Another eventful week and a most insightful month comes to an end. The dreaded meeting went just as I had anticipated it would. Which is why I was pretty surprised that everyone else seems to be so optimistic about it. I even got congratulated on being the most vociferous student at the NAAC meeting.
The performance also went by without a hitch (atleast not on my part. I did see a few missed steps alongside me but I was too shut out to care). It all started with the wig which was pinned into my skull. It not only made me look like the hermaphrodite I’d seen begging on the street in Bangalore, but it also made me the last one to get ready despite being the first one to get there. It also made me very mad because the rest of my troupe seemed to have developed goldfish memories all of a sudden and gobbled up what was supposed to be my share of the attire. So I was minus ornaments and flowers for my hair while they had extra. Oddly enough I was the only one who seemed to think it odd.
Then the other day when I was having a class with Dr. Nagarathna, I broke down while she was talking about Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and named war, divorce, death of a family member and separation from a loved one as some of the most stressful situations a person could go through. I experienced all these in the short span of a year and thought that I was handling things remarkably well. But when she asked us what advice we could give a mother who was grieving for her dead son I realized that I had no idea how to comfort my mother at all.
In the welcome privacy of my room I cried a long time for my funny, handsome, brilliant and loveable brother who I could never see or speak to again.
Jin made an attempt to draw me out but I was in no mood to see any of my classmates. I don’t feel like I can talk to any of them and I am ok with that. After all, I haven’t come here to make friends. I have come to learn how to love life and live it fully live with everything I have going on. If I make friends it’s all well and good but I wouldn’t hold my breath. This realization of my almost total emotional independence and complete comfort in my own company gives me great satisfaction though I am also wonderfully tempered in my celebrations.
I also cried with the beautiful realization that I am in love. I value the ease with which I am able to talk about things with Beau. He doesn’t tell me it’s all going to be ok or that what I’m going through is natural. He does reassure me that my family has my best interests at heart and that I must never ever forget that. He just lets me rant and get it out of my system. But most importantly, he doesn’t catch me out on the many and varied projects that I have started and stopped or planned and not started at all. I don’t know if he does it intentionally or not, but I appreciate it very much and miss the warmth of having him with me though I know I can wait forever to be with him again.
I am learning to watch the emotions – both painful and pleasurable - and not get carried away with them. So instead of brooding in my room, I enjoyed painting my mirror a beautiful Ultramarine after which I gave my little prayer table an antique look with the face of a peacefully meditative curly red-haired girl with a yin-yang pendant. Something similar to what I’d done for Lorenza.
Spoke to Nikki on Easter Sunday. Naren may have to undergo surgery for the sties on his eyes. The poor baby. I’m glad I decided to go home and spend time with the family. I think this time I’ll be doing it more for myself than for them. I’m booked to fly to Colombo on 4th June.
I caught up with Beau online as well and again (as always) I was reminded of his sweet, uncomplicated and down to earth nature that so draws me to him. Even if I am not able to see him this summer it’s ok. I don’t want to unload my crap on him. I found it hard to stay calm after that and was doubly grateful for the pain of the last few days. Now instead on focusing on how painful it is to be apart from him, I think about all the reasons why I love him.
I was most grateful for the opportunity to speak to Camilla who I had been short with earlier in the week. The conversation had started out ok but had threatened to go down the usual complaining track and I didn’t feel I could take it so I said so (maybe not in the most supportive tone). But later when we spoke, I could see that she was still suffering with her situation and I felt more capable of supporting her as I’d been past that particular problem myself. I hope I was able to explain to her that everything was ok – the pain, disappointment, need, anger, frustration etc – she just had to stop judging her emotions and consequentially trying to get rid of those she thought bad. Everything was natural and had to be dealt with as such. There is no escaping that. But it will be less overwhelming if she stopped fighting it.
I myself am beginning to be more comfortable with myself and how I’m going about dealing with things. It’s lead me to feel more confident and the creativity I was missing is beginning to show like the tender green shoots I see springing up everywhere in the freshly rain-drenched earth. Talking about green, I’m enjoying taking care of Bonny’s Neem every evening. Miyako was sweet enough to invite me to the cowshed one evening and I got to meet the inhabitants. The cows and bulls and I are yet to become friends but the calves are sweet and wrinkled their noses as they let me scratch them behind the ears. I met the newest addition to the family. In return I showed Miyako Bonny’s Neem for which we got some cow dung. We’re also playing around with the idea of starting our own little garden near the Girls’ Hostel.
Read Aravind Adiga’s White Tiger and loved it. It’s a brilliant book which speaks to us of our times all over the third world. I would like to gift it to so many people I know in Sri Lanka. Reading Krishnamurthy for Beginners: An Anthropology and finding many thoughts that seem to echo my current state of mind. I love that about the reading I’ve been doing. It’s giving me so many ideas. Today I picked up Dr. Wayne Dyer’s The Sky is the Limit and pretty excited. It’s giving me the boost I need to follow up on VJ’s brilliant idea of creating a page and offering yoga classes while I’m in Sri Lanka.
I’m planning on painting an elephant on the wall above my bed. I’ve sketched it out, but I won’t rush with the colour and details. This one is going to be perfect.
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