The first grey hair….

There are many milestones in life, which bring about significant change – going to full-day school, leaving home for university, getting your own car, getting married, having children and many more.

However, there are some milestones, which don’t impact or change one’s life dramatically, but are talked about quite a lot.

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A few months ago, one of my friends called me to say that she had found the first grey hair on her head. We talked about the momentous event, as I gave her the story of my first grey hair.

“Seeing the first grey hair” is when life pauses for a brief moment in time, and in that brief moment, we think deeply about what was, and where we have come. Just a grey hair, but we suddenly feel the weight of responsibility, a sense of time ticking away.

So also, when we turn forty, and realize that half our life is over. We vow to put the remaining years to good use, vow to keep fit, and do all those things that we’ve always wanted to do!

Sometimes, when the kids come back from school, and you suddenly realize that they seem to have grown overnight, and that they will be heading to University in a couple of years.

Life has this knack of throwing such moments at us; moments that stop us in our tracks and make us take stock of where we have reached, and the journey that brought us here.

These moments also make us more grateful, and more determined to take on what’s coming.

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‘Creating’ memories

The days are flying, and there are days when time seems to have vanished between sunrise and sunset. I try to recall what I did or what I ate, but I am simply not able to remember. Where did the day go?

However, I can easily identify every single classmate of mine from old school photos. I can remember the lyrics to most of the songs we heard as children.

But now, when someone asks me to sing any new song, I can only remember the tune, and I make up my own lyrics on the fly, much to the embarrassment of my children.

Earlier this week, I was a participant in an event, where our group performed a medley of songs.

We had lots of fun preparing for the event. However, all of us had a problem with our memories and the lyrics. For the first few days we used papers and our phones.

But as with everything else, confidence comes only if we are word perfect. So we tried our best to do away with the papers and our phones.

But this presented another problem – this effort required absolute concentration, where we could not allow even a stray thought to intrude into our minds.

One stray thought and the lyrics just flew away, leaving us opening and closing our mouths like fish, trying desperately to get the lyrics back into our heads.

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What happened to those memory chain games where a group of us sat and reeled off names of animals or fruits and added a new animal or fruit to the already long list?

These days, if I don’t remember to write things down, there is a 100% chance that they will be washed away from my memory, making sure to come back and haunt me in the future.

Once I make my lists, I need alarms on my phone as back up. What if I don’t remember to see the list?

And this is how it is now, my life, trying to ‘create’ memories of simple, everyday things.

The calm and the storm !

The forties have rolled around, and my husband and I are increasingly conscious about our health and its maintenance.

From cardio to healthy eating, and ‘working out’ the steps walked, and our heart rates and all kinds of statistics, we have all the gadgets to track our progress, and to gently boost our egos.

And no, we have not forgotten the ‘taming of our minds’ or our inner well being. We are working on these too!

However, this post is not about all this. This post is about why husbands should not meditate in the mornings.

So, a few days ago, my husband learnt a new technique of meditation.  He loved what it did for him during the training, and weekend practice sessions.

And on a crazy Monday morning, when the house was torn in two, and I buzzed from room to room, cooking, waking kids up and finding lost papers and socks, my sprint from the kitchen to the master bedroom came to a sudden halt – for, in the middle of the room, resting on the floor in a lotus pose, was hubby dear, breathing deep and inhaling peace and calm and feeding them to his every pore. He was oblivious to the world and needless to say, my presence.

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I crept behind him to open the wardrobe. It let out a mild creaking sound. I closed it and rushed out. My breath  came out in short bursts as my annoyance bubbled. Here I was rushing like a whirlwind and….

At the breakfast table, I hinted to my husband to take his meditative efforts to the guest room, so that he would not be in my way. He complied.

The next morning, as the whirlwind swept me from chore to chore, I realized that I needed some handtowels that I had stored in the guest room.

I gatecrashed the meditation. I slunk behind the calm, and opened the drawer to take the towels. I made various thudding and scraping sounds as I opened and closed the drawers..

I looked at my husband. He did not show any signs of having heard me.

At breakfast, I asked him if he could move to the living room, facing the balcony.

He tried that too…but the phone rang, the door bell rang, and the kitchen sounds probably got to him.

Haven’t seen him meditate in a while. Hmmm.