Rituals for Everyday Existence
Finding the main character energy
Note: Much of this post was written prior to the escalation of the ongoing situation in Palestine. I have been seriously disturbed by what’s happening there. I hope words, the only thing that helps me make sense of things, will come to my rescue in the next post.
Hello! And welcome back to another one of my Aakashvaanis. Hope you are doing well. Hope the weather hasn’t been harsh on you. It’s been really weird (surprise, surprise, climate change anyone). This constant shift from rain, cold, humidity, and heat has driven many people sick.
But there are some brief moments where I get the chance to enjoy the rainy weather here. The rain here in Kolkata isn’t always that great. For a perpetually humid city, the aftermath of a shower makes your environment a literal oven. The stickiness is a great buzzkill. So, it’s a great relief when the rain actually sets the mood correct. The skies look broody, there is a coolness in the air, and your mind starts playing old Hindi songs that gently embrace you.
October is a pleasant month. In fact, honestly speaking, it’s one of my favorite months of the year. I always call it “the month where I listen to Lamhe Guzar Gaye on loop”. Because that’s what October feels like. A recollection of all the moments that have gone by. The sense of yet another year coming to an end starts to sweep in, accompanied by a shimmering hope for the few months. Year ends are always difficult for me. The ticking of life’s clock sounds a bit louder around this time. But October is that sweet window where I can reflect in peace.
Two things have been occupying my mind since October began. The fact this is the first time I am living in my city (after almost 6 years) without having to be somewhere else, and how rituals form the foundation of everyday existence. I have come to love the word mundane or roz-marra, a little more in these past few months.
To feel abandoned is to deny
the intimacy of your surroundings.— David Whyte
I recently came across this poem, titled “Everything is Waiting For You”. It not only reminded me of Pat Schneider’s “The Patience of Ordinary Things”, but also resonated so deeply with how I’ve been feeling for the most part of this year.
When I came back here in November last year, I came back with the usual mindset of leaving. Ever since I left home for college, I have always returned in the hopes of leaving. So much so that I was never able to live here fully. I strongly believed that my life was somewhere else. That everything was waiting for me, somewhere else.
A disconnect with your present strongly affects your connection with the future. Despite having a world around me, I did not allow myself be a part of it. This led to a really rocky start. I led my daily life half-heartedly. Did not feel any excitement. Always planning of finding means to escape from here. Always daydreaming of a life I could be living in a different city. And trust me, it wasn’t fun.
But as they say, settling takes time.
The world I was familiar with was no longer there. Mostly because the people of those world were missing. All the friends I grew up with had left the city by now. That meant it was going to be just me, starting from scratch. Building a new life in the same place felt like a herculean task I wasn’t ready for. But I tried.
When I look back at this process, I am coming to realise that I wasn’t so alone (as much as I’d like to believe). The physical distance from my friends, from the life I could have instead, made me repeatedly feel abandoned. And this feeling only distanced me from the life I was living in the present. And I ended up abandoning my present.
I used to think that “live in the moment” or “enjoy the present” were vague overrated statements that had zero value. But having managed to do that in these past few months, I can confirm that it’s the most valuable life advice. However, the process of “living in the present” can be confusing, and overwhelming at first. I feel the whole glorification of this “present moment” is majorly responsible for it. By making it sound like something magical, we have created an air of mystification around it. But it’s not that complicated actually.
Here are two things that helped me in this process:
Honoring the Ordinariness of Life Around You
I think everyone eventually reaches a point where they have this realization that life might not actually be all about glamour and grandeur. Life is actually about all those million moments in between. Those tiny little moments in your daily life that happen everyday, but never exactly repeat. Life, in its entirety, is plain and ordinary. And honoring this ordinariness is what connects you with your present.
In an earlier post on my thoughts on adulting, I spoke about how I derive hope from these ordinary moments. I keep saying this, I drink tea almost everyday but I’ve never had the exact same taste twice. It probably comes from me honoring the dailyness of this act. Tea making, and tea drinking is something so universal. It’s one of those rare acts that connects our lives with those around us. Such is the greatness of ordinary life.
But how does one honor this ordinariness?
Gratitude for This Ordinary Life
By being grateful for these million little things that make up your single day, day after day, one honors the ordinariness of their life. Not living them passively but acknowledging them. This is how you witness their greatness. The way these moments keep coming back to you in different forms each day. Eventually you start appreciating them. As you get habituated to these moments, you start looking forward to them.
For instance, it’s lunch for me. The most exciting meal of the day. By now, it’s the same 5-6 things we make, week after week. Yet, I always look forward to lunch. Somedays mother feels a little extra energy and makes raita. On weekends, I take over the kitchen. Make some lip-smacking spicy noodles with a side of manchurians. I repeat the same menu on most weekends, yet the excitement still remains the same. To do all the fine chopping, prepare a spicy thick gravy, fry the manchurians, and above all, the garnish of dhania and sesame seeds. The way dhania elevates the freshness and the smell of anything it is added to, and the sight of sesame seeds instantly embracing the manchurians makes it feel like it’s straight out of a 5-star restaurant. And nothing makes me more happy than eating this lunch. Every single weekend.
Here is a small list of things I honor and I am thoroughly grateful for:
My brother tells me about his day at school and how his teacher gave him a smiley because he did all his tasks correctly.
I find an empty bus after a really tiring day, and get the whole seat to myself.
I go for these ferry rides closer to the sunset and watch the sun floating down the Howrah Bridge, coloring the entire Hooghly river marmalade.
Being able to finely chop vegetables. Patiently peeling those tiny garlic cloves. Setting up the the vegetables on a tray that form a great color palette. Red, pink, green, white.
A good meal (chana dal and rice for me).
I like to take these long walks, especially inside the lake area near my house. I never get bored of it. There won’t be a single centimetre of space there which I wouldn’t have covered. During late evening, cool breeze gushes through your face, if you walk closer to the lake. Huge canopy of tress welcoming you like a court waiting for it’s emperor to enter.
The Place I love to Go Everyday
The Patience of Ordinary Things
by Pat Schneider
It is a kind of love, is it not?
How the cup holds the tea,
How the chair stands sturdy and foursquare,
How the floor receives the bottoms of shoes
Or toes. How soles of feet know
Where they’re supposed to be.
I’ve been thinking about the patience
Of ordinary things, how clothes
Wait respectfully in closets
And soap dries quietly in the dish,
And towels drink the wet
From the skin of the back.
And the lovely repetition of stairs.
And what is more generous than a window?
Everything is Waiting for You
by David Whyte
Your great mistake is to act the drama
as if you were alone. As if life
were a progressive and cunning crime
with no witness to the tiny hidden
transgressions. To feel abandoned is to deny
the intimacy of your surroundings. Surely,
even you, at times, have felt the grand array;
the swelling presence, and the chorus, crowding
out your solo voice. You must note
the way the soap dish enables you,
or the window latch grants you freedom.
Alertness is the hidden discipline of familiarity.
The stairs are your mentor of things
to come, the doors have always been there
to frighten you and invite you,
and the tiny speaker in the phone
is your dream-ladder to divinity.
Put down the weight of your aloneness and ease into the
conversation. The kettle is singing
even as it pours you a drink, the cooking pots
have left their arrogant aloofness and
seen the good in you at last. All the birds
and creatures of the world are unutterably
themselves. Everything is waiting for you.
That’s all for now. It has been an eventful month. After a really long time, October presented itself as the month I really enjoyed myself the most. And yet, it was also the month that brought with itself the most devasting moments of our history. Helplessness and despair peaked as I ran out of my already exhausted resources of meaning making.
I hope you find comfort. I hope the ordinariness around you supports you and replenishes you. We need energy to speak against these injustices. We need energy to be ourselves despite power systems stopping us from doing so.
When Life Gives You Melon
Choose Water over Choly 🍉
Aakash xx