As I
sit gingerly on my wobbly chair which threatens to dismantle at any moment and
give me a crash course, I can see the winter’s first snow decorating the trees
in virgin white. The sky is soft grey whereas everything else down below is
sparkling white. Snow has covered every ounce of space and matter with its crispy
flakes except for one autumn tree which somehow is still managing to find a way
to showcase its bright orange autumn leaves. I intend to sit here for a while and
see how this battle unfolds.
A note
of caution to anyone who is brave enough to read my ramblings: The beauty
outside is really distracting me and hence my writing might not be very
coherent. I hear some of you go: when has it ever been! Anyways… it has been
half an hour and the orange tree is still showing off. Wind has come to its aid
and is blowing away the snow that is still determined to conquer the last
remnant of color. I am still rooting for the tree as a dash of orange in this
ocean of white seems so invigorating.
Time
seems to stand still as I witness beauty unfold itself in front of me in
breath-taking fashion. I start to reflect. Something I haven’t done in a while.
The last time I penned down my thoughts was more than two years ago. I wrote a
piece about memories and the importance of keeping them alive and sharing them.
I made a promise to let the ink in my pen go dry, only to turn around and break
that promise.
The
snow storm that is unraveling outside my little window reminds me of life
itself. Our life is filled with a myriad moments we don’t find time to sit back
and relish. So many things happen in so little time and if we don’t take the
time to reflect, we lose those moments in the whirlwind of time. It is a shame because
a lot of those moments are priceless and we would love to cherish and
crystallize them in some form or the other. But we keep running all the time.
We don’t know the destination. We don’t know the path we ought to take. And in
the end, we don’t even know where we started. We just keep running in the
direction of the light, not looking back for once and not being able to see
forward in the dark. In reality, we are running so fast that we miss the
scenery on the way.
This
mad run is reminiscent of my life for the last two years. There have been
several magical moments which have filled my heart with unimaginable joy. Life
has never been better. But then I have never had the time to relax, sit back
and run those memories from my mind through the lens of my eyes on to the
projector in my heart, push pause, rewind and play again. It may not seem like
a big thing but if you think about it, ten years down the line I might have a
hard time recounting these amazing memories. I don’t want them to fade away in
the continuum of time. I want to immortalize them through the camera of my mind
or the canvas of my pen.
I feel
like that lonely tree trying to battle the massive army of snow. It is trying
so hard not to lose its color, to stand out and not to be overshadowed like
everything else around. It is very similar to our struggles in life. We run
around doing things that we are supposed to do but ignore the things that we
like to do. We go through the motions in our day, brushing through the little
joys that it offers, never really freezing ourselves in the moment to enjoy them.
Our days are filled with so many beautiful little specs of joy, but we don’t allow
ourselves ample time to treasure them.
As I
see the lonely tree still proudly displaying its bright orange, I am filled
with a desire to ask more from life and give more to it and those around me. Stillness
can help clear the clouds inside our mind and see beauty and greatness in the
smallest of things. The snow will clear soon. The tree will still be there and
so will be the blood orange leaves. If only we are still there to admire it!
On a
completely different note, I got to replace this damn chair.
