Jan 9, 2014 Awake in Real Time: Coffee-induced Meditations and Journal Entries, Parenting/ Home-schooling / Family Music and other Notes
A new person entered our lives. She transformed us … into parents. We haven’t been the same since. Life has more richness, more depth, more beauty, more music, more love, more … dimensionality.
Below is what I wrote on my Facebook page:
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So, today, our little girl turned nine!
It’s hard not to feel sentimental.
Also, a sense of amazement at how time shapes reality.
Nine years and a day ago, she wasn’t at our table.
I remember (in the days leading up to her birth) trying to imagine her in our lives, at our table, in our living room, playing with toys, making up stories, singing all over the house, reading, sprawled in various positions in her room or any other room.
I almost succeeded.
This is where imagination cannot match reality. Reality is a million times more beautiful and satisfying.
Happy Birthday, dearest S!
Poets have muses.
She is mine.
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I am grateful for her. Thank you, Universe!
Dreamer of Dreams
Tags: #Daughter, #Love, #Mother and Daughter, birthdays, Gratitude, mother
Apr 9, 2013 Uncategorized
Mercy-Crumbs
[Fourth Poem-Response to “Pigeon” by Anthony Green]
©By Vijaya Sundaram
April 9, 2013
Pigeon on the platform
Man on the train.
Sometimes, crumbs of mercy
Give life again.
Small pigeon at his human feet
His crumbs of mercy for the bird
A man, at gunpoint with the guards
A woman gives hope with a word
Each little crumb feeds living souls
Each little crumb gives back to life
Each little crumb furthers a goal
Each little crumb reduces strife.
A simple act, a simple deed
So easy, yet so very hard
For those who do not choose to feel.
And only some dare take that chance.
A simple act saved this man’s life
So simple, yet so very strong
Her kindness was that upon which
His life hinged; she set right that wrong.
The man saw her, and said no word
His thanked her with his eyes so mute
And filled with something that was stirred
Within, and rich with gratitude.
Pigeon on the platform
Man on the train.
Sometimes, crumbs of mercy
Give life again.
Tags: #Hope, #Life, #NaPoWriMo, #Original Poetry, Goodness, Gratitude, Mercy, poem-response to "Pigeons" by Anthony Green
Mar 10, 2013 Awake in Real Time: Coffee-induced Meditations and Journal Entries, Parenting/ Home-schooling / Family Music and other Notes
A Winter Walk in Sun and Snow
©By Vijaya Sundaram
Sunday, March 10th, 2013
Today, S and I went for an hour and a half walk through the woods near our house. It was a stunningly beautiful day — the sky was a freshly washed cerulean, and the white of the snow from the recent snowstorm overlay everything, fresh and soft, crunchy in parts, and pillowy in parts, always alluring, always leading us on to the next slope, the next outcropping of rock, the next tenderly nestled valley.
The woods near our house are almost improbable. On both sides, there are busy highways and roads, and all around, there are human dwellings. One does not expect to get lost in the woods. One does not expect to climb up snowy slopes, and look out on acres of trees, hills and valleys, little rivulets, streams and ponds. One does not expect such a dense quietude like the one we experienced, with the silence of sunlight pouring down on our upturned meditating faces, as we sat on a rock, tired from walking, catching our breath, holding hands, smiling into the empty sky.
Walk into these woods, and all that is human-made disappears. The trees and stumps look mysterious, inviting, the stuff of poems and dreams. Because it’s still winter, there are no animals to be seen, and no birds warbling in the trees to break the tightly-woven fabric of silence, which is punctuated only by the startling crunch of our shoes. There is an imperceptible hush of traffic in the distance, but it disappears like a sigh, once one is deep within the woods.
This afternoon, as we walked further and further in, S and I imagined that hidden in the broken stumps and hollow fallen trees might lurk small families of shy, nocturnal, scurrying creatures. No sign of ducks, squirrels, snakes or frogs yet — that might take another month or more. I haven’t seen foxes or coyotes here. And there are no bears in these woods — not yet, anyway!
She is only eight, this child of mine, and she is magical, filled with a deep, abiding love for the earth, its creatures, and for these special woods so close to home. We talked about how beautiful it was to sit on the rocks, to walk together, to see the untrodden snow. She wanted me to take the day off on this coming Tuesday, so we could go to the woods again together on my birthday. She was excited that my birthday was approaching. I realized that I should rein in my rather blasé attitude towards my “special day.” To her, it was an event of major import — the day I was born, lo! those many years ago! I tried to muster up some enthusiasm for it, and found it was easy. All it takes is the company of a loving child, and we are reborn from the ashes of our daily drudgery.
We strayed from the beaten path occasionally, and stayed on the trodden parts frequently (a lesson in there, somewhere? I think not! One must avoid reading too much into everything!). We held hands, and skipped over small streams, stopped to talk to a passing dog, whose owner smiled and allowed us to befriend his four-footed companion. We saw a solitary cross-country skier, walk towards us, thin and translucent in the light. “Hello!” we said to her, and she said, “Hello!” back. An occasional human in the woods is a cheering sight.
My child is a mountain-goat. I remember when she was barely twenty months old, she raced up the steep slopes of the very same woods, and I couldn’t stop her. She was sure-footed, and very interested in the steeper paths. Today, she laughed at my naked fear when she raced up steep slopes, and said, “Don’t be so scared, Mom! I wonder why grown-ups are always so nervous about everything!” I bristled in mock-indignation, and zigzagged up and down slopes from time to time (I was nervous that I might twist an ankle, and then be forced to hobble home), just to prove her wrong.
We walked for a long time, and in the end, we found ourselves at the very end of the trail, on the other side. We were jubilant! We’d never seen the other side before. We had strayed quite far. With unerring instinct, we found our way back to the main trail, and doggedly went on that, because now, we were feeling a little tired, happily so.
And one other thing. My feet squelched. The snow had been really deep in parts, and I was too busy enjoying it to care at the time. Now, it was all about “Ugh! I’ve got to get home now!” It wasn’t so bad, really, until we reached the main road, and went towards our house. Then, it got really uncomfortable.
We picked up trash along the way. My daughter started it, and I followed. She was indignant at the trash left near the side of the woods, along the road, and so was I. “Silly people!” she fumed. I agreed with her. We resolved that next time, we would take two large trash bags with us, and pick up trash on our way back. I thought, perhaps, we would even make a large sign and carry it! Perhaps, we could start a neighborhood trend. Nothing like a little positive action to breed more positive action (one hopes)!
We made it home, and I needed help from W to get my shoes off. I sat down on the mudroom bench. He pulled hard at my boot. I fell! (I’m afraid I wasn’t gracious there for a second. We shall gloss over the scene, shall we?) After recovering my poise and gravity, I thanked him. We laughed. There was a puddle of water and snow in both boots. Thank goodness for home!
S and I stood in the shower, aiming the shower nozzle that poured hot, hot water over our unsocked feet. What luxury!
Then, we had a lovely snack, some hot tea and plenty of downtime away from each other. This is the stuff of happy living.
When I reflect on my homecoming, I realize that it’s far harder to enjoy the woods and the cold, if one has no food or hot water, or love or kindness to come home to.
And when I think, “God! I’ve got to go back to work tomorrow!” I realize that that is the price I pay for this.
And I am truly grateful.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~The End~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tags: #Mother and Daughter, A Walk in the Snowy Woods, Gratitude, Green Earth, Silence and Sunlight
Feb 18, 2013 Awake in Real Time: Coffee-induced Meditations and Journal Entries, Parenting/ Home-schooling / Family Music and other Notes
It snowed most of the day today — not quite a blizzardy kind of day, but a sort of blustery and white-swirly-kind of day. The winds, reportedly, were twenty-four miles an hour. We huddled indoors most of the day, mainly because the holidays stretched ahead for me for another seven days, and thus, my family felt a weight roll off our collective chests. Not that I do not have any obligations. They were just, for the nonce, suspended, like stills in those busy-seeming scenes in movies, while chaos reigns all around, because a magical thing might have just occurred.
Late to bed last night, late to arise, late, late, late for everything. We were answerable to no one but ourselves, and that was GREAT!
Oh, my husband had to work (Skype, singing lessons), but my daughter and I hung out, read a bit, sang a bit, and lazed around, and watched strange vids on YouTube.
Then, just to add interest and variety to a day that would have come and gone like a snowflake, she and I tromped together through howling winds and sub-zero temperatures in the latter half of the afternoon, through the snow-sifted landscape, snow that was like so much confectionery sugar heaped on ice-cream, wherever it was clean (and horrid dirt-encrusted sludge wherever it was not), she leaping like a mountain goat from craggy snow-and-dirt-crusted ploughed-piles on the sidewalk, and I stepping gingerly on the road, putting myself at the mercy of drivers who plunged like sea-horses into the wind, gaily proceeding at thirty miles an hour, and slowing down only slightly so as to not mow down this “tropical hot-house flower” as my husband used to jocosely refer to me.
And my husband? In between the music lessons he gave on Skype, he made fresh pasta using our pasta maker, and dried them on clamps from our basement (which, he assured me, he had washed thoroughly). Later, we had a delicious dinner, and feasted on ambrosia and nectar, or, more accurately, homemade pasta, with homemade pasta sauce that had been slow-cooked to perfection. Oh, and we talked and laughed, and it was all good.
That’s what we did today. Later, we shall all sing together. Perfection.
Now, I sit quietly at the kitchen table, with my daughter reading her favorite book of the moment, and I type up all these lovely, idle happenings, so as to not forget the beauty and pleasantness that are part of my life. I want these memories to sustain me when things are difficult, or when I worry about the state of the world, or when I doubt myself (frequently), or am frustrated by the slowness and stubbornness of the human species when it comes to change for the better (I count myself among these, of course!), or when I am unaccountably sad.
Some days are for long-winded, almost-run-on sentences. Other days are for sentences from Kurt Vonnegut-land.
In short, I was happy today. Not bad for a wintry, icy, blustery Sunday, where naught happened, but idleness. Oscar Wilde would have approved.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~FINIS~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tags: #Family, #Oscar Wilde, Gratitude, Idleness, Journal