Exhaust

Exhaust

"I don't want to" drains me quite often. There's no time my room being a mess it drains me. My apperance demoralizes me. When someone steals from me. I'm demoralized. Work exhausts me. People beating me down slowly like drops of water breaking my armor which is strong but not weather resistant. People endlessly complaining about cars or people we know. Fuck dude I don't care if you don't like that person because I like that person. 


It's exhausting. Petty things. even though we've spoken about this before they do it again and again and again and again and then I turn it off. 


I demoralize the hell out of me that I'm not involved. And so what? I like to party sorta. Sorta demoralizing that it drains me to be at work and know I've not accomplished my goal in three years. That small things happened and life got carried away. I'm struck by the fragility of it all. I'm exhausted by myself the continuous list of things to do that don't get done and when I have time I walk from it.

Thank you.

An Essence of Roses

My late grandfather kept the most beautiful garden in the world. It resided in a slightly forgotten neighborhood in Jaipur, in the front lawn of a house that he built himself. It was high on my list of top reasons to visit my family in India - his garden was a marvel to my seven-year-old self. He had jasmine, tuberose, poppy, lantana shrubs, and the most wonderful array of roses. There were marigolds mingling at the roots of papaya trees. Believe it or not, he also had pine trees that had soft leaves and gave these grey-green berries every summer. These plants bordered a tiny lawn of very short, very light green grass. The grass was moss-like, springy. It was the very best kind, the very best you could expect in the desert state of Rajasthan. I have never walked on heather, but I always thought it would be the fuzz-like texture of my nanaji's lawn. I still have a ghost memory of that softness on my feet.

Nanaji's garden was his religion. He watered it everyday, and I would help him whenever I could. I followed him everywhere, and I would check the water tank periodically to let him know when he needed to stop watering. I yelled at my cousins for ruining any spot of turf. He once told me never to step on the ants which made their pilgrimages from the cracks in the driveway to his lawn - they had their part to play too. If they didn't eat the bits of greasy food which occasionally flew in with the ever-present dust, the garden would not thrive. Conversely, they are food for the beetles, who then eat the aphids that destroy his array of lantana bushes.
I loved seeing him love his garden. It made me love it too. I was surrounded by beauty and clear signs of nurture, caring, and devotion.

Knowing these things about him, I could only say that I never felt more important or needed in my entire childhood when he told me that someone had been stealing roses from his gardens. Our prime suspect was the neighbor's kid, whose house was adjoined to ours, so there wasn't a wall separating his family's home from ours. He had as much access to the garden as I did. I was charged, with all the solemnity of a soldier being sent to war, with counting the roses once in the morning and once at night. At all times, I was to watch for suspicious activity from the neighbor's boy.

I took this very seriously. Seriously enough that I decided that instead of waiting for the kid to attack my Eden, I would preemptively teach him a lesson. I hunted him down after the daily siesta which happened post-lunch. A few kicks to his shins and a sharp scolding from both his parents and my mom (and some satisfying tears from him), I was convinced he had been sufficiently scared off the roses.

But I still kept count that day, faithfully doing it four times that day, just in case. The count hadn't changed - until the fourth one.
There was one rose missing, and from the angle of the cut it had clearly been stolen, and not by the harsh desert wind.

The weight of shame was heavy in my feet as I walked on the cool red floor of the veranda to his seat that evening. I gave him the bitter news, and promptly apologized. I even hurriedly explained to him my theory that the neighbor's boy had tried to take revenge, and probably took the rose when I went inside for water.

I could get the rose back. And I would make him pay, I promise. Close to tears and indignant, I looked up at my nanaji.

I expected him to cry. For thunder to roll over his brow, for lightening to strike me from any one of the terrifying multi-armed Indian gods I saw literally everywhere. Even worse, I expected disappointment.

Instead, he looked at me with the most amusing smile. He reached behind his chair, and pulled out the rose, cleanly cut in his frail hands. And then he started laughing. His smile and mirth shook his frame, and his eyes - my mom's eyes, my eyes - sparkled brightly, even behind folds and folds of skin from his face.

I was angry. Frustrated. Sheepish, completely embarrassed. Tricked! Me! But of course, I couldn't help laughing with him. The hilarity of it couldn't escape me, and he had infectious laughter.

Wow. What a kick he must have gotten out of it all. There I was, so serious about everything, enough to get in a fight, defending his honor. Best trick ever, I must admit. Of all my memories I have of him, the clearest one I have is the distinct sound of my high-pitched laughter mixing with his raspy, aged one.

The rest of that summer there, I learned how to make rose candy from mixing rose petals with sugar and honey, and letting it bake and harden in a glass jar under the gaze of the sun. My first lesson used the rose I had fought so hard to keep that day. I also learned the proper way to pluck flowers and sew them up together to make garlands to put on the gods at temple.
I also spent time learning all the names, in Hindi, of the plants he raised. The most heartbreaking thing about him passing away some years ago was that I couldn't remember many of the names, and he wasn't going to come back to teach to me them again.

But while he doesn't come back to teach me any names, he does come back time to time to teach me both how to take things seriously - and how to laugh at myself.

Sunday Morning (old lady) Blues

The cat just ate and puked on the rug, twice

I have moved the bed back to facing west

(due to the problem of outlets)

The bedroom is painted and the bathroom will be finished

Today or tomorrow

There is too much furniture in the house

(and that includes me)

There are too many papers, written on, drawn on,

Downloaded, copied, everywhere

In boxes, in drawers, in cabinets

There are dishes in the kitchen and in the dining room

There are dishes in the pantry and the china closet

There are dishes in cabinets

There is fabric in the ottoman, smalti in the dining room

Smalti in the basement, glass, wood everywhere

The AC just quit, ahhh, the blessings of home ownership

Religion. What Should bind us 

Wander with yourself and be at peace. Time will be there as it was before and as it will be after. Relax. Look behind you, and see what you did. Are there wakes in your path? 

The theory of getting what I want by focusing on it is a surprising one. And also there is this terrifying powerful force something within you it brought out a horrid knowledge. On multiple occasions. Truth and let me explain the thing I don't have words for. When you stand alone or sit with people for a short time. Projections are made for instance. I don't know these folks sitting around my table. We speak a few times each month.

old love

Religion. My Religion because its better that way is to believe everything will work out. To listen to the universe. Hear it's song feel the rhythm. Forgetting what I know. Forgetting and feeling a truth. The truth.

Is a Religion a subject that must be argued so entirely? Serious Rituals passed down for ages with little change. Many people who I respect feel that churches are places that are not living up to the promise. In one way yes a religion comes and goes. But why? 

When can a movement be called a religion? 

Should people be encouraged to explore other types of religion? Sometimes I specifically view Catholicism or Christianity as a cult type movement. My brother and Father are both Christian. For what reason? I suppose they could answer that. 2012 April 

LETS BE BAD