Pokharaing

 The best things in life, are things that are here. And now. I felt like I just had an epiphany, but maybe this is something I read somewhere? 

The calmness of the lake has been my friend for years and years now. I can't even remember how long it has been since I started coming to Pokhara just to sit by myself and work and read and write and walk and bike.

And once in a while, I've had company. Friends and family have joined me. And still let me do my thing because Pokhara is been my thing since forever.

And now I have found a friend, who lets me be me in Pokhara, gives me enough space so I can sleep, wake, eat, walk, read, all on my own. But also punctuates my moments with some lolling and goofiness and stories from across time and space. 

We first hung out together in Pokhara in March 2021 and since, Pokhara has taken on an added meaning in my life.

I'm giving my thanks to the universe today for all the wonderful things that get sent my way. We are always so taken care of, we don't even see it unless we pause to listen and rest.

And eat a slow meal in solitude. The luxury of doing that! :)

Rest today

There's this image that shows up to one of the You Tube videos-- it is of a person resting at the desk with a book in the lap and a cat up by the window. Here's the image: 

Image by Hyunhyun from Youtube

On my worst days, I've looked at it and listened to the loop and felt held. It's music that holdS you somedays, rather than people. And images of inanimate things. They are capable of stirring something in you. Sometimes, filling you with longing for the animate. 

But today,  have a terrible backache and even though I seem to be thinking about people I love, I want to just be and rest. By the window, at my desk...

Tea time

When it rains relentlessly, you want to stay tucked under warm things and dream. And read. And drink a warm cup of tea. Tea. I never thought about how tea is sort of been the transition, in my life. Most mornings, I wake up to my parents' fights over tea. The sugar is not right some mornings, sometimes it's the milk and sometimes, it's just not strong enough.

"I like my tea strong," I told a friend over chat today. She said she likes hers strong, too. A little bit of sugar and some milk.
"I drink tea three times a day," says she. And i say, same same.
Often, the only thing that can salvage me from my near-paralyzed stupor in bed every morning, is a cup of tea. Baa puts no sugar in my morning tea. Only milk and tea leaves. Tea is my incentive to abandon the dreams and hallucinations I have conjured up in bed.

Then it's tea time at two, just before I leave for work. It's been a ritual. While Ajee was alive, I made tea for her and Baajya. Tea and biscuits or cookies. They still feel like a treat, just before work, although I no longer have a cup for Ajee. Afternoon teas come filled with memories of Ajee's humming and Bajyaa's demand for a sweetner. What is tea if it isn't sweet? he still says.

Every evening at 6 pm, I break for tea. I have done that for last 12 years or longer. This one comes with office gossip. But over the years, my companions have changed. Some saw me through whatever was haunting me at different times. There were colleagues, who wanted a one-on-one across the table-- a longing to be elsewhere, they made up for by gulping down several glasses of tea served in glasses rinsed in a hurry. Some tea sessions occurred with girl friends, whose sole priority in life was to open their hearts up to some loving.

Some teas, have been quiet teas, as I drank alone and just tried to get over the day.
Tea. Tea. Tea.

I think I'll call myself Tea. Because I read today that there's no heartbreak a good cup of tea cannot cure. Just drink tea and stay calm :)

all over again

after a decade of doing this, i still can't do it.
i can't get up at 4 to come to work. and yet i do it every week.

there are a set of things in life you know you can't do and you still do. like knowing you cannot unlove a person you have loved. so, the solution seems like to not love at all. but you will love and then brood over unloving, even when you know there's no hope there. you will shut down email accounts, turn off phones, tell yourself you can live with babies, monkeys and dogs and you'll be quite okay. but when your email inbox shows a fresh mail or when your phone lights up with a text message, you're a goner all over again. and again, all that resolve of unloving crumbles and you're a silly 5 year old staring at a chocolate cake. all over again.

so it's six now, and if i get my coffee, maybe i can get back to work and stop musing over loving. in a most selfish way, that's all i'm good at anyway. clinging, like BKP puts it.

POWER-ON

there's the grayish-blue almost orange sky,
there's the mist
there are ugly buildings
the solitary bill boards
and water tanks
boasting of their hollow Kathmandu existence

there's the sound of the hoover
there's the clearing of throat at a distance

there is a dim hum of the city
similar to its waking-up anywhere in the world.

and it's morning

fog

there's something so beautiful about these foggy January mornings

just the immediate buildings stand out in silhouette. rest is covered in the dense white. even the squalor looks clean on mornings like these

morning

hot water
slides down
my system

it's sweet sweet

and the first thing
i need

If it ends

and should the world end tonight, my darling
amid birds chirping premonition,
and the roaring of airplanes in the sky,
i will still have loved you
like I did
when the earth was still about
morning dew on petals,
the coy moon over green meadows,
and the soft drizzle of April shower.

Out of Focus

This morning...
slightly out of focus...
sub-consciously...
dwells on you.

There are a set of books on the shelf that are familiar to me only by the way they feel in my fingers. I've forgotten their titles, the authors. But I need to rummage through them now and then, for reassurance. They're a kind of assurance that the world is still sane and that I'm still me.

I squint from where I lay in my bed, trying to figure what books stand stretched on the shelf in the hall...I'm trying to recall their titles. The one that comes to my mind in the thickness of its pages, the different fonts, the foreword, the dogears, it's slightly weak spine and the lines formed on the front with age, is Rainer Maria Rilke's collection.

It transports me to that afternoon's warmth, the buzz in the cafe, the way I couldn't wait to start reading Rilke, even as I also knew the book was your parting gift to me.