Dec 8, 2013 Awake in Real Time: Coffee-induced Meditations and Journal Entries, Parenting/ Home-schooling / Family Music and other Notes, Reading, Writing, Thinking

Why Should I Write? A Conversation
©By Vijaya Sundaram
December 8th, 2013

The child at the table, brow furrowed, writes about her day with her best friend.

Why should I write? she moans. 

If only things didn’t need to be written down! she exclaims, plaintively.  I have them in my head, she adds.

The mother says, Keep writing.  Describe what you saw today, when you and your friend went to see The Nutcracker ballet.  Describe what you liked, how you felt, what you both did after the ballet, where her parents took you and her afterwards.

Why should I write? moans the child, again.

The mother, sympathetic but strict, says, Because it’s good to remember it.  It’s good to describe it all.  It’s good to reinvent it.  Don’t you enjoy reading?  Writing is the same thing, except you’re making it happen.  Write what happened today.  That’s all.  Write about your fun day.  That’s how you’ll remember it.

I do remember it.  I don’t need to write it down, says the child, stubborn, but still obedient, pencil poised reluctantly in hand.

Well, you describe everything so vividly when you tell me, so just write it all down, and then we’ll both be able to remember it, says her mother, kind, but firm, unyielding.

I do remember it.  I don’t need to write it down, repeats the child.

But not seven or ten years from now, says her mother.

The girl pouts, But I will.  How do you know I won’t?

The mother sighs.

Just write, darling, she says. It’s the doing and the practice that makes us get better at it, and we will look back on it, and enjoy it … later, when we’re older,

And she bends over her students’ papers.  Several years of grading practice haven’t made her any faster, she thinks.  Then, she thinks of the book she hasn’t finished writing.

A vast sigh fills the room.

Silence reigns.

~~~~~~~~~~~~ The End ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Tags: #Mother and Daughter, practice, why should I write?, Writing, writing rationales

Oct 27, 2013 Awake in Real Time: Coffee-induced Meditations and Journal Entries, Parenting/ Home-schooling / Family Music and other Notes

October 26th, 2013

My daughter did nothing of note today.
She is radiant with life.
I love her madly.

~~~~~~~~~~ That’s all for now, folks!~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~Dreamer of Dreams

Tags: #Mother and Daughter

Sep 16, 2013 Awake in Real Time: Coffee-induced Meditations and Journal Entries, Parenting/ Home-schooling / Family Music and other Notes

… except that it was lovely for me and my daughter, yesterday in the woods near our house.  Here’s what happened (as I narrated it on FB):

Daughter and I took a long, two-hour walk in the Fells this evening — we got quite lost after a while, and were quite thrilled with our adventure. When we first entered the woods, we ran into an old student of mine from my first year of teaching. (Nice to have seen you today, Andrew!) Then, we went on, saw places in the woods we’d never seen before, huffed up hills and slid breathlessly down slopes, skidding on rocks, and stepping on heavenly piles of pine needles, lichen and moss, along the way. The hum of traffic receded and almost disappeared. A very mild anxiety set in when we could NOT find the main path, despite following many likely trails. I was sanguine, however. I knew I’d find my way out. Then, after a couple of inquiries I made to a passing jogger who had an i-Phone, and could check his map, we headed down a likely path. Just as the sound of traffic swelled, and the road came into view, a rabbit bounded out of the trees and sat in the brush, its dark, inscrutable eye gazing at us in profile. That was a pretty culmination to our sojourn in, and return from, the woods. Then, we reached the road with a sigh of relief, came home, had pizza and fruit and watched Red Dwarf, Episode I, Series I, and Red Dwarf, Series 3, Episode 5. Nice day!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The End ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Tags: #Mother and Daughter, finding one's way, getting lost, the path less travelled, walk in the woods

May 12, 2013 Parenting/ Home-schooling / Family Music and other Notes

Mother’s Day (or is it Mothers’ Day) Rant (a small one!)
©By Vijaya Sundaram
May 12, 2013

(Cross-posted on Facebook as well)

I dislike Mother’s Day AND Father’s Day. It’s a totally made-up construct, a way to single people out, and a way to make some feel left out. It’s a way to create expectations and crush them for those who have them. What’s the point?
I have no expectations. I love being a mom, and every day is Mother’s Day for me. I did tease S just a tiny bit today, and W too, but she picked some lilacs for me (and promised to make me a card, because she wants to do so, but had no time), and so far, he’s done nothing but teach music online all day.
Do I feel bad?
No!
I suppose I could pull a guilt trip on them, but I’m not interested. It’s silly.
Plus, I have no stomach for cheap sentimentality.  Sorry, I know this day is sacrosanct for many. I guess I’m just rebellious, and traditions be damned! 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The End ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Tags: Being rebellious, Disliking Convention, Mother's Day Rant, traditions be damned!

May 12, 2013 Kitchen Table Anecdotes, Parenting/ Home-schooling / Family Music and other Notes

Morning Silliness (A Kitchen Table Anecdote)
©By Vijaya Sundaram
May 12th, 2013

(Cross-posted on my FB page, because I really didn’t have time for a special blog-post this morning, nor any yesterday, it being a morning-to-midnight full day out of the house yesterday):

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A few minutes ago, at the kitchen table, a scene that was strangely satisfying to me (as you can see, my life is seriously lacking in entertainment!):
W (my husband, after I teased him about something): You never let me have ANY fun. You mock me in my infirmity.
(S, our daughter, is watching seriously, not sure whether he and I are being serious or not)
Moi: Never. I never want you to have ANY fun. And besides, (randomly) you cannot say “miaow” like a cat.
W (in a horribly deep, stentorian voice, because he REALLY cannot mew): MERWWOWW!
Moi (Collapsing with laughter): Choke! Gurgle! Snork!
S (getting it and joining in the horrible hilarity at poor husband — I know, I know, we’re terrible!): You sound like a begruddled cat, Dad!
Warren and I, not in unison: Wow! That’s great! Disgruntled and befuddled.
Moi: Get me to the InterTubes!
W: Our child is a neologist!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The End ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Tags: #Daughter, #Father, Family silliness, kitchen table anecdotes, mother, neologisms

Apr 20, 2013 Awake in Real Time: Coffee-induced Meditations and Journal Entries, Parenting/ Home-schooling / Family Music and other Notes

What I shared on my FB page today (about my daughter):

Walking with S earlier tonight in the beautiful, cold air, we passed a yard, with a bed of small flowers lit by night lights. We admired the little flowers hugging the earth for a few seconds.
As we walked on, S turned to me and asked: “What kind of flowers does an ape like?”
I goggled at her in the dark. “What?”
Pat came her reply: “Chimp-pansies!”
(This child is turning into a paronomasiac.)

~Dreamer of Dreams

~~~~~~~~~ Goodnight, folks! ~~~~~~~~~~~

Tags: #Child, daughter and mother, eight-year old punster, night walk, paronomasiac

Apr 3, 2013 Original Poetry, Parenting/ Home-schooling / Family Music and other Notes

Catapult – A Poem

©By Vijaya Sundaram

I watch the sun’s beckoning fingers

Inviting my daughter and me to go out

And play.  The lure is undeniable.

I resist, resolutely.  I shall not go out.

No, I shall not.  I want to be lumpen.

My plea?  Too tired.  Too worn out.

Not for me the beautiful sun

Nor for me the brisk air 

Of near-Spring, teetering

At the edge of winter,

Still tilted in Winter’s wake.

I insist on staying indoors, always

The rebel against that which is good for me.

I used to be good, you know.

I was good.  I looked good.

I was young and aware of it. 

So, I carefully did these:

Walk, eat right, count my calories,

Be healthy, do lunges and stretches.

Now, un-Cinderella-like, with the years

Flown by, I find that I’ve turned

Into a pumpkin, and do not mind.

My daughter doesn’t mind that we are home.

She’s had her sun-stint earlier today,

With loving and dutiful Dad.

She played with Bella, a beautiful dog

She romped about

On  wood-chips and grass,

Happy to be almost at Spring’s door.

I wasn’t there.  I was told the bare

Details: Playground, dog, Bella, romping.

But I might have been there.

I saw them all, clearly.

For I hallucinate scenes

Clear as day, scenes which move

Like movies of yore, slow long

Camera angles and panning.

I see everything:  My child,

Bella the dog, her fond owner,

My fond husband watching our daughter

Adore the dog, and the blue, blue sky above.

I hallucinate most things (but I know

It’s in my mind), because the stories

Always unfold thus, and all the colors are

Extra-saturated and brighter than real.

Now, as I watch, bemused, nonplussed,

My daughter prances about the house

Cat-faced, with a mask she made herself.

Cow-like, she moos, then cat-like, she slinks

Towards me, catapulting into my arms.

Stunned, I allow myself

To be borne away on the wave of her

Eight-year old magic.

Once, she asked me:

Would you love me if I were a boy?

I shall always love you.

Would you love me less if I were a teenager?

I shall always love you.

Can I stay with you and Dad forever?

I shall always love you.

I love you, Mom!

I shall always love you.

“I don’t want to grow up,” she states

Seriously, full of purpose and intent.

“I won’t!  I want to stay a kid

Forever, and be free.”

Part of me agrees.

Another part says,

What of the you who’s waiting to be?

But for now, we stay far from the catapult

Which flings us into the distant future.

Time enough for growing up.

For right now, a child of eight

Claims my entire attention

And dances in the spotlight

Of my love for her.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~The End~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Tags: #Childhood, #Daughter, #Life, #Love, #Mask, #Mother and Daughter, #NaPoWriMo, catapult, dog interactions, future, Growing up, innocence, Play, Playground

Mar 28, 2013 Essays on Music and Musicians, Parenting/ Home-schooling / Family Music and other Notes, Teaching and Learning

What Does it Mean to Be a Teacher?
©By Vijaya Sundaram
March 28th, 2013

It means that you:

Give unstintingly of your attention to your student or students who are there to learn from you.

Not allow dislike, prejudice or frustration to mar your interactions, even if a student makes it VERY hard.

Don’t give in to despair when confronted with failure, either on the part of your students to understand, acknowledge, absorb or appreciate the beauty of what you’re offering, or what they’re learning, or on your own part for not always having been all of the things you wanted to be, from time to time — because we’re all exhausted, all human, all prone to retire from time to time, to lick our wounds and self-heal.

Find that which is pure, child-like (with a capacity for wonder, questioning and curiosity) in your student, and teach THAT person within the student.

Listen to, and learn from, your students.

Always remember you’re a conduit (through whom all of the knowledge, learning and understanding flow)  not the repository of all of those things.

Love, always love your student, love your own teacher, and love the subject you’re teaching deeply and completely.

****************************************************************

I was thinking of these things after I had a long talk with my husband, teacher extraordinaire. 

He had been feeling low, because a student had omitted mentioning him as his music teacher on his website (and had shamelessly mentioned more famous and well-known names in the field).  My husband wasn’t expecting gratitude, just acknowledgement, because in this field, as in any great field of artistic and soulful endeavor, one MUST acknowledge  one’s teachers, especially those with whom one has spent a significant amount of time.

My husband is primarily a teacher of Indian classical music (among other types of music).  He had taught this student thoughtfully, devotedly and completely, over a relatively long period of time, and didn’t expect much back from him.  The student was talented, but arrogant, puffed up with a spurious sense of self-importance.  We had already seen signs of that while he used to come to our place nine years or so ago, but we dismissed that as the cockiness of youth.

There is no way to get around this, no matter how much one might try and dismiss it as a passing wind which we “respect not.”  To find that one is consciously omitted rankles.  One would have to be a sage to brush it off. 

That student’s rank ingratitude and puffed-up self-importance will cause him grief one day. Every person has to face his or her Karmic duty. 

What was my husband’s response to feeling low about all this, plus other worries? 

This: 

I have taught many people; I have always tried to give appropriately to the individual student rather than use prefabricated lessons or curricula.

No two people want or need the same thing. But everyone needs music.

The world’s parlous condition increases our need for song. I sometimes become discouraged…but singing fortifies me and reminds me that I’m just one link in a chain that reaches farther back in time than any of us can imagine.

I have had so many great teachers in my life; I’m remembering them….while thinking of my students. If I cannot give what I know to my students, my teachers’ love and labor was in vain. My teachers loved me. I love my students. That’s how it works.

Tags: #Journal Entry, #Learning, #Teaching, Students, teachers

Mar 24, 2013 Awake in Real Time: Coffee-induced Meditations and Journal Entries, Parenting/ Home-schooling / Family Music and other Notes

Ramblings about Courage and Fear

©Vijaya Sundaram

March 24th 2013

My daughter is in the next room, playing “My Grandfather’s Clock,” which my husband is teaching her on the guitar, and it’s sweet to hear her trying to keep her composure while learning something new.  She’s sounds good, very good, but she doubts herself at times, and that’s part of what she is learning to figure out.

This is because learning anything new is an unnerving thing for her in some ways, as it is for many of us, although we grown-ups have, through years of practice, managed to stifle that feeling.

Or, should I just speak for myself and my daughter?

Oddly enough, this is what makes her (and me) try new things, almost with a defiant upthrust chin, as if to say, “Well, so what if I’m afraid to fail at this?  It doesn’t matter!  I’m going to try it (although I might protest, weep and moan along the way)!”

So, she sails into new things now, with a much more cheerful, confident air than in the past, because the past informs the present, and the present gears itself up for the future.  So, she is able to look back, when I remind her, and see how she’s changed and grown in all the things that used to cause her nervousness or outright dread.  Children always want to triumph over their younger selves.  That’s the only form of competition worth pursuing.

And I can try and give her a little bit of the wisdom I’ve gleaned from my own personal learning experiences.

Teaching myself guitar, finding a sitar teacher, applying to college in a city where I knew no one, except my family … all of these were things I felt proud of accomplishing, because I had conquered an unnamed, deeply buried fear (and I won’t bother analyzing why that might be — it might just be encoded in my DNA).

Flying solo to America only twenty days after having married my husband, who had had to return a day earlier on an already booked ticket (from having come to stay for a year in India) — that felt like an act of courage.   Leaving behind my family and everything I had ever known, and flying far away to greet an unknown future in a new land where a whole new life awaited me was exciting, yes, and caused me a pang of pain, yes, but I felt quite valorous beyond all that.

Finding work in a place where I knew no one and nothing — that felt like a leap in the dark.  Sure, I spoke English and knew rock n’ roll, jazz and folks songs, but that had nothing to do with the real America I met, so different from the America I read about.  I remember I seemed and felt confident, but had nightmares those first couple of years.  Here was a recurring dream:  A faceless beast chased me up and down a nightmare house in my dreams, caused me the utmost terror for several nights, but one night, I had had enough.  In my dream, I said, “Enough!  Time to actually see this beast.”  I turned around, and to my astonishment, the beast melted away.  There was nothing to face.  (How clichéd and symbolic was that?!  That was quite a good nightmare, come to think of it!)

When I played music on the streets of Cambridge and in the subways of Cambridge and Boston in the 90s, and performed music with my husband in concerts, I felt brave.

Leaving my job after nearly ten years, and enrolling at a nearby well-known college for an M.Ed. in Middle School English was a leap in the dark.  I had no idea whether the job market was good or not.  Applying for a job immediately afterwards, learning to learn from, listen to, and teach, American teenagers, so different from any I had encountered in my own country — all of these acts were like falling out of a blue void, with a parachute, yes, but one that I wasn’t quite sure would work.  It did work, of course, but I had to work harder than I’d ever done in my life.

Looking back, I remember feeling suffused with a blend of immortal strength and mortal terror.   This new world, this new life was strangely scary and quite absorbing.  I was fascinated and confident, nervous and diffident.  I immersed myself completely in whatever I took on.  And I felt strong and invincible through all the fears that seemed to dog my footsteps like that dreaded beast in my nightmares.

(Taking on new things does not extend to certain kinds of activities, however.  I draw the line at skiing, snowboarding, skydiving, swimming and surfing.  In fact, I will eschew many dangerous physical activities, because, for some unfathomable reason, strange as it might seem, I like being alive.)

Courage comes in many forms.  We know that.

My daughter is brave.  She learned swimming (which I can barely do), and went through it all, even though she absolutely hated it at first.   She likes it now and swims quite well.  She was nervous about learning to bike.  She bikes well now.  She was frightened of stilting.  Now, she absolutely adores it.

She was nervous about learning to read, but she has loved to be read to since she was a baby.  I read to her endlessly, patiently, lovingly.  Suddenly, between five and a half and six years of age, she became an inveterate and passionate reader on her own.  Now, she reads Asterix, Tintin, the first Harry Potter book (I’m not allowing her to read the others on her own yet, although she can), James Thurber’s short essays, A.A. Milne and Enid Blyton books, the Wizard of Oz, Heidi, and so on, apart from reading books about the elements, American history, astronomy, dinosaurs.

She was hesitant about learning Indian dance, but didn’t want to give up when she began.  She is devoted to it now.  She didn’t want to join the local Drama / Theater place (I don’t know anything about acting, Mom, Dad!  she said.  Try it.  If you don’t like it, we’ll stop, was our response.)  The result, of course, was predictable.  She really enjoys her Drama Club.  She didn’t want to learn guitar, although she has always been highly musical, and sings beautifully.  She loves guitar now, and plays it well.

So you see, a pattern emerges.  It sounds trite, I know, but  seeing my daughter take on new things (with our encouragement) brings it home afresh to me:  Face your fears.  Don’t give up.  Who cares what the world thinks?  It’s what you think of yourself that matters most.   Learning to love learning, and loving life matters most of all.

My daughter doesn’t like to quit, and neither do I.  We hate to think of ourselves as quitters.   We love to learn.  We love life.

And she will go on to face more complicated fears than the ones I faced, because the world tilts always in that direction.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~The End~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Tags: #Daughter, #Learning, Face your fears, home-schooling, mother, parenting, struggling

Mar 20, 2013 Parenting/ Home-schooling / Family Music and other Notes

Playground Hour — A Poem

©By Vijaya Sundaram

March 20th, 2013

We were godlings for an hour.

Cold, cold air snapping at our ankles,

Obliging crunch of snow underfoot,

Nose smarting with arctic anticipation,

Ears aflame, feet double-socked, snow-boot shod,

Frame encased in layer upon layer

(A true New Englander now, twenty-four years gone),

I walked mitten-in-mitten with my girl

To the playground.

A pretty spaniel along the way,

Raced up and down her fence, ready to play,

A shy, timorous dog a little further on

Trembled and shook at our approach,

But suffered our soothing caresses,

Terrified of who-knew-what.

While his body was cradled by loving mistress

(“He’s always scared, we don’t know why,”

She explained, reassuringly.)

Perhaps, he sensed we were godlings.

On we went, my daughter and I

To the playground, where she and I

Were the sole owners of a blue-white space,

And the sun struggled in vain to light a void

At once dark-gray and summer blue,

A study in battling contradiction, with

Moon scudding past clouds on the left,

Sun sinking grandly on our right;

A sky-statement that promised warmth

But delivered empty light.

We godlings don’t mind.

We raced up and down the snow-crushed slides,

Fell backwards on crystallized snow,

Gazed up at the ringing sky,

Heard the heartbeat of the earth

For a few, still, silent moments

While six p.m. traffic, frantic and home-fixated,

Ebbed and flowed on a distant shore.

The earth hummed into our spines,

As the sky flowed away from our arms

Outstretched on the snow.

We were truly godlings, light-haloed.

Then, with sudden uprush of glee, we arose,

Startled the still air with our cries

And our crashing feet.  Elemental,

We threw snowballs at each other.

Shrieks of joy from child,

Muttered imprecations from mother,

Fun on a swing, meeting the skies,

We played, snow-muted.

Then, alas!  It was time to leave.

Our magic hour was up.

Time to resume human form.

Godlings have to deal with time, too.

“No! Let’s stay!  Can’t we?” she said,

Sparking rebellious, but subsiding.

“I wish we lived here,” she sighed.

But, she came, obediently, hand in mine.

She knew we would play there again,

Perhaps tomorrow, perhaps all the days

Flowing through her childhood.

For she truly came from the Gods.

And I watch her grow, enchanted.

And so, homeward-bound, we tromped,

Watching the sky unfold

Into deepening layers of color.

And the distant Tower swam into view,

As we sloped, tilting earthward,

Down, down, down to where we lived,

Home, for dinner.  How human!

But we were godlings for that hour.

And we shall be so, again.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The End ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Tags: #Childhood, #Mother and Daughter, #Original Poetry, Fun, Godlings, Play, Playground, Snow-games