Mar 15, 2016 Daily Life, Ramblings and Musings

Today in Five Senses
©March 15th, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram

Today, there’s rain and damp earth, and my bulbs have begun to bloom – bright yellow flowers pushing out from the ground on rich, green stems, and shy, purple flowers just beginning to make their appearance.  And my new-growing bulbs drink long, cool draughts of air and water, and soak in sunlight, while the moisture makes all the red-brown-breasted robins come out in droves, and thirstily sip the rain drops on the leaves and on tree-bark.  They look fat and happy, ready to populate the world with more robins.  And the rich, fat, wriggly worms poke their heads out, diving into earth and making more rich, brown earth, themselves, and the robins love them for it, so much that they snack busily on them, and it’s all part of the sun-bright, rain-dimmed days that make the Spring both joyous and gray.

And I look out and am glad.

The day wears on, as days have done since I left teaching, with things to do at home, and also time to write in between.

A friend visits – he’s teaching my daughter the drums.  (She got a four-piece drum-set, to which our friend added a proper bass-drum and a tom-tom) .  It thrills me to hear her play – this is just her fourth lesson, but her six years of dancing kathak (a North-Indian classical dance form), and her innate musicality and rhythmic intelligence are a great asset, so she’s learning fast.

Last week, I sneaked into her room and played, and found to my delight, that I was able to sing and play simple drum beats, with high-hat, tom, and the bass drum, while singing my favorite Beatles songs.  Yes, I, am fortunate to have been a musician for as long as I’ve been aware that I was one, which was when I began to sing in tune at age two and a half.  I cannot wait until we can play songs together – she, and my husband and  I taking turns on guitar, bass and drums.

I listen, and hear the familiar patterns of a twelve-eight feel, ta-ki-ta, ta-ki-ta, ta-ki-ta,  ta-ki-ta.  I later learn they were practising a song that she and I know and love, the Smokey Robinson song, “You’ve Really Got a Hold on Me,” which was later sung by The Beatles.  There’s a comforting, nostalgic feeling that sweeps over me when I hear it.  Reminds me of when I was young and full of happiness, because life was opening up for me in my twenties, and I remember listening to a cassette-tape that my future husband had sent me of The Bobs singing their brilliant a cappella version of it.  I remember, looking back, that my eyes felt like they held the sun, and my skin felt like silk, and fit me well, my blood felt right, and flowed laughingly in my veins, and my heart beat faster because I was in love, and was loved back.

Now, here I am, years later, having gone through ups and downs, but what I remember are mostly the ups, which feel so fragrant and linger so long in my mind that they feel as if they happened only yesterday.  I remember the downs, but only as if they had happened to someone else in a dream who resembled me, and whose chaotic heart I could not harness during times of turbulence.

So, it’s time to make Indian masala chai for the four of us.

I chop fresh strips of ginger and dice them, and pop them in two cups of boiling water, adding cloves and cardamom pods, and crushed black pepper.  The air is fragrant and thrills my senses.  What I need now is a stick of cinnamon, or better still, crushed cinnamon.  And lo!  Here it is, right under my nose.  Inhale that, but do it gently, and from afar – you can damage your nose and lungs seriously if you do anything more than just take a whiff of its happy-making smell.  Toss that in the ebullient water, and add some black tea leaves — enough for four people (four teaspoons will do).  Let that come to a boil.  Now add six teaspoons of brown sugar, and then two cups of milk, stirring the whole time, turning down the blue-white flame.

Oops!  I turned it off by mistake.  I try turning it on again, and I get that horrid smell, stinky as hell, that tells me the gas hasn’t been lit, though it’s on.  Quick, fix that!  Good!

Open the door to the backyard, and let the stinky smell, and our dog, out.  Holly’s both happy that the air smells good, and irked that it’s rainy.  Ah well.  All that lovely, curly, Standard-Poodle hair will get messed up.  Got to brush her tonight into a nice cloud of soft poodley fur.

Back to the tea.  Yup.  it’s done!  Let me waft the scent your way.  Can you smell it?  Now, strain the tea into four cups with a tea-strainer.  Serve it steaming hot to your family and visiting drum-teacher friend.  Set out plantain chips, and sweet-peanut crunchies.  Heat up a spinach triangle for your husband, who needs something more sustaining after a long day.

Inhale the tea, then sip.  Ahhh!

Feel that steaming liquid heal something within you – dismissing the malaise that might have crept up unawares, and looked over your shoulder.

Get back to other work, now!

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Tags: #Being in love, #Brewing spiced chai on a rainy day, #Bulbs in Spring, #Drumming in twelve-eight time, #Family and Friends, #GardeninginSpringtime, #HowtomakeMasalaChaiIndianStyle, #Journal Entry, #Life in Springtime, #Nostalgia, #RobinsLoveWorms, #Snack-time!, #Writing for the Five Senses

Jul 6, 2014 Awake in Real Time: Coffee-induced Meditations and Journal Entries, Music, Parenting/ Home-schooling / Family Music and other Notes

Walked with Hol in the morning. She was sedate and heeled well — a nice change from the crazy persona she projected yesterday.
Read aloud two beautifully illustrated and entrancingly written graphic novels (one based on Athena and the other on Poseidon) to S after lunch. She was instantly captivated, and re-read them by herself again and again. She’s been deep into Greek Mythology since I bought her a few wonderfully engaging books on it a couple of years ago. She remembers things I don’t. It’s amazing. Her favorite goddess are Athena, Artemis, Demeter, Hestia and Metis. And I think she fell in love with the Theseus shown in the Poseidon book. She rather likes, and feels sorry for, Poseidon’s Cyclops son, Polyphemus. She LOVED the three Fates show in the Athena book. Good taste!
Lots of planting in the evening. Very nice. Found a bunny in the garden, which appeared suddenly out of tall grasses, and sprang away into the hostas on the side. S helped with weeding.
Hol’s busy chewing on a water bottle. Got to rescue it.
Went up for a bit and listened to S practising guitar, improvising on a D minor scale, while Warren played the chords. Lovely! Holly listened to her, and then to us, when we sang a Beatles song together. She likes music, just as we all do.

Tags: #Dog, #Gardening, #Journal Entry, Family time with daughter, husband, Lazy Sunday

Jul 3, 2014 Awake in Real Time: Coffee-induced Meditations and Journal Entries

Is stating the obvious allowed?
It’s HOT.  It’s clammy.
I felt inert most of the day.
On the other hand, I did plant ELEVEN plants in the evening.  
In addition, I took my daughter to Open Air Circus Camp where she pursues the arcane mystery of Commedia Dell’Arte on Thursdays.  (On Tuesdays and Wednesdays, she’s exploring juggling, miming/stilting, Devil Sticks, acro-balance and unicycling).
And earlier, in the morning, I took Holly on a LONG walk, during which she got to run off-leash in the park, and was happy as a clam.
Speaking of clams, Holly encountered her first clam shell, which S brought home from Crane’s Beach, where S had been with a few of her friends for most of today.
Holly sniffed at the shell, then started backing away, then sniffed it again, and leaped backwards.  Then, she leaped at the shell in my hand, as if to kill it.  She repeated the same actions a few times.  I would walk towards her with the clam shell.  She’d sniff it, then back away for a while, then leap at it.
She was FASCINATED by it.  She wouldn’t go away from the spot where I had left it high above her reach.  She was obsessed.  I called her to the other room, and she didn’t stir.  I tried to lure her with a treat, and she disdained it.  Finally, I took the clam shell upstairs.  She followed me instantly.
This is what equal parts mute dog-hate-and-dog-love look like.
Our dog is as strange as we are.  Actually, she’s stranger.

Tags: #Journal Entry, Circus Camp, Clam shells and puppy, daughter and dog-ter

Jun 28, 2014 Awake in Real Time: Coffee-induced Meditations and Journal Entries

Birds sing outside, the fan’s on inside, the air is yellow-gold, and the leaves around the house glow emerald.
I love my little house, nestled on its perch high above the street.
It’s small, it’s cluttered, it’s colorful, it’s groaning with books, and it has green all around. And it’s filled with music and love.
I don’t need a big house (except, perhaps to leap around in, or throw a ball in, but for that, one can simply go outdoors). I have everything I need here.
My home gives me an illusion of permanence.
Having not had a single place I could call “home” for most of my life, I find myself feeling at peace and so contented here — this is where I’ve come home to roost for the past thirteen years.
I don’t think I’ll leave this place.

~

Dreamer of Dreams

Tags: #Journal Entry, #Summer, at home, being home, coming home to roost, Home, illusion, permanence

Apr 12, 2013 Awake in Real Time: Coffee-induced Meditations and Journal Entries

It’s only April 12th, and I’m on my twelfth day of “A Poem A Day.”  I think I missed two days in the beginning, but made up for it by writing a few more poems.  I haven’t written one today, yet.  Not sure if I can.

After sleeping for four and a half hours last night, I woke up, made coffee, got our luggage ready, and we all made for the airport.  Then, we all flew to Toronto to visit my father-in-law and his wife.

We’ve been here since late morning today.

Not much to report.  Wet, cool, windy day.  Nice fire in fireplace.  Nice lunch and dinner.  Our child is happy, because she loves visiting her Grandpa and Grannie.  She also loves their dog, who’s thrilled to have a kid to play with.

It’s peaceful here.  I like it.  So does my daughter.  My husband is preparing for a concert he’s giving this coming week.

That’s all for today, folks.  Perhaps, tomorrow, I might write two poems to make up for today.  Or perhaps, after midnight, tonight, I’ll write something, if only to keep the habit fresh.

Writing is, or should be, a habit.  One cannot wait around for inspiration.  Inspiration’s waiting for one!  One has to set out on the road first.

Goodnight!

Love,

Dreamer of Dreams

Tags: #Journal Entry, almost NaPoWriMo, April vacation, travel

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