Time
the change of year, hardworking Indian women, read read read, pictures from Goa, and Merry Christmas
Dear Reader,
Thank you for joining me. I hope your Sunday is beautiful too.
I know I have to continue the stories from the last newsletter. So I was on a road trip from my parent’s home in Uttar Pradesh to Goa. In the last letter, I was telling you about the Rajasthani family at whose house I stayed in 2005 and whom I met on this road trip after eighteen years. Rajasthan was on our way, and their city Kota, too. That meeting made me feel as if I had time traveled.
Today, instead of continuing my tales from the journey—pending is a fort town called Rajgarh, cities of Bhopal and Nagpur, Satpura National Park where I saw tigers for the first time, another small town where I couldn’t sleep all night, and the city Osmanabad in Maharashtra where our partner and I met with unexpected hospitality—I want to talk about the end of this year. Perhaps I will write separate blog posts on some of those places and share them in the upcoming letters.
For now, I am thinking, 2023 is coming to an end. What have I done? How the year has been? Where I should have been and where I am? Is everyone around me happy?
Are you thinking some of these things, too?
Perhaps you are preparing for Christmas. Maybe you are visiting family. It’s possible that on this Sunday you are alone and want to be with someone who is far away. Everyone might be cheering around you. The prospect of a big family dinner might be on the table. Or if you are from regions and cultures where Christmas is not celebrated, you might be enjoying the holiday from your couch. Chances are that you are on a big domestic or international trip. Perhaps you are living and doing chores as you do every day year-round. Or, like me, you are working and wrapping up the bits and parts of this year.
Whatever it is, irrespective of what we all are doing and how much more time we need to finish the thing at hand, the year will end. 2024 will come, faster than we think it will.
How do I feel about that? How do you feel about that?
Am I prepared for yet another change of date that signifies that Time is passing?
I’m growing older, the more work I do there is more to do, people around me need me more and more, and so many of my ambitions and dreams are still calling out to me even though I am on the path I’ve always wanted to be on.
hmm.
Time is passing but it is taking me along with it. Every new day, it says, “Hey, another bright morning. What do you want to do with it?”
I reply, “I have tonnes to do. Call home. Be better to my partner. Love him. Speak to a friend. Publish blog posts. Edit that story. Observe this new place around me. Look for a guesthouse for the next week (or probably for tomorrow). So on.”
“You will do it all, or at least, some of it. And then what?” Time asks.
“hah! I will sleep. And then tomorrow I have more of the same stuff to do.” I smile.
I wonder if Time is hoping for me to say that tomorrow I would have new things to do. Does it want me to be more excited than I am for the upcoming day? Because, honestly, I love most things about my life but every day is a fresh struggle. I could do better as a friend, partner, human, daughter, writer. Many times I can take better care of my body and mind. For a change, I could make a schedule and stick to it. Sometimes, I could be less selfish.
Opportunities to improve are endless. The day will begin and end, and I am not sure if tomorrow I would be better than today. I hope that I am. Such a collection of days would make the new year. I don’t want it to go wasteful. I want to make every day count. I want to feel every second.
So what do I do? How do I begin?
The promise I continually make to myself is that I will be kind to myself. Wake up and know that whatever it is, I will take care of it.
As a friend had said, “That you are calm is a fundamental necessity.”
Then I eat. Let the sun fall on my face. Write. Smile. Laugh. Enjoy. Run. Work. If there is an argument or conflict, I know I might react. But then I will sit and think about it. I will go back and apologise or make amends. There will be time for it. Nothing is running away. Time is taking me along with it. Every second of it that passes, that every second I live. Sometimes, even a second is enough.
So I am hopeful for the coming year. For 2024. I know I will be better. I know I will learn to write better. If not all, some of my dreams and plans and aspirations from the year will be realised. There would be family time and love and laughter. But that doesn’t mean the hard times won’t inflict me. They will take me on a rough ride, and I will be scared. What will I do then? I will do what I do and wait for that second to pass. Every second that enrages me, it passes too.
That is the magic of time. And I don’t realise often but I am happy that time doesn’t get stuck. That 2023 is passing. That every moment is alive. The moment time stagnates, we are stuck in the same year, there will be no change, no possibility of better.
This change of years is good. It reminds me that another year has gone by, and I have lived a full year of life. It reminds me I am alive. And for that alone, I am thankful.
At least the beginning of a new year gives us reasons to celebrate.
Are you thankful for the change of years, too?
Thank you for coming along on this journey with me. I’m there with you, too.
For this week’s letter,
Some of my writing,
quotes I love,
things to read,
things to watch,
and
travel tips.
Article from the Week,
Hardworking Indian Women: Stories From, Literally, The Road
Driving through India on my indefinite country road trip, I meet women who work all day in the sun to feed their families. They don't know how special they are.
This post is a collection of four stories—all from, literally, the road— that made me think—Are Indian Women home-making or home-running?
Read the stories now. Or Pocket them for later.
My Best Travel Books of All Time
Though this piece began as the books I loved in 2023, as the number of books about traveling overpowered other categories, I decided to dedicate an entire blog post to the best travel books to read.
Here you will find all kinds of books on traveling: including some on traveling within one’s room and another one on setting up a home in a foreign country. Some books are as old as 1794 while others are from a couple of years ago. The list has solo walking adventures, solo mountaineering on horsebacks in the old-day Persia and current-day Iran, one is of a lone woman biker, one of a tramp, and there are even artists sharing their traveling experiences (or vice-versa). I have also kept two fiction travel books. They were so good, they belong here. Irrespective of their variety, all these books on travel have the same intention: to share one’s experience of exploring this wonderful magical world.
Go through the list of books now. Or Pocket my collection of travel books for later.
Quotes I Love
“But the simplest thing in the world cannot be painted without
the aid of all the faculties of the soul.”
Xavier de Maistre
"The self work that you do in silence will echo throughout every part of your life.
Michelle Clark
“The wider our universe becomes due to science, and the furthest we go – we think we go so far when we go to the Moon – the nearer we need to come to the centre of ourselves in order to interpret this world, in order to find values, in order to give our lives meaning.”
Anaïs Nin
“The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing which stands in the way. As a man is, so he sees.”
William Blake
“There was a danger whenever I was on home ground. It was the danger of seeing my life through other eyes than my own. Seeing it as an ever-increasing roll of words like barbed wire, intricate, bewildering, uncomforting-set against the rich productions, the food, flowers, and knitted garments, of other women’s domesticity. It became harder to say that it was worth the trouble.”
Alice munro
When you read something good, you don’t just feel better about the world, you feel better about yourself.
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.
As I have a whole article on the books of this year, I’m not sharing anything here. Please do check out the piece. It has such a varied range of books that, hopefully, at least one would suit you.
Here is a piece I do want to share,
The Book That Changed Me: Journeying to the Self With Anaïs Nin’s Sensual, Transgressive Diaries — A beautiful introduction to Anaïs Nin's diaries that compels me to read them.
Anaïs Nin's diaries taught that the quality of a life can be an accumulation of small moments of beauty. That one could refuse to be tamed. That one could be many selves, each rich beyond reckoning.
What I’ve Been Watching/Listening
that’s worth mentioning
Homestays in the last indo-china border village of Chushul — It would be interesting to visit this place. Centuries of memories, history, geographical beauty, and culture. But I always think that visiting such place for a day wouldn’t do much. How about living there for a month? Maybe then we would get a glimpse into the people and their life. Then what impact would they have on us and how would we affect them? Things to think before traveling to such remote geographies.
And for all adventure lovers!
Some recent pictures from Goa.
Although I don’t eat meat anymore I haven’t been able to quit seafood. I do feel bad about killing the sea animals but I can’t resist fish and squids and other wonderful creatures.
So as long as I eat seafood, Goa is a heaven for me.
I love Goa.
Goa was calm, quiet, respectful, happy, natural, and all that's good — for most of our one-month stay.
a church near a Goan beach whose name I forget. Does it matter? I am sure that in many back streets that connect homes to the beaches these churches sit quiet and waiting.
Just another building in Panaji, capital of Goa. I didn’t have such a good experience in Panaji. Will share the incidents in a blog post.
graffiti on a restaurant wall in Goa. I’m always amazed by how they draw the fish sellers. See the woman in the centre.
Thank you for reading.
I hope you enjoy these last days of 2023. Merry Christmas :)
Let me know what you think about this letter. Press reply.
Yours,
Priyanka
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