The nighttime people

Maybe it was the fact that Anna and I had met at night that made the nighttime so magic for us. Perhaps it was because the nighttime could be, and so often was, so surprising. The multitudes of sights and sounds of the daytime got down to manageable size at night. Things and sounds became separate at night; they didn't get muddled up with everything else; and things happened in the dark that couldn't possibly happen in the daylight. It's not impossible to have a conversation with a lamppost at night; do the same thing in the daylight and they would take you off in a padded van.

"The sun is nice," said Anna, "but it lights things up so much that you can't see very far."

I agreed that sometimes the sun was so dazzling that on occasions one was quite blinded. That wasn't what she meant.

"Your soul don't go very far in the daylight 'cos it stops where you can see."

"That supposed to make sense?" I asked.

"The nighttime is better. It stretches your soul right out to the stars. And that," she pronounced, "is a very long way. In the nighttime you don't have to stop going out. It's like your ears. In the daytime it's so noisy you can't hear. In the nighttime you can. The nighttime stretches you."

I wasn't going to argue with that one. The nighttime was the time for stretching, and we often stretched ourselves.

Mum never batted an eyelid over our nighttime rambles. Mum knew that stretching was important, and Mum had been a past master at the art of stretching. Given half a chance she'd have been with us. "Have a nice time," she'd say, "and don't get too lost." She didn't mean in the streets of London Town, she meant up among the stars. You didn't have to explain to Mum about getting lost among the stars. Mum reckoned that getting lost and finding your way were just different sides of the same coin. You couldn't have the one without the other.

Mum was something of a genius, certainly she was a mum in a million. "Why don't you go out," she used to say, "it's raining hard," or, "it's blowing a gale." Whatever mischief the weather was up to, Mum suggested that we go out, just for fun, just to see what it was all about. Outside in the streets windows were being flung open and other mums would be yelling for their various Freds and Berts, Bettys and Sadies to "come in outa that rain! You'll be soaked to the skin." Come storm or tempest, rain or snow, daytime or nighttime, we'd always be encouraged to go out and try it. Mum never protected us from God's works, as she called them. Mum protected us, for a while, from ourselves. She'd light up the big copper so that there was a good supply of hot water when we got home. She did it for years, until she figured we'd got enough sense to do it for ourselves; then she stopped.

Staying out all night was, for Mum, something not to be missed.

Most nighttime people were pretty wonderful people. Most nighttime people liked to talk. Those who thought we were mad or just plain stupid were in the minority. True, there were those who didn't hesitate to tell me exactly what they thought of me. "Fancy taking a child out at a time like this; you must be stark raving mad." "You ought to be home and in bed, you wouldn't get up to any mischief there." The assumption on the part of these people was that the nighttime was for mischief, for foul deeds, for getting up to no good. All God-fearing people went to their beds at night. The night was for the "nasties," for "beasties that go bump in the night," and for Old Nick. Perhaps we were lucky; all the times that we roamed the streets at night we never bumped into a nasty or a beasty, or even Old Nick, only nice people. At first we tried to explain that we wanted to be out, that we liked it, but this only confirmed some people in their suspicion that we were mad, so we gave up any attempt at an explanation and simply went out.

Parting from a little group of nighttime people on one of our walks, Anna remarked, "It's funny, Fynn, ain't it? All the nighttime people have got names."

It was true too. You'd bump into a group of nighttime people round a fire and before you could say "How's your father?" you'd be introduced all round. "That's Lil, she's a bit funny in the 'ead, but she's all right." "That's Old Flintlighter." His real name was Robert Somebody-or-other but everybody called him "Old Flintlighter."

Perhaps it was because the nighttime people had more time to talk to each other, or perhaps they were not overinvolved in "making it good." Whatever the reason, the nighttime people talked and talked and shared and shared.

From Mister God, This is Anna by Fynn. New York: Ballantine Books, 1974. Pages 145-147

Cherish the aspiration

What we truly and earnestly aspire to be, that in some sense we are. The mere aspiration, by changing the frame of the mind, for the moment realizes itself.

Anna Brownell Jameson

PS: I received this in a mail from charityfocus.org

It's love that is cooking

Since the food we prepare, touching it with our hands and our feelings, will go inside the bodies of our friends and loved ones, we should be aware that we are involved in a very delicate, subtle, yet powerful alchemical process. Cooking is not a secondary activity, something you do with one hand (while the other holds a cigarette), nor something you do with one eye (while the other is watching television). No. Cooking has to be recognized for what it is: a noble, loving, caring, alchemical activity, which can determine our physical, psychological and emotional health. Once you become aware of this, your attitude is bound to change. You realize how deeply you can heal (or poison) someone with your daily cooking. You see to the well-being of the people you are feeding, and accept that existence is all about nourishing the ones you love. You will be overwhelmed with gratitude and with the responsibility of such a blessing. And you will wish that you could nourish them better and better, for this will become your greatest joy in life, and you will not wish to spend a day without cooking for them.

And finally, after fifty years, I cannot keep the secret to myself any more. The greatest secret about the alchemical art of cooking is this: it's love that is cooking.

NOTE: This is from a wonderful book called Food is Home written by Sarjano who is from Italy. He was in charge of the kitchen at the Osho Ashram in Pune for over twenty years.

The beauty of doing nothing

This is a sweet expression. Bel far niente means "the beauty of doing nothing." Now listen--Italians have traditionally always been hard workers, especially those long-suffereing laborers known as braccianti (so called because they had nothing but the brute strength of their arms--braccie--to help them survive in this world). But even against that backdrop of hard work, bel far niente has always been a cherished Italian ideal. The beauty of doing nothing is the goal of all your work, the final accomplishment for which you are most highly congratulated. The more exquisitely and delightfully you can do nothing, the higher your life's achievement. You don't necessarily need to be rich in order to experience this, either. There's another wonderful Italian expression: l'arte d'arrangiarsi--the art of making something out of nothing. The art of turning a few simple ingredients into a feast, or a few gathered friends into a festival. Anyone with a talent for happiness can do this, not only the rich.

From Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert, published by Bloomsbury. Pg 64-65

Ma and God

God gave us fingers - Ma says, "Use your fork."
God gave us voices - Ma says, "Don't scream."
Ma says eat broccoli, cereal and carrots.
But God gave us tasteys for maple ice cream.

God gave us fingers - Ma says, "Use your hanky."
God gave us puddles - Ma says, "Don't splash."
Ma says, "Be quiet, your father is sleeping."
But God gave us garbage can covers to crash.

God gave us fingers - Ma says, "Put your gloves on."
God gave us raindrops - Ma says, "Don't get wet."
Ma says be careful, and don't get too near to
Those strange lovely dogs that God gave us to pet.

God gave us fingers - Ma says, "Go wash 'em."
But God gave us coal bins and nice dirty bodies.
And I ain't too smart, but there's one thing for certain -
Either Ma's wrong or else God is.

Desserts

This is something Lakshmi Chandra, a dear professor friend of mine sent as an SMS forward:
"When you are feeling stressed and about to break down, remember: STRESSED is just DESSERTS spelled backwards. It's a piece of cake!"

Writing for Children

“That, it seems to me, is the secret. You just indulge the pleasure of your heart. You write not for children but for yourself, and if, by good fortune, children enjoy what you enjoy, why then you are a writer of children’s books…No special credit to you, but simply thumping good luck. Every writer wants to have readers, and than children there are no better readers in the world.”
- Arthur Ransome

Tree House

A tree house, a free house,
A secret you and me house,
A high up in the leafy branches
Cozy as can be house.

A street house, a neat house,
Be sure and wipe your feet house
Is not my kind of house at all -
Let's go live in a tree house.

- Shel Silverstein

Growing happier

I have grown happier with every year of life as though gradually conquering something in myself, for certainly my miseries were not made by others but were a part of my own mind.

- W. B. Yeats

Hug O' War

I will not play at tug o'war.
I'd rather play at hug o'war,
Where everyone hugs
Instead of tugs,
Where everyone giggles
And rolls on the rug,
Where everyone kisses,
And everyone grins,
And everyone cuddles,
And everyone wins.

- Shel Silverstein, Where the Sidewalk Ends

Friendship

Friendship is not a condition that naturally arises because people are in contact with one another; rather, it is a bond of trust and love that must evolve according to mutually agreed-upon standards of interaction.

- Mick Fedullo, Light of the Feather

Peace

Peace begins with a smile.

- Mother Teresa

The Previous Occupant

The landlady says he lived here
for years. There’s enough missing
for me to know him. In the empty shelves,
absent books gather dust: Neruda. Cavafy.
I know he knew their poetry, by heart
the lines I love.

From a half-torn horoscope I learn
his sign: Aquarius, just like me.
A half-empty Flexsol in the cabinet:
he wore soft lenses. Yes, Aquarians are vain.
And no anthems on their lips, they travel
great distances. He came from some country
as far as Chile.

She says the apartment
will be cleaned by the 1st:

But no detergent will rub his voice from the air
though he has disappeared in some country
as far as Chile.
The stains of his thoughts still cling
in phrases to the frost on the windows.

And though he is blinded in some prison,
though he is dying in some country
as far as Chile,
no spray will get inside the mirror
from where his brown eyes,
brown, yes, brown,
stare as if for years he’d been
searching for me.

Now that he’s found me,
my body casts his shadow everywhere.
He’ll never, never, move out of here.

- Agha Shahid Ali

Islands of Integrity

I don't believe that the solutions in society will come from the left or the right or the north or the south. They will come from islands within those organizations, islands of people with integrity who want to do something.

- Karl-Henrik Robert

Keeping Quiet

Now we will count to twelve
and we will all keep still.

For once on the face of the Earth
let's not speak in any language,
let's stop for one second,
and not move our arms so much.

It would be an exotic moment
without rush, without engines,
we would all be together
in a sudden strangeness.

Fishermen in the cold sea
would not harm whales
and the man gathering salt
would look at his hurt hands.

Those who prepare green wars,
wars with gas, wars with fire,
victory with no survivors,
would put on clean clothes
and walk about with their
brothers
in the shade, doing nothing.

What I want should not be
confused
with total inactivity.
Life is what it is about;
I want no truck with death.
If we were not so single-minded
about keeping our lives moving,
and for once could do nothing,
perhaps a huge silence
might interrupt this sadness
of never understanding ourselves
and of threatening ourselves with death.

Perhaps the Earth can teach us
as when everything seems dead
and later proves to be alive.

Now I'll count up to twelve
and you keep quiet and I will go.

- Pablo Neruda

With all of me

After the evening meal was finished and all the bits and pieces put away, Anna and I would settle down to some activity, generally of her choosing. Fairy stories were dismissed as mere pretend stories; living was real and living was interesting, and by and large, fun. Reading the Bible wasn't a great success. She tended to regard it as a primer, strictly for the infants. The message of the Bible was simple and any half-wit could grasp it in thirty minutes flat! Religion was for doing things, not for reading about doing things. Once you had got the message there wasn't much point in going over and over the same old ground. Our local parson was taken aback when he asked her about God. The conversation went as follows:

"Do you believe in God?"
"Yes."
"Do you know what God is?"
"Yes."
"What is God then?"
"He's God!"
"Do you go to church?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"Because I know it all!"
"What do you know?"
"I know to love Mister God and to love people and cats and dogs and spiders and flowers and trees" -- and the catalog went on -- "with all of me."

Carol grinned at me, Stan made a face, and I hurriedly put a cigarette in my mouth and indulged in a bout of coughing. There's nothing much you can do in the face of that kind of accusation, for that's what it amounted to. ("Out of the mouth of babes...") Anna had bypassed all the nonessentials and distilled centuries of learning into one sentence: "And God said love me, love them, and love it, and don't forget to love yourself."

Note: The above passage is from a heartwarming book called 'Mister God, This is Anna' by Fynn. Do read it.