The Yayyy & Ouch:
As 2020 signals her arrival who’s ready for another spin around the sun, another 365 solar exposures?
I’m just about tucking into December, unsure that I want any change to scheduled yuletide calendar- perfect days here wreathed with red print ribbon and a graphic babe Jesu swathed in glossy paper. It has been a busy year I’ll say, and December feels like the beginnings of a healing. (Do read my post https://innerdialects.home.blog/2019/12/06/heart-lift-2/ if you’d like details). The storm of healing isn’t swift, it is slow- baked bread aroma wafting in, whether I believe it or not;
Its that globally appropriate time to count blessings, spread acts of gratitude, and kiss away curses. A time to gather falling leaf and sweep aside differences of opinion if we can. We wish strangers, wear reds, eat, dress, shop, smash cobwebs, hey take out personal garbage, find tinsel in morning mist, that kind of thing. It’s not even christmas eve and I am feeling Mme.2020 breathing down my neck. She waits with calendars and diaries, promise cards and sermons on the net, in our pulpits, in manuscripts we write when no one’s looking. And yet it’s impossible to make a doctor smile, he gives you a “You’re not out of the woods yet,” kind of look. It keeps joy in check. It purses my lips and plays down highs.
God dearest, this I need: to rinse out every negative. This I want: to grab this moment and pay tribute to the good the bad the ugly sinful wretched and yes, the glory of Yayy; all our hallelujahs, our hashtags of grouch: gratitude for every shadow that shivered my soul, and for every piece of sun that slid in past boundaries. They made us who we are today: raw, real…
That said, (and it doesn’t half cover my list of ‘Joy in the morning after night of DUH)
– who made calendars and dates? We could’ve been one long stretch from Adam to now right. One long year, no leaps. Who would’ve known which year was leapy, which was not? We could be mortals breathing one day at a time, each day it’s own keeper. Now we have calendars. Someone named months. Days. Someone wrote poems on the passing of days and months and invited emotions and here we are gazing at 2020 years of Us.
December is that decked up hall of annual fame: holly and biryani stalls, reindeer next to Kurta Shoppe, Santa caps hanging out with sherwanis. If you’re in India you’ll get this. I love the mess, the messages in our bazaars,in our little corners and pathways that cross globally. It’s a festive reminder of us all sharing narrowing space in an era that owns way too many things that must go, way too many forecasts of those that will arrive, to leave again. Lines melt into each other, heroes are villains and vice versa, what is beautiful what is ugly I cannot say. Lines converge in narrowing spaces between pain and some.
Just in now from a walk there was this furious man outside a flower stall, he stacked bouquet in a rough paper bag, his hands large clumsy and fascinating, I had to stop staring. Took a quick look at his face and saw tears. That was raw but with a sense of beauty birthing, or I’d like to wish that for him and his;
or the sound of a baby raven his scruffy head and junior-gravel rasp, waiting for his chow: but he’s gorgeous;
& leaves curled dry in the sun, shrivelled buds that got little rain, their neck turning up almost, as if waiting for rain, prisoners of hope. It makes me think of headlines praying for better rules for guns and trees, war & peace.
Wishlist? Yes.
I’m housecleaning. We’re putting up lanterns and baubles collected over the years….., and giving away what we must: 20 days left for all that. Literal/ soul cleansing. Ach. Easier blogged than done, I know. Am trying.
That’s my entire wishlist. It’s going to be tiring but no way 2020 can handle more body/spirit baggage than I can.
And this: am going to spend more time at the feet of heaven. Like today. Today’s Monday. My day with the Creator. Morning glass of hot drink and noon. Then I’m here till 4pm and it refreshes my core like nothing else has. The home goes quiet, lunch is eaten by the rest they might peek in at me:
a day of quiet to lounge at the feet of the Universe and stare with wonder at all the mercies that brought us this far. Some call it Grace. I call Him Father. I don’t know that it can all be curled into a few words. I don’t know much. I’m a gazer, a Stare-er at the fantastique.
Pic on location @M. Isaac’s film. Painting Lord’s Supper, Fisherwoman new walls Singapore,Bangalore. RN.
Innerdialects 