Lessons I don't want to learn!!!

In life sometimes, surprises come in the most unusual ways. And since it is surprise, it surprises you! Yet after a while you realize that probably you were actually prepared for it, for after the initial astonishment, shock, disbelief, numbness, self- doubt – all rolled into one, it emerges that you knew it was coming but the only thing which was the ‘surprise’ part was that you did not know when it would come and in which form.

I have thus had the fortune and good luck of being handed out ‘surprises’ by life which have all had one or all of the emotions I have just enumerated above.

There have been infinite such experiences and moments as I grew up and as I studied which sometimes stumped me or egged me on to better myself. All were remarkable learning moments which remain unforgettable. However, several remain etched in memory which looking back I can list out as being significant and important as well.

Every moment in life is like a relic - significant because it leaves a mark and you remember it, the sad or happy in it is secondary, the mark remains. Milestone years in our lives shape up who we ultimately become and even though at that moment we feel it has not scratched any part of our psyche then, we are so wrong, for they anchor us to the past and make up for a lesson learnt.

The gigantic ‘anchor’ sculpture at Bluff seems to anchor the town just outside the southern seas!!

People and their reactions, places and their effect, situations and their outcomes – all stay with us and help us to react and act in all our future actions. Some of us learn and avoid situations or rather our responses to them, if we had not liked the responses then – either with us or someone else. Events which often remain frozen in memory but vivid nonetheless.

The cold of the southern island in New Zealand did not spare the spiders web, making it look as elegant as a crystal necklace!

And each time I go through an experience – I always analyse the situation for myself and what it has done to me. A habit I developed when young and it has helped me keep myself from falling into an abyss of spiralling moping. I see people, places and situations and I react, no doubt, but I question it, I evaluate my response to it, I dissect the before and the after, I consider my options in both the scenarios and then I find myself ready to react & respond, for our response happens only when the people we are close to change their colours.

The slowly changing fall colours of the trees in Perth is a natural phenomenon which everyone is used for it happens each year in the same pattern – Thank Goodness nature doesn’t thumb its nose at us when we least expect it!

Each episode in our life teaches us something worthwhile and it helps to pay heed to the voice in our heads, something I have come to call: my heart talking to me, my instinct. That uncanny gut feeling when you know about something, realize about someone and feel about a situation as being either weird, not right or absolutely bang on! There’s a plan according to which all episodes in our life happen. We may understand some immediately, for others we may take some time but always I have found on hindsight that that ‘plan’ was perfect and Wow! That’s how it was meant to be, and I’d not have had it any other way!!!

The cherry blossoms in Queenstown happen according to a plan……

….and so, do the apple blossoms in our backyard!

No one steps out of line, each gives the other space and time, and each has its breath-taking beauty which leaves us in awe – I wonder why we cannot give each other space & time, for each of us are unique and breath-takingly different from the other???

I have learnt to be simple and humble, honest and true, genuine and caring, sensitive and intuitive, always putting others before me and if they happen to be friends then my indulgence of them is complete. Thoughtfulness and kindness come from a pure heart, my grandmother always said to me and her words resonate in my ears as I deal with situations each day.

 For the grasp of the nuances of life and its little effects & repercussions were so well understood by her and what seemed liked unnecessary lecturing when I was young, hold me in good stead today. As I see my days ahead in this world, I cannot but forget the lines my mom wrote for me in my autograph book, as I got one for myself, to get my friends and teachers to write something for me.

“Your life lies before you, she wrote, like a sheet of driven snow, be careful how you tread on it for every mark will show!” Every moment as I live my days here on planet Earth, (love my Drama Queen dialogues!!) these words keep resonating somewhere back there in my head and have always made me to think before I act.

The rays of the rising sun give the perfect and dramatic lighting to another day in paradise!

….and the wine valley of Cromwell teams up with the sun and its lighting to cast a spell on everyone who beholds its mind-blowing beauty….

…….While the Wakatipu lake mirrors the spectacular environs around, in its mystic but remarkably pristine waters……

…..…which extend right up to Glenorchy which is the gateway to some of the most splendid hiking trails!

Our wandering feet take us there each time we visit New Zealand and seems the implausible is always pulsating and waiting to happen right there!!!

The ways of the world and the conduct of its inhabitants – the two-legged ones – Oh, further clarifications so as not offend the Ostriches and the Emus which I have so grown to love over the past few years – with speech developed so that they can communicate in a coherent language – those kind of inhabitants are very difficult to understand and decipher. I think we would need to be archaeologists good in their knowledge of how to dig deep and with precision to unravel the mysteries of the weird human brain.

We know we bring in nothing and we know we take back nothing either but in between it all we are forever at each other’s throats, money or peace of mind in a futile race to scramble to some higher space – a ‘higher space’ which is an illusion and a mirage, for it could be hitting the pillow and sleeping the sleep of the just for one while it could be another certificate or another designation, for another year in some record in some obscure government file for someone else or laughing and being with friends in their smallest celebrations for yet some others.

For me its almost always the plainest of things like feeding the ducks on the lake front in Queenstown or……

……enjoying playing fetch with a canine friend who stubbornly decided that being friends with us was the only thing he really wanted that day!!!

And I prefer to understand and solve puzzles like this one which help me to preserve and do something to safeguard my planet for my child, for he’s the future I have dreamt off in my today…..

…and the person I want to hand over the keys to, of all the mysteries I have unravelled or probably not!!!

Whilst we pass time in our lifetimes, bumbling along either aimlessly or with purpose, we all cross the paths of innumerable people.

Some who become our family, some our friends, some mere acquaintances, some foes, some our colleagues, some keep oscillating between neither this nor that or both or all or some of each and the combinations change so fast that sometimes it’s difficult to keep a track of who’s who and with whom. Sometimes the equations are so hilarious, sometimes they are the perfect fit, sometimes its about mere convenience, while on other occasions it is amalgamations and hastily put together mishmashes, sometimes the blends are heady and intoxicating, but one thing remains a constant: the emotion of trust.

All relationships run on this single sense which sustains a relationship or doesn’t in all its entirety.

………. sometimes usual situations merit atypical implementations which help relieve the burden of the mundane from our daily life like the washrooms in the Bill Richardson’s Transport World – the World’s largest private collection of automobiles - truly transports you like the rest of the museum into a world of mesmerizing charm.

Tulips and I are a perfect fit for they elevate my mood to an instant high bringing back with them memories of years gone by in the land for which Amir Khusrau had said:

Agar firdaus bar roo-e zameen ast,
Hameen ast-o hameen ast-o hameen ast

(If there is a paradise on earth,
It is this, it is this, it is this)

……………….here they are standing tall in the immaculately manicured lawns of Queens Park in Invercargill …

…. mesmerizing and hypnotising all passer-by’s’ as they enthral on each intersection and…..

…each garden nook in this captivating town!

The other charmers do not want to be left behind and their flamboyant colours lend the gardens the vivaciousness of a fairy-tale !!!

While I float on, probably not amongst the clouds, as William Wordsworth said but amongst the thrilling and dreamlike environs on a beautiful land….I find to my amazement ….

…..”all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze” the Daffodils

And “then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils”

On all my trips and my journeys both in the literal sense and poetic too, amongst my workplace and the circus called Life, I look for lessons learnt, and moments discovered, I look for emotions absorbed and understanding acquired, I look for answers ascertained, and memories collected. Then I sieve through all the amassed emotions and experiences encountered to make sense of all my understandings.

And as I look back each time at this circus called Life, along with infinite experiences which I cherish as I amass them on all such journeys, several more occurrences I seem to collect and many more lessons I seem to learn which I’d rather have not!!!