Things Unfinished

My heart beats precariously. 

Waking up late to morning sun – sunshine soaking in the very marrow as it travels. The photons fraternising with the blood cells – reunion of the dust particles.  Stardust.

After the house chores were done. I sat on the window seat with the filtered sunshine and wind caress, with a huge mug of tea and lit a cigarette more for the inhaling and the nicotine laced breath than the smoke. To the background score of no music, no noise save for my own thoughtless mind’s

I write less and then I write more - sometimes with frenzy, wrestling the words, ideas, feelings out of me at a feral state. And then switches code and takes forever over a few sentences like a languishing fever -  brewing, pontificating, mulling over – before it becomes the right shade of music – just enough grunge and enough jazz.

On weekdays – every morning I try and find a place by the side windows – windows that overlook water. It’s a busy harbour, yet the seemingly never-ending expanse of water, the undulating sails of waves – keep my balance centred.

Crackling Fire and Rippling Water – both of the same effect. How?  Why are hows important? Maybe they are not. It just is. Finding joy in the no definite answers and the unfinished-ness of things.

This is what I am learning. Leaning in with grace. 
A challenge for my Asperger driven OCD Mind. 
That the process is the pleasure. 

Whilst finishing things and tying that bow on the neatly done wrapping is a definite satisfaction; however the walk to soak in the moments could be a reward in itself.

This week – someone genuinely was overwhelmed by my poetry and said “I could marry you for this!” and this week I went out for lunch with someone who was brave enough to talk about mental health awareness with his own example, unabashedly. This week – I found space every single morning by the window overlooking the water – a feat in itself with the hot desk thing. This week – I paid almost all my debts. This week a few more steps  towards creating better user stories and better user experiences at work. This week – a few more meaningful candid chats with some solid examples of humans.

 This week, a strengthening of a bond of traditional belief; organically

I walk to a quaint café near my office, mid-mornings and watch people come in. The barista and I never say more than a hello and the order; and yet there’s a warm familiarity to it.

It’s the weekend now.  I write this while the Bose speakers flirt with jazz and Nirvaan plays quietly with his Lego, building out his complex imaginations. 

It’s the weekend and am grateful for the interlude. It’s the left-brain days.  

The weekend, I look forward. I exhale. I fall in love and fall apart.

We argue. We fall harder. Whatever happens I collect and create stories of us with all these unfinished pieces and fragments of questions, answers, conversations, snippets, chores and things left undone – unsaid – unfulfilled.

Copyright © Neerja Yadav

The Beginning of Two Digits - it's TEN!!

The fall is here. 

Crisp air, golden light and the upturned ceramic bowl of blue up above 
with dreamy elongated shadows and the weather extraordinary.

Nirvaan and I talk to the trees when we go for a walk. We look at anthills and fallen leaves and we plan vacations and sometimes life too. The song-like feel of early autumn. This autumn is rather special.

My boy. He is ten! 
His early birthday party passed on the weekend, the indoor game arcade, with friends – tons of them and mummy!

We've made it. We're beyond early childhood. 
He gets ready for school himself; he takes his elder brother role for the infant cousin very seriously. 
He talks to strangers and expresses opinions about things with elan.

Has shot up in height and confidence in dollops over the last year.

Perfectly balanced on the cusp of rest of the two digits life – I cant help but marvel back to that Oct. The dipped in white dark-eyed beautiful new born he was. To my over anesthetized being he came out not wailing but calm as pure oxygen - blessing! And this Oct when he turned two and I was looking at this date

It does and it doesn't get easier, the older he get. When he was a baby the constant attention of every single moment, to every single moment – was demanding. As toddler, preschooler all the way through to the early primary years – it was non-stop high demands – yet the demands themselves were small. The negotiation over bath and sleep time, the dislike of broccoli and extreme attachments to stray dogs and picking up rocks for the collection. The complexity of these simple moments

Now it is the complexity of being alone. The discovery of self. The absolute of independence. The hunger for protection. The need to stand out, or to fit in. Best friends, secrets, homework and extra curricular, and the dislike of being asked to fix his own room. We're in the epoch of homework, singing and guitar practice, weekend math and TV marathon, and nights when his mind spins and he can't fall to sleep.

The half way mark between now and when he'll take off into the wide orbit of his own life.

Sometimes in the morning on the weekends, we jump on the bed and go for a swim or walk; with him constantly chattering about his inventions, mythology, characters from favourite book or shows.

Mummy, he says, can I tell you something? And then he'll launch in, my mind trailing his. Now engaging, now planning day’s task or next day’s chores.

Looking back at last year's birthdayI still see the toddler in him. Slowly it’s fading but it’s still there – sometimes more emphatic – full of precocious sensitivities – and then most times, it morphs into this boy of jigsaw puzzle of baby fat and developing muscle and movement and song. Every waking second he's chattering or joking or laughing.

He launches into explanations about science or mythology, swims nonstop for two hours, watches TV whole day and run races while shouting “Sloppy Mummy” - straight and far.

The weekdays go by in blur. In the mornings – it’s always a slobbery overload of kissies and mumma hugs. And have a lovely day!  School and work. We do the same things. We do different things. We spend our days mostly doing our own stuff – picking up conversations – topics as diverse as mitosis and meiosis to ancestral aligning of swans and dinosaurs to the way world works certain ways and it doesn’t.

As we sit together for dinner at night he tells me stories about his day. Mummy, he asks, what was the most interesting thing that happened to you today? He doesn't have perfect table manners yet, but he knows how to ask questions with weight.

On the weekends there is sleeping in. Milk and Chai breakfast. A movie or a trip to the park or mall. Some kind of adventure or quiet or both.

We went for a walk on the promenade. The harbour front speckled with city lights and pockets of inky darkness. Beyond us, at the island the waves move in choreography to say hello. Then fresh waves ride in slantwise, full of vim, and crash headlong into the rocks against the rocks causing spray to skid off into the dusk.

The night slowly bled into the twilight. I gathered my arms around my knees, and listened. To the sea, to my breath, to my heart the one in the ribcages and the one outside on two gangly legs of a 10 year old!

Being his mom became the pivot of this last decade gone by. Being the facilitator to this wonderful human was the greatest gift I needed.

And as we gaze towards the shoreline together – I see the future unfold with equal amounts of equanimity, speckled with some human trepidations. Steadily, the earth turns and we are made new. Both of us!

Have a Blessed Best Birthday, My Blessing!

Love, Mumma!

Copyright©Neerja Yadav