It’s Friday!

Fridays bring with them a lot of hope for fun and travel. Weekend to me means rest and fun. Every Friday, I plan to post some quotes and pictures I find on the net. This week’s theme is love and forgiveness. Why not learn to forgive others a little?

I love weekends because I get time to  be with myself. This weekend, I have loads of plans – reading, traveling and of course, writing.  Writing is high on my radar and I have more than three blogs to update. The other things include shopping and traveling to some nearby picnic spots. Hope you too have a lot of plans. Have fun and celebrate life. Happy weekend!

Writing in the Mind vs. Writing without the Mind

I’m an advocate of writing in the mind. I have always written every sentence in my mind before I put things on paper. There has not been a moment when my mind has not involved in the writing process. I write, edit, re-write, re-edit words in my mind before I look to type it out on paper.

But things are changing. I don’t write in my mind anymore. I do everything on paper. Words come straight to paper, without any editorial scrutiny by the mind. It works almost like automatic writing. I start typing out on a clean white word document without any preparation. No lengthy meditations or speculations. With keys under my fingers, I JUST write. This habit has made me a great writing machine. I know that what I have written needs a lot of editing, but that can be done later. Your inner critic should never put a stop to your writing flow. Never.

Epic movies and popcorn-darkness

I’m not a movie freak, but I love good movies like anyone else. Going to cinema halls is an interesting experience. You sit with the screen and its people for two hours and then return home to live with the same characters that night.

Hero - Chinese Movie

Once upon a time, a movie’s influence used to stay on for one or two days with me before fading away. But these days, you come out of the cinema hall and you’re a different person all together. Nothing of what happened inside that dark closed space happens outside it. It is almost like you live the movie, play your part (when you’re inside the theater), and cast off everything when you come out.

You are beautiful.

Yup, believe me, you are! Often we forget the beautiful aspect of our lives. We mess up things. Play shit with loved ones. Fight hell out of others. And do all things possible to make ourselves ugly. UGLY in all caps. We do everything in our capacity to present ourselves as the most wretched things on the earth. Our sore faces, spiteful tongues and above all, our merciless behavior (to ourselves) – we are done for months of pain, grudge and guilt. And guess what, we replay our ugliness again and again and again, to register it in our gray matter.

But, and thank God, life intervenes. Stops us. Polices us and gives us a break from the rut. It showers us with little moments of love. Moments of sunshine and honey. Moments that stay on forever and forever, affixed to happiness.

The Art of Losing

The art of losing by Elizabeth Bishop. Bishop is not my favorite. In fact, have never read her except in college. But this poem is simply awesome. Think you too will like it. Art of losing is indeed something we need to practice.

One Art

Elizabeth Bishop

The art of losing isn’t hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

Life’s Little Lessons: Missing Tom

I miss Tom, my handsome male cat very badly. It has been away for 5 nights now. There is not a place where we have not searched for it. My family is worried. My brother panicked. My mother praying. Father searching. Me – well, disastered. I love it very much and we share an intimate relationship with each other. Though I miss it very badly, something tells me that all is for the good.

My cat - Tom

From the time Tom and I got close, I have been thinking of this day. What will happen if something happened to Tom? How will I face it? In fact, I have thought (and prayed) several times that we should not know about Tom’s death in any case. If it has to leave us, let it run away and let us live in hope that it will return. This is because I know that Tom’s death would be earth-shattering for me and I would pass through a dry period of despair and emotional void following it. I did not want to face that. So, I presumed it is better to think it is somewhere and return some day.

Now, it has all been for the good. A loss makes you rigid. You steel yourself in some way or the other. You learn that pain is not that painful.