seeing ants....

..tiptoeing a trail of some uninvited ants under a kerosene lit lamp with my Dad. yes, now that I think back, that has got to be my earliest memory of my childhood. It was just after sun down and my Dad had found the ants crawling into a space in the kitchen and wanted to show us. I was probably around 3 years old, and my sister, barely a year older. I don't think we had electricity (or running water) in that house. Being so small at the time, I don't really remember all the details but it was very small with a built in lattice front porch. We were just thrilled to see the ants crawling patiently one after the other, and we just couldn't hide our excitement. Were they red or black ants? I wish I'd remembered, not that it matters. As we got closer to the end of ants trail, the flame of the lamp burnt the inside of my sister's arm. She probably winced in pain, the memory is so vague & it's all patchy in my head so I don't remember everything now. She carried the scar well into her teens it would ignite our conversations over the ant story all over again. It was something we always connected without any effort, those moments were hard to come by especially when we were both teenagers.We fought an awful lot :(

The only surviving pictures taken in that house are neatly stashed away in a family album back home in Sri Lanka. My mom dressed beautifully in a Saree and looking so young & pretty & slim, my dad in pants & a button down shirt and my sister and I dressed in look-alike dresses sitting on the bar in our lattice front porch, with the biggest grins we all could muster. Now it feels like a lifetime ago....

going on retreat

..there’s a quaint little place out in Olaboduwa village, just off Gonapola (close to Horana, if i remember right) in Sri Lanka, where you can go on a spiritual retreat. Ayya Khema International Mediation center lies in the midst of rice fields & rubber plantations & holds retreats every first Sunday of the month for anyone who wants to initiate a personal exploration of Buddhism.

this place is run by Aramaya Bikkhuni Kusuma, a fully ordained buddhist nun who was among the few educated women influenced to re-established the therevada bikkuni order in sl. when her mentor, Ayya Khema passed away in ’97, a chunk of the responsibilities was piled up on her & the meditation center was built with the help of donors all over the world. google her or look her up on fb and she even has some pics out of this amazing place. Or check out the link;
http://www.congress-on-buddhist-women.org/index.php?id=71

ironic

..its been 3 or 4 days since i last called home. as much as i'd want to check in on my parents, i dread what im going to be filled in on. its always something. maybe im just being selfish & trying to run away. well..who wouldnt? its a lot to wrap my head around in...every time i drop the phone down,i slip into my crappy-depressed mood. not pretty. it takes a lot of work to fight off the uneasy feelings, but i think i have a better grasp of things than i had in the past. i digress.

today's call to sri lanka was no different. the situation has not changed. in fact its gotten much worse since i last heard. my mother cant get out of the house even for an errand without his "permission". she's now trapped in the house,captivated by my father,who's now partly blind and ironically, depends on her to get on with just about anything in his daily life. how twisted is that? i was quick to blame his recent erratic behavior on the medication,since his doctor switched some meds around on the last visit. but i can hear the pain in my mother's voice and it kills me to no end that she cant ever get a break. my father sounds lucid for the most part when i talk to him. he's consciously aware of his surroundings, although he still rambles some stuff here & there. if you talk to him for a while, you'd think he's just another normal person,just eager to recover. but in reality, he just despises my mother! he flares up at the slightest thing & calls her names & accuses her of unthinkable. it gets so loud at times, she tells me, that you could just hear his rantings all the way down the street.

..just when i was sighing things seem a less chaotic, out comes another blow shredding my hopes into tiny little pieces. ...maybe i already knew it in my heart that things wouldnt stay calmer for long as it had been and it would be only a matter of time before it all falls apart again. i dont know when & how things will end, nor do i have all the answers figured out, but for the first time in a long time, i feel its going to be ok. we have got it down to a pattern, may be not your usual one, but we just need to hang in there...just hang in there..

2009

..as the numbers on the clock slowly pushed their way towards the midnight on the new years eve, a dazzling display of fireworks filled up the night sky, piercing the coldness in the air. the dawn of the new year was quietly welcomed in our house by lighting a lamp for buddha. i try to keep up with the sri lankan traditions here & there but mostly at my convenience. barely five minutes into lighting up the lamp, i caught my youngest playing with the dancing flame and decided to blow it out. so much for keeping up with traditions. woke up late and decided to skip on making kiribath - a traditional sri lankan breakfast made with rice & milk. oh well.. i'd be lucky to sneak in some kiribath to my kids with their fascination with hakuru anyway. (jaggary - chunks made out of sap of a palm tree or treacle)

i have never been the one to buy into the new year hype, much less to honor new year resolutions,. so to save myself the invaine trouble, no vows were made this year. its just as easy to break resolutions as making them, so i really dont see the point. i'd rather revolutionize the bad energy & melancholy that seem to have engulf my life lately, into something positive. so here i am gearing up for all the life's surprises waiting to thrust upon me in the new year....i'd say, bring it on..!!

one complicated cordless phone

i desperately want to ship home a cordless phone. sounds simple right..?

my father's recovering from his second stroke and things dont look all that well. he gets his share of good & bad days. today he kept telling me over the phone, that he was thinking about me. he told me this over & over. he easily forgets things now so he doesnt know he's repeating. it broke my heart but i played along. afterwards, i begged my mother to be patient with him because i know how it can drive you nuts & then some. i have a four yr old myself!

i only wanted to buy a cordless phone just to make his life a little easier. that way he doesnt have to get off the bed to answer the phone. i delayed mailing it for a few days , my husband's friend is taking it to sri lanka when he goes on vacation this week. i was happy that would take less days to reach home. our friend is suppose to drop it off at my in laws house, which is much closer to his. my always generous f-i-l promised me he would take care of the rest. i was on cloud nine, until now..

my husband has second thoughts and thinks we cant just send off a package to his house without sending a "gift" for his family too. why? he fears his parents would be offended! now that brings up a whole set of can of worms, but i do not want to go there.

so now i am running off to USPS to mail it off, which is how i wanted it done in the first place..!!!!

why do things always have to be politically correct?

feeling mundane..

...things have been bottling up inside me since i was about 10 years old, i'd explode if i don't do anything about it. i guess i never learnt how to deal with my problems head on. i would just shove them in somewhere behind my walls. kind of like..well..if i dont think about it, it does not exist. but now, so many years later, it's taking a huge toll on just about everything in my life .

well..it all started out when news about my father's infidelity unravelled in our family. although i may have been about 7 or 8 yrs old, i remember the pain & the tears very well. i remember a lot of hushed out conversations between my mother & her family & friends. the alleged woman was an unmarried neighbor from right across the street, literally. as kids, we were fond of her and called her aunty. i knew things were bad when i saw my parents fighting over this and my mother crying most of the time. but my father came back home every night as if nothing had happened, being just a kid then, that was good enough for me. sometimes my young mind would wander trying to find answers that make sense, but it always left me sad.

my escape from all this was, school. i love my school days. i knew i can be a different person in school. none of my friends knew anything. i dared to tell even my closest friend, who im still friends with. if someone found out, i would just die of shame.

looking back i realize, i never really talked about it with anyone. i have an older sister but she & i never really got along. being just 11 months apart, we were constantly fighting over random things. but there were plenty of good times between us too, but somehow we never really overcame our common pain. we were brought up in a typical conservative environment as you would find in just about any city in sri lanka. discussing personal family matters were considered a taboo. so we pretty much kept things to ourselves. back then we didnt know any different.

im sure things have changed now, i see my nieces & nephews are more outspoken & demanding.

..to be continued..