Jun 10, 2016 Daily Life, Ramblings and Musings

Yearning for the Past
©June 10th, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram

Usually, I live in the present.  Some days, however, a deep nostalgia, akin to grief, grabs hold of me and doesn’t let go.  This surprises me, because I like to think of myself as being free from all that.  I’m not. 

I yearn for every single minute of my life, every moment, whether good or bad.  I want to relive everything with a double sense of self– my younger self in that moment in time, and my present self, watching over me.

I yearn for the indefinable newness of everything when I was young.  Yes, there’s newness now, as well, but I want to go to that first sense of wonder at experiencing the world through childhood, teenagehood, young adulthood, even my entry into motherhood.  I could list all those memories, sensations, emotions and thoughts, but this is not about listing.

 One cannot step in the same river twice.  I know that.  There is one place where the shadow of a shadow of a shadow of my lived life can be captured – in my mind, and through that, into words on paper, or the screen, where it undergoes another transformation.

Reality is Supreme, and Life is supremely indifferent.

I know every fold in my brain contains those first impressions, and all the minutes, the hours, the days of my life.  I still remember some things so vividly, it’s almost as if I were there – they’re not so much memories that one can share as much as sensations of things.

In the end, all of this will be dust.  Where will all those memories go?  Will my daughter’s cells carry the memories of her parents’ cells?  And do we all carry not just our own, but also our ancestral memories?

Perhaps, those memories will join the ether, and transmit themselves through dreams.

Or, perhaps, those memories will form themselves into new people.  And when those people meet, they will feel kin, and wonder why.

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Tags: #déjà vu, #Memories, #Musings, #Reliving the past

Apr 29, 2016 Free Verse, NaPoWriMo, Original Poetry

I Remember All This …
©April 29th, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram

I remember when I was born.
I was wrinkled and dark,
And quiet, I think.
I remember my mother
Singing to me in her womb.
Her voice shaped me,
Note by golden note.

I remember seeing pigs
Rooting, squealing on the streets
Outside my grandparents’ home.
Squealing in joy, I followed,
Entranced by their wiggly tails.
I remember climbing trees
And scraping knees, like
Maria, she who made me
Want, nay, covet, a guitar
And a home filled with
Clamorous, singing children.

I remember watching green light
Slipping down the polished leaves
Of mango trees, and feeling
Smooth and sunlit from within.
I remember the soft, soft skin
On the back of my hands,
And the shiver it gave me
When I caressed it absently.

I remember the song I sang
At the Museum Theatre,
My first big audience in a big city.
And the mad burst of applause
After a few seconds of nerve-bending
Silence, a silence which terrified.
I remember how everything
Shimmered like a dream,
Like the pale fires of an opal,
And smelt of jasmines,
And bursts of marigolds,
And aging wood and carpets,
And old velvet drapes in that
Old theatre in Madras.

I remember my music,
Born with me, and living
Like blood within me.
Flowing even now, singing
While I think on these matters,
And worry about the planet,
Singing like a river
Flowing to an unknown sea,
Singing without the desire
To be heard, or acknowledged,
Singing, while I write these words.

I remember my father’s mother,
First alive, kind and gentle,
Without personality, without joy,
Without rancour, without rage,
Without a real life of her own.
Then dead, laid out cold and straight,
My family’s living room, lying
Still and large-bellied and sad,
Clad in her death-sari,
Water on the floor puddling around us,
Poured onto her by all the family
A frightening, bewildering custom
I’d never seen until then.

I remember with a shudder
The chilling wails of an
Old, old woman, who appeared
As if from nowhere 
(A relative, I was told),
And keened in ritual mode.
I remember how, after,
She abruptly ceased,
And partook of the sesame
Sweetmeats, and black pepper foods
Cooked for the occasion,
And chatted in banal mode.

I remember wincing away from
Sesame sweets and black pepper
For years and years afterwards.
I remember riding nightmares
All the way into the break of day.
I remember crawling into
My parents’ room, terrified
Of ghosts and the cloying dark,
For I could see all
The spirits ranged around me,
Whispering and pointing.
I remember the comforting
Soft bulk of my father on my right,
The rounded plumpness
Of my mother on my left.

I remember my father
Saying this to me:
“I didn’t cry when my mother died;
I cried when I had to cremate her,
And utter Sanskrit prayers,
Saying, This is the body of
The Mother whose womb bore me,
Whose body nurtured me,
Which now, I consign it to the flames.”
Perhaps, I misremember
His exact words, but that was
The mist, the gist of them. 

I remember my husband,
Staunch and loving,
Dutiful and beautiful,
Full of music and song
Full of laughter and puns,
Full of kindness,
Telling me he loved me
That very first time,
Lo, so many years ago!
And how our love bloomed,
And our life together
Became a work of art
Full of flaws, yes, but
Full of beauty, and still
Shining, despite decades.

I remember when my daughter
Came to be, like a flower
Born of music and love,
Born to music and love,
Bringing sunlight, bringing warmth
Into my swelling body.
How like a goddess I felt!
And I remember watching
Her grow up, and still growing,
And as she grows,
I remember every day,
Every minute, as a pearl
Which I stitch into my days,
Drawing them close and bright.

I remember so much,
Some things of consequence,
Some of no import.
And soon, these memories,
Like my father’s own ashes
When he died – unwilling
To leave my mother until the end,
Despite the disappointments,
Despite the pain, the losses,
He and she had borne, and
With love for each other
Triumphing over all of it –
These memories will swirl
Like his flowers and ashes
In the water, where my
Brother, my sister and I
Emptied the brass pot
Which contained him,
And flow downriver.

I know, I shall remember
This and more, at the time
When I shall be thus emptied
Into a swirling river, flowers and all.
I shall join the Great River, where
All these memories will form the Great Om.
And I shall remember you all, while I sit
Dreaming on a white lotus
Springing from the navel
Of the great Brahman,
All around me, the stars will wheel,
While the planets spin, and the
Universe goes quiet.

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Tags: #Brahman, #FreeVerse, #IRemember, #Memories, #OriginalPoetrybyVijayaSundaram, #TheGreatHum

Jan 25, 2014 Awake in Real Time: Coffee-induced Meditations and Journal Entries, Parenting/ Home-schooling / Family Music and other Notes

Meditations Upon Walking on Solid Water

©By Vijaya Sundaram

January 25, 2014

 I had never walked on water in my entire life.  Today, with quaking heart, I did. 

 It wasn’t too bad.  It was lovely, in fact.

To think that there was a pond filled with water which teemed with possible life, which would, in springtime and summertime, have ducks and geese, and frogs and fish, which now supported my weight, and sang it’s safe, it’s safe to my internally trembling self!

(I was fine on the outside, although I wanted to get on it, go across and back as quickly as possible.  For, despite all the assurances and reassurances by my husband, who said, “I grew up near a lake, don’t worry, this pond is frozen solid, look!” and jumped on it, all my cells shrieked, No!  It isn’t.  Don’t!)

My daughter, intrepid and impatient with me, said, “Come on, Mom!  It’s great!  See?  And she walked on ahead of me, following my husband.

I knew that she was anxious for me to enjoy it like she did.  So, I put on my brave face, and squared my timid shoulders, and did. 

Something interesting happened then.  I wasn’t afraid, anymore.  I put my trust in my husband and my child, and walked on solid water.  Ice is interesting.  It has personality.  It has stillness.  It is mysterious, a presence that could be either kind or cruel.  It was kind to us today.  No betrayals lurked beneath its opacity.

Then, we went back to the main trails in the woods where we were walking.  We walked in companionable silence punctured by occasional inconsequential chatter in the dark stillness of the night-time woods, lit by snow.  We heard the creaking of an occasional tree, as we wound our way up to the very top of the hill in the woods.

There we stood on snow-covered rocks, and looked down on the intermittent shoals of cars, exotic fish of gold and red streaming towards us and shimmering away from us on the highways far below.  The lights of the city gleamed jewelline in the winter night.  A faraway airplane took off, glittering into the sky, from the distant airport. 

Our daughter is a child of winter, and a child of these woods.  The woods are hers, that hilltop and its tower belong to her alone (also to us, by extension), and that pond we walked on has been part of her consciousness since she was about twenty-two months.  She gazed around and exclaimed over and over, “It’s so beautiful here, isn’t it?”  And she sighed and sat on a snow-covered rock, gazing into the night.  My husband and I murmured in agreement, as we stood and gazed out, eyes saturated with the lights of the night.

Permanence is an illusion, I know, but I like to think that these words and that pond are part of the permanence of her memories.  I want for us to build a universe of memories.  These will sustain her (and us) through what is sure to come in the future, because the future is always jealous of the present. 

And the present is our gift from the Lords of Time.

____________________________The End___________________________________

Tags: #Daughter, #Father, #Memories, family outing, illusion, mother, permanence, Time as thief, walking on a frozen pond, winter walk in snow-covered woods, woods at night