Trust

Just yesterday I wrote something about trusting children and life, and today Life decides to give me a test on that! Much like a surprise test that teachers throw on us at school :)

I had gone down to meet a friend who was visiting and in my other friend's house, a few floors below where I live. Raghav decided to stay home on his own, as he has been doing quite often these past few months. I have stopped giving instructions to Raghav every time I leave the house when he is alone.

He doesn't know my mobile number or anyone else's by heart, but he knows where my friend lives. There is a sheet near the phone where I have listed out all the important numbers, which he knows about, but has never used. There has not been a need to do that. Nor have I felt a need to simulate a situation like that. So I really don't know how he would react in an emergency and what he would actually do. I don't know if he would be able to handle that. But I know that he will be taken care of by life. I know that that is all I can do - inform him about some of the choices he has. The rest is up to him. This shift happened recently when he on his own expressed a desire to be home by himself, while I did short, quick errands. And I knew that because it came from him, he probably knows what he can do and handle, much better than I would ever know about him.

This afternoon, while I was catching up with my friends on old times - I was meeting one of them after many many years - I lost all track of time. We were busy chatting away and suddenly the doorbell rang. Raghav was at the door! He told me how he thought I was taking longer than usual, and that he wanted to come and call me. He said that he had taken the stairs instead of the lift, because he felt safer doing that. This was the first time he was doing something like this. It was a huge moment for me.

He then got impatient waiting for us to finish talking and decided that he wanted to go home and bring his iPad along. I was wondering what to do, because I had only one key. For a few moments, I felt fear.....a fear of what would happen if I gave him the key and he forgot to bring it back when he stepped out again.....we would not be able to get back into the house then! I realised that the fear was that I could not trust him with the key. I was scared that he would be lost in his thoughts or world and just put it in the keys basket, like he usually does, out of habit, and not pick them up before leaving home again. I was scared that he would just forget about the keys. Once I touched this fear, the solution popped up on its own. I asked him if he had a pocket in his shorts where he could put the keys into, as soon as he opened the door. He looked, smiled and said yes, putting the keys in. I reminded him again as he stepped out of my friend's house, to put the keys in his pocket, with a little more confidence that whispered to me: "We will see what to do if that does not happen. Don't worry."

A few minutes later, Raghav was back with his iPad. I was relieved that he had brought the keys with him, while he very matter-of-factly said: "yeah...the keys are in my pocket," and plonked himself on the sofa, immersed in his racing game.

I realised that even when I did not quite trust him, myself and life in those few moments, I actually had no choice but to trust. Yes, I could have put my foot down and asked him to wait till I could go with him. But I  could not do that. Because deep down, I knew that this whole thing was about me and my being aware of my thoughts and my fears. It was something I had to allow to happen. For myself. For my son.

There is just no way we can be completely 'prepared' for emergencies, because no matter what you do to be prepared, it all depends on THAT moment and what you think, feel and do in the moment. In spite of all the talking and preparation, my son could have still forgotten the keys at home, or dropped them somewhere. How can I ever hope to prepare him for that?

It was a good experience for me today to reflect on my fears and my levels of trust. I love how Life gives me these surprise tests :) Life is my resident teacher, my friend and my guide.

You cannot prepare yourself for Life. 
You just have no choice but to trust it and live it. 
Completely.

I can cook...or rather, get someone to cook for me!

I have been thinking about my "home alone" time away from home, somewhere up in the hills, and for the first time in all these years, my dear son lets me go (atleast in his thoughts for now, until it actually happens ) without a whine or a tear and says "yeah, ok....but who will cook for me? Appa doesn't know how to cook.." I smiled, nodded and let it all brew for a while without trying to 'sort it out' for him. That was many days ago.

This morning, father and son have a long conversation about it on their own during a drive in the car, and then my dear son comes up to me later and says: " Amma, you can even go next week if you want! I am ok....maybe you can write down a few recipes for appa to follow...actually I know how to make a few things like cheese toast and chappathi frankie, and I have my Tarla Dalal book...I cannot make those on my own, but I can tell him how to make them for me....I know the ingredients and the method."

My heart melted. I do want to go away and be with myself so much.....but just these words from my son, makes me feel like I have gone away and come back. They set me free. And I am sure they set him free too.

And who says one HAS to learn how to cook and make a meal for oneself? Who says that it is an important life skill to teach or learn? There are so many ways to deal with challenges like these. Cooking for oneself is just one of the ways. There are many other ways. Why get stuck with one?

Minecraft and Letting Go....

I was stirring the pulao that I was cooking, soaking in the aromas of the vegetables and spices...soaking in my thoughts of some things that had come up in my recent conversations with a friend...watching my mind go into rewind as old memories that had settled down like fine dust, seemed to have suddenly been stirred....a whisper from somewhere inside seemed to now scream  to me - "Let go! Let go!"...Perhaps I should let go...

A few minutes later, I was sitting at my computer, when I read something with this quote ~

“A ship is always safe at the shore - but that is NOT what it is built for.”
~ Albert Einstein

Was that a signal for me? I wondered, as my eyes wandered up to meet the sea and the sky, that were drawing me into their arms. Was I ready to let go?
"You will know when you are ready, just as softly and naturally as your gaze shifted now to meet us", they seemed to say to me.

The still waters were disturbed by the ripples that were born from a quiet cry from Raghav. Something had upset him, while I was away with my thoughts. I went close to him, met his eyes with mine, and hugged him. His eyes were full of beads of tears, hanging in there on the edge. They seemed to be waiting for me to come and wipe them away. And then, Raghav shared what had happened.

He had been trying to build a recycling centre while playing MineCraft, and had used lava to fill in one of the containers. That proved to be a disaster as the whole building caught fire and would not stop. He was in tears.....desperately trying to put out the fire, as it was destroying everything that he had built! I realised as he was talking to the water, asking it to pour itself out fast and more, that the fire was REAL for him. He managed to build a wall around the place to prevent it from spreading. All along, tears streamed down his face. His  little world was being destroyed right in front of his eyes. He could not take that.

And then, he realised that in his urgency to put out the fire, he had poured too much water, and his recycling plant was already gone. Now he had a problem with too much water! So he started using gold blocks to build over the water. But that wouldn't work, as there was too much water and he could not figure out where it started and ended! So he had to build walls around it and turn it into a waterfall.

He then took a break and we spoke about how he was feeling. There were so many words that came up - 'anger', 'sadness', 'mad at myself', 'helpless' and some more. I was amazed at the vocabulary of emotions that he was feeling and now expressing. "I just don't even want to look at that waterfall", he told me. "It makes me very very sad when I see it." 

"The recycling centre is gone.....just gone!", he cried. I knew that feeling.....that feeling of saying goodbye to something that you loved dearly. Letting go is often hard. I was still struggling like him to let go of so many things.

Then he went on to reflect a little more -

"Atleast I am happy that I managed to build a wall, so that the fire didn't spread and destroy Creepville."

" I shouldn't have used lava, I shouldn't have put the wool next to the lava.....that's what made the fire spread, because that is inflammable....I should have used stone or gold blocks instead."

"I made a mistake, but atleast it was not big enough to destroy everything that I had built!"

I got back to the pulao that was cooking on my stove, while he settled down to give the finishing touches to the waterfall that he had created out of the disaster. He then came up to the kitchen with tears in his eyes and held up his iPad to show me something. Right near the wall that he had built around the waterfall, he had made a little board in memory of the disaster that read: " The great fire of creepville took place here :( "

We hugged each other and shared a few silent tears. We were both in the same boat...

Perhaps he had learned to let go...

I am still learning... 

I wonder if we would know and be able to feel the beauty of the present moment, if we had no memories and things to let go of.

Letting go is beautiful...much like the wispy dreams that you hold in your heart and set free into the heart of the Universe....memories may come back to haunt you again some other time, some other day....and in that coming back, you will also remember the sweetness of how you chose to let go....