Of Poems and Gardens

water your plants/ save spaces to breathe/ ease closed fists/ one finger at a time/ let the wind hold your face/ between cool palms/ unfurl the trees within your gardens/ let them spread their arms to the sky/ and know that/ from where they stand/ the sum total of the world’s troubles/ is a big round 0

It has taken me quite a while to sit down and sit still to write this piece. I told myself, straight from the heart. So here it is.

It is quite sunny outside. I can see the trees beyond the backyard and some of the blue sky that the trees allow. Today when I was taking a walk, I saw an orange helicopter and did not think much of it. I also saw an abandoned stroller by the pathway that went down to the brook and did think a lot about it. This seemed like a perfect setting for an Agatha Christie novella. A woman was walking down the path in front of me. Was she the mother? Where was the child? Did she get second thoughts about being a mother? Did my mother ever feel that way when things got hard as they surely must have? My mind went back to the detective stories my mother is so fond of reading.

For as long as I can remember, I have wanted a peaceful, an almost uneventful life. I am lazy that way. I have these moments when I crave velocity and change but they never last long. When I am taking a walk, out among the trees teeming with birds, squirrels, and the occasional hopping rabbit (or if I get lucky, then a cat), I feel most at home. These are the only kinds of events I need. The lull of the sea waves, a group of sparrows hopping and crossing my path, watching my love as he sleeps and turns towards me, laughing endlessly with my brother reenacting the antics of Yakul from Princess Mononoke, or watching the sunset at the harbor with my parents. I crave a simple uneventful life in a world that wants to fill itself up, cram in all possible experiences.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t hate new experiences. I welcome them. But I find the slow pace of my life soothing. I do not wish to run. I do not wish to plan too much. I cannot be everywhere all at once so I want to be where I am 100%.

Once, as I was sitting by the sea and it was getting dark, I chanced upon a song about dying. More exactly, the last moments before death. And suddenly, I felt like I was waking up from a dream. How could I possibly forget? That everything was temporary. That in this world, we are only given a moment and we must reach out and touch the core with all sincerity of our being. What would you do in your last moments? What would you hold close? Believe me. Think about this long enough and it changes everything. On my way back home, I looked at the trees of the forest in a different light. I felt they had been here long before us. And that was true. They had such grandeur, such magnificence. I felt like I had come to a primitive untouched world. That I was simply passing by. They would still be here. They towered above me so, like gods. Seen from this perspective, all of a sudden everything I was doing so far, everything that I fretted about or took pride in seemed like nothing. New found beliefs were born. What was truly important. I felt I had not seen it so clearly before. All that noise that came like a strong electric current through so many devices had always added to the numbness. And yet, a stream had found its trickling way through.

Outside, the trees are moving in agreement. It is one lazy afternoon. Perfect for telling this story.

I am a loner at heart. I have tried to fight my nature. I have forced myself into friendships that I could never sustain. I tend to guard my solitude ferociously. I feel drained too easily. One moment, I am in awe of my company and the next, I find myself receding, moving deeper into the background. That is what I want. To smudge myself into the background. If I could, I would love to talk through the walls to a perfect stranger next room. As long as I didn’t have to meet.

If anything, insecurities whenever they crop up, tend it hit me deeply though on the surface it may not appear that way. Maybe it is because I take my time dissecting the way I feel and try to understand why my mind and body react in the way that they do to different things. Maybe it is because of such intense examination that the smallest of events can be so overly stimulating for me.

I have talked before about planting your own garden, but usually in poetry. Today, more than ever before, I feel grateful for the garden that I and the people who love me planted around me. You can plant different things in your garden; memories and moments that bring you joy. They can be silly; they can be meaningless to others. But if they matter to you, place them with love and care inside the fold of your garden. Pour sunlight on it every single day you feel content. Give it rain on days when your thoughts are full. And some day, when your heart is heavy, this garden will be there, warm and ready to welcome you.

We all have our gardens. We all have planted things in our life that bring us joy. To tell the truth, often it’s the simplest of things. Like I love washing rice, feeling my fingers against the grains dipped in water. I love cutting cheese or butter slabs into little cubes. I love the smell of fresh laundry, freshly cut grass. The coolness of the night air against my face. Sleeping in my childhood bed. The smell of my mother’s warm hands. Long hugs and naps. The voices of the people I love.

Our day to day lives inevitably fill up with wonderful things. We don’t need to look elsewhere. Around us, there is a significant abundance waiting to be looked upon. How can you look upon a tree moving in the breeze and think nothing of it but fret about something you saw in an online advertisement? The tree outside begs to be looked at. It is charged with so much reality, so much history. And life.

I feel like I am relearning a lot many things that I had completely forgotten about, the significance of which is never taught to us. I often used to wonder about very elemental things or facts that some of us might have missed solely because we happened to be absent from class. For me, it was the lesson about the Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama. Nothing too elemental and yet what if it was about other stuff. Stuff that really mattered. This brings to mind a poem I read a few years back:

 “What You Missed That Day You Were Absent from Fourth Grade” by Brad Aaron Modlin:

“Mrs. Nelson explained how to stand still and listen
to the wind, how to find meaning in pumping gas,
how peeling potatoes can be a form of prayer. She took
questions on how not to feel lost in the dark.
After lunch she distributed worksheets
that covered ways to remember your grandfather’s
voice. Then the class discussed falling asleep
without feeling you had forgotten to do something else—
something important—and how to believe
the house you wake in is your home. This prompted
Mrs. Nelson to draw a chalkboard diagram detailing
how to chant the Psalms during cigarette breaks,
and how not to squirm for sound when your own thoughts
are all you hear; also, that you have enough.
The English lesson was that I am
is a complete sentence.
And just before the afternoon bell, she made the math equation
look easy. The one that proves that hundreds of questions,
and feeling cold, and all those nights spent looking
for whatever it was you lost, and one person
add up to something.”

I am grateful for the moment when I looked around me, really looked, and found myself rich. If you really take a look around you, you will see it too. You already have enough. It is true. And now you can begin to give back. Of course, there will still be moments when the world’s speed will get to you, make you feel like you are lagging behind in some way. A restlessness to hop on the mad train. But take your time. Always take your time. Hold the hands of your loved ones. Take time to enjoy the sun sets.

For there is no need to rush when everything is right there, around you.