8/26/2013
How long has it been since you wrote on paper? Not shopping lists or scribbled phone numbers, but a letter or a note or just some thought you had to get out of your head?
Apart from the occasional greeting card and thank you note at work, I had not written anything for the longest time till last week. I had a deadline on the passage to share at an SGI meeting, I was feeling the stress as it was my first time presenting anything there, and my massive laziness streak has always been supported by the internet. The laptop was proving a bigger distraction than anything else and I decided to write in my notebook instead. Since that day, I have hardly stopped. I even have my little purple notebook on my desk at work and I keep jotting down topics and thoughts, things people said and anything else that strikes me in general. Reading those notes at the end of the day, as I am doing now to make this daily entry, I see how much stuff actually happens in my drab daily life! If you ask me how my day was, today, I will have so much to share! Had you asked me yesterday, I would just have described it with “the usual” or “good” or “normal”. But really nothing is ordinary! The people who you meet daily, the ones you pass by on the street, the sparrows by the old abandoned building on the way to work or even those basement windows taped with newspapers. Every random thing probably has a story just as captivating as the next random thing. Just the thought adds so much freshness and novelty to each passing moment!
Now to recap my day, Mondays at work are usually very busy and this one wasn’t too different. I was supposed to go get sushi and dumplings with a friend but her schedule changed at the last moment and that meant I had the time to go to the monthly district planning meeting at Shweta Aunty’s place. (I am running the discussion this month, and I am already stressing :P) Since it was just the two of us at the meeting, it ended up being daimoku and gongyo for an hour followed by us sitting down and having an hour long heart-to-heart about home lives, childhood, parents, wedding planning and the death of loved ones. She invited me to have dinner with her family and I agreed – no one who has stayed in a hostel will ever say no to home cooked food. I also got to spend time with her mother-in-law Janaki, or patti (Tamil for grandmother) as she insists I call her. She is honestly the epitome of loveliness!
With that and lots of love,
Vasippu nandri (Tamil; Translation: Thank you for reading)
for Patti, I love you so much!
The Reluctant Practitioner 