Beauty is inevitable A.K.A. You don’t realise you’re making memories all the time
I’m post call. Or pre call. And I’m surprised I’ve time to think. Yet I cannot stop doing the things that make me feel light.
Really, there’s no place as beautiful as New England for autumn and I realize how lucky I am to be here.
Beauty is inevitable.
Always meeting new people, getting out with my camera on a beautiful day, reading, writing, taking long walks and jogs, always remembering there’s a river close by, driving to the countryside and spending hours at dreamy bookstores - and the more I do these things, the more I realize there’s always time to do the things we want to do. And somewhere, I think this is really that period of growth. But must growth always be speckled with some grief or wistfulness ?
You’re having a beautiful day.
Suddenly that ghost from your past appears. The one you closed the door on so you could concentrate on people and moments that value you, appears on a friend’s blog comments. That version of you that you see in pictures from a year ago and wonder, that there was real pain after twenty six years of an incessantly happy life, and it all starts and somehow magically ends inside of you. That you can get by and look back in awe at yourself for how far you’ve come. One of my chief resident doctors recently put up a beautiful quote on her cover page by Elizabeth Ros - “The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen.”
I couldn’t agree more.
I look back at the last year and one thought predominates - ‘How the heck did the year go by so fast ? How did I come across so many beautiful people and not realize it? The ones who have known pain, and the ones whose eyes well up when mine do, the ones who know what I know when I tell them what bothers me, the ones who help me grow, the ones who tell me that they know I’ll always get by and emerge beautiful.’
Fall in CT
“I know this is that part of some life lesson growth and it’s going to be a while” I groaned over the phone, to my friend Sanaea. “It’s autumn. It’s so beautiful. I’m doing new things everyday, and I love work for the most part. But I remember my losses sometimes. I remember being so affected by small things that wouldn’t matter to the sensible me. I don't know if I did anything beautiful last year. So many things have changed. Right from moving away from home to starting residency to meeting completely new people, from leaving homeland to being replanted in different soil, from not being around if my parents need me immediately to missing them every moment, it’s all happened so fast. I’m not sure how the gap between the two Septembers passed !”
With my guardian angels
“I’m solemn, moody and I go right from happy to wistful, and excited to reminiscing. Something’s off. It doesn’t always feel as perfect as it should for a single girl who is living her life and making new friends and building new relationships. ” I said to her.
“There are always beautiful memories you make in between. It’s inevitable.” she said. “We may spend the most part of our time obsessing over things that do not matter - we’re only human, we’re only chemicals more than anything else. And yet, I’m sure you made some memories that will make you wonder how you did so much in one year and I am so sure when you dig them up you’ll be surprised how productive it’s been !”
Hmm. She was right. Old photos from last year.
I took my old phone out this afternoon. Conversations with mom, tea with dad, chocolate dessert on my night with my last date before I left India, the phone conversation I had with my friend Imran before I moved and told him how much I’d miss him and Prerana. Though we lived in different states and met once a year.
The street kids to whom I taught English.
With my little angels. We painted while they learned to speak English.
The ones who drew stars in my palm with their sharpies and tied “friendship” bands around my wrist and made me cards with little hearts on them. The ones who hugged me around my knees and shook my legs hard enough to make me use all of my balance to resist falling to the ground. Or the flood-struck Kashmir with its brown eyed, dusty skinned people who were so happy to see a bunch of us volunteer to help out in relief.
The ones who showed me what life and love is really about.
Kashmir. The land that taught me love.
The children whose health I have an active interest in, the ones I someday want to go back home to.
Thuvar, my home town.
Waking up to the Himalayas.
Himalayan mornings.
Extended family that I bonded with. New people I met. Cousins I lived with, talked to at 2 AM over coffee.
The beautiful memories, the home belly dancing lessons for fun. The time I recovered from my fracture in my capoeira lesson and made an amazing new friend who got me out of home the very next day and said I’m too badass to stay off my feet for long. Ha ha.
The evening Kalash took me out to coffee. Post fracture day 1
The time I visited my Principal from school and the moment when she instantly recognized me and was thrilled to have me there reminiscing school years fondly.
With Miss Paul, my school principal
The moment when I noticed the positivity in my beautiful sister, who is now the mother of an 8 month old - when I had doubted myself and was in sheer pain, and she said “You’re made of the same things I am. I am so sure this will pass.”, I think was he moment things turned around.
My amazing sister
The time I spent working on relationships that in hindsight were probably some of my most important lessons which helped me realize that happiness and self worth are the only and only important variables - not people, not ideas, not obsessions, not stereotypes, not movements, not fads but just happiness.
Autumn in New England
I’ve met so many beautiful people. Inside out. And believe me when I say this - they’re all people with smiles so big they could be located on google maps, with kindness, compassion and so much love and tenderness I’d go back to these people over and over again. They’re the people that put a smile on my face. They’re all people I’d put on magazine covers.
While you’re at it making these “inevitably beautiful memories”,
don’t forget to stay fit. Work out. Jog. Do yoga. Crunches on the living room floor.
Don’t forget to do what you need to and unwind.
Don’t forget to eat healthy (and don’t forget to Cheat - have one unhealthy day a fortnight).
Don’t forget to concentrate on yourself and your significant other if you have one, and still remember that relationships aren’t all there is to life - make new friends, video chat with someone you love once a week, meet new people from different professions, try a new samba class, drive to the winery (Warning : 1. Don’t drive back drunk, you idiot. That’s really dangerous).
You’re always making new memories, everyday. Just make sure you pay attention to it.
Begin anywhere. Don’t forget that you are so beautiful and you need time with “you” more than anyone else does.
Sending love your way and wishing you so much beauty and happiness ♥︎
Aarthi
Oct 24 2015
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