Spring for my Soul 🌻🌼🦋🌺

The past year has been like no other. The pandemic has hit us hard and has been a testing time for all of us in varying capacities. It has imparted some important, never-to-forget life lessons though. Almost forgotten things like patience, slowing down, resting, relaxing, family time seems to have been reintroduced in our lives and have gained much fan following ever since…

For me, this whole experience has definitely made me more patient, for the sake of mental peace compelled me to find more time for myself (even though I have a crazy and super stressful work life), indulge in trying out new hobbies…but the most important life lesson I got out of this whole pandemic situation has been this –

Finding Happiness in the little things.

Like the joy of a steamin cup of coffee, watching a good film, going through photo albums to immerse myself in a sea of nostalgia to reminisce the good ol’ days, seeing flowers bloom in my mini balcony, standing in the balcony to hear the birds chirping away, watching kids play in the garden below (and secretly hoping to join them in their game of hide and seek). Simple things. Mundane things. Things we probably did and do every day without even realising the inherent beauty of it. Without realizing how it actually appeases each of our senses.

Like the sight of a clear blue sky with puffs of white clouds floating about or the bloom of colourful flowers in my small garden is visual happiness. The aroma of my chef styled cooked chicken wafting through the air heightens and appeases my sense of smell. Eating it makes my taste buds happy. Holding on to my husband’s hands during a horror film is comfort for my skin craving human touch. Listening to my favourite songs at blasting volume is happiness for my ears. So you see, how the simplest things have so many hidden joys. All we have to do is experience it with all the senses we have been blessed with, and try to derive as much joy and happiness out of it as possible. More so now than ever, as Corona is still out there, waiting to catch hold of us. So we still have to spend a lot of time inside our homes before we can really go back to our old, carefree normal.

In addition to pleasing our senses, I have realized it is equally important to please our soul…to nurture and replenish it with copious amounts of love, laughter, sunshine, peace, tranquility and contentment. In any way that works best for you. For me, I have decided that I am going to savour the simple joys, enjoy the mundane, complain less, appreciate more…and also add some colour in my life.

Here’s a sneak peek of my new plant babies ushering in the joy, hope and colours of Spring not just in my little balcony..but also into my life. Spring for my Soul. 💐🦋🌺🥰💕

The first bloom 🌷🌷

To say that the last few days have been hectic is truly an understatement. Work has been all consuming, draining off every morsel of energy out of me. So much so, that I have been unable to blog as I just didn’t know what to write. I thought of writing about my hell of a work life. But then I realized it would be more of a ramble and would probably end up cursing my manager and using all kinds of profanities. But then who doesn’t have a boss to hate and bitch about. I guess many of you will have the same experience and wouldn’t want to be reminded of the same here. I mean this is our happy space and I didn’t want to give her an entry here (but I guess I already kind of have, haven’t I?). And what’s really the point. it’s not like she will read it and decide to stop her rampage of my mental peace.

So thats me most days, angry, frustrated, irritated (ask my husband😛), just pissed off for having to put up with a menace of a manager.

These days it’s become somewhat of a habit. As soon as I wake up, I run to the balcony. To see my beautiful plant babies. Basking in sunlight. Enjoying the chill in the morning breeze. Just watching them alive and thriving just gives a me a certain sense of peace and tranquility. So normally, I just stand in the balcony for a few minutes. starting the day with them. Watering them. Sometimes even talking to them. Sitting and soaking in the sun together. However today morning, I was in for a pleasant surprise.

My beautiful plant baby had this gift for me….the first bloom..and that too…a double whammy…

The unadulterated joy I felt , I possibly cannot put in words. To see all the hard work and care and nurturing..finally come to fruition..it was a joy, a Victory and a celebration for me alone to enjoy and savour. I sipped my morning tea watching the beautiful bloom. Determined to shower more care and nurture them so that they continue to bloom and bear more flowers. It energised me. And prepared me for another grueling day at work.

My Quest for a new ‘Talent’

Ever since the earth completed another revolution and we moved into 2021, I have been doing some introspection…mainly pertaining to my ‘talents’…. probably coz I off late I have been seeing lot of people posting pictures proudly displaying their talents whether it’s singing or dancing , knitting, painting, fitness or even stand up comedy….so that got me thinking..what are my talents?? 🤔🤔

Now whenever anyone asks me that, I very proudly and honestly tell them that my talents are sleeping, lazing around and binge watching Netflix..but then, come on, even I know they are not real talents these are not really talents.. certainly not ones I can display for the world to see and admire…so I go back to contemplate this basic question…what are my talents?

Can I dance? Well if you consider Chandler a good dancer, I guess am as good as him then 😅😅

Can I sing? Well am definitely a bathroom singer…but then who doesn’t sing in the shower. And the point of that is no one’s listening. But in public though I guess I won’t be much better than Janice serenading Chandler (yes ok maybe I should stop giving F.R.I.E.N.D.S references) but I guess it suffices to say that singing in public is definitely not my thing..and won’t be yours too if you are Listening 😛😛😛

Am I funny for a stand up piece? Well I have seen people’s funny side come out when when they have downed a couple of tequillas…but am told that won’t work for me. My husband says am a sad drinker who whines and cribs and abuses the shit out of people. Not the kind of funny I imagine I wanna be…

Can I paint? Well sure. Ever since kindergarten, I have been painting a hut with fences and a tree and mountains in the background with a sun and some birds…but sadly I realize even my 7 year old nephew can draw that…it’s like the AbC of painting and clearly I haven’t progressed beyond that to reach XYZ.

Can I put up fitness videos to inspire others? Yeah why the hell not. All I have to do for it is to become fit. Piece of cake right?…rather no piece of cake. Watching fitness videos , promising to start working on them from ‘tomorrow’ while eating ice cream…hmm… probably not what one would expect in a fitness video. So that’ll have to wait. Not today. But Someday.

So, in desperate need of a real talent, I ponder hard ….and finally have decided..that if I don’t have any real talents then I am going to create them by trying out different things and then will see if I am any good..if I see some potential, I will work on it. If not, I have to find another. But I will try and try until I really find something I can claim to be a ‘talent’..

So for now, upon careful analysis and watching many many tutorial videos, I have shortlisted 3 talents that I am gonna try out.

First, I have decided to revamp my balcony mini garden…I decided it needed a dash of color and some glamor. So I added some new plants to the garden…welcome home babies ❤️❤️

Next up, I was really intrigued by glass painting. I am yet to start, even with the purchase of the paints. But it’s happening for sure.. For now, Motivating my husband to gulp some beer so that I can get the bottles to experiment on. Talk about an ideal wife.😂😂

Lastly, to my utter joy, I found out that if one wants to paint and play with colours, then thankfully you needn’t be a Van Gogh or da Vinci to pull it off. I came across these number by paint canvasses where all I need to do is apply colors on the canvas based on the numbers instructed. And in no time one can have a masterpiece to their credit. Genius.

Well that’s the plan for now. Let’s see how that goes. What about you? Have you ever gone looking around for a ‘talent’? Do tell. Waiting to steal your ideas incase mine falls flat. Just kidding. Or not. 😀😀

Rebirth…

The other day I got some beautiful marigolds for decorating the house…once the celebrations were done and the flowers had served their purpose (guess I’d like to believe that, rather than it actually being true)..the idea dawned upon me…rather than throwing it away in the garbage, why don’t I put it back where it came from…the soil…so I put these flowers in the mud inside a small glass pot and began my daily routine of watering and careful monitoring of the progress if any (as I honestly wasn’t too optimistic about my gardening skills)..

For the next few days, I was a keen observer…carefully assessing if there is any development. Any signs of change in the soil or the sight of a slender, young green shoot popping its way out of the soil. No luck. When this continued for almost a week or so, honestly I was quite disheartened. My first attempt at gardening (or rather creating a new plant from old flowers) seemed to be a very obvious failure. Searches on YouTube showed how things had to be done with some technicalities in mind, which obviously I didn’t do..so I guess my optimism was running out.

However, I kept watering the soil..just in case…And imagine my surprise, when suddenly, probably after 2 weeks or so after starting off on this experiment, I see tiny young stems making their way out of the soil…talk about little things giving immense joy…that never felt more true…I had not only become an ace gardener (ok, yes I know am really exaggerating, but what the heck..pat on my back nevertheless 😛😛), but i also felt exhilarated that those dried up withered flowers (which I probably would have thrown away) were now going to blossom into beautiful flowers yet again…isn’t that what we call Rebirth…the miracle of nature?? 😊😊

This simple feat (yes I insist on calling it that) left me with several profound realisations… first being ‘Not to give up’..if I had stopped watering them midway seeing no progress, these little shoots would have literally never seen the light of day. That reamphasized the virtue of Patience (I tend to run out of it from time to time). It also reaffirmed my belief that its not always about being technically correct. Listening to your heart can also be equally fruitful. And most importantly, it gave me new sense of respect for the Cycle of life itself…we too are just like these flowers….we grow, we blossom, we thrive, we perish into the ground..only to be reborn again….just like these flowers, we too are eternal.

• “Sometimes you have to kind of die inside in order to rise from your own ashes and believe in yourself and love yourself to become a new person.” …

Now am just going to continue to shower my love and care (and of course other basics such as water and sunlight) to make sure these tiny leaves and shoots can grow stronger roots and eventually fill the pot with beautiful flowers. 😊💐