From the Things I never will get used to…..
A visitor from home commented how she was surprised that I would get used to all the noise on the streets. The truth is, I never did and question whether I ever will.
It took me two and a half years to be able to hear my thoughts, while I am outside. I try to shut into the depth and under my skin, only to find the loud voices, road honking and banging. For the last three and a half years I came to the point of appreciation and realized that quietness and stillness can be a luxury.
I understand that it is not easy for ten million people to live in one ‘not-so-big’ city – we get very ‘neighborly’ to each other. It gets so close that from my window I can see neighbor’s bedroom, when reversing the car we enter next door’s yard.
But it is because of the contrast and comparison that I can better appreciate things once very natural and always available.
I am a late night person, though I can enjoy greatly the morning mist and rising sun. When all go to bed, pressure cookers put their whistles off, and finally all the noise says ‘good-bye’ for the night, I like that tranquil moment, of almost ‘nothingness’, where I can hear the wall clock tick, the owl flying over the balcony and the little snore of my sweet baby. Those moments of quiet warm my heart, and I start hearing my thoughts.
We got off the crowded bus as soon after the turn and we walked toward the canal with the little water frozen in it. The wind that day was fiery and bit our faces. It was white all around and the snow was falling. My mother and I wore warm jackets and winter shoes, the day promised to be cold. We decided for a walk on a long forgotten route, a place once we were well familiar with.
Not any longer because it’s been good ten years and life changed, even as we grew older. Now instead of open fields tall buildings and houses were lining with the still beautiful scenery of the mountains. It seemed only mountains never changed. The same breath taking beauty -any time of the year.
It was my idea to take mom out and see the place where we once lived. I often took her places, especially lately, I think in anxiety of near departure. I treasure the memories and my past enriches me. I also think that I was a little bit troubled by the rapid change that was happening all over - people leaving for abroad, elderly neighbors dying, my own birthdays coming too soon, old buildings being destroyed and new, with no character, being built.
And so I asked mom to come along, to share the memories of the olden days - when the wind was free to hover over the fields, when the little creeks ran watering the fields with onions, carrots and watermelons. I heard of rose fields but we never made it close. And yes, the vineyard, those grapes we collected for home-made wine.
When we moved to our new three-room apartment, I think all of us, that is my mother, myself and my brother, moved half halfheartedly. Not for any reason, personally, but I was already attached to our old house where my mother grew and where I walked since the day I learnt my walking. Every stone was so familiar to me, every tree, every face... And so we were - torn between the two places. I was not attracted even by the warm bathtub and other apartment conveniences - but by the wilderness of the place, it was situated on the footstep of the mountains, with chill breeze, vast fields, fresh air and quietness that only the outskirts provide.
And then we walked along the road, just two of us, appearing strange to others who were peeping out of the buses to see why we had walked in a snowy day. One bus stopped for us but we waived at them, letting them know we did not need a ride.
We walked, sometimes in silence, sometimes talking. I like it that my mother is not afraid of silence. She feels comfortable; she does not ask me if everything is alright. She knows I am. In that silence we listen; listen to the wind, to our hearts; in the silence we reconcile to the change, to the pain, to the loss. And also we celebrate - celebrate the moment, the one that we are able to catch in the business of life, in the complexity of change; the moment that is there only for that precious walk and that moment which will culminate but later bring back the fountain of joy through the years down the road, like today, four years after the walk, in Bangalore, India.
At the end of our "remember journey", we went to a small local bazaar to buy some oranges. I like the smell of the peeled oranges in winter- once again, a childhood memory when all was well, mom and dad were at home, the house was warm and I was on winter holidays.
