and were reflected like hard diamonds in tremulous water in the Tidal Basin. We were happy, although our feet felt broken.
Then, we went down, and found ourselves at the Vietnam Memorial. It is, as many might remember, a sobering and moving and beautiful Memorial. Even into the dark, it held us in thrall. We shone a light on the names as we went past. I told her about how Maya Lin’s simple, but arresting, design for the wall had won the public design competition for the Memorial, and that she was just a young woman in her early twenties.
In silence, we looked at the names marching past us.
S wanted to know more about the war.
I told her a little bit about the Vietnam War, and added that for so many American victims , there must have many more Vietnamese ones.
She asked, “Who won?”
When I answered, “No one,” she grew thoughtful, and we were both silent.
The Nurses’ Memorial after that is one of my favorite set of statues – always affects me deeply. We walked around it, marveling at the pathos, the suffering and the courage clearly portrayed there.
We walked along the Tidal Basin in the dark, along the lit path. There were scores of ducks holding a solemn conclave in the water and discussing philosophical matters, and we didn’t intrude.
Oddly, we felt quite safe, until I realized that we were two females walking along a path in the dark, and decided abruptly to get into the sidewalk along Constitution Ave. I have to say, it really is safe there at night, or so it seems! Perhaps, we were just lucky.
So, we saw quite a lot this evening. We were satisfied. It was time to go home – but how?
Well, we walked and walked and walked – almost all the way back the way we’d come. Poor S! By now, she was lurching. I cursed myself for being a hard, heartless mother, making my child walk so far all day. I kept apologizing to her, but she reassured me she loved it, but was just very tired.
It was now 9:11 p.m. Not a cafe in sight! We turned down Constitution Ave into 17th Street. We kept up our spirits, and I promised S that I’d find a cafe to plug my phone in and call an Uber. Alas, not one single cafe was to be found.
Then, praise be! A McDonald’s loomed into view along our right!
And turning to S (who knows my rather disapproving attitude to McDonald’s), I said: “I never thought I’d ever say that I’m happy to see a McDonald’s, of all things, but I’m SO happy to see one!”
She laughed. So did I.
With relief, we lurched in, asked for an outlet, were directed to one close to the ceiling – an odd place to have it! A courteous young African-American man helped me plug it in, and within minutes, I had enough power in it to turn it on, call an Uber, and have it arrive in two minutes!
Clutching our lemonades, S and I tumbled with gratitude into the car, and reached home by a minute before 10:00. Our lovely hosts had hot chocolate with vanilla and cinnamon waiting for us, and cookies and brownies, as well.
We were grateful for a life where we *could* have such things at the end of a beautiful, long, exhausting, varied, magical, occasionally frustrating, and wonderfully satisfying and adventurous day.
S tumbled into sleep after a shower and a leg-foot massage by her doting and somewhat guilt-ridden, Mom. Said Mom is now here, sitting in a comfortable chair in the beautiful home of our kind relatives-in-law, revisiting her long day, and feeling oddly pleased with how a setback turned into an adventure.
Thanks for reading!
__________________________________________________________________
Tags: #mother-daughter-trip-to-Washington-D.C.., #Ramblings, A Tourist in the Nation's Capital, Symbolic Visit
Dec 20, 2016 Daily Life
Now, What?
(What I wrote today, on FB)
©December 20th, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram
It really IS surreal, what’s going on.
I read the news in the NYT, The Guardian, and follow various sites. I think: All this … living that’s going on – how is it possible that we take it all for granted in this most amazing and fragile democracy? How come people are talking about the holidays, and buying things and shopping (and so are we – well, food and a few gifts)? How are we going blithely about our days while so much awfulness is happening to so many people already? And when it comes to all of us, as it will (except for the very, very, very rich, who will be able to hold it off for just a little longer than the rest of us), will we be surprised, or just shrug and meet our fates with a sigh?
A crazy, delusional person with completely evil people flanking him on all sides has been “elected” by the minority. How can those who elected him not see where all this is headed? How come WE cannot see where all this is headed?
Some of us can, but we’d go insane if we let it get to us, so we cook food, play music, gird up our collective loins, go to rallies and protests, take various kinds of action, and let our rapidly-beating hearts push us ahead to do what we can. Alas, however, this is the Dissolution, folks, and what we’re doing is making hasty sandbags.
And how can we hope against hope that some miracle will STILL deliver us from the evil of that ADHD-addled, NPD-riddled, thin-skinned, lizard-brained creature that masquerades as human? He may not be human, at that. Perhaps, he’s a construct, assembled from various spare parts from another dimension, sent to devastate the planet. If so, we have need of our wits, our guts, our hearts, our love for each other, our love for the planet.
AND we have need of a miracle.
We can fight, yes, and we will, yes, but HOW do we win, unless we give up the very things that we respect in a democracy? Our current President cannot seize power, or curtail the incoming President’s powers at the Federal level, like the outgoing GOP did in the recent NC legislative coup. Our side cannot do anything like that without also dying a little inside, from the shame of it. For, it goes against democratic principles. And the “other side” knows it. And they’re gleefully rubbing their hands together, saying, “Haha, we got you now, suckers!”
So, our very decency and upholding of laws has gotten us into this bind.
Honour? The other side cares not one whit for it.
I, however, do.
And it doesn’t help.
___________________________________________________________________
Tags: #ClingingtoLife, #Decency and honor in the face of the opposite, #Democracy at stake, #Hope, #ThePeopleUnitedWillNeverBeDefeated
Dec 9, 2016 Daily Life, Ramblings and Musings
Nightmare-Dream-Nightmare
(What I Wrote Before Going to Sleep Last Night)
©December 8th, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram
I’m dreaming about an alternate world, a parallel reality.
In this world, The Drmpfster flickers like an image in a hazy, half-remembered nightmare, the kind from which you awake, your mouth open in a soundless scream. You look around and drink in all the peace and beauty that you know exists in this world. Then, you notice your mouth is dry and you go downstairs to get a drink of water. Sipping slowly, you stand – while your heart stops hammering and goes on to its more measured rhythm – gazing out your kitchen window, to see a landscape flooded in moonlight, and the promise of a glorious tomorrow.
You know that when this morrow comes, you will not be wasting time on FB and news articles, scanning madly like a crazed thing for any kind of news that’s good. When this morrow comes, the trees will glow brightly. Birds will sing, and bees will go about their bee-business.
In this world, when the morrow comes, the voices of cheerful children and parents and grandparents and other grown-ups of all races will be part of the air you breathe.
In this parallel world, there are no oil-spills, no pipelines, no dying seas, no loss of ocean life, no species disappearing, no earthquakes caused by human activity, no lack of rich, organic food.
In this world people will help those who fall, or are hurting, and songs will be sung while the usual scenes of living and striving play out, but without that sense of hideous malevolence that looms over us like the blooming of a darkness that cannot be understood.
You stand and envision this world, and smile when you remember what the morrow will bring. Your certainty in the parallel universe is diamond-bright.
And then, the dream fades, and the flickering nightmare world rushes back in like a loathsome, disease-flecked tide, bearing on its crest the Destroyer Of Worlds.
—————————————————————————————————————————————————
Tags: #Dream, #Nightmare, #originaldreamvignette
Sep 28, 2016 Daily Life, Ramblings and Musings
Sum Total
©Sept. 28th, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram
There are days like these (actually, for me, it’s pretty much all the time), when the sensation of living in several parallel dimensions of reality seem heightened:
There’s pleasure in sitting with a steaming cup of Madras filter-coffee, watching squirrels and other small critters racing around in the backyard, watching the muted light filtering through the fir tree in the backyard, letting my eyes rest upon the discs of colored class on my window ledge.
There’s some distress in hearing my daughter in the other room sniffling with a cold (for which I’ve made her several, but several, cups of turmeric-honey-fresh-lemon-fennel-cumin-pepper tea), but knowing she’s just got a cold is reassuring. It will pass.
There’s happiness in knowing that Holly is recovering from her dog-bite wound (which caused her and all of us great distress and many tense days of going back and forth to the Emergency Vet Hospital), and seems to be perfectly well now.
There’s joy in knowing my husband’s back from being away in Toronto for four days, and we’re all home together.
There’s happiness in knowing my daughter and I will soon be seeing my mother and other family members in India (traveling by Emirates tomorrow).
And there’s great sorrow in knowing that people around the world are suffering in ways I cannot even imagine.
There’s grief and anger that tens of thousands of species of animals and insects are disappearing each year, and that WE are the direct (and indirect) cause of this catastrophe.
And there’s great frustration and fear in knowing that the CO2 levels in our atmosphere have passed 400 ppm.
And still, I can dance on this side of the edge of happiness.
We need to raise the sum total of happiness in the world.
___________________________________________________________________
Tags: #ClimateChangeisReal, #personal, #PleasureInDailyLife, #Species Extinction
Jun 25, 2016 Daily Life
Been working for hours in the garden steadily for days and days. Yesterday, I spent FIVE hours, digging, weeding, watering, and planting – now, all my dreams are about plants, weeds, flowers and fragrant, damp earth. I love manual labour! (And the garden’s looking nice, although I have tons more work to do on the side and back. Lopped off many branches of random weed trees and bushes last week and earlier this week, and all I saw in my dreams were visions of overgrown backyard forests.
The wilderness wants to return, Climate Change, notwithstanding – at least, in these parts!
And I adore both a tamed garden and the unstoppable wilderness!