Feb 16, 2014 Parenting/ Home-schooling / Family Music and other Notes, Reading, Writing, Thinking

Post-Sled Languor
©2014, Vijaya Sundaram
February 16th, 2014

On my back, near my child,
Who is intent on packing snow,
I feel the rush of the earth
On her axis,
A spinning ballerina
En pointe.

Snow quiets someone’s heartbeat
(Mine? My daughter’s? The earth’s?)
Traffic rushes by, while I
Lie, staring at a pale sky,
With its light flurry of clouds.

And across my field of vision
Blank as I am, quiet as I am,
(But not quiet like death, not quite).
Slices an arrow, shot from an
Unseen bow, bent on its
Unknown goal, and the sky divides.

Silver, the airplane shoots across,
And I watch, blank as snow,
As the earth spins.

A flurry of thoughts
Moves across my mind,
I think (how could I not?)
Of the bow from which I
Was shot, and the end to which
I am headed, unknowing,
(for how can the arrow know, completely?).

But even that thought dies away,
As I lie on my back,
In the snow, gazing blankly
At a pale, pale, darkening sky,
While near me, my daughter
Makes a snow-fort.

______________________________________________________

Tags: #Mother and Daughter, #Original Poetry, arrows, destinations, earth's axis, looking up at the sky, post-sledding, snow-fort

Feb 10, 2014 Awake in Real Time: Coffee-induced Meditations and Journal Entries, Reading, Writing, Thinking, Teaching and Learning

So, one of the nice things my school system does is to offer various workshops and seminars through a lovely Professional Day program.  We sign up, get chosen to go by lottery, and then choose from a menu of wonderful offerings.  If we are fortunate enough, we get what we want from that menu, and even if we don’t get our first choice, we still get to go for excellent seminars.  I’ve gone for several workshops and seminars (many of them which offered me my first choice) over the past ten or more years, and every single one was satisfying to me as a teacher and as a student, because I always brought back ideas, both into my own personal practice of writing, and also into my professional practices as an English teacher.

I was fortunate this year, because I signed up for, and got to go to, a creative writing seminar with Michael Downing, author and Creative Writing Professor at Tufts University.

I missed the first Friday, because we had parent-teacher conferences.  I went for the next two Fridays, and both were excellent.  The focus was on Flash Fiction and Micro-Fiction.  Mr. Downing gave excellent prompts, as well as deeply satisfying talks and feedback on the process of creative writing.  I came away, feeling both inspired and somewhat overawed by the uphill slope I have to tackle as a writer.

I won’t go into all  that here, however.  I just wanted to say that I had such a good time, I wondered why I was not doing more writing.  Yes, yes, I’ve written on my blog almost every day, except, oddly, for the past three weeks.  However, I do need to get out there, and attend more workshops, create or join a Writing Group, meet with said group, give feedback, receive feedback, and read more.

I want to do all of this, as well as teach 8th Grade English, grade hundreds of papers, practice guitar, go on walks in the woods with family, cook, clean and be a good, home-schooling mom to my wonderful little nine-year old daughter, take her to swimming and dance class on the weekends, because my husband takes her everywhere else during the weekdays, while I’m teaching, and generally be upbeat and organized.  Now, we’ll soon be adding a Standard Poodle pup to the mix, and I think I know I shall officially be the most distracted person on the planet, at least for a few weeks.

I’m upbeat, however.  My problem is that I love doing all of those things.  I love writing, I love teaching, I love being a mother, a musician, a housewife.  (I could do without grading and other administrative tasks attendant upon that).

Choose!  I can hear a disembodied voice saying to me.

But I don’t want to choose!  I want to push the edges of the day in either direction, maybe add about four more hours to it, and have those hours book-end my writing.

Mmmm … that would be most satisfying.

(Shakes herself out of dream-state, and looks briskly around).

Right.  Where were we?

Ah yes, the workshop.  My next three posts will be the prompts that Michael Downing gave, and my two drafts of each of the three stories I wrote.  Hope you enjoy them.

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Tags: Distraction, Flash Fiction, Michael Downing, Micro-Fiction, Work and Play, Writing, writing workshop

Jan 14, 2014 Awake in Real Time: Coffee-induced Meditations and Journal Entries, Blogs and Bloggers, Parenting/ Home-schooling / Family Music and other Notes, Reading, Writing, Thinking

Not Writing

A Sad Confession by Vijaya Sundaram

January 13th (or the 14th), 2014

This is a confession to nobody.

So, I missed writing yesterday (the 12th), and today (the 13th of January). Actually, now it’s officially the 14th, since it’s past midnight, but since I’m not in bed yet, it’s still the 13th!  So there, ye Gods of Time!  Take that and that and that!

So, shall I swallow strychnine?

Rend my garments and wail aloud in despair?

Toss in my lot with the “lotos-eaters?” (Yes, yes, I know it’s lotus, but Tennyson didn’t!)

Take up good works?

Live under a bridge?

Say, “writing is an indulgence,” and work in a prison?

Stare guiltily at my Facebook page, wondering how to never, ever, ever be screen-sucked again?

Grade papers?  (Naaaah!)

Go to bed?

Oh, yes, that.

Bed it shall be.

But I managed to write — sure, just this sad, lonely piece about being a bad person, who didn’t write on the 12th AND the 13th (but today’s still the13th until I actually retire to bed, remember?), but still, it’s writing (of a sort, anyway).

Besides, I’m tired.

I taught all day on my feet.

I led the Green Team in its spirited recycling efforts after school.

I read to my daughter.

Fixed dinner.

Practised (and that IS the right spelling of the verb form of the word) guitar.

Practised kathak.

Sang with husband and daughter, playing guitar again.

Surely, I can be forgiven for my lapses, ye Gods of Writing, and ye Gods Who Induce Unwanted Guilt-Feelings!

Well, that’s all for now.  I shall retire and nurse my sorrows in private.  Sleep will soon drown them out.  Then, the new day will begin, and the clockwork of my days will keep on moving, minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day, year by year, until I say, along with J. Alfred Prufrock, “I can hear the mermaids singing, each to each.  I do not think that they will sing to me.” 

Only in my dreams, tonight, I hope.

____________________________ The End ______________________________

Tags: excuses, guilt, lame excuses, not writing, the desertion of my muse for a couple of days

Jan 4, 2014 Reading, Writing, Thinking

I like typing, because I type fast, a few notches below the speed of thought, but several notches faster than the slow movement of a pen across a sheet of paper.

Yet, there was something missing.

Then, I saw Neil Gaiman on December 29th at Porter Square Books in Cambridge, and when I finally got to shake hands with him and get his autograph, I saw that he used a fountain pen.

And a familiar fondness for the days when I used one washed over me.

I found myself missing the slow allure of fountain pens, which we used so casually, back when I was young.  I said so on FB, and some of my friends and former students talked about how they loved using fountain pens still.

It was sweet to read.

And I remembered how my father loved Parker Pens and Sheaffer Pens, and I remember the ritual of filling my more ordinary fountain pens with turquoise ink from Quink (Quill Ink, if I recollect) in India.  Wistfulness, memory, nostalgia, and a need to go back to writing in the slow lane all blended into this strange need.  I went online and ordered a Sheaffer fountain pen, which hasn’t arrived yet.

Later in the week, I was rummaging through a drawer which had lain forgotten for a few years, and found a Sheaffer Calligraphy Fountain Pen set, which I had ordered in a fit of nostalgia five or so years ago.  I kicked myself for forgetting I had it, but decided that it wasn’t too late.

So, I took it out, put it together and wrote.

And lo, if my handwriting didn’t come out all stylish and calligraphic!  (I have terrible handwriting when I write with a ball-point pen, and it must be because it’s so terribly utilitarian and boring to write with!)

And I wrote in rhyme!

In the next two posts are (virtually unedited) two verses I wrote, both not related to each other or anything else.  Please check the next two posts for each poem I wrote in pen, then typed into WordPress  Just a start.

Thanks for reading!

Love,

Dreamer of Dreams

Tags: #Nostalgia, Calligraphic Pens, Creative writing in the slow lane, Fountain Pens, Writing by hand

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

Dec 5, 2013 Awake in Real Time: Coffee-induced Meditations and Journal Entries, Current Affairs / General Interest, Reading, Writing, Thinking, Teaching and Learning

Nelson Mandela was a Mahatma, a Great Soul.

The world is bereft, even if it doesn’t know it.

There are only a few giants among us, and he was one.  The power of an idea that is bigger than a man carried him on its irrepressible tide, but it was he who steered the boat.

Twenty-seven years in prison did not diminish this man’s resolve–rather, he grew stronger.

One can argue with falsehood, with faulty premises, with those who are prejudiced, with stubbornness, with pride and prejudice.

One cannot argue with Truth and Right, with someone who is truly committed to Equality, to Justice, to Goodness.  Mr. Mandela changed the face of discourse and race relations  in South Africa with his indomitable spirit and passion for Civil Rights and his Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

The world is a sadder, colder place for his passing.  We have to, all of us, speak truth to power any chance we get.  Mr. Mandela taught us how.

May he rest in  peace.

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Tags: Civil Rights in South Africa, Mahatma, Nelson Mandela, Speaking truth to powe, Truth and Reconciliation

Dec 3, 2013 Awake in Real Time: Coffee-induced Meditations and Journal Entries, Reading, Writing, Thinking

So, you want to write?

What’s stopping you?  The dirty dishes, the laundry, the papers you need to grade, the rooms that need to be picked up, the people you’ve to get along with or work with, the children you need to wake up and off to school with a good lunch and change of clothes, the spouse you’ve got to make feel valued, the backlog of books that wink in your direction, then whistle and look away when you turn to gaze back at them, the dust balls reproducing quietly in corners when your back is turned, the instruments you used to play, but you cannot, because you’ve got work to do, anyway, the dog or cat that clamors for your attention, that cup of cappuccino that you’ve got to have at 5:00 p.m. when the muse is knocking at your window, semaphoring madly, but you’re too tired to answer, and what good would it do, anyway, because, even if you were to let it in, you’d pass out from everything you’ve been doing, or not been doing?

Oh.  Well.  Surely *that’s* not what’s stopping you, is it?!

You’d better get on it, hadn’t you?  Pick up your pencil, your pen, your tablet, your laptop, your languishing spirit and WRITE, dammit!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Dreamer of Dreams ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Tags: being anything except a writer, being busy, being domestic, feeling guilty about not writing, making excuses for not writing, not writing, wasting time, Writing

May 12, 2013 Awake in Real Time: Coffee-induced Meditations and Journal Entries, Reading, Writing, Thinking, Teaching and Learning

Meditations on Greatness and Ordinariness
©By Vijaya Sundaram
May 12, 2013

I’ve often wondered why people can exist in a kind of dumbstruck awe of those who have achieved greatness in a particular field.

I do not mean to imply that I don’t respect great people or am not in awe of their gifts, tenacity and devotion to their field.  I do not mean that I find them puny or insignificant.  Not at all!  I admire them deeply, intensely, with great respect and open eyes and heart.  I appreciate enormously the sacrifices they must have made and the strength of mind to keep at their art or science or any other field.  I look at them, and see their greatness as part of the power which pours from an unseen source into their hearts, into their minds, the minds of those who are compelled to follow a dream.  I love that, and wouldn’t mind some of that to spill over into me as well.

What I don’t understand is the slightly subservient attitude that is adopted by those who pay them tribute — or, maybe I mean something other than subservient.  I’m referring to the slightly timid manner which people adopt in the face of greatness.  I find it strange and slightly discomfiting.

Perhaps, I’m thinking that the possibility of greatness is in all those who seek passion and purpose in their own lives, along with tenacity and vision.  And I am wondering why tenacity and vision,  which should be everyday things, things of no great consequence, could be so extraordinary.

I know why — because they are extraordinary. 

But they shouldn’t be!

I don’t wish to slavishly idolize those who possess creative greatness and heroic tenacity.  I want to appreciate them with eyes wide open, and with a  readiness to let them take me elsewhere, without giving up an iota of my own being.  Surrender to greatness, without surrender of self.

Is that possible?

Therein lies the paradox of the attraction and repulsion that “great” people hold for me.

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

(NOTE:  I’ll probably write a longer meditation on this.  This is all I am capable of for now — work awaits.)

Tags: #musing, greatness, Greatness and Ordinariness, surrender of ego, surrender of self, surrender to greatness

May 8, 2013 Awake in Real Time: Coffee-induced Meditations and Journal Entries, Reading, Writing, Thinking

Ten Things I Wish For Everyone
©By Vijaya Sundaram
May 8th, 2013

• To be genuinely pleased when someone has a success in his or her life, and is thrilled to share it unabashedly.
• To take pleasure, simple pleasure, in the beauty and goodness that are created by others.
• To not feel inadequate or wanting because they cannot, at this point, have what another person has.
• To not begrudge even one tiny little bit the beauty created by someone, which that person created from scratch with pleasure and no expectation.
• To not look askance when someone expresses genuine emotion or passion.
• To not compare themselves with others, even if it’s the habit of a lifetime.
• To not beat themselves up internally for not doing their best.
• To not beat themselves up for begrudging someone his or her success.
• To not beat themselves up for feeling bad about feeling bad.
• To feel alive to the very tips of their fingers and toes, and the top of their heads, and to welcome all that is beautiful and loving into their hearts.

With love,

Dreamer of Dreams

Tags: Being Accepting, Being Alive, being human, Being Loving, Celebrating Beauty, Ten Things I Wish For Everyone

May 7, 2013 Awake in Real Time: Coffee-induced Meditations and Journal Entries, Reading, Writing, Thinking, Teaching and Learning

Ruminations
(Not too earth-shattering or terribly original, but what I thought of today)
©Vijaya Sundaram
May 7th, 2013

It seems so obvious, somehow, when one puts it baldly, thus: One has to have a meaning, a purpose in life.  If there isn’t one, find one.  If we cannot find one, look elsewhere.  If we still cannot find one, create it. That’s it. 

If the meaning and purpose come from a place of emptiness, then one’s actions are empty at best, and harmful at worst.  That’s where we get the Dzhokhars and the Tamerlans.  That’s where we get empty men with hungry souls emptying their weapons into innocent and hapless people.  Adrift without meaning and purpose, the empty ones fill their emptiness with rage, religion and false notions of honor.  Killing is the ultimate worst expression of that emptiness.

If we act with mixed motives, our lives will crumble, and we will create confusion in the lives of those around us.  No one will benefit in the end, and all of us will be unhappy.  I did all this for them, how come they don’t appreciate what I do? is the question that haunt those who act with mixed motives.  Or: I don’t mind sacrificing my needs for others.  Really!  Confusion and anger come from these, and ultimately, disappointment and bitterness. 

If our motives are clear and obvious, and we are not working only for our own benefit, but for the benefit for all, our lives will be the richer.  As a great soul once purportedly said, “What you do to the least of my brothers, you do unto me.”  Interconnectedness is everything in the web of our lives.  Self-expression and service to others work only if both come from a place of joy and love.  Clarity is the result.

If we work with purpose and true motivation, and we are doing it from interest and a willingness to learn, and a willingness to be vulnerable to failure, our lives will be the richer, and so will the lives of those around us.

If we act from moral strength and purpose, and our actions are real and obvious extensions of our intentions, and there is no self-aggrandizement detectable in our actions, our lives will reflect that.  And inexplicably, others’ lives will be affected — positively.

Meaning and purpose germinate in such grounds as these. 

It is the job of teachers and parents, and of the policy-makers to help create a world with meaning and purpose.  If, instead, we create a generation devoid of true self-hood, but made up of selfishness instead, we are committing societal suicide.

Create meaning.  Help and hold each other as we cross the treacherous terrain of existence.  It’s in the reaching out and the holding that we find the poetry of living, the art in life.

Ultimately, a true artist or poet does art or writes poetry for its own sake,  because it’s beautiful and because it makes her or him happy.  Artists or poets don’t look for rewards or recognition (although they wouldn’t refuse it if it came their way).  They bring others pleasure, but they do it unintentionally.  They come from a place of truth.

Make your life a work of art.  Make poetry.  Make truth.  Make love happen.  Make the act of living, both for yourself and for others, a beautiful thing.

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

Tags: #Clarity, #Life, #Love, #Poetry, #Truth, Art, Beauty, honor, interconnectedness, meaning, self-expression, self-hood vs. selfishness, service, Teaching the young