Oct 7, 2015 Daily Life, Ramblings and Musings
Today, while walking The Hod in the woods, I came across:
1. A squashed garter snake in someone’s parking lot, before I reached the woods, and I was sad.
2. A robin, which hopped away.
3. A couple off-trail with a dog on a leash, which woo-woo-sang nervously at Holly, who was off-leash — so, I put Holly back on the leash, a courtesy, for a little while, until we were far from them.
4. A man aiming his camera to shoot autumn leaves on a tall tree, with sunlight filtering through — surely, the best kind of shooting to do in the woods.
5. A man sitting at his easel on a rock off-trail, painting the scene in front of him.
6. Lots and lots of dappled sunlight filtering through green, and gold, and red and brown leaves
7. Millions of cushiony pine needles on the forest floor.
It’s a beautiful fall day in New England, and the air sparkles. It’s a good day to be alive, as someone said, somewhere, I don’t recall where, or when.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tags: beauty and sunlight, Fall leaves, life and light, Walking in the Woods with my dog
Oct 5, 2015 Ramblings and Musings
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0XYZNx6854
I’m in the mood for Keats!
When I was young, about ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen — I was madly in love with the Romantic Poets — Wordsworth, Coleridge, Keats, Shelley, Byron, plus a poet who SHOULD have been a Romantic Poet, but is categorized as a Victorian Poet — Alfred, Lord Tennyson. I LOVED all the poetry I read, and would sit with my Palgrave’s Golden Treasury of Poetry, which I bought in a tiny alley in a busy shopping area in the city of Madras, now Chennai, India. I would walk around with this book in hand, and drink, nay inhale, the poems therein — keep in mind I was only ten, then. (I also climbed trees, read Enid Blyton, comics, Mad Magazine and all manner of stuff, apart from reading English Romantic poetry. Oh, I read Shakespeare, Milton, Pope, Blake and others, too, of course, and loved it all. But it was the poetry of the Romantic Age that caught me in its net. The influence of William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge on me is incalculable, even if I may not mirror them in my own work. It’s the feeling, the emotion, the magic of their language that ensnared me. And above all, it was John Keats who spun a silent web in which I was happy to be trapped.
Strangely, I didn’t memorize his poetry the way I memorized WW or Coleridge, or Eliot in the 20th century. I just drowned in his evocative moods, much as a bee might drown in a flower, drunk and delirious, and not bothering to analyze why.
These three poems, especially, moved me greatly:
Ode to a Nightingale – John Keats
Ode on a Grecian Urn – John Keats
La Belle Dame Sans Merci — John Keats
When you read his lyrical, melancholic, musing, dream-imagistic poetry, you’ll see why I love him so much.
I always wonder what he would have been like had he lived beyond the age of 25. It makes me deeply sad to think of those whose flame burned so brightly that it consumed them (or so, I think fancifully, but it really was about the lack of good medicine in those days).
To know more, here’s good old Wikipedia on John Keats!
Tags: English Poetry, Fancy, John Keats, Ode on a Grecian Urn, Ode to a Nightingale, Ode to Autumn, Romantic Poetry, S.T. Coleridge, William Wordsworth
Oct 2, 2015 Daily Life, Ramblings and Musings
So, after a long, long spell of dryness and crackling heat and dust, we’ve had a spell of three rainy days.
And it’s darker and darker earlier and earlier outside.
Usually, I have ambivalent feelings about autumn because of that, but I love that frisson in the air when it’s colder, and the leaves get golden and red (as they’re starting to do, finally).
This fall, I’m thinking of planting ginger and curry leaves indoors, in our downstairs bathtub-converted-into-a-grow-space-with-grow-lights-and-planting-containers. I hasten to assure you that I didn’t convert the bathtub into a grow-space, lest you gasp at my imagined multitude of skills — it was my husband, the amazing handyman at home, who did that. And outside, in our various beds in the front yard, I plan to plant the following fall crops:
- Beets
- Garlic
- Turnips
- Radishes
- Carrots
- Spinach
- Lettuce
- Kale
- Mustard greens
- Swiss chard
- Cabbage
We’ve grown so much this summer already — heaps and heaps of tomatoes (which are still growing, but not as lushly as half a month ago), heaps and heaps of green beans (and those are still growing), broccoli, cabbage, some not-as-prolific green peppers and eggplants, and lots of green and chillies! We do not really want to spend grocery money on store-bought veggies, which cost more for less. We like our food fresh from the vine or bush or plant. It tastes like one’s own heaven on earth. Our front yard, and garage-top container vegetable garden (also created by my beloved) is tight in terms of space, and our home is on a small, small plot of land in an semi-urban setting, but this garden does its job with pride and purpose.
I also want to plant bulbs before October goes — daffodil and tulip, crocuses, iris, narcissus. This weather is helpful. I neglected the fall flower-planting aspect of the garden for the past few years, and when spring came, our garden looked sad, with a few straggly tulips and daffodils here and there. The summer was much better, and things looked prettier. Vegetables always do well, but flowers? They require a lot of care and thought, and I hadn’t had the time for that. Now, I shall.
Fall is here, and it’s filled with hope: I shall plant, and I shall sing, I shall write, play music, and cook delicious food, and I shall learn to bake nice things for my family.
I thank the forces in this universe that aligned just right to make this time of freedom open its doors for me. From having lived long enough and seen some poverty and sadness, I know that things can change rapidly, that times can be replaced with bad in the blink of an eye, and one cannot rest too easy on one’s happiness, and yet … I am happy. If things go bad, I will remember the good times, and when things are good, I’ll focus on keeping them so, and sharing them.
Thanks for reading!
~Dreamer of Dreams
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
One of my favorite poems of all time by John Keats:
| Francis T. Palgrave, ed. (1824–1897). The Golden Treasury. 1875. |
| J. Keats |
| CCLV. Ode to Autumn |
Tags: #Autumn, #Contentment, Beauty, fall, Family time, flower and vegetable garden, memories to store, season of mists, time of happiness, time of plenty
Sep 28, 2015 Ramblings and Musings
Blood-Dark and Bright Night — The Night of the Supermoon Blood Moon Lunar Eclipse
©September 28th, 2015
By Vijaya Sundaram
W (my husband), S (our daughter), Holly (our dog) and I were together in the hour when the moon went from half-lit to completely blood-dark — and the dog went slightly nuts.
It was a beautiful eclipse. Alas, we didn’t see the first forty-two minutes of it, but were there for the beautiful glowing white-giving-way-to-blood-red period.
We were at the Sheepfold a couple of miles from our house. It was dark, surrounded by woods, and we thought there would be no one else there, but there was a silent couple who suddenly loomed into our vision. Later, our dog went a little grrr-crazy, when some lights came swinging in through the darkness, and a man (dressed in kilts, I think), and a woman dressed equally colorfully, and rather “pagan”istically came through with flashlights, and smoke issued from a swinging censer — as they left with cheerful greetings, we smelled sage in the air around us. It was rather nice. Some ritual, I imagine.
It was mysterious and lovely being out there. Our dog was anxious, though, but cheered up when all three of us hugged her, and soothed her. We’ve never done anything like this before with her — all three of us with her out in the darkness in a place she’s visited only during the daytime. Dogs must have a strange understanding of us humans, and our seemingly illogical impulses.
I don’t know whether our dog will remember this night, unless it’s in a lunar dream, where she’s frantically chasing night creatures on a blood-red-mood-dark nightmare in the safety of our bedroom.
But when we are all older, and our daughter looks back on this night, I hope she will remember with a little shiver of pleasure and nostalgia. I know that I will remember, and so will my husband.
For we humans are nothing if not our memories. We are entire edifices built from memory upon memory laid brick by brick by us, for us, on us, about us.
And a family is cemented by such memories.
______________________________________________________
Please note: The Blood Moon Supermoon image I used in “Featured Image” is copyright free from photobucket:
[http://media.photobucket.com/user/Peacefulrain09/media/Thorn%20Acanthus%20s%20%20Album/red1.gif.html?filters[term]=blood%20moon&filters[primary]=images&filters[secondary]=videos&sort=1&o=28]
Tags: #Musings, Bloodmoon Super moon Eclipse, Family time, Memories of a rare eclipse
Aug 21, 2015 Ramblings and Musings
I love the woods near our house, and so does our dog, Holly.
We’ve taken to walking there in the blazing heat and quiet of mid-day, when no one else is around. The air shimmers, but once we enter the trails, heat falls away, and the trees shed cool, green shadows around us.
Sometimes, we might meet a man and his dog. I hold on to Holly’s collar, and call out, “Is your dog friendly?” for Holly has sometimes been nervous around bigger male dogs. Usually, the answer is “Yes.” So, I release her, and she walks over to his dog, while his dog trots up to check her out. She and her new friend flirt happily, chasing each other, barking, play-inviting and dashing through the bushes.
When dogs play, it’s a poignant reminder to us about what we’ve lost — pure fun, with Time as a distant, banished entity. Today, I watch, wonder and nervousness intertwined — for dog-play can turn deadly with the least little provocation sometimes — but all is well. The man’s dog now trots up, grinning at me, wanting love. I pat the dog’s head and praise him. This one’s name is Polo (“Not after Marco?” I ask. “No, after Edgar Allan Poe,” replies the man. Ah, a literary dog-owner. Nice!) We watch our dogs cavort. When I explain about the two times that Holly got besieged by an aggressive dog, hence my nervousness at first, the man says his dog would rather make love than war. This makes me happy, of course. Meanwhile, Holly is barking happily at Poe-lo, who answers her, and they chase and chase and chase each other.
Very soon, I feel Time turning the earth like a wheel. I need to move on. I call to Holly, and she comes reluctantly. The man and I say polite goodbyes, and we go our separate ways with our dogs. The friendly anonymity of people with dogs in the woods in the daytime is a social fact.
Holly and I crunch on. Occasionally, I see a deer dashing away in the distance, a brown and white blur. Holly senses a disturbance in the force without actually seeing the deer, and runs in its direction, but at my call, “pup-pup-pup-pup-puppy!” [sung in a five-three intervallic chant, or pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-ga (shuddh) to Indian-music folks], she comes bounding back, tongue hanging out sideways, a grin on her face, and her tail flag-wagging. I realize I don’t need to have her on an actual leash (except that in the city, where traffic, scared people, and squirrels might pose a risk) – she and I are connected by an invisible one.
We make our way up rocky trails and mossy ones, with pine-needles soft under our feet, and wild blueberry bushes lining some paths, and reach our favorite lookout spot, an outcrop of rugged rock jutting into the sky. We sit quietly and gaze out, two beings in an envelope of stillness and contentment. Our communion is absolute. I wish I could read her mind — mostly, it’s empty like mine, I imagine. She shifts around, and settles closer to me on the post-noon hot rocks. Somehow, this heat is not unbearable. It’s the heat from the roads that makes summer awful. When the earth herself gives off heat, I don’t really mind, as long as there’s some water and shade nearby.
And that reminds me — I pour water out for her to drink and she lap-laps it up gratefully. A dog lapping water is one of the sweetest, most musical sounds in the world (humans glugging water, on the other hand — actually, those aren’t such bad sounds, either, just not as musical). Done drinking, she turns her head away, and pants softly, checking the air for … wolves? Wolverines? Deer? Foxes? An ancient monster? These woods are tame, really. The most we’ll find here are rabbits, snakes, deer. I’m sure there are foxes and raccoons, but I haven’t seen any. I look at her nose quivering this way and that. The sight fills me with tenderness, gets me wondering about her. Holly’s nose is her most mysterious feature. What odorful wonders must present themselves! The landscape must look like some sort of aromatic version of a topological map to her, and she must be mapping out terrain in ways I cannot imagine. (Hmmm … Strange, four-legged animal, herbivorous? Mark it here, here, and here. Small, jumping, large-eared creature with small droppings? There, oh, and there. What’s this? Oh no! Not this! Better draw a nasal boundary around this — better not to mess with it.)
Shaking myself out of this silly train of thought, I look into her bowl, and notice there’s some water remaining. Not wanting to waste it, I wash her paws, which I imagine might be hot from all that dashing about. I toss some of the last droplets of water into the heat-curled blueberry bushes. The blueberries are long gone, but earlier in the summer, we sometimes go blueberry picking. I didn’t this year, but my daughter and husband did, and came back with small, ripe blueberries, nothing like those monstrous, cultivated ones in the supermarkets. These were sweet and tart, and delicious. Next year, I shall go, too, and pick them. The woods are generous.
The earth’s heartbeat is gentle here. In the far distance is the hush of traffic. We listen. Cicadas shrill in a rising wave of sound. A hushed bird speaks into this chorus, somewhere. After a little while, we know without speaking that it’s time to head back. She leads the way, and I follow, she leash-less and contented, and I unleashed, at peace.
When we reach the main trail, I put the leash back on, just before we reach the once-full pond, which is all sludgy now anyway, with the ragingly hot weather. I prefer my dog non-muddy. As we walk by the mud-clogged water, I yearn for its earlier state — there used to be ducks, even swans sometimes here. Frogs would chant loudly, too. I wonder where they are now. I wonder whether they’ll return. I mourn the passing of things with an intensity that I didn’t know I had.
Turning away, we head back to the road, with shimmering heat-waves emanating from the tarmac, and cross over the over-pass to the street that leads to our house. Holly’s step quickens. She knows home is imminent, and her whole aspect sings, as she pulls forward. She loves the woods, but she loves home even more, I think. When we reach home, she dashes up to my husband and my daughter, and lets them know all about her day with her flag-tail. Then, she flops down heavily, and rests.
Turning away, we head back to the road, with shimmering heat-waves emanating from the tarmac, and cross over the over-pass to the street that leads to our house. Holly’s step quickens. She knows home is imminent, and her whole aspect sings, as she pulls forward. She loves the woods, but she loves home even more, I think. When we reach home, she dashes up to my husband and my daughter, and lets them know all about her day with her flag-tail. Then, she flops down heavily, and rests.
And so do I. I like this simple life. And I’m glad to have a dog who shares her talent for joyfulness with me.
__________________________________________________________________________________
Tags: #Ramblings
Aug 16, 2015 Ramblings and Musings, The Daily Post
In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “Breakdown.”
Breakdown
©August 16th, 2015
by Vijaya Sundaram
One of the things that plagues me the most is my utter, shameless (okay, there’s some shame) caving to my nocturnal self, and the need to write or work deep into the night, and sometimes into the morning.
Why? Because, I adore solitude, and I love to taste the darkness pressing in upon the windows, while I sit, surrounded by things that fascinate me — books, computer, a mason jar sparkling with water, a cheap Pier One tapestry on the kitchen wall.
The night is my lover (okay, so is my husband, but he’s asleep), and there’s mystery and magic, and quietude — and occasionally small furry creatures outside my kitchen window — I glimpsed two small skunks once, and three raccoons on our pine tree in the back yard, their gleaming silver eyes reflecting the flashlight I shone on them to get a better look. I love the silver sickle of a young moon, or the cool light of a full moon sweeping the window-panes through moving tree-brances. I love the hum of the refrigerator and the soothing whirring of the fan.
Night, my secret lover, welcomes me into her/his arms (but I have a light too, because, well, how could I see what I’m typing, or reading, or perusing on the Internet, or … shudder … grading (papers)? Thankfully, that last will not happen any more, because, well, I QUIT public school teaching. THAT was a habit I broke!
Where was I? Ah yes, my habit, my nocturnal habit of doing pointless things deep into the silence of my solitude.
And, sadly, this is the habit I want to break.
For, attractive, and private, and delicious though this solitude is, and wonderful though it is to get work done, unfettered by the pressing demands of daytime, it is not good for me, nor is it good for my family. And I know I’m shaving years off my life from this pernicious habit (which has persisted since I was fourteen).
You see, my family misses me. Yes, I do all the things I’m supposed to do — I play with the dog, take walks with daughter/husband, cook, shop for food, do laundry, and so on, I also end up getting up much later in my summer vacation mode than any person should, unless one is a teenager, whereupon all rules crumble to dust — and I’m always tired. I never come down for breakfast at the same time as they do (summer, summer!), and I dislike breakfast, anyway. I want my coffee, black and strong and ready to knife through my somnolent mumblings.
So, this habit is the one I’m planning to break. I will, I shall, I must.
But not just yet.
It’s still summer vacation mode.
Please?
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
,
Aug 15, 2015 Ramblings and Musings
I’m sitting in the kitchen, and it’s 2:22 a.m.
I must be mad. I should be in bed, where my long-suffering, patient husband is now sleeping, with our dog sprawled out at his feet, but I resist the night, and resist sleep, and want the hum of darkness to soothe my senses and soul.
I missed the first day of The Commons, and here I am, finally catching up. I posted about myself somewhere on the Commons site earlier, but feel rather scattered, because I came into this site much later than most.
Well, it isn’t too late, is it, because I’m here!
Sometimes, when I visualize myself, I see myself running eternally after a bus that’s speeding away. Behind me, my (non-existent) hat flies off my head, my scarf floats away on an errant breeze, and my hair streams backwards. The bus picks up more speed, while smiling people wave at me cheerfully, as I gesticulate to them to stop the bus. Non-comprehension carries them along, speeding away from me.
So, what do I do? I stop, panting, on the side of that road, and look around. To my left and right are fields filled with flowers, a red, undulating sea of flowers. Somewhere, there are birds singing. A mountain straightens up in the distance, balancing a cloud on its head.
Hmmm … I think. I think I shall take a walk into those fields.
I toss my bags aside, embrace the sky with outstretched arms, and walk into those fields overflowing with flowers.
Morpheus calls.
Goodnight, all!
~Dreamer of Dreams
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Aug 9, 2015 Ramblings and Musings
I call myself “not a beach person,” but I think I kid myself.
I love lying on the sand, looking up at the sky (with sunglasses, of course), and love seeing the sunlight glinting on the waters.
Of course, the beach I went to today was a local one, with imported sand along the shores of a beautiful pond with trees all around. No trace of salt anywhere, as far as I could smell.
Getting older is a pain.
I remember loving the beach when I was a kid. I didn’t care about the acrid, salty taste of the air, and the blowing sand in my hair, and the water grabbing at my ankles like greedy hands from the deep trying to suck me into the ocean, in India, on Marina Beach.
I will, I will recapture that spirit!
… For my girl, who thinks I don’t like beaches, because I foolishly shared that opinion a few too many times.
I shall do it for her!
And I shall do it for ME!
_______________
Dreamer of Dreams
August 9th, 2015
Jun 2, 2015 Ramblings and Musings
Purple Prose-Bending
(First post on my new WordPress site: StrangeLander 2015)
©June 1st, 2015
By Vijaya Sundaram
All right, lasses and lads, beaver-toothed mammoths, snarp-crusted squids, squirrel-faced carp and all acidophilus pro-biotic life forms! This is your former dreamer who spake in the voice of V-Hypnagogic Logic.
I come now, wide-awake, armed with sleep-starved brain and staring eyes, ready to strip the world of any sense it possesses, and re-configure it into snake-headed lionesses and dog-eared tail-waggers, because, words!
What do I bring with me?
Ennui! Oui! And a dangerous, teetering dance on the edge of insanity, couched in prose so serious, that it gazes blindly at the sun, peeling grapes and crushing bleeding pomegranates underfoot.
And when insanity comes, it will come disguised as poetry, and when poetry arrives, all prose becomes amateurs, all grammar flies in the wind of chaos, and anarchy flies on a broomstick, hair streaming backwards.
All purple will be my mutterings, and in the midst of all the primordial bubbling, there will recline a recumbent form. And that form will be rich with purple and crimson. Pleasure will be king, and the blues will be an empress, and somewhere, a monk will play a piano. Miles and miles of wandering will lead to a coal train, chuffing towards a distant destination, where Winged Victory awaits, and all dreamers are welcome.
More to come on the morrow, when I shall borrow from the world of the living some surcease of sorrow, while ravens come and go and quoth Nevermore at me, day in and day out.
Goodnight!
~Dreamer of Dreams~
Tags: Dreamer of Dreams, new blog post from a new blog, Purple mutterings, The Avatar of word-flow lava