How many steps

I have this amazing capacity to be lazy.Laziness that translates to not tending to yourself or your feelings or thoughts. They just keep lingering, hanging low like seattle clouds but then get scattered away. People always complain that it rains too much in Seattle, but I have kind of come to accept it as a necessity for survival of nature here. I too, need to let the clouds pour, so that the rain can nourish my life too. I need it.It used to be every now and then, but now its a constant feeling, that how far I've come. About to complete three decades of my life (okay am still 3 yrs away). I remember the time when I used to feel three years was way too much time to have memories about. When I was in 9th std I had told myself, that I wouldnot give up my innocence when I grow up. But I realize now that , that itself was a innocent wishful thinking. Its a heavy cost to pay, for growing up. I dont feel things. I havent heard a song in ages that makes my heart as light as a feather, or maybe I havent felt any song that way. There used to be a time when I used to wonder how could mom and dad not want endless amount of icecream. I realized why, few weeks back when I found the std 3 scoop cone at costco was way too much for me. Dont dream of having lot of sweets on Diwali, as I used to. Dont even feel sad at things I used to. Or even happy.Just living a life of a machine. My husband says, that I have attained a state of peace, but I know its not. I feel all the negative emotions that I never used to feel before. I found out that romancing and loving in real life is so different that that shown in movies. Real life problems are not as obvious as the conspiracies of Ekta Kapoor serials. I miss the times when the hardesy choice in life seemed to be choosing the largest of the mangoes to eat.I wish our choices had as low a stake now.
There has been a gradual polluting of a river.In my quest to try and understand the bigger picture, I feel I have rather started seeing the meanness.A year used to be a step at a time but maybe I have been taking one too many at a time.
I wish I could take off for a year long vacation like Julia Roberts did, in Eat Love Pray. But I know I dont have that heart either. I have too many strings attached and ties that i am very band to get bound with. But yes, I feel places calling me. I indulge myself just by watching Natgeo pics.
I also have started realizing why they say that age and experience come together. I wish they didnt. I wish I could feel as much.

Winner or Looser

I visited my blog after guess almost 11 months.... that is what, just 1 month short of one big calendar year. And I was pleasantly surprised to see that i had kept most of my 2009 resolutions. I would say thats an achievement does that count anywhere, when you talk about failures and successes? Can I say it somewhere when admission interviews ask me about personal successes and failures? Does it count that I have come to love many more people than I already did and that I have prayed hard and worked to bring more happiness and peace in my family? When they ask me what i did besides the MBA stuff, does this make like a convincing answer?Why do I face failure again and again. Or is it just me, who sees this as failure? As a shortfall? Is the fear of failure speaking in a voice so loud that its trying to douse the voice of optimism and belief, in me? Or I am just finding pretexts to justify my failures? All I know is, I felt broken yet again. And I had to muster all the strength to begin hoping all over again....

Invincible

I'v been following the same routine of no routine for over a week now.Getting up early to pack hubby's lunch, checking mails, waiting for that one magical news that could change my life and put be up on a higher pedestal, going back to sleep again, not wanting to get up earlier than noon!silence keeps humming its tune, ringing my nerves right through well past mignight. I half expect the walls to speak up, this idiot box to stretch out its arms and give me a hug, telling me that it will be all ok. I didnt realize when silence took over joy of my heart.
Then i just shook myself out of numbness and zombied existence. Told myself that i would try and be happy, no matter what. look forward to summers. look forward to cheer, laughter, fun.It was all inside me. The despair, the agony, the long wait, the silence. And then i just flipped the coin, and found that this too was inside me; laughter,song of joy,the dance of being carefree, belief in myself.I still know how to feel the wind in my hair. I had just lost the reception of these waves and let the disturbance from outside take over. I just had to tune into "I love myself" station again. " In the midst of winter, I found that I had within me an invincible summer."

New Year Bash

And with a lot of ho halla, another year closed. Nothing extraordinary. Its the same every year. We end every year with a nostalgia and begin the new one with a hope. The same hope.Maybe such things are only meant to give us "days of hope" in our yearly calendar.Maybe that what we celebrate year New Year, each b'day, each anniversary.
And then there are those "New year Resolutions" or should I say, "Days of Hope" Resolutions. I never made any, except that I wont make any. Coz by the end of the year, not only has one forgotten to keep the resolutions, but also forgotten what those promises were, in the first place.So this year, that was the only thing, "different" I did. I made resolution of making resolutions and trying to keep up with them, i wrote them down, lest I should forget.
So here they go:
I will not be lazy
I will try and be more proactive
I will read more books
I will try and be more organised and keep my surroundings more organised.
I will judge less
Will do lesser of day dreaming and not while away my time
I will try and keep in touch with all the people who want to be in touch , with me , and with whom i want to be in touch. In other words, i will be more outgoing.

But what's with these resolutions I asked myself? I am trying to become a better person. But who is the real me. The one who has all these shortcomings, or the one who has overcome all those. Or is it someone in the present continous tense of "trying to overcome" these shortcomings. Am I a shadow of myself, evolving, in form, as the years overhead, move from dawn to twilight. Does it mean, when i am done evolving, I will be me, without my shadow?
The the length of the list of resolutions a way of telling me, how closer i am to myself. Will i ever reach that perfection? Is that the idea of Heaven?
I'l hopefully know some day, till then, Happy "days of hoping" to me.

Melancholy

Another lazy morning... even the day seemed reluctant to get out of its blanket of clouds. A warm kicthen with a long oakwood table,ladenwith scrambled eggs, freshly baked pancakes and hot coffee seemed like a dream. The heat of the morning chitchat is missing to ignite the hearth. I whiled my morning, rummaging through old photographs,music and cards from friends and family. Have to finish some work before the close of the day, but just cant bring myself to it. Heart seems to be singing to a different tune, unmindful of the time flying past. It seems to have stuck in some place in the past. Almost like an age old mountain,watch moments come, strike a pose, get clicked and go away. Its oblivious of what weathering the time is bringing upon it. It keeps on humming a melody, in repeated loop, as if reminding me of something.Its very disconcerting. I feel too caught up in myself. like an image of me stuck in the mirror.Reason tells me that am already older than the image itself. but i keep staring. almost like a narcissist. As if its going to come to life and talk to me.
Someone will be home soon. To take me back from the illusion of the mirror to the image of his eyes...

Hope

The last leaf put up a valiant show and danced its way to death, to become soil to a new life. And so i put away some experiences, to become lessons for the days to come. Out of the window, i see a bridge,across a chasm, to the other world. A chasm between today and tomorrow,between fall and spring.between dreams and reality. between hope and fulfilment.
I feel like a pod of seeds gone dormant, waiting for the spring to open me up, to the world again. In the midst of silent air, i can hear the song of a sunbird that would call this gray firmament its home again.Among the barren tress of the fall, i can see the colors of the spring. Behind the gray moods of the clouds, i can see the warm summer sunshine. The tress would come to life again and fulfill the promise that the rustle of the falling leaves had whispered into the ears of migrating birds.Till then, i'll keep the fire burning in the furnace, to give me light warmth and cheer.

Am a dreamer

I am a princess living on a solitary island in the sea, in a cast away castle. Everyday, I go to the shore, to collect clams, in the hope of finding a pearl.The people of my kingdom love me, i made it, with blood, sweat and tears. The residents of my kingdom also include some sqirrels that live on the tree, by my bedroom, a cat that makes its trip religiously to my backyard, for the milk that i keep in the pan, some love birds perched on the tree tops in my garden, a family of dogs that lives down the barn.And ofcourse there's a prince who comes riding down a white horse in the evening, and we spend the night star gazing and talking to the moon
trrrn trrrn!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
oh that was a dream. Am certainly not a princess.Am an ordinary girl, with the dream of, if not making it big, but atleast finding her own moorings, one day. And my people, i left behind. I have to make a new home now.It was time, you know; to move on. I dont live a castle too. Yes i live in an 800sq ft apt, solitary, in a beautiful complex. amidst nature.
The visitors to my solitude include the newspaper boy, i suppose(i never saw him), who drops in the newspaper, by my doorside, morning after morning. Then there are so many people i see through my living room window and balcony, going by.
And yes, everyday, i visit the deep recesses of my mind, in the hope of that one idea, tht wud change my day.
Oh yes, my price charming, slogs it out, all day long, in front a computer and rides back home by public transport and then our pearl white accord.And he is quite pissed off by then, to go star gazing. Anyway, we live in a city, where you dont see stars and the moon is always playing hide and seek with the clouds.
But wait, what's stopping me from believing, that am not a princess....
No am not supposed to be living in an imaginary world. REALITY CHECK. thats what am supposed to keep on doing time after time, lest i should forget who i am
But what would the world be without dreamers. There would be no story tellers, no poets, no movies and no bloggers!!!!!
If I couldn't imagine, i wont have dreams.What would i be if i didnt have a dream? I would be listless. without purpose. Behind every thing wanted, living and non-living, there was dream. Every child, bought into the world, by the dream of his parent, for a family. Every building raised, by dream of a house or a work station, where dreams find translation. Every machine developed ,by the dream of making life easier. Space conquered, by the dream of knowing all that is there in the universe.
I dare to dream too. and the dream is waiting to be translated into reality.