My toughest lesson from 2019 !

As I write this long due post, the world outside is gearing up for the New Year eve party, super excited and getting ready to look best and pose for Instagram friendly perfect pictures. There is cheer in the air and beautiful sense of hope and promise, a perfect placebo to cling on to sail through yet another brand, new year! 

2019 has been an eventful year for me. It was a mixed bag actually! The year awarded important achievements, lessons, fulfillment, success, failures, disappointments, health scare and a few regrets. And the most difficult part has been learning acceptance. 

Yes, I learned to accept things that are beyond control and move on without bitterness only after getting biggest jolt that scared the hell out of me. Life has a strange way of teaching lessons when we tend to ignore the signs it keeps throwing at us. 

It happened with me too. About two months back, while going for lectures for the study course undertaken this year, I found myself in mini pool of blood in a cab. Horrified at the extent of torture I had inflicted upon myself by ignoring health completely, the realization of my recklessness sunk in bruising ego with reminder "I am no Super woman". And this was drilled further by total ban on multitasking zillion things after a minor surgery and confinement of rest for few weeks. 

I must admit, past two years in particular have been going on with life as if I was running after some insatiable chase, moving like an addict into unseen, unheard rhythm of uncontrolled chaos. Perhaps I was trying to make up for previous three years that I lost out completely, confined to home when my mother in law was detected with Cancer and I had to be her primary caretaker. In the process, the impact of doing so started to show in every single cell of my body revolting from time to time. The fatigue finally showed up bringing along some physical health issues that needed urgent attention which translated into life coming to a standstill. The time, energy and focus had to be completely shifted to healing myself physically and emotionally.

Of course, it didn't go down well to give up things I had invested my time and energy into for so long. How does one convince someone who lives under fallacious notion that 50s are great fun? (Blame it on those articles in fancy womens' magazines going gaga over entering 50 with élan!) Oh, I was mightily chuffed to have entered 50 just few days back thinking life is all sorted and it is time to claim myself back and have that well deserved kick ass fun one reads about in magazines and web! Nobody warned me I was entering dark world of hormones acting funny, thinning of hair, aching joints, thickening waist, mood swings and unexpected tears at the most bizarre moments! 

The impact was evidently visible on this blog too. Writing articles was very much on my radar but never managed to keep them regular due to pressure on time and energy. And then there were moments of self - doubt. "I have lost touch" I kept telling myself staring blankly at the screen while words jumbled in my mind teasingly! And believe me, I have often ended up writing articles in my mind while doing some random work at the oddest place and time.

For quite some time I have been withdrawn, just observing world around and listen; listening to my body and paying attention to health. And as much as I have missed doing zillion things that I am used to do all my life, it has helped me shifting focus from deadlines and crazy schedules to myself and everything I feel passionate about and that includes writing. I do intend to be regular on this blog henceforth.

It is time I write all those stories that have been brimming in my head but somehow never found a way to this blog. Yes, I plan to do just that in the New Year 2020! Stay tuned!  

Wishing all the readers of this blog a very happy New Year 2020! May almighty give us strength to rejoice simplicity of life an peace! 

My Kintsugi moment, mending the broken!

I pursue many passions and pottery is one of them. Albeit, as much as I would like to follow the art form, it seems to have been jinxed! Let me spare you the tedious details.  

There is something magically beautiful about pottery that has immense calming effect on me. Pinching pots, scoring, making slabs, wedging the clay, attaching coil and working at rambunctious wheel quietens my utterly chaotic mind sending an instant signal that I need to slow myself down, breathe and focus! 

There is deep sense of satisfaction derived from giving a form to amorphous lump of clay. One feels sense of integration with the earth, the very source of our material. There is some strange sense of belonging. 

I have a few ceramic pieces that were made when I had joined the studio some time back. Those pots hold very special place in my heart and home. I am bit possessive about those pieces as there were very few left after gifting my pots to friends and family. 

Last week, one of my ceramic tiles and two pots met calamitous end leaving me sulking; blaming the Universe, the retrograde Mercury in my zodiac, bad karma, black magic, influence of all possible planets and just about everything under the Sun. Well, honestly, I don't really believe in all that but loss of my pots made me emotionally wobbly. Our new domestic help; the culprit of the tragedy tried to console me in vain.

I was struggling to hold back my tears while picking up broken pieces of my beloved pots when I remembered words of the artist who taught me pottery, "Simi, NEVER get attached to any piece you make." She had said philosophically with sage like calm. "No matter how hard you have worked in the process of making any piece, eventually, many of the pieces WILL break, get deformed in the process, disintegrated in the kiln or even after having taken a perfect permanent form might be damaged due to careless handling or some freak accident". She had added, "Mend the cracks the moment you notice them emerge so that they don't weaken rest of your creation."

Those words kept echoing in my mind and I wondered how true they stand for relationships and life in general! We live in the world engulfed with perpetual sense of brokenness: broken homes, broken relationships, broken hearts, broken faiths, broken values, broken countries obsessed with wars, broken dreams, broken trust and no matter how much we try, we can never escape the pain of being broken in some way or other in life. Sometimes we tend to be consumed by the despair losing our grip assuming things are beyond repair instead of focusing on putting the pieces together and understand there is no perfect "whole" and life is about understanding our "brokenness", analyse the pain, embrace the scars through  journey of life, grant some time to heal and transform them into something meaningful and beautiful.  

If you have ever tried pottery, you would know clay imparts many important life lessons; especially patience and respect. Realizing that the material can have its own mind so when unexpected cracks and breakage occur, one experiences disappointment and sadness but also learns acceptance that one is not always in control. The only choice one is left with is, take a deep breath, pick up the shards and start over yet again! 

My ceramic tile has been fixed but pots are beyond repair. Perhaps, this accident was my Kintsugi* moment, a reminder for me to realize the meaninglessness of my attachments to the pots literally and metaphorically. I have started to focus on mending the cracks that are worth the efforts and decided to let go a few attachments, thank the Universe for the role they played in my life and move on without any bitterness or negativity and always remember, no matter what life holds in next moment I am never too broken for a beautiful transformation and claim myself  anew!    

  

“The world breaks everyone, then some become strong at the broken places.” ~Ernest Hemingway

*Kintsugi in Japanese means "to patch with gold or golden joining". Kintsugi is Japanese ancient art form used in repairing broken things with liquid gold, silver or lacquer dusted with gold to mend the pieces of fractured pottery and in the process enhancing its breaks and beauty. This method usually grants much more aesthetic value to the originally created piece.