#279:

“I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious.” -Albert Einstein

Dear reader,

I’m back in Bangalore, which is 14 degrees cooler than Calcutta. And it’s certainly hard to work. I want to daydream and rest, to stay under the blanket and read. I’m pleasantly surprised that this newsletter is even getting written.

Today, I’m pondering the meaning of these words by Bertrand Russell:
“The time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.”

With my ADHD and forever-meandering interests, life has pulled me in a hundred different directions. But I can’t say I mind, for it has shaped me and led me to be the person I am today. A person with fairly decent boundaries, who knows how to be present (on most days) and with a curiosity-fuelled self-inquiry alive and kicking. A person who has pretty much given up on emails and enjoys the freedom from her inbox but also appreciates the irony of this newsletter ending up in your inbox. Heh. (Also, sorry not sorry to everyone waiting on a reply, maybe I’ll respond someday.)

On this Wednesday afternoon, as I sit inhaling the smell of fried bhindi and dal softening in the pressure cooker, I’m curious what you like ‘wasting’ time on. For me, it’s poetry, plants, cat videos and Tumblr. Et toi?

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Poetry Corner

Undergrowth In Spring by Felix Vallotton

A few incredible poems that came my way.

1. Love by Kamala Das
   Until I found you,
   I wrote verse, drew pictures,
   And, went out with friends
   For walks…
   Now that I love you,
   Curled like an old mongrel
   My life lies, content,
   In you…

2. Sojourns in the Parallel World by Denise Levertov
   We live our lives of human passions,
   cruelties, dreams, concepts,
   crimes and the exercise of virtue
   in and beside a world devoid
   of our preoccupations, free
   from apprehension -- though affected,
   certainly, by our actions. A world
   parallel to our own though overlapping.
   We call it "Nature"; only reluctantly
   admitting ourselves to be "Nature" too.
   Whenever we lose track of our own obsessions,
   our self-concerns, because we drift for a minute,
   an hour even, of pure (almost pure)
   response to that insouciant life:
   cloud, bird, fox, the flow of light, the dancing
   pilgrimage of water, vast stillness
   of spellbound ephemerae on a lit windowpane,
   animal voices, mineral hum, wind
   conversing with rain, ocean with rock, stuttering
   of fire to coal--then something tethered
   in us, hobbled like a donkey on its patch
   of gnawed grass and thistles, breaks free.
   No one discovers
   just where we've been, when we're caught up again
   into our own sphere (where we must
   return, indeed, to evolve our destinies)
   -- but we have changed, a little.

3. In Silence by Nathalie Delay 

   It’s interesting to observe how hard it is to stay alone,
   in silence, without distractions.
   We are afraid to be face-to-face with ourselves.
   Face-to-face with our impatience, our agitation, our worry.
   Face-to-face with the depth of our being.
   We are afraid to dive into the infinite space of our true nature,
   when no attribute nor any -  story covers it up.
   And yet it calls to us in silence,
   but we don’t listen.
   And yet we have an acute and painful longing for it,
   like exiles too long cut off from their homeland.
   So, instead of trying to fill the space which has appeared,
   let us give ourselves over to silence, to the absence of certainty.
   Let us not miss the incredible opportunity to be,
   in all simplicity and humility
   and taste the nectar of pure presence
   when there are no more expectations, only the gift of self.
   Let us not miss the unique chance to taste the substance of the moment
   when no superfluous activity waters it down.

   

   Absent Portrait (Retrato ausente) by Manuel Alvarez Bravo

4. Death Again by Jim Harrison
   Let’s not get romantic or dismal about death.
   Indeed it’s our most unique act along with birth.
   We must think of it as cooking breakfast,
   it’s that ordinary. Break two eggs into a bowl
   or break a bowl into two eggs. Slip into a coffin
   after the fluids have been drained, or better yet,
   slide into the fire. Of course it’s a little hard
   to accept your last kiss, your last drink,
   your last meal about which the condemned
   can be quite particular as if there could be
   a cheeseburger sent by God. A few lovers
   sweep by the inner eye, but it’s mostly a placid
   lake at dawn, mist rising, a solitary loon
   call, and staring into the still, opaque water.
   We’ll know as children again all that we are
   destined to know, that the water is cold
   and deep, and the sun penetrates only so far.

5. Our Real Work by Wendell Berry

   It may be that when we no longer know what to do
   we have come to our real work,
   and that when we no longer know which way to go,
   we have begun our real journey.
   The mind that is not baffled is not employed.
   The impeded stream is the one that sings.

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Links of the Week

• Look: Old Japanese matchbox labels

• Look: Chewing gum wrappers (found on Design is Fine)

• Chuckle: Forbidden Toys

• Read: Frank Chimero’s list of stuff he learned in his 30s

• Watch: Edd Carr’s animations use plant-powered processes to explore our ecological crisis

• Listen: Cindy Lee’s new album, Diamond Jubilee

• Want: this Elephant Teapot!

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from Vadim Kurchevskiy’s My Green Crocodile

“I do believe in an everyday sort of magic - the inexplicable connectedness we sometimes experience with places, people, works of art and the like; the eerie appropriateness of moments of syncronicity; the whispered voice, the hidden presence, when we think we’re alone.”
—Charles de Lint

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See you next week, stranger.

Wishing you plants that thrive and a life worth celebrating,
Rohini