#SouvenirStorytime 3/28: Breeze Away to Carmel-by-the-Sea

Flashback to memories made in Monterey, California, USA (April / July 2016)

Textured porcelain magnet highlighting sights of Carmel-by-the-Sea and Monterey

This has to be one of my favourite magnets from the collection. Smooth, but pleasantly textured. Imperfect art that paints a compelling picture. The sky is a whimsical dusty-pink despite the sun being high up; it’s my kind of remembrance for this place of joy. (Ofcourse, I wrote that and immediately remembered that Big Little Lies was also set in Monterey, and it was not exactly a place of joy in the series. Oh well.)

Once upon a time, I lived and worked in the San Francisco Bay Area. It was an incredible bubble, one where you always believed you needed (to be) more although just by virtue of living there, you should have known you had more than many, many, many others. The experience shaped me, and brought a lot of lessons my way – lessons that eventually helped me decide to leave. However, my time in California also allowed me easy access to small, beautiful seaside towns like Carmel-by-the-Sea. While I did not visit often enough, I did spend more than one pleasant weekend in the quiet little town.

As I gaze at the magnet art above, my mind is a montage of happy little clips. Memories flashing of cherished company on different days. Even when I try, I cannot remember the drive down from Mountain View. I know it’s a good one, but I have no memory of it. Odd. At the same time, I have crystal-clear memory of sitting in the front seat of a rental car with some of my closest friends, post-dinner at a nice restaurant. 4th of July weekend, 2016. It was dark already. I recollect my loveable, ridiculous bestie and I spontaneously deciding (with no words) to act out the rest of our animated conversation in slow motion, to some confusion from the others in the backseat. I remember feeling so overjoyed to share that mutual weirdness with someone. And I remember holding a grateful heart for these friendships, as we drove back up to my home that night.

Another memory of walking down the quiet, sloping Ocean Avenue, overlooked by rustling tree-tops and lined with independent boutiques and warmly-lit restaurants. My mum two steps behind me, distracted by every second boutique. To date, she remembers and speaks of the light wrap she picked up at one of the stores, though I have forgotten already. We were walking down to the viewpoint overlooking the beach. She was wearing sneakers, and did not want to get sand in her shoes. She was happy just to stand by the boardwalk, feel the mild sea breeze, marvel at how clean the white sand looked (how do they keep it so clean!?), and get some pictures taken. My mum and I don’t share the same interests at all, but how I love to see her happy in these little moments.

Flash forward to enjoying fresh fish and chips with her at a no-frills, pier-side café. Was I mixing up memories? Was that even in Monterey? I’m not sure, but it sure is jumbled into this memory montage. I don’t mind – as I know it was from the one and only road trip that Ma and I took together, driving down at a leisurely pace from Mountain View to San Diego. My mum, who usually crinkles up her nose at fried food, enjoying the crumb-fried fresh catch, cajun-chips-and-ketchup and warm sunlight on the water.. with pleasure. Again, a favourite memory from her visit that year. When will we get to do this again?

Finally, the memory reel replays the same feeling – of standing with my toes digging into the fine bone-white sands of Carmel beach. Cool sea-breeze in my hair, making me hug my jacket (work-branded sweatshirt, heh) even closer. My closest friends from across the continent next to me. Silicon Valley could not work its magic on me, as I could not want anything more.

Now your turn…lose yourself in a pleasant memory. And share below in comments, if you’d like? I am curious to know what you cherish.

Love,

~M. xx

Recap: what is Souvenir Storytime? The magic of creation through words is always deeply nourishing. If new memories cannot be made, I decided to pay homage to all the beautiful places I have already been, by honouring my ~fridge magnet~ collection. Seriously. I had collected several over the years, knowing that they were the ultimate tourist-y kitsch. I have held them close not for their beauty, but for the stories within. With Souvenir Storytime, I am attempting to bring to life the memories held within these ubiquitous magnets – in no particular order. This is not to help people “armchair travel” (a term I’m growing to dislike through this pandemic). It is to re-live small, significant moments from years past. In the process, I hope to help you – dear Reader – recover your own pearls of memories from deep within. The journey will continue, but for now let’s pause and look back on its meandering path, shall we?

#SouvenirStorytime 2/28: New York City Love

An ode to the City of Dreams – New York City, USA (Dates unknown / Multiple)

I cannot remember exactly when I bought this. I have made several visits to this bustling mad city. I’ve never not been taken by it. In fact, the first time I visited at nineteen – I was the wide-eyed girl from India who was excited to see Greenwich Village, home to her fictional idol Mia Thermopolis, and see how it compared against the world that Mia had painted for her in her mind’s eye. I loved the brownstones, the subway, the crowds, the traffic. All of it. I took several hundred pictures of buildings. And fire escapes, which were another made-for-TV concept to me. I loved the energy everyone seemed to have, just like in the movies. What a rush to be part of it. People walked so briskly with purpose. No one seemed to be loitering. So they must all have found purpose, no? I wanted to taste some of that magic NYC juice that gave everyone destinations, and put fire in their feet. I left with the dream to live there someday.

As I got older, and found myself living in the US, I continued to enjoy visiting. But I realised I no longer harboured that dream of living there. It was all a bit too much for me. Too much movement. Where was everyone off to, anyway!? It had dawned on me that purpose doesn’t come from having somewhere to go. And that maybe being lost in a sea of people, still feels like being lost after all. The energy that I had once found infectious and energising, I recognised to be infectious and draining instead. Too much. I didn’t want to lose my wonder though. Never want to lose my wonder. I made peace with loving the city, but from a distance. Enough to want to visit, again and again and again. Finding something new to discover on each visit. And each time, leaving with the feeling of content that this frenzy of a city showed me a little more than she had before. Be it getting across the city for the best, chewiest, densest bagels I’ve ever relished from Absolute Bagels. Or walking across the Brooklyn Bridge at sunset, and being surprised by a woman getting her wedding photoshoot in the middle of the bridge, foot-traffic be damned. Or dissolving into Lady M‘s matcha mille-crêpe cakes. Or elbowing through crowds to see the big Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center, only to realise the stress of it all allowed little Christmas spirit. Or getting lost and realising I was (finally) walking through Greenwich Village for real, which was serene and very different from the Village in my imagination. Or getting lost in Central Park, and witnessing a large group of people lost in dancing to drums…wondering in awe if I would ever be able to let go and surrender like that (I would, I just couldn’t imagine it yet).

Getting lost in general, I think. Feeling very small in a big, big city. With friends though, with my people – also lost with me. Mmm happy times.

I want to say I bought this little souvenir on one of my last visits, when I knew I would be leaving the US shortly. I didn’t expect to see the brilliance of New York City again. I vaguely remembering buying this from a street artist selling his wares on the walkway of a bridge (which bridge?). It jumped out at me because it sort of took away the seriousness of the city (and reminded me of Seinfeld, for some reason?). On further thought, I realise it captured the nostalgia, the movement and the sentiment that every movie and book and TV series set in New York had silently promised me: that it is the city to find and lose and find again.. love, usually with someone else who is also lost and misunderstood in the same crowd. Movies set in the city, especially in winter (Christmas) are still my absolute feel-good favourites. I re-watch them every December. The rational part of my brain is fully aware that New York City is one of the loneliest, most isolating cities in the world (sidenote: lose yourself in reading Olivia Laing’s ‘The Lonely City’ for a rich picture of this, what a beauty). But, the tiny part of my brain that is an eternal romantic, that chooses to dream fluffy, that wishes to be Mia Thermopolis, loves to hold that feeling of a hot-cocoa-and-snowfall romance in dreamy New York City.

(Hey, so what if reality is grittier than that, this is how I chose the souvenir for me.)

Love,

~M. xx

#SouvenirStorytime 1/28: The Little Mermaid, Copenhagen

Recap: what is Souvenir Storytime? I am kicking this off in lieu of nourishing time in the mountains up north. (Another lockdown is imminent in Mumbai, so the visit to the mountains will have to wait). The magic of creation through words is always deeply nourishing. If new memories cannot be made, I decided to pay homage to all the beautiful places I have already been, by honouring my ~fridge magnet~ collection. Seriously. I had collected several over the years, knowing that they were the ultimate tourist-y kitsch. I have held them close not for their beauty, but for the stories within. With Souvenir Storytime, I am attempting to bring to life the memories held within these ubiquitous magnets – in no particular order. This is not to help people “armchair travel” (a term I’m growing to dislike through this pandemic). It is to re-live small, significant moments from years past. In the process, I hope to help you – dear Reader – recover your own pearls of memories from deep within. The journey will continue, but for now let’s pause and look back on its meandering path, shall we?

First on the list: The Little Mermaid – Copenhagen, Denmark (December 2017)

Watercolour of the Little Mermaid, Copenhagen mounted on acrylic — Watercolour of the Little Mermaid, Copenhagen

I still remember that cold evening. It was my first winter in Europe, and my first time in Copenhagen. Also my first time experiencing what it means to have the cold “seep into your bones”. My father, who had been in Denmark several times, had often described the cold to me like this – and I always assumed he was exaggerating. It didn’t sound like anything more warm layers couldn’t solve. And yet – when I felt it, I understood right away. I couldn’t keep the chill out of my bones. And yet, such was my resolve to see the famous bronze statue of the Little Mermaid – I was happy to change two buses and walk down the otherwise empty waterside promenade in search of her despite the cold. Pink cheeks, nose leaking and stomach grumbling, I walked down with two reluctant friends in tow (a couple I knew from grad school in America, that I serendipitously bumped into in Copenhagen!). Only to arrive at this small, green-brown statue of a mermaid girl hunched over on a rock. It was….underwhelming?

All three of us stood and looked. Hmm. Was that it? Then again, what did we expect it to be? I thought it would be bigger, my friend’s words echoed our thoughts out loud. I thought it would be….more? But not really, I had seen pictures – I knew exactly what she looked like. In fact, a little replica of her had sat in the showcase of my childhood home for years. My father had brought it over as a souvenir from his first visit. It’s part of why I wanted to see her myself. She was exactly as I imagined. She was nothing more or less, and yet why was I disappointed?

I realised it wasn’t so much disappointment – as it was discomfort. It was a cold and dreary evening, the sky was grey and so was the dark water. She sat there with the waves lapping at her rock glumly, a forlorn expression on her unmoving face. Only the waves, and hopefully visiting seals for company. I had heard she was often vandalised by locals – how sad. To be so exposed to the elements, yet the only closeness she received was in the form of defilement. (Was I giving too much emotion to an object?) The stark setting of the statue and her loneliness made me feel, for just a split second, the miasma of feelings I liked to push away myself. As we walked away, I wondered what the sculptor wanted us to feel when he designed this lost statue.

The next day, I bought this beautiful magnet with a watercolour replica mounted on acrylic from a local artist. (More about her when I share another story on another day.) I thought it would hold this memory in brighter colours than it really had, and I hoped it represented the Little Mermaid on a happier day. To me it is a reminder of little journeys that are worth it for their own sake, even when the destination doesn’t match up to anticipation. This happens to me so often, it makes me shake my head and smile.

When has this shown up for you?

~ M xx

S1E01: “What Have You Been Doing Now That You Can’t Do Anything?” – 2/2

Folks, looks like this is going to be the one and only episode from Season 1 of this narrative. But I wanted to close it out with the long-promised second part to this very long-running season/episode.

I’m coming up on a year of detaching myself from society. After much reflection – the short answer to my friend’s question? Nothing. What have I been doing? No. Thing.

Please bear with the cliché: I have been trying to get comfortable with less of doing and more of being.

Stay with me: All our lives, we are trained to do – more and more, to add to our list of achievements. It starts with learning to walk, to hold a pen, to scrawl the alphabet, to recite numbers or tables of seven, to rattle off the periodic table, to get top grades, win those medals and show them off, learn to sing, learn to dance, get into the best university, get a top-paying job…..when does it ever end? No, all of this is just the beginning. And so, we head on to a life of continuing the do-ing. Of achieving. Of using productivity as a measure of success. Even for fun, we like to do as much as possible on vacation so that we can proudly say we’ve done it all.

This past year hasn’t been a great one. World over, that’s true. But the closure of the outside world gave me the space, time and stillness to bring my attention inwards. Since Facebook first asked me, I have described myself as “Spiritual, not religious” but if I’m honest, I would not then have been able to articulate what exactly that meant. This year, I took the time to explore that spiritual side and form a point of view. Reading ‘A New Earth’ by Eckhart Tolle back in June 2020 was eye-opening. My awareness has not been the same since.

I have no intention of listing every motivational self-help book I’ve read over here, as that is not the point of this post. Like many people, I have inwardly tussled with defining my sense of self throughout life – where does it come from? What defines it? At some point in my late twenties, I faced and accepted the uncomfortable but beady-eyed truth: I had been looking to external markers for defining me and my worth. As a school-going child, I unconsciously believed that I was the sum of my grades, my conduct, my appearance, my manners and behaviour. Things that people could see and judge on the outside. Unconsciously, I looked to others to judge what was within. As I got older, this only morphed form. From grades to job profiles. Titles and pay hikes. Career growth in comparison with peers. Interests in comparison with what others were up to. Before I realised it, my self-talk had become painfully negative. My self-worth was so closely tied with my output and how I presented myself, that every mistake turned into a spiral. No one berated me like I did. I took every mistake and unknowingly held it up as a measure of my own worth. “I did something wrong because I am not capable of any better” — eugh, makes me squirm writing it out.

(Because, I couldn’t be further from the truth. But we’re not there yet.)

Ofcourse, I spoke to no one about any of this. I don’t even think I was conscious of the extent of it. It was just a truth I believed in the safest chamber of my heart. An ugly truth that I had fabricated from my life experience. One that coloured everything I did and didn’t do – even if no one else knew.

So now, after leaving a job that had me questioning my motivations, abilities, gifts and worth – I had cut off some of these supposed external markers of self-worth. I knew I had to leave the country I was living in too, so I was no longer tied to a place. Snip, snip – that fell away too. I had to rid myself of most of my belongings to move countries and live out of a suitcase. Snip, snip, snip – can’t define myself with what I own even. So who was I, when I could not be defined by —

my role in society (didn’t quite have one defined)
my paycheck (didn’t have one)
my title (nada)
what I owned (they were down to bare necessities)
my interests (they were forming and fluid)
where I lived (this was changing and would keep changing)

I was still myself, so ofcourse self-hood could not be defined by any of these. So what was left when all of this fell away? What defines us when the external markers are not true indicators after all? This was the raw question, unwritten, unsaid – that guided me through this time. Little happening on the outside, so I went inwards and felt around to learn. I was guided by enlightening books, meditation and uplifting podcasts. And what a painful, wonderful, messy, insightful journey it has been.

I learnt more about the human ego, this idea of a spiritual self vs. the ego self. I learnt to recognise this true Self within me. I learnt how to be with me, how to identify the gifts of mind as well as its naughty tricks. Most of all, I learnt to cultivate an increasing sense of compassion – towards myself as to others. I learnt to be kind, to myself as to others. The biggest challenge of all – I learnt to face myself. Stripped of the excuse of busyness and distractions, I learnt to be able to look at myself for all I was – talents, motivations, values, fears, coping mechanisms..all of it. The truths I knew, the ones I made up and the lies I had told myself over and over.

So yes, I did nothing. Some days my ego wins, and puts up an inward fight at this summary. It usually starts with “But that’s not true, I did do…” before I check it. What can I say, still very human. But most days, for at least a moment, my gentler, fuller Self reigns..I recognise her, and then I feel that all is exactly the way it should be.

Cheers, and so much love. ~M xx

A Reluctant Admission

I know I said I would write more frequently than once a month. I remember laughing to myself in September at the thought of taking a whole month to post again. After all, I love writing. I would never post-pone doing more of it again.

And yet I did just that, again. I have been having this squirmy feeling in my belly this whole time, this discomfort that rises up into my chest. Because I know I have been putting off doing what I love. And until recently, I felt too much guilt to even look this avoidance in the eye.

I feel like I’ve been standing on a diving board. Looking down at the rippling blue water. Knees bent, all wound up like a coiled spring but not ready to jump. Not ready to jump. Holding that pose. Mind dashing back and forth between intent to act, and the comfort of waiting – because the jump cannot be taken back. It’s the same feeling I had when I was learning to swim at age seven – my swim instructor wanted me to jump into the deep end. And I just couldn’t. It was as if my feet were glued onto the wet edge of the pool. I could not get my feet off. I could not get myself to plop into the murky green pool. Why? Because I couldn’t imagine what that jump would feel like. I could only imagine jumping in and not being able to feel the surety of sturdy ground under my feet, I could imagine flailing and drowning. I couldn’t be sure that I would be able to surface and swim. I could only anticipate that primal fear, and was too scared to lean into the grey area between fear and knowing.

Today, two decades on, I am trying to (over)analyse a similar reluctance to commit to something that I love doing. It’s not obviously terrifying like a deep, opaque swimming pool would be to a child who can barely swim. However, it is terrifying in a deeper, more subtle way: writing has been the dream to me, full of potential, beyond that fear of plunging in. I’ve always told myself, in quiet whispers (lest they be overheard), that I think I can write expressively, engagingly. (Ugh, my ears are warm just from writing that sentence) That thought, rarely tried or tested, has been like a warm blanket to me, comforting me after a long day’s work, after a long season’s work, every time I’ve felt weary of my day job, my nondescript life. There’s been this naïve, hopeful thought – that in an alternate version of life, I could be a writer who can connect to the hearts of people through her words. That I could help another soul feel more seen, less alone on their journey. Not trying, not testing that theory – because what if it isn’t true?

What if I jump in only to prove myself wrong, and lose this mental safety blanket? This secret hope that was a salve when my less-exciting “real life” dealt blunt blows to the spirit? I can’t take the jump back. And I’d potentially be left with a void where this reassuring, blind dream used to be. Reluctantly, shamefully, I admit – I am unwittingly choosing to be comfortable not knowing. < pauses to feel pretty shit >

< takes a deep breath >

On that wet afternoon, aged seven, I didn’t jump. I kept crouching, wound up to jump, feet glued to the edge of the pool..until my instructor shoved me in anyway. I was terrified, but I surfaced. I swam. The salty pool-water mixed with the salty tears on my face, but I swam. And things turned out okay. Except that I was too terrified to go back to that swim class. That was my last swimming lesson for the next five years. It was probably also the beginning of my tendency to stop, to quit, at fear.

The last seven months have been a wonderful, painful, quiet, subtle journey to stop resisting fear and walk towards it. That has been an overarching goal of this time away from Real Life. Every single time I have leaned into the discomfort – be it big or small, visible or invisible – I have come out glad for it. So this time should not be any different. I have been blessed with one life as me, might as well live the most colourful version of it. Even disappointment, helplessness, disillusionment adds brush-strokes of colour – deep and bold – to the canvas of life.

So this time, this girl vouches to jump – even if it takes some time hanging out, all wound up, toes curled, on the edge of a metaphorical diving board. I can’t take this jump back, but I’ll see it through.