At cross roads

Its been months since I blogged here. So the first thing I did, was to revisit my last post. And it seemed to placate me after I had a bout of depression last afternoon about pretty much the same stuff, I promised myself not to worry about.

Reading my last post was like answering my own question. Thank God for blogging. It means the world has to see me cry or crib a lot less often.

However, I do want to reflect on my lost dream? what is it that I really want? What is it that pleases me and what makes me happy? What can I do to stop myself mulling?

So here goes a to-do list.

- I want to write. Whether it pays me or not, I like to write.I wish I was a teen again keeping a simple journal and having people fawn over it when they chanced to read it.

- I accept that to keep writing, I need money and I need recognition.
And so, I am going to do two writing projects to win me a little of both.
Starting with writing an article to be published in Little India. I somehow need that to justify that what I write is good enough to be read by people.

-And I want to compile articles for a publishing org that will pay me. A little more than the paltry 2 dollars everyone seems to promise.

- And I want to go back and volunteer. Because you cant do everything in life for money and fame. PAC, School and Mansion..here I come.

- And finally, the food club blog. That has a deadline of Aug 15th.

So much for now!

How Old Do I have to be...?

A friend's update on Facebook the other day on how old does one have to be before they realize what they really want got me thinking about this existential question.

As I approach my first wedding anniversary and leave behind my 28th birthday the question resonates with more than just laconic possibilities.Its a panic ridden, sweat inducing, mind numbing ? mark staring at you in the face, demanding a precise answer and Gawd! help you if you dither.

I have 3 years work experience to show and that's fast turning redundant with every passing day of unemployment.(And I am not sure how to write H4, cant work- as a reason on my resume). A sabbatical sounds better. Like I worked my ass off for 3 years and am now enjoying a well deserved but vaguely defined break while each friend's career update drives me into a frenzy about my non-status (literally, I hardly update my status since I do nothing, so I have nothing to say)

So going back to the question- when should i really be worried? Right now? At 30? Or when I can no longer look myself in the mirror? Or should I cast away this question with as much abandon as a kid would cast off his kite into the winds? Each of us knowing full well that questions such as these have no real answers and the right thing to do would be to let ourselves be buffeted by the wind any which way it pleases.

Its about the journey they say and right now those waters look stagnant too.An impasse to collect your past and think about your future.How about I use this question not to judge my age and my list of achievements but to ask myself if there's something out there worth doing and would I mind if it came to me only at 60.There is a chance that the peaceful mountains of Montana might help me become a bestseller or at the very best a blogger!

Or can I twist the question around and ask myself:
- How old do I have to be to know that family means everything to me and I would even sacrifice a career for it
- How old do I have to be to know that the older I get the more books I would have read and it could(humbly emphasize) have made me more wiser
-How old do I have to be to know that one of the wisest ways to have spent time is to have traveled to new places, tried new foods and made new friends and that none of this really requires a lot of money
- How old do I have to be to know that you may not have much, but what little you do have can be shared and when you do it makes you happy.So happy!
- How old do I have to be to know that there are no real answers just as there are no real questions?
-How old do I have to be.....?

The sighting of the fox kids

I admit I have never thought about wildlife for the past 27 years of my life. Not counting the National Geographic features or Animal Planet funnies, that is.

Life until now was about beating the rush hour, friends, gossip, home and sleep.

Back in Mumbai, the only animals I actually came across were raucous crows (I miss them in Hamilton. Out here we have ravens. Sleek, black, beady eyed...they look formidable, not shrewd), abandoned cattle and mangy, feisty street dogs.

Not surprisingly then, the sighting of the fox kids made me realise how alive with animals Hamilton, MT is. I am not talking about an edge of the jungle experience here. This is my house, kitchen window, backyard sighting.

There we were, biologist husband and I returning from grocery shopping. Mundane enough. And out scuttled a bushy tail disappearing into a pile of logs in the backyard. Fox!! We shouted simultaneously. Vixen, I was corrected later by the biologist mistah.

So over evening coffee, we tracked her movements. The zoom on the camera didn’t help so out came the binoculars. I know what you're thinking. Geeky! But I am glad that biologist husband does have some pretty cool arsenal for sightings.

There they were. Four furry fox feet. (Okay eight pairs actually! I just love the alliteration.)We spent the evening watching them prance about, chase their mother, each other, run in when it started pouring, out again when the sun shone brightly.

I watch out for them every morning. Worry about them when the t-storms occur in the afternoons here. Soon they'll grow up and before I know it they'll be gone. I wonder about their food, what the vixen is up to, how they sleep, eat and play.

I don’t remember thinking about the cattle in India going about their ‘bovinely’ existence in the middle of crazy traffic. I don’t remember thinking about the mangy street dogs until one of them howled into the night giving rise to rumours that Death was on the prowl. I don’t even remember thinking about the crows too much, although I did feed them occasionally.

But here in Big Sky Country (Thats what they call Montana) the place is teeming with animals. I have seen beavers swimming in the pond, burrowing through dirt, slicing of trees at the root to build their dams, I have seen noisy geese, robins of every variety, mallards and more.

But it isn’t a mindless seeing of things anymore. I experience them every day. I stand and watch as a flock of geese waits by the edge of the pond waiting to glide in even as the beaver cuts its way across the waters creating a beautiful ripple. I watch the herd of deer graze in my backyard. Sometimes one of them will look up startled and I watch them through the kitchen window wondering what it is that they can hear or see. Did the wind carry the sound of a coyote or the faint smell of wolf? Will they be safe? I count them periodically hoping that the numbers would add up everytime. I fear but I also learn that nature takes its own course.

The fox kids are a continuing example of the cycle of nature. Its birth, growth, nurture and a return back to its wild nature. I have learned not to interfere. I do not want to hold, pet or feed it. But I do want to see it. It is like my own private sanctuary sometimes.

So this is my new home. Fewer people, more animals. Fewer conversations, but silences that teach so much more.

I moved here from a chaotic, breathless city over three months ago. I have seen, explored and heard so much or so little, whatever way one prefers to look at life.

But the fox kids- they inspired me to write again.That in the end, is what I shall remember them for.