Transitions in Time

The other day I heard a theme song that always makes me pause. It's the melody from the movie “UP.” Just hearing it makes me misty eyed. It's a story that starts out with two children who don’t belong anywhere but start a lifetime adventure with a simple hello. They fall in love and get married. They still don’t belong anywhere except with one another and that’s enough for them. They have a goodbye when they lose the baby they so longed for. Another goodbye when the adventure they wanted they couldn't afford because life was happening. Then the ultimate goodbye when he loses his wife. Then comes a hello in the shape of a pudgy little boy scout that shows a curmudgeon a new way of living. 

I’ve had many hellos and goodbyes. One goodbye happened when I left everyone I knew for over a decade to start this new life of mine. New town. New baby. Outsider always. I found my way and then said goodbye a year later.

Another town. Once again an outlier. Finding my way not gracefully. This time I got to spend four years. The saying is every duty station is terrible for the first 7 months and then you find your groove and eventually end up loving it and then it’s time to move again. This one was hard to leave. I had made best friends. Neighbors who became family. I’ll never forget being on a plane with a six month old and three year old flying over the house I would never live in again. That goodbye hurt for years. Time, for me defined by the life before I had my family and what is now. 

A little over two years ago I had a beautiful hello. This beautiful spirit walked into class. She got on her mat and her practice was exquisite. I knew immediately we would be friends. I just hadn’t figured out how without being a stalker. Then she got a job teaching here. Serendipitous. That was my chance. Show her the ropes. Welcome her with open arms because I just knew there was something special about her. She’s a girl’s girl and so am I. 

We can talk about books. Family. Hardships. We didn’t have to have anything in common, we were nerds in our own right. We share a deep love for yoga. She knows her Sanskrit and I respect that. Urdvha prasarita eka Padasana. Secret language. It's actually just standing split. And when we would do our Sun salutations together thinking we would do the entire practice we would end up getting lost in our friendship. Giggles. Laying around. Sometimes tears. Often tacos. That’s yoga too. Then Covid hit, our friendship had to take a pause. So unfair because we knew one day she would be leaving. It was never permanent. She’s onto new adventures and being her friend has been a downright privilege.

That’s how it is with the people we love. It never feels like we have enough time with them. Hellos and goodbyes and all the in between are more precious when we know our time with them is limited. My husband always says to me he feels like he’s already in heaven. I chuckle and ask does it also feel like hell because I'm not easy to live with. I offend someone daily. He tells me that’s heaven too.  

Sometimes someone special enters our lives for a split second leaving us wanting more. Sometimes they’ve been standing in front of us all along, we just didn’t open our eyes wide enough. It seems we understand the fragility of life when death is imminent but the true measure of existence is in the smallest of moments. The laughs. The dinners. Hugs. The ways in which we take care of one another every day.  

Time an illusion. The hours, minutes, seconds here to keep us organized. Nothing is meant to stay the same. Temporary. Our joys, our sufferings, all temporary. When we understand the impermanence that is our lives, we are no longer chained to our suffering. The only certainty is death and even then we have an opportunity for a hello, keeping them closer than we ever imagined. 

What it is today won’t be what is tomorrow or what it will be in ten minutes. It will be different. It’s meant to be. All the amazing people I've said hello and goodbye to I've never forgotten because the indelible mark they've left on my life is the only thing that feels permanent.  

My sweet home

In my home everything has a home. 

In the living room hangs a demon mask from South India. A protector not an omen. Above it a National Geographic photograph of a young African Boy in his ceremonial headdress. Hand painted milagros above the French doors. A wall of Talavera crosses. Resin art depicting inner city communities. Opposing it paintings by Frederico Correa, one depicting a child bride attempting to escape the clutches of misogyny, the other a nude, up to the eye of the beholder to negotiate its story. Then there’s the gold wall. Oil landscapes of Virginia, Ed Fadool would be quite elderly now. Remembering talking about his life’s work every year at the arts festival. The oil painting of Joni Mitchell sitting with a glass of wine and a cigarette pondering life from both sides sits there too. Our floors covered in Turkish killims, few of them over 200 years old. On top my grandmother’s 100 year old teak chairs carefully restored. 

In the bedroom hangs a 150 year old  Thankha painted with one horse’s hair depicting the life of Sidhartha to Buddha. It was rolled up sitting in a tiny little shop in the Himalayas collecting dust. The shopkeeper and I didn’t need to speak the language to understand its significance. A didgeridoo etched with Aboriginal carvings sits close by. The artist sitting at a park in Alice Springs, Australia carefully etching each one when I met him. He took the time to share his stories of the lifelong racism he faced evident in the carvings. Art and alcohol his solace from the pain. An English map from the 1800’s of India sits close by with all the Colonial names that exist no more. 

A series of Watercolor paintings from the Aurobindo ashram in Pondicherry sprinkle the walls. The artist a young man who had no home to go back to so the ashram his refuge. His family threw him out because he was gay. 

Cow and elephant heads adorned with peacocks, lotuses, and Krishna playing his flute. Catrina dolls sprinkled around Hernandez earthenware. They have stories too. All made by women who pride themselves in building self sustaining businesses so their livelihood never beholden to anyone else. 

I’ve been collecting art for 2 decades. I made a promise to myself a long time ago that I would only purchase original art and one day my forever home look like an art gallery. I didn’t always have the money when I was young so I would save. It took me a year to purchase the Frederico paintings. The gallery owner paid attention to my weekly visits to stare at them, kind enough to let me pay for it in installments. I was only 23 and I remember bringing them home. The art I choose to collect tells my own stories through time. 

Each piece worthy of curiosity. I wonder which country the kilim rugs lay before my home. The teak chairs I sat in as a 6 year old while my grandmother sang to me shipped all the way from Calcutta to America, just like me. The lives of the women who made the handicrafts.  Do they have children? Can the mothers keep them safe? What kind of patience it must take to paint with one horse’s hair? One day when my daughter is older, I’ll introduce her to my books. Toni Morrison being first.  

If we are to call ourselves citizens of this world, then the responsibility to understand human suffering is tantamount. Compassion not a wild card in our back pockets to pick and choose the recipient.

Conformity is the death of creativity and the demise of humanity. Paintings, sculptures, songs, novels an entry point to the world and all its stories. All of it an invitation to think critically. To understand our connection to one another and expand our consciousness. 

Discernment

I love my altar. It’s filled with oodles of meaningful things. The shells I collected for a friend who passed. Ganesh statue of course. Books. Photos of my husband and children. Mala beads my teacher gave me. Incense ash. My altar holds plants too.

This past weekend I acquired a new one. I love going to Bailey’s on Sunday morning to walk amongst the plants, smell the freshly baked bread, and pick out cheese and vegetables. I came home with a Calathea Zebrina. She’s a small little plant that requires low light. She has deep green leaves with lighter shades of green stripes. She looks like a zebra.

I carefully re-potted her into a beautiful white pot and placed her on my altar. The next day I found her severely drooping so I put her outside in the shade. Maybe she needed fresh air. Maybe she needed to be around other plants. Yet she wasn’t responding. So I researched her and found out something most curious. During the day she droops. By late afternoon she perks up. For the next few days I watched her. Every morning she was ready and by mid morning she was listless and by evening ready again.

What I appreciate about her is that she doesn’t play along. She doesn’t care what the other plants do. She lives according to what she knows to be true.

Recently I’ve had to put to test what I know to be true. Someone crossed my boundaries and then continued to cross those boundaries. This person took my small act of kindness over the years and used it against me to pressure me to engage. Feeling as though I owed them something because of their suffering. I know when I’m being cornered. Forced to respond. Manipulated through flattery. I also know the numerous encounters felt deeply disturbing.  I can have compassion for those that suffer yet eviscerate when angered but I try not to get there too quickly.

I may be a teacher of yoga and a therapist. It’s not how I define myself. I’m my own person. That’s it. This encounter taught me that I don’t need to show up in kindness when my boundaries have been crossed. Ever. I reserve the right to never engage, forgive or owe an explanation for why or how I came to my decisions. My life, experiences, and work have taught me to listen to my inner wisdom, my discernment.

This Present Moment

A few days ago my daughter no longer looked little. Overnight her clothes too small. Her attitude to match her sudden growth. Our trip to the mall to buy clothes to fit her new body always an adventure. This time she picked her own outfits bluntly letting me know I have no sense of fashion. With a giant bag of I have no idea what we left.

The process of culling my children’s clothing is meditative. First thing is to play Billie Holiday. Then create piles to donate. To throw away. To save. There’s a method to this meditation. After, reflection. Her life in sizes and stains. Little legs. chubby cheeks. Markers, paint smears all gone. A new chapter awaits. In order to make room for something new, I have to let go of something old. 

Her picks made me pause. The first t shirt simply said Love. There are 96 ways to say love in Sanskrit and only one in English. The ways we show up in love infinite. Holding hands. Family meals. Late night cuddles to defeat the nightmares turn into morning snuggles. Kissing scrapes and bumps. Fighting and forgiving on repeat.  A blur most days one thing certain, I’ve learned how to show up in love when life absolutely hard. 

The next shirt a logo “happiness on the horizon.” She will experience heart break. I hope she comes to me so I can tell her she’s good enough. Then remind her even in the dark there is always a sliver of light even if it’s a pinprick. Sometimes the dark lasts too long but hang on. Just keep going. The only way to the other side is directly through it. 

The last shirt said think good thoughts. If the mind negative we try to invite thoughts of love and if that feels too hard, go to the people we love and be in their presence and let go of the rest. This simple teaching showed me how to get out of my own way with continued steady practice. It taught me to say goodbye to people and shrink my circle. 

This little creature came home from the mall with a bag of yoga, living in the present moment. She lives breathes love, life, laughter and when one day she loses her way she’ll have a road map to find her way back. 

Rituals on Repeat

There’s a beautiful seaside town in southern India named Pondicherry. Colonized by the French until the 1950’s. The French Quarter lined with mustard colored homes, exquisite gardens and bougainvillea draped from the walls. Large wooden doors intricately carved holding intrigue behind.

Pondicherry most beautiful at dawn.  Waking up at 5am walking the empty streets observing how people start their day. Finding tradition in basic tasks. Women wrapped in colorful saris hunched by the wooden doors pouring buckets of water to brush away yesterday’s dirt. A new day. While the ground damp, they sit with a bowl of rice flour and chalk to create mandalas, circles with intricate geometric lines. First a small pinch and then effortless sprinkles creating elaborate lines. Works of art. By mid morning the mandalas smudged by the feet of pedestrians. Washed away by afternoon rains leaving hints of what once was. Birds and ants carrying the rest. Nothing left by evening. The impermanence of life. Beauty temporary. Rice flour an offering to represent the unity of humans and Mother Nature. The next morning, it starts again.

Rituals teach us a lot. How do we start our day? Do we read something that opens the heart and mind? Is there an offering to something or someone bigger than us? I still wake up at 5am. Read something meaningful. Set an intention. Sometimes at my altar. Light incense. Rituals give us purpose. Pay attention. Create space to bring a deeper reverence to your life. Find purpose in the mundane. When I start my day with meaning and lose my way, I know I can always start again as rituals teach on repeat.

This Musical Score

I love music. All music. 

Sometimes day dreaming of my days at shows. Beck. Snoop. Prince. Beastie. Rage. Jose Gonzalez. Santana a few times. Once in Puerto Rico, 100k people in a field singing Black Magic Woman under the stars. So many shows. 

My father’s home always had jazz. My grandmother’s Kirtan. My mother’s  Janice Joplin.  So many shows, so many homes. 

Sometimes a history lesson accompanied a song. John Coltrane’s Alabama, a composition to mend his broken heart. Why did four little girls have to die for the color of their skin?  Billie weaving her tragedies into her uncanny ability to phrase. 

 This journey with music started with a teacher, Fauzia. Running into her home with five year old legs for music lessons. First stop to pet the turtle. Then her echo, “time to focus Sahana.” That’s how she said it. Sahana just how it’s spelled. My name Muslim, named by traveling musicians. A name when pronounced Shahana becomes an Indian song in itself to only play in the evening. A raga. 

Every trip back to India I would ask to see Fauzia. Negotiating the streets of Calcutta as a teenager walking to her house. Confidence, freedom in every step. She taught me Debussy, Rachmaninoff, Chopin. As she played I played. She gave me the courage to step onstage. Terrified hearing her whispers “you’re ready Sahana.” Her patience shining in every wrong note. So many of those too. 

She’s in her 80’s now and we text. She refers to herself as the reluctant octogenarian. Her heart permanently broken as her only child passed but her granddaughter close by. She tells me how she has a walker. Her nemesis but it gets her to the piano. Gratitude there too. Her students are her family. So many shows. So many homes. Fauzia is home too. 

A little girl and her music teacher. She the bridge to the other side where notes appear in dreams. Rhythms in the washer. Melodies in winds. Intonation in breath. Sanskrit lyrics drifting with tides. Setu bandasana. Bridge pose. A moment to reflect. What’s on the other side. 

When the outside too loud my thoughts too many, I listen. Lost in albums. Making playlists. Music, a direct access. Banishing the dark with its flames but it’s there where hope grows again from the tiniest spark. Dancing and writing flourish there too. Inside of myself. Where I’m my happiest. My home. 

Hand in Hand

The last two weeks my family and I have been in Santa Fe. The busyness of our lives comes to a full stop overnight. Starting and finishing conversations. Eating New Mexican chili. Sipping delicious tequila. Lost in art and winding roads sprinkled with pink adobe homes. Saying hello to gallery owners picking up from where we left off. Slow days yet feels already a lifetime ago.

This time the children able to hike further and higher into the mountains. We climbed, stared at butterflies, and walked so deep into the forests the aspen Firs sang their melodies above. My daughter and I scared of heights so we sang mantras and songs from the Jungle Book. Occasionally, she and I would venture onto our own trailhead reminding her that there cannot be courage without fear first. When too terrified she held her father’s hand. In her sweet little voice she said "mama, my palms fit in his big hands and that makes me feel safer."  So much tenderness to be had in the slowness. 

This time we did something even more special. My husband and I renewed our vows. We had always promised one another that one day we would know where and the only guests, the children. I wanted my day in white. A day to walk down an aisle. All experiences we never had. 

Officiant hired. A photojournalist whose pictures of India sealed the deal. Location secured. San Miguel chapel, the oldest church in the country. Made out of adobe, held together by donations. Inside steps that date back to 1609. An altar just as old. Our little daughter walked down the aisle holding a bouquet of native flowers while her dad and big brother awaited her. Then my turn. The officiant read about love from all of our favorites. Victor Frankle. Hemmingway. Pablo Neruda. Rabrindanath Tagore. Hafiz. Rumi.

I wrote for my husband as he wrote for me. Our children's vows written in colored pencils and drawings. Laughter and tears hand in hand. A Christian and a Hindu in an ancient Catholic Church. So much of it unscripted. Our design of our life. Like it has always been from the start.

Love has put me face to face with endless obstacles. Ask me to reveal the parts of myself I work tirelessly to hide. Love has asked me to show up even when I have convinced myself I'm not worthy. Sometimes love hidden in harsh words and silent treatments. Love thrives in forgiveness. Love requires courage. Love always demands more.

Calla Lilly

For my birthday this year I received a Calla Lilly. Like any mother who gets a crib for her child, I went and got a beautiful big green pot for this baby plant. 

I put her in the soil that would make her happy and every day I would wait and watch. Watering her when she needed it making sure I didn’t overwhelm her. One day there was a tiny shoot and I got so giddy. Her first steps. Then another. And another. Her growth important. I felt confident I could take care of this gift that I aptly named after the person that bequeathed it to me. Gentle souls. 

She sits on my back deck and is now almost 4 feet tall, taller than my daughter. She fills up the entire pot and soon will need a bigger room. 

Every day I check on her. She sometimes says hello to the habanero plant that sits next to her. She dances with the wind. Turns to the sun when the shade gets too cold. She’s always reaching for something bigger than her. Her stalk able to bend with what the day brings. She may be a free spirit but she needs her roots too. 

She’s become the compass to all my plants. Mother to all of them. She stands towering over them, leading the way. A chance at life with tenderness and grace. 

I watch her a lot. She’s visible from many windows. Glimpses into her mystical journey wondering about her lineage I know so little about. She came from somewhere but, I just know her. 

She teaches me that if I’m to withstand what’s in front of me, I must remain flexible. Bend with the tides and the floods. Pay attention to the rains, the sun, and the moon. And I know when the storm comes and she breaks and she will break, she can start again. Rebuild shoot by shoot. Baby steps. Baby steps. 

The Stoic

I love museums. The Louvre. The Art Institute of Chicago. MOMA. British Museum. Smithsonian museum of Natural History where the dinosaurs come alive. 

At the New Mexican museum of art lives one of my favorite paintings. One that I make time to visit and sit with every trip. 

Oil strokes on canvas isn’t the why. The hook, a feeling piercing every time. 

A Native American Man hunched over walking up a mountain with hooks dug into his back dragging the heads of ponies while red trickles down his spine. Engaged in a ritual to honor his grief of whom or what we will never know. Aptly titled “The Stoic”.  

This man’s grief conjoined with his body. Visceral stabs into bone. No separation from the mind. A reminder that grief occupies every caveat. Loss a common theme in the lives of all of us. Babies now grown up leaving home. Walking down the aisle with dreams disappearing in courtrooms. Stepping away from those where neither history nor blood a tether. Then there are last breaths. The only guarantee. Grief not a comparative game in suffering but relative back to the self.  

There’s no running from it. It will find you. Fill the crevices and hollows and slam you into the brick wall leaving invisible scars measured in an immeasurable weight. Grief consumes all the air in the room until you become a stranger to the self. 

I’ve learned a lot about grief in the last two decades. Studying it. Experiencing it. Seeing it in others. I know this. Recognize and allow it in. Make space for pain even when unbearable. There will come a moment when after you have honored the grief you will find yourself at a crossroad. A decision to want to stop hurting. It is there that you slowly start to become bigger than the grief. It no longer poisons the soil. Tenderness and courage tantamount. Honesty to meet ourselves exactly where we are first requires we get intimate with our pain. It’s in that intimacy we rise, finding meaning again. As it is meaning that heals.