Chance memories

My heart squeezed out regret. I was forgetting, and I hated that. The rustic feel of the cobbled stone path, the color of snow on the dirty streets, the train that would take me crosstown,the smell of the noisy & breathtaking downtown and the taste of my salad bowl with balsamic vinagratte dressing-my memories of then were slowly retracting, bidding me adieu. I beckon my mind to stop. Stop taking my details away. Stop telling me I have no control over the fading details anymore. I shrug and I sigh, I cry and I demand but the details of the past turn into a glob of feelings- of regret, joy, happiness, passion, anger, loss, heartache, love and now a distant reminiscence that I sleep with. My everyday friends, collegues, acquaintances seem so far away portending that I may not experience them in the same way I did while I spent time with them like it would be this forever.

As I struggled with my glob of feelings, the sun came streaming in through the venetian blinds and warmed the cold bed I shuffled in. It was such a welcoming moment, this warm sun proposing a brand new day, it held promises of perfection, of embracing the right now-the dew filled lawn invited me to bare my feet across the patch, a long mindful yoga practice under the blissful bright morning called forth, a cup of grace in coffee and the love of the man I am soul mates with was the icing on the cake. The day had the perfect mix of joy and contentment- ingredients of a perfect weekend. And I remembered my Someone, who once told me that knowing what you want from life's small events was far more functionally precious than knowing what you didn't. I decided to carry my memory glob along but also wanted to make my functionally precious events unwind.

And so I woke up and kissed my sleeping husband's half smiling lips and went out to the backyard he had carefully mowed the day before. The smell of a freshly mowed lawn on a wonderfully warm morning was a delight to my senses. Do you have moments of perfection that are so overwhelming you'd rather call them "just-another moment-of-the-mundane-passing", so that you can just go on living like a "regular" person? I have many moments like that and I wasnt going to leave this one to be one such, it was the weekend after all. I sat down on the porch and took the grand intoxicating mundane in. A lazy morning has such a potential to be therapeutic even in spite of how our minds jump from thing to thing and a chore to another. I let go of my lists each time they appeared in my minds eye. 'Laundry, groceries, email, facebook, memory glob" all of it came up to my conscious mind and all of it moved to the back of it in its own time as I sat there, and I sat. My yoga practice always had its own colors and motions. Today was slow and graceful. I took my time with every asana and every breath. Staying present in my movement, I was learning to move into stillness. With Ramm Dass's Hanuman Chalisa in the background I was grateful, for the strength, courage and compassion in my life today. As my cup of coffee was freshly brewed and served I sat with my husband and let the slow morning take its own accord. It was then that I knew, my heart would squeeze out regret as naturally as it does gratitude. My fears of a future and of a dying past would wash through me and I can let that be, not ignore but let be.

The splinters of an unbreakable glass...

I couldn't breathe. A huge chimerian boulder sat on my chest. I gasped for air and wondered what it was about. Ive suffered many physical shortcomings and instantly diagnosing it hasn't ever been trouble. But this was something else. My rational mind had surfaced, to protect me from it. "Life is about moving on, we live fully if we can take things in our stride and head on" it said to me. So,I sat there, watching the landscape pass me by. It seemed rather perfect, moving-on in a moving train, speeding across a splendid landscape. Only getting a glimpse of the beauty it held, I was able to train my mind to skim just the surface. I prayed the train wouldn't stop.

Squirming, I hoped the boulder would move. "take a breath, breathe deeply and you'll be fine" my insane rational mind told me. I squirmed a little more as tears began to well. I was gripped with breathlessness, i couldnt breathe, i couldnt breathe with this sharp pain stabbing at my chest. Its easier to cry with physical pain you see. But ofcourse, it was then that the part of me that wanted to cry found its release regardless of reason. It was as if the train had stopped. I was pulled into the midst of this world whose periphery I had only caressed. My physical pain found new layers. Sadness, and angst flooded my chest melting the boulder. "not the best thing to happen" cried my rationale that had been pleading for ever so long to just stay above the surface. I could only smile. Smile for the Chimera had transformed into a beautiful child. A child that needed comfort. A child that had spent several sad moments like this and had only learned to take the train and flee.

Why, I do thank my protective rationale. Without it I may just as well be a broken glass, sending splinters across the road i lay, but I thank the vulnerability that is present in every part of my pore as well. For without it, I wouldn't have noticed this crying child in the costume of a Chimera. I carry her with me, this child. I am her and she is me. We smile and cry as we move on in this train that thinks it can take us and leave this never ending landscape of love, joy, regret, sadness and agony. Ha!

A Few Haphazard Musings...

I ponder, not because I have nothing else to do but because I have so much to do...

Our memories-our vice and our virtue. How do we learn without it and yet how can we learn with it?

Our lives, this motionfilm of endless pursuits..familiar, and yet, I jump at every apparently difficult turn. What holds our fears? the Amygdala?

There is a certain curiosity about this thing we call perspective. Everything changes based on what lens you see through. why is that?

How often do we live in dichotomies? Isn't it a rare aspect to be accepting of it (the dichotomies) to move beyond it?

The search for a definite answer will never end, will it?

Come wonder with me, what are your random questions?

Letting go

The soft wind teased her tresses to play with his face as they walked close to one another by the shore, their very own turquoise backyard. 'It still works!' he thought as he let her soft hair tickle his anger and bring a smile back to his minds eye. He glibly brought his little finger to hook in with hers and it was her turn. Facing him, she smiled with her eyes and that's all they needed to quench this burning fury into roars of laughter. Letting go had become that simple.

No, letting go was not simple. It needed practice. The wheels of identity often needed oiling from the rust of habit, ownership and personal propriety that they had learn to nurture all their single lives. Is there room for more? implored the heart but the monkey mind with all its memories of life's hurt, its lows and tugs did not want to give. Clouded in this smoke of illusion, to increase pleasure and avoid pain the mind lost any logic between what caused pain and what pleasure. Their loving heart could discern if only it could find a way to unshackle itself from the tyranny of a restless mind and an overpowering ego.

He took her hand into his with new and inspired courage and placed it at his heart. Willing the heart to choose once again. To give space for one more. Becoming one was not simple and yet it was not a task that could be worked upon. Love, yes, love was supreme and it could fill the ocean they stood there watching. But did this love also have courage, peace, kindness, compassion, individuality, strength all encompassed within it? What they knew was that their love was slowly learning to be this encompassing.

The messages from the world around didn't matter when they were standing here alone and together. But the messages of the world was within them nonetheless.'What would it be like to shed the armor of safety, my love? what am I afraid of?' She asked him without having to speak. As they stood there watching the sun dip into the ocean blue leaving a crimson sky and a soothing moon behind, he kissed her on her forehead sealing a promise of everlasting discoveries in this lap of love their shared.

An Open Letter to the City of New York

Aarathi Selvan
A three year Manhattan Resident
NY, NY 10027

March 11th, 2009

The "Greatest City in the world"
The City of New York
NY, NY

Dear New York City,

I have never once doubted that a city has a character of its own. You my dear, certainly have one and as i sit today wondering about my future, my musings are interrupted by my thoughts about you. You certainly know how to captivate your audience and turn us into wonder struck addicts. Your tall skyscrapers, your lady liberty, your Chrysler towers, your times square and of course the Empire State all of it makes heads turn and hearts skip a beat. When I sit in one of your theaters and watch yet another protagonist walk down the same avenue I did last night, I smile a wide mouthed smile and wonder what it is about you that enthralls so many to come see you at least once before they decide they love you or cant stand you another second. But that's not why I write. I am not an expert on locations, cross streets and such. My love for you is, for the most part, a result of the learning and experience you've inspired. So, what is your character? What do you inspire? Why you?

Truth be said, Ive seen too many people here, walking on the streets holding their tears unable to find ways around their lives. I've found myself in conversations with mothers on the bus, telling me stories about discrimination and their hard bought immigrant lives in the city. I've seen people walk by scraping shoulders against an other's not realizing they weren't ghosts in this vacuum that is your lap. I've been a part of masses of people succumbing into the quagmire that is beyond their bodies and into a world of mind chatter, to do lists, and profound materialism. With cursory catch-ups and floating hellos you can seem like a cold cold city to live in, especially in winters. The word on the street is that every other person who calls you home is an immigrant from another town, city, state, country or continent. You are a microcosm of the world, but a time-encapsulated one actually, for I hear how longings of the immigrant hearts calls out to worlds that have already passed.

You overwhelm the new, overwork those who have been here long. Your subways overcrowd with people and rodents alike! you hold life's irony atop your head and walk the tight rope of angst for us all. But all this is what makes you real, does is not?

I am wrung wide awake from my slumber each night, by the blaring ambulance speeding across your streets, making the knots in my stomach and the lock in my jaw the focus for the rest of my night. The early morning noises in your street add to the anxiety that is already my life. Quite consistently through this noise, you remind me to watch my body and these knots. Do I thank you or blame you? Did you cause this or are you helping me ease this tension? Both and neither, i'll bet. But that's what makes you real. You strip off our cocoons and make us look within, or at least attempt to. You suck us into this vortex of energy, impatience, restlessness, speed-walking and breathlessness. You pound our heads again and again to look within the depths of our hearts and within the paradise of central park, to find some balance. You bring spring and summers to slow us down and lay out chairs on patios and decks of restaurants that abound your ground. The plethora that is you, wont cease to exist and yet, you demand that we be sane in order to persist? Have you completely lost it? or have I?

New York, New York! will I miss you when I leave? A phase of life now completes and as I move I will surely reminisce. The noise, the paradise, the restless inadequacy and the filthy prosperity. Living alone,carving out a selfhood while at the same time making sure I don't fall off this trapeze, swinging between worlds-inward and outward. Yes, I will miss this, like I miss most things that pass. But there is a time for everything and now is my time to move on. As you've successfully taught, I desire to slow down and be the eye of the tornado than stay caught in your whirlpool and mine.

You are quiet? Yes, I get the message. You will carelessly move on without professing your love for me. You will take two more for one little me who leaves to learn more. That's what cities do, do they not? But now as another city beckons me to bring my fingerprint to its identity, I know you'll do the same for those who yearn to experience the tornado that is you. And of course as I leave I take a part of you that has become me forever and ever.

Thank you for your fabulousness.

Yours truly,
Aarathi Selvan

A morphing home

Where is home really? Reminds me of the quintessential "Cheers" theme song. Yes, I have deeply yearned for home, a place where everybody knows my name and my first trip away from home, across many oceans encapsulates this painful experience. But today as I write I wonder what and where home might be.

When I left this seemingly obvious home, I was a daughter, a sister and a student mostly. But Ive grown to embrace myself as a wife, a teacher, a therapist, a spiritual aspirant, a fighter, a student, a volunteer, a friend, a colleague and above all an individual and now, I am not sure where home might be.

Does who you are often change where home may be?

Well, Where is home really? Is it a place where you come back to, watch tv, eat your sundae, do laundry, read, and sleep? or is it a place where you are welcomed by an other who loves you, who cherishes your presence, who converses with you and who accepts you for the many things you are and you are not? Or, is home a space you come to and feel like you were already there? you were home when you were waiting for the bus, you were home when you were sitting with your friend, you were home speaking your truth with a crazy kid in your class. You were home and are home every where you go. Could that be?

But how can it be true when I am standing in the subway waiting for the doggone "A" train to get to the station so i can get to my apartment or when I cannot sit any longer in this cubicle I call my workspace? How can I persist day after day when all my mind calls out for is, home. I do come home only to invoke the same pleading mind "I want to be home, I want to be home".

As I find myself moving from apartment to apartment, country to another, and friend to friend the only thing that seems ever so constant is Me. I take my thoughts, emotions and sensations with Me. I take my mind with Me, and my body comes along. It would seems then that, I live in a home made up of these things first, wouldnt it?

The truth behind it is simple and this morphing sense of home is always a good thing. Apparently. Moving beyond the noises in the head, these many several expectations and appalling reservations is when one finds home, I am told. So where do I go from here? Do i even go?

A time for tears

A difficult task to maneuver indeed-holding an alight candle, braving the freezing weather and the violent wind, straightening my legs from trembling, trying hard to ignore the acute pain in the small of my back and wiping away my incessant tears. I stand at the candle light vigil and listen to the voices of people who have the strength to speak at a time like this. Some have lost their loved one's in the tragedy, some other's are survivors of survivors, and the remaining were people overcome by grief at this large scale destruction that the Bombay's terror attacks caused.

Away from all things familiar, I stand with a crowd of Indians at Columbia U and the familiarity of sorrow invokes it. I cry. My incessant tears are adamant, they have a life of their own really, and I welcome the relief. I realize, this is my space for grief and my way with it is through my tears. Yes, we will act. Yes, we will be indignant. We will wonder where this is all going and we will demonstrate compassion and camaraderie. Now however, I need to cry, I need to express my grief. I need to acknowledge that before I turn my grief into anger, courage and commitment I am struck by the ruthlessness with which lives were seized away. I am struck by the void that I feel as I empty my heart out.


I like the tears
That flow from the depth
Of my helpless despair.
I love the tears
That flow from the depth
Of my dawning aspiration.
I adore the tears
That flow from the depth
Of my Liberation-sea.

By: Sri Chinmoy