I have been absent for the past week and if you have been checking for new posts, my sincere apologies for this silence. While typing out this sentence, my mind had raced ahead to compile a stack of points—the various reasons for my silence, presented in heartwarming detail, to draw out your empathy, pity and “oh-never-mind-it-happens-to-all-of-us” feelings.
I have paused…deliberated…and taken a decision. NO, my dear readers, no earth shattering incidents happened in my life. I chose to succumb to a lethargic and lazy routine around my cold and a pair of burning eyes, my little Pepper and her persistent fever, and those two games on my tablet—Candy Crush and Bubbles. Everything else was relegated to the background, while I fretted over the tired dog, sneezed into every hanky I owned, and dived into those addictive games for hours. After a hectic day of nursing Pepper and myself, I would dive into bed at 8 pm. All ready to enter dreamland, and then, the right hand would reach out for the waiting tablet and I would be pulled into the world of getting three stones in line and reach the next level. At one time, I had begun three concomitant games, so that there was always a waiting game, when the lives would expire….Finally, when my bleary eyes would look up from the screen, it would be 1 am. Getting up to greet the rosy-grey dawn sky became impossible…and therefore, the routine of walking doggies, exercising and eating healthy, became impossible too. There was nothing to share with you too, my dear reader..so one more impossible aspect of life.
This wake-up nudge from my favorite blog helped.
My college room-mate visited us and spent the entire holiday feeding obstinate Pepper ice-cream, chicken stew and other goodies laced with love and patience. That helped Pepper and me.
Biskit sent exasperated stares in my direction. No long walks in the forest, no running up and down slopes, no spider games—what is a dog supposed to do?! The guilt of grounding her, for no fault of hers,helped too.
Finally, this article happened. It brought a flood of compliments, queries, offers of help and assistance and admiration. And then came the thought “do you deserve all this, you selfish lazy lump of expanding lard?! Now is the time to establish a set up which will support and nurture the knitters and all that you are doing is playing Candy Crush?!!”. Sobering thought that was.
Today, as the evening shadows spread across the house, and as Biskit looks at me enquiringly for the evening stroll, I am getting an action plan together. The first point on the agenda is…..Just move it!! I am taking my “till-now-lazy-lump-of-expanding-lard” for a walk.
I will walk past scores of soldiers practicing their martial khukri dance, batches of marathon runners jogging past me and lines of women returning home from the forest, carrying firewood and fodder on their heads and walking with a spring in their step.
Nothing like exertion, nothing like working hard, nothing like following one’s daily routine to feel satisfied, special and believe that I am a tiny but vital cog in the machinery of the whole, wide world!!!