Watching out the windows
watch the way the wind blows
soon it will be morning
Actress Meena Kumari, known as the “Tragedy Queen” and also Poet Naaz.
DOUBLE SHOT ESPRESSO AMERICANO EXTRA HOT- PAPER CUP TO GO
I don’t want to romanticize journal writing, but the ink-to-paper experience is cathartic and spiritual. I spent all my twenties in smoky, dimly lit coffeehouses, just freewriting with nicotine-stained hands. It was the world before ipads and short attention spans. The hole in the wall was a buffer zone between work and home or respite on a rainy evening in Texas. Come to think of it, I was wearing my Docs then, during the actual Y2K. The world was going to end then too. In some ways, for many of us, it did.
I am writing this when my muse strikes. To disrupt my creative lulls and silence the damn inner critic that peeps up occasionally. This is a place for me to process life and maybe provide some spark or inspiration. Thank you in advance for indulging in my newbie newsletter while it’s in test kitchen mode.
PREGNANT PAUSE
The time before the time something happens. You know nothing is happening on the surface. You know nothing is evident in the Seen. Maybe it’s your anxiety. Perhaps it’s a pregnant pause?
I have been in this nowhere-land phase of my life for the last four years. My heart guidance and my idealistic workaholic ways have been my North Star. The year before the Pandemic was very much all the same for me. I was regrouping and restructuring my life willingly, then came the mass pivot for all of us. This brings me to the article by Arundhati Roy, “The Pandemic is a Portal.”
That portal, the lull, the pause, the wait; then the shift, the pivot, the adapt and survive. All while collectively grieving, letting go, and leaning into the uncertainties, hasn’t settled in yet either. Like a bag of glass marbles that falls to the ground, it takes some time before they get to their resting place.
CREATIVE CULMINATIONS
Eliminating excess noise makes it easier to listen to your muse and produce from a more pure place of self-discovery and exploration. Participating more in life than observing lives solely is a healing balm to this inflamed world we live in. What is next after your pause in life? I have embraced a slow life offline and off social media, this year to settle in, relish in my privacy and appreciate the space I created for myself. It has been a reflective time that forced me to meet myself again.
FIRST GEN. FIRSTBORN OF IMMIGRANTS
At the tail end, which is to be determined by this pause, It’s quiet but wondrously. You know life will always deal you a curveball. The trick is to know how to survive it. I have such a profound appreciation for my Parents at my age. I say this because they were Middle-Class Immigrants without smartphones and amazon. They were pioneering and humble in their new home. Their struggles were so different, but they made it look easy as children. I now source inspiration from my childhood. How would it feel living in the nostalgia of “back home” and being challenged and adapting to their new home simultaneously?
THE FAIRIES IN THE GARDEN
The lull gave me time to reflect and reconnect with my Parents. Just when you realize their strengths and see your Parents as humans, it’s like time shifts. My Mother’s health has rapidly declined in the last year, and now, when I see her, she is the Fragile, Vulnerable Woman who is so dependent and loving. This brought out this Maternal side of me and my Sister (the Rockstar of our family, Mashallah), even though I could not bear children. The last time I saw my Mom, we talked about her childhood. She went back in time to tell me about fairies living in the family home's garden. I just listened. My Mother was/is a natural storyteller. Her Grandmother was an Earth Steward and would tell them to keep the parks and spaces clean, or maybe some trickster fairy would show up. When I was a kid, My mom passed that along to my siblings and me. The rules were to never litter or pour hot water on the ground because the Earth is very much sentient and living.
FULLY BLOOMED AND FRAGRANT
When my Mom was healthier, she planted Gardenias and Night Blooming Jasmine at the front of the house to usher in fragrance. When I was younger, she would pick the fresh flower buds and put them in a brass bowl with water next to her tasbih (prayer beads)and perfume our tiny house. My Mother was not a high maintenance Woman, a straightforward woman. All about saving for her children or an emergency. Just an immigrant experience that I see now with a whole other set of eyes. She could have used a Chanel bag. She was happy with White Diamonds on Mother’s Day and a family dinner. Man, those days were beautifully simple, right?
TURNING THE PAGE
There is a time before something happens. A shift before the next job. The next move. The next adventure. There is a blank page in front of you. What are you going to write next?
Creative Culminations are activated in the time in between. Enjoying my silence and leaning into the unknown.