This day belongs to our men in blue---I mean the Indian cricket team. I cannot do anything without saying what a wonderful match it was to watch. They were magnificently contained and mature. Dhoni makes an excellent captain, Gary Kirsten as coach has done a magnificent job. It has been a long time coming this World Cup.
We have been quite impervious to the goings on in the world outside. I do keep half an eye on it though, as I glance through NY Times that lands every morning in my inbox.
"It is the best of times, and the worst of times...." all over the world. Here in India we are already into blistering summer, while half way across the globe in Summit, NJ, it is snowing, and bitterly cold. Difficult to envisage that when we are half way into melting in the heat. Being cocooned in air conditioning does the body more harm than good ---I have realized this grudgingly.
I love the change of seasons and the anticipation it brings. The lovely tender shades of green ,that initially make an appearance on trees very soon turn into lush, dark, greens. I loved that in Summit. To see the world waking up as if from deep sleep, the juices running, the sap rising, the crocuses raising their heads, the breathtaking sudden vision of daffodils, the dogwood, the robin on the lawn...I just love the joyousness of Spring in NJ!!
In the Southern hemisphere where I live there is not much of seasonal change in the landscape. North India has more variety where seasons are concerned.
But the North East of America is something else. Reading Whitman's "Leaves of Grass" in grad school I came upon, "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloomed" realizing thirty years later on what it really meant. The fragrance of lilac is something that remains within you mixing "memory and desire",and longing, in a way impossible to know if you have never experienced it. I did at Summit. There is one lonely lilac near the garage, and it bloomed filling the air with a sad, albeit heavy fragrance that ran like a leitmotif through the season. Dredging up memories ......
And the molly cotton tails that bob around on the grass at Easter time. They are absolutely adorable!
The quality of light is different too. A clear, almost illuminating light! I could understand then the poetry that Spring inspired after the drab, greyness of winter.
I think of all that sitting here in Chennai. This earth is such a wonderfully joyous place and time after time, periodically, we are called upon to give thanks for the privilege of being on this planet.
I give thanks to Nature, her bounty, her beauty, her harmony and the manner in which we are nurtured---unawares.
"For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils."
William Wordsworth, The Daffodils
We have been quite impervious to the goings on in the world outside. I do keep half an eye on it though, as I glance through NY Times that lands every morning in my inbox.
"It is the best of times, and the worst of times...." all over the world. Here in India we are already into blistering summer, while half way across the globe in Summit, NJ, it is snowing, and bitterly cold. Difficult to envisage that when we are half way into melting in the heat. Being cocooned in air conditioning does the body more harm than good ---I have realized this grudgingly.
I love the change of seasons and the anticipation it brings. The lovely tender shades of green ,that initially make an appearance on trees very soon turn into lush, dark, greens. I loved that in Summit. To see the world waking up as if from deep sleep, the juices running, the sap rising, the crocuses raising their heads, the breathtaking sudden vision of daffodils, the dogwood, the robin on the lawn...I just love the joyousness of Spring in NJ!!
In the Southern hemisphere where I live there is not much of seasonal change in the landscape. North India has more variety where seasons are concerned.
But the North East of America is something else. Reading Whitman's "Leaves of Grass" in grad school I came upon, "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloomed" realizing thirty years later on what it really meant. The fragrance of lilac is something that remains within you mixing "memory and desire",and longing, in a way impossible to know if you have never experienced it. I did at Summit. There is one lonely lilac near the garage, and it bloomed filling the air with a sad, albeit heavy fragrance that ran like a leitmotif through the season. Dredging up memories ......
And the molly cotton tails that bob around on the grass at Easter time. They are absolutely adorable!
The quality of light is different too. A clear, almost illuminating light! I could understand then the poetry that Spring inspired after the drab, greyness of winter.
I think of all that sitting here in Chennai. This earth is such a wonderfully joyous place and time after time, periodically, we are called upon to give thanks for the privilege of being on this planet.
I give thanks to Nature, her bounty, her beauty, her harmony and the manner in which we are nurtured---unawares.
"For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils."
William Wordsworth, The Daffodils
It's all yet to happen.
ReplyDeleteI enjoy reading your write-ups Parvathi I feel you should be sitting on the other side--the writer's desk and not on the copyeditor's table!
ReplyDelete