I look at the blog and see that I have not put up a post for a long time. Yes I did start on a few but they have been saved as drafts and not posted.
Writing a post is a cathartic process for me. I and me, benefit best from writing one. So I have never felt the need to tell others or indicate my interests in blogging. I write under a pseudonym which was once a childhood name. In fact I have shared my blog posts with only a few selected friends.
As thoughts flow into words, trying to find the right word that best portrays your thought is a challenge. I re-look at the word I have typed and see if this is the one that precisely says what I want to. It is a useful exercise. At the end of writing a post, I feel a little spent but exhilarated. The whole process is equivalent to time spent in exercising. The "feel good" hormones kick in at the end of a session and a bouyant mood sets in.
There are many thoughts that crowd and jostle to be shaped into words. But picking a line of thought, focusing on it and putting down your opinions into a coherent piece of writing helps me get organized for other aspects in life too. A word, a sentence, a paragraph and a whole page in organized written thought has helped me focus better, think better and live better.
Life has meted out experiences that vary for every individual. But in the end what matters is what you have learnt from them and whether the lessons have shaped you into a better individual.
At the end of the day, I am thankful for life, experiences and incidents both good and bad and the mind which compiles these memories, the happenings and incidents into a shape which enables us to see clearly where we stand currently. I guess this is what is called "Wisdom". No wonder it is said that wisdom comes with age!
Things seem hazy as I look into the horizon. It is a horizon that I am gazing at today longing to reach, touch and feel. Tomorrow I will be a day closer to the horizon I saw yesterday. But at the same time, tomorrows also brings with them other new horizons!
Confusing???? Yes mightily! But this is what life is all about. Each day brings with it a horizon so different to reach to.
At a juncture in life, we do actually reach the spot which was once a distant, unyeilding and unreachable horizon. And the different horizons that we keep seeing with our mind's eye each day are reached at different time points. Some early, some late.
I promise myself that when I reach the end points of what seemed as horizons in the yesterdays, I would look back and see the things I have left behind. I promise myself that I would look back and see that what I have left behind are baggages in a long queue, the queue being "TIME standing still". I hope to make sure that the queue consist of bad memories, negative incidents, wrong decisions and mistakes that I have made.
I hope to have shed them all along the way one by one. So that what I see and have ahead of me is a positive attitude, opportunities to take hold of so that I can live life to the fullest with its combination of pasture and potholes.
These random thoughts existed as pocketed recesses in my mind and I have written them down to see whether it made sense.
Yes it does!
My horizons, here I am! I walk, run, toddle towards you depending on what life holds today!
Nevertheless, everything I do will be "towards" and never "backwards" from you!
Saturday, September 6, 2008
Thursday, February 7, 2008
Getting the kids to practice.......
Any mother worth her salt, would agree with me on this point. The sheer moumental task of getting your kids to practice something they are learning. It is a period that can stretch your 'whatever left over patience' to the limits.
This is a time when mothers keel over to the side like a sinking ship, or hang by the thinnest thread over the cliff, or are ready to tip over the boundaries of reason into the other world of madness.
My daughters are learning to play the keyboard. The enthusiasm that gripped all three of us, a feverish anticipatory feeling when it all began is still there. The girls and I would be ready for the music teacher with the keyboard placed at the center on the carpet. We would adjust the angle and position of the chairs every now and then, shift them this way or that ever so often wondering whether such a tilt would offer the best position for learning. Nothing has changed this routine even now!
We would eagerly wait for the sound of the teacher's bike or car and then rush to take our positions respectively. It was a comic sight. I would quickly take my seat on the sofa to watch, the elder one beside me. The younger girl is seated on the chair with the keyboard in front and an empty chair beside for the teacher.
It was a picture of studious music lovers with a musically motivated mother hovering by. Pleasantries exchanged, we would all sit down for the half-an-hour class per child with eagerness.
Time passses quickly, the elder one follows the younger one to the chair to learn. The teacher bids adieu and is quickly gone to the next appointment and class.
This is where the cliff hanging starts! The first day after music class is when I feel the pins and needles sensation most acutely. The "mother centric special" centers of the brain start their warning signals early on. "You must initiate the practice, you must let them begin it" scream the neurons.
So it starts, the prodding from my side to begin the practice and the resistance of the paediatric brains to this nagging. After a short time of this haggling, one of the paediatric species takes the chair. A huge sigh of relief and victory escapes from me.
The relief does not last long. I sit on the sofa now with the news paper open, interjecting now and then with "1,2,3,4" or "1 and, 2 and, 3, 4" or "1,2,3" helping with the counts. The girl gets up from the chair and says " mommy, do you know what Jo..... said to me today?" or "you know we were practicing this dance and let me show the moves" (from the elder girl)..
"Later, later! Now get back to practice" comes my irritated reply.. The practice resumes until a voice pipes up saying " mommy, I need to drink water" or "oh, I forgot something, I need to call my friend". The excuses are many and varied. They never get exhausted, something akin to a celestial goldmine.. ...
The same sequences of events follow everyday until the day arrives for the next music lesson. We make the usual fuss and take our usual positions on the chairs.
Now comes the verdict from the teacher! "Very good! you have practiced well and learnt your lessons well, O.k let me teach you new lessons and pieces!"
I become a huge inflated balloon, floating carelessly... The words of the teacher are like music, helium whatever, but I am reaching heights....
Alas! Time is short... All too soon the lessons end, the euphoria ceases, helium has leaked and I am on terra firma.....
There they are! The patience testing days, a deflated mother, merry kids entering the practice sessions merrily, merrily and the cycle of music practice emerges from the horizon!
This is a time when mothers keel over to the side like a sinking ship, or hang by the thinnest thread over the cliff, or are ready to tip over the boundaries of reason into the other world of madness.
My daughters are learning to play the keyboard. The enthusiasm that gripped all three of us, a feverish anticipatory feeling when it all began is still there. The girls and I would be ready for the music teacher with the keyboard placed at the center on the carpet. We would adjust the angle and position of the chairs every now and then, shift them this way or that ever so often wondering whether such a tilt would offer the best position for learning. Nothing has changed this routine even now!
We would eagerly wait for the sound of the teacher's bike or car and then rush to take our positions respectively. It was a comic sight. I would quickly take my seat on the sofa to watch, the elder one beside me. The younger girl is seated on the chair with the keyboard in front and an empty chair beside for the teacher.
It was a picture of studious music lovers with a musically motivated mother hovering by. Pleasantries exchanged, we would all sit down for the half-an-hour class per child with eagerness.
Time passses quickly, the elder one follows the younger one to the chair to learn. The teacher bids adieu and is quickly gone to the next appointment and class.
This is where the cliff hanging starts! The first day after music class is when I feel the pins and needles sensation most acutely. The "mother centric special" centers of the brain start their warning signals early on. "You must initiate the practice, you must let them begin it" scream the neurons.
So it starts, the prodding from my side to begin the practice and the resistance of the paediatric brains to this nagging. After a short time of this haggling, one of the paediatric species takes the chair. A huge sigh of relief and victory escapes from me.
The relief does not last long. I sit on the sofa now with the news paper open, interjecting now and then with "1,2,3,4" or "1 and, 2 and, 3, 4" or "1,2,3" helping with the counts. The girl gets up from the chair and says " mommy, do you know what Jo..... said to me today?" or "you know we were practicing this dance and let me show the moves" (from the elder girl)..
"Later, later! Now get back to practice" comes my irritated reply.. The practice resumes until a voice pipes up saying " mommy, I need to drink water" or "oh, I forgot something, I need to call my friend". The excuses are many and varied. They never get exhausted, something akin to a celestial goldmine.. ...
The same sequences of events follow everyday until the day arrives for the next music lesson. We make the usual fuss and take our usual positions on the chairs.
Now comes the verdict from the teacher! "Very good! you have practiced well and learnt your lessons well, O.k let me teach you new lessons and pieces!"
I become a huge inflated balloon, floating carelessly... The words of the teacher are like music, helium whatever, but I am reaching heights....
Alas! Time is short... All too soon the lessons end, the euphoria ceases, helium has leaked and I am on terra firma.....
There they are! The patience testing days, a deflated mother, merry kids entering the practice sessions merrily, merrily and the cycle of music practice emerges from the horizon!
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