338 Monday Musings: The Bird and the Good Bye

Monday Musings: The Bird and the Good Bye

The heart broke to a million pieces as it bade the Good Bye.

The little bird sat on the perch of the nest high up on the tree and looked down with trepidation. The abyss down below looked menacing. It was that moment when she had to flap her wings and fly away. Her companions in the nest looked at her in the eyes, partly with pride and partly with longingness as she prepared for her swoop down. This was the point where she would leave the warmth of the nest, what was home all this while. Flying away to a new destination what she was supposed to do; it was the way nature had ordered things to be. It was inevitable. Everyone knew it. They wanted to be happy for her and she in turn wanted to be happy, for this is what she always wanted – to fly.

In that moment however, a million explosions inside her blew in unision. It was not the fear of the skies, it was not the fear of falling, it was not the fear of not being able to flap the wings when it would be needed. It was the fear of leaving. It was not that she had never left a nest before, but this time it was different. She was daunted with a thousand thoughts. Will she be able to build another nest, will she be able to build another flock, will she be able to deal with all this and still be able to flap the wings strongly enough and continue with the business of flying with a heart heavy with the mourning of separation? This business of building a nest and leaving never occurred to her as right even though she knew it was the way things were and things will be. Why should it be like this – she questioned but got no answers. Actually she knew the answer she refused to believe in at that moment – ‘’it is the price of flying, the price of living’’

A part of her cursed herself for forging the warmth that she had created. She wondered if this separation would have been easier if only she would have been alone, aloof and unattached. Damn, I wont do it ever again, she swore to herself – if flying off is how it is supposed to be, let me keep flying and never bother with having a nest of companions ever again. Her mind was playing games with her at her biggest moment. Have I taken the right decision? Could I not have stayed in this nest longer at least if not forever? Could my companions in the nest not have me, and me them a little longer if not forever? What is the point in flying if the flying comes at a cost of flying away?

Looking into the eyes of everyone in the nest at that moment was becoming a torment. They wanted to be happy for her but something in their eyes betrayed the weight they were carrying. She was heavy with the burden of portraying happiness and confidence. She could not betray the wailing of her heart though. It was not expected of her. She knew if she went weak today, many more would hesitate when their time comes. She bore the cross of leading, of having to be an example. She hated it all the more.

As she stood on the perch on the cusp of a new journey she realised that each in the nest had made her life complete in a very different way. Her completeness was a result of all the colours that each one of the companions in the nest had added. She could talk to a few endlessly and mostly without a reason, others she talked with without the need for talking. A few of them were were nourishers and few of them sought nourishment from her and even in that act of receiving, they made HER complete. ‘Will anyone after this ever receive from her the way these received – with all their heart’ – she cried in anguish. A few on the nest were just companions with whom she did things, confident that they were there and if a fig here and a fig there was out of place, they would pitch in. She wondered if she would be this complete ever. She mourned at the thought.

So here she was, with all this rumbling in her heart as she stood on the edge of the nest and fly. Her heart broke to a million pieces as she bade the Good Bye.

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337 Monday Musings: Between the Stoic and The Sponge

Monday Musings: Between the Stoic and The Sponge

He was not too unaccustomed to separation or the small lump in the throat that emerges out of it. Those who have lived sufficiently long enough and seen reasonable life, find many ways to deal with this pain. He knew two types. The first were the Stoics – those who could deal with such pain or at least put a brave face to it; second were the Sponges – those who absorbed the enormity of the emotion deeply and completely. All his life he wondered which of the two was he.

Some mysteries remained so. Lives oscillate between what is and what could be and between what we are and what we want to be.

Stoics are better he thought – at least there appears a calm around them. They seem to be able to be above human agony. Moving away from people in whom you have invested your most vital part – your time can be a huge sense of let-down. An investor who has lost money on an asset becomes a recluse on all investing. It’s not that only that particular investment has gone wrong; in a way it’s the act of investing itself which has gone wrong. The investors disillusionment is understandable.

He wondered how the stoics could overcome this. He had ended up becoming part cynic and part admirer about the stoics – cynic because he was growing to believe they were fakes and admirer because he knew in his heart, he wanted to be like them. As a child he was in awe of the strength of parents, intelligence of teachers and the aura of importance most elders carried with themselves – he grew up to know that all were facades in most cases and fakes in some. There was a part of him that believed that stoics were like that – it was just a matter of time when he would discover their façade or fakeness.

Yet in other moments he liked the sponges more than the stoics. He marvelled at the magnanimity with which sponges absorbed everything that came their way – sometimes to the extent that the sponges acquired the nature of what it was absorbing. Those who absorbed longing and ache of the heart started to look like that anguish; ‘’But at least they are authentic’’ he counter argued. He knew that the sponges live all emotions naturally.

He was in awe of the sponges too. He knew that sponges allow experiences to enter every pore, every sinew every part of their being. He was envious of the sponges because he felt that they know the unbridled joy of being in love, the sharp hurt in the middle of the chest when heart breaks, the dark abyss of hopelessness that stares you when a separation in impending, the sleeplessness that comes calling, the absolute loss of zing from the act of living even when practically everything is intact. The sponges knew all of it because they do not run away from feeling anything. They are allowing life to happen to them as purely in agony as much in happiness.
He was arguing on both sides. He did not know if he was a stoic or a sponge. He oscillated like the pendulum.

The pendulum however is its own prisoner. It is important for the pendulum to realise that, while it is its ambition to stretch from one extreme to other, while it must stretch its hands farthest to grab something that lies just a shade beyond where its reach ends – it is its destiny to be pulled back to the opposite end just as strongly; it must now try to stretch as frantically in the opposite end.

The pendulum must realise that its destiny is swinging from one extreme to another – not in trying to touch the extremes. His question though remained unanswered: when the pendulum will realise this and its heartbreak, will it deal with it like a stoic or like a sponge??

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