the vicissitude of seasons
premium, letting go, discovering ourselves, our best friend, the wind in the willows, to stand alone, and Himalayan smiles
Dear Reader,
Thank you for joining me. I hope you are having a joyful week.
Three things for this week,
A home cannot be made premium by putting in expensive refrigerator, having the best coffee powder, or placing a dustbin with a lid. A house, or any place, can only be made premium by making it comfortable as per the priorities of its inhabitors. And their wishes could be as simple as that they want to be quiet or they will play Beethoven exactly at 6:03 pm for an hour or their windows will always be open for the wind which never blows in alone but carries life on its wings.
And the same is true for a human being. We can put on a fancy jacket, have a smartphone, and reside in a villa, but these external equipments will not improve the facilities of the mind. Those we will have to work upon ourselves by acknowledging our peculiar interests and inclinations and providing them the right environment to flourish. Here it is indispensable to understand which ones of our interests are life-enhancing and which are not.
2. Everything has happened before and everything will happen again. Let’s just do our thing. Let’s find solace in our work which will never fail us. Because, my dear, the world fails us again and again. We can finally rest assured in knowing that we can’t lose control (or get our hearts broken). Because what seemed like control to us in the first place was nothing else but an illusion of it. Let go.
3. The leaves of the trees (can’t tell which species are they) I admire from my writing window have been turning yellow. And in this yellowing-goldening-honeying of leaves, I get a sense of closure.
The change is assuring. For sure, this feeling of conclusion has to do with the fact that my time in this guesthouse in West Bengal is up. But I also realise that the colour change — which is so profound now — must have been equally gradual. I have been seeing these trees from dawn until evening for weeks, and suddenly in a few days they are so yellow. This incessant toil of change invisible to my curious eyes assures me of the continuous flow of life (until it finally stops) and the continuity of my journey into a place beyond this one that I now inhabit and soon leave.
As the trees have let go of their most priced possessions, so should I, who have enjoyed the merits and demerits of this home for so long, move on, leaving all the good and the bad here. For I have now witnessed the vicissitude of the seasons, and it is time.
this was a few days ago and the yellowing seemed to have just begun.
What do you understand by quality?
For this week’s letter,
Some of my writing,
quotes I love,
things to read,
things to watch,
and
travel tips.
Articles Relevant For the Week
Do You Want to Sleep in a Storm? Read This
Ideas on how to try to keep our lives together and sleep even in a storm. Start small, but start now.
Read what we do every day is what we do now. Or Pocket to get started later.
Travel Inspires Change and One Small Change Can Transform Our Life
We don’t have to travel to change our lives, but when we travel, we give ourselves a chance to discover and embrace a larger vision of ourselves than we have now.
Read how a journey could be the catalyst to change. Or Pocket for Sunday.
Quotes I Love
“If you want to be a writer-stop talking about it and sit down and write!”
Jackie Collins
“they will never see me for who i am”
a line from the movie "where the crawdads sing"
“People often say that I'm curious about too many things at once: botany, astronomy, comparative anatomy. But can you really forbid a man from harbouring a desire to know and embrace everything that surrounds him?”
Alexander van Humboldt
“It doesn’t matter how many times you get knocked down. All that matters is you get up one more time than you were knocked down.”
Roy T. Bennett
On Nature.
when there is no one with us, it is she who holds our feet and help us stand upright,
knowing that in doing so she will have to lay under our soles and we will step on her breast and crumble her beneath our weight. Again and again and again.
But that doesn’t deter her at all.
then who is more ours than her? are we still alone?
Yours Truly
What I’ve Been Reading
I’ve been reading short stories, books, articles, and so much more. I can’t possibly list all what I have read in the past week so I’m putting down the things I found most relevant and worthwhile.
Beautiful reads from the week,
To The River by Olivia Laing — This is a non-fictional account of Olivia Laing walking on foot from the source to the end of the river Ouse (in England) sixty years after Virginia Woolf drowned herself in it. Olivia Laing is known to live the journeys she is curious about and then writes about them interweaving her experience, history, and related stories. Here she talks at length of the circumstances of Woolf’s suicide and the folklore and mythology associated with the river and its surroundings since the time known. But she also lets her own loneliness in the wake of a breakup drip into the stories and writes about how the past never really leaves us alone even though life seem to have a continuous flow, similar to that of a river.
What lies beneath the surface of the river? What is underneath all our lives? How does our past affect us? All these questions arise from reading the book.
I recommend it to all who love non-fiction, want to know more, and like to travel vicariously.
The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame — Though there are many beautifully illustrated versions of this popular book, my version by Wordsworth Classics has on its cover a colour illustration and the rest are black and white and accompany each chapter. I got an old copy from Amazon (did you know you can do that?) and am thoroughly satisfied for now, until I start searching for the illustrated ones too.
The book, deemed a children’s book, takes us through the lives of animals living around a river. These well-behaved, decent folks live, make merry, and follow the system so not to cause worry to others. They know how to let the other contemplate in peace, how to set a friend (who seem to have lost her mind) right, and to not return someone who have shown up at their door in the need of hour empty-handed and sad-hearted.
I loved the book for its satire on the faults of humanity, the inspiration for goodness, and the wilderness and the beautiful beings who inhabit its leaves. All those who love nature stories and read to laugh and entertain would enjoy The Wind in the Willows.
The news that Sikkim’s 98-year-old farmer Tula Ram Upreti won the Padma Shri — one of India’s greatest honour bestowed upon anyone — did cheer me. He has been practising organic farming for eighty years. Where there is a will there is a way.
and this article on the great artist Marianne North
a chain of thought was inspired by this piece. And here is the thought stream as I had shared it on Twitter too,
“so much to say about and this great painter and revolutionary courageous human being Marianne North.
The Marginalian says Marianne North worked in "an era in which women were expected to marry, were neither permitted nor practically able to travel alone, had access to no formal education in either art or science, and were excluded from scientific and artistic societies."
In India, even today, most of us are expected to marry, most not permitted to travel alone, and most unable to. Though many of us are getting education, I was the only one in so many boys and men (in Science).
outcasted from huddles of young graduates, colleague gossip, and so alien that the (69 or so) boys from my Computer Science batch didn't sit next to me in the first months of the sophomore year. We were in an esteemed college.
though later I squeezed through the boys, and some kind souls befriended me, I will never forget that halo of space around me in the amphitheatre lecture halls.
there are a lot of bittersweet memories from throughout my life for either being the only woman in a group of boys or being stopped from being the only girl/woman in a group of boys/men.
so now seeing the paintings of this revolutionary gutsy path-breaking painter inspires me to go on. to write, read, explore, contemplate in a world which do not still for most parts understand why finding the beauty of things natural and living a creative life is the best reward for someone who choose it, rather than great salaries, a house in the city, and a few children in school. the world itself holds enough wonders.
when I am further along on my journey, the one thing I have on my mind is to invite painters to India and from within India to the different beautiful natural locations I keep coming across my travels and provide them a space and whatever help they need so they could paint the rich landscape, flora, and fauna.
The world was her canvas. The world is my canvas.”
— This was important to share and remember so that I don’t forget to count my privileges. One of the greatest privilege is that I realised it was okay to do what I was doing. Imagine the horror if the fear of being alone had stopped me on my way.
What I’ve Been Watching/Listening
that’s worth mentioning
listening to Jim Cain’s "I used to be darker/ Then I got lighter/ Then I got dark again.
“where the crawdads sing” — I enjoyed this movie not only because it is shot in the marshes, but also because the film taught me how neither proving ourselves to others brings us any good nor does self-pitying.
And for all my Wanderlusters
Is it the dance of fireflies or of the gold fish or of the sun? I clicked this picture while walking around my present guesthouse in Siliguri (toward the North-East of India).
and now,
some smiling faces from the Himalayas from the summer of 2021
Thank you for reading.
I hope you have a great fun weekend. Hope you can let go :)
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Yours,
Priyanka
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