PINE TREES AND YOU

Pine trees and you

Make me long to fly

Across the silver twilight

Into the abyss of the sky.

Pine trees, solitude

And you, are entwined

In the cool stillness of night,

Embalming my mind.

Moonbeams caress my face

Now aglint with silver streams

And trees silently scream,

Cut down, along with fatal dreams.

Recuperating

I suppose I can no longer put off writing about it. My health, that is. Not to alarm anyone, of course (or maybe alarm is a good thing, if that will ensure that you don't drive yourself too hard and end up in a sickbed like yours truly!) The doctors assure me there's nothing life-threatening (thank God!) but I guess my body has had enough of all the pushing-it-to-the-limits stunts I've pulled on it. Being sick is tiresome. It really is. Your mind outlines a zillion things you want/need to do, but your body just won't cooperate. And then you're faced with the humbling realization that contrary to your arrogant assumptions, you are not master (or mistress, in my case) of your own body, and no amount of will-power or positive thinking will allow you to perform tasks you once undertook without even giving it a second thought.

Actually, my body has been a pretty good sport. Right from last year, it meekly kept saying it needed a break, but kept quiet and submitted to my relentless pushing. This year, it simply has declared exhaustion, and here I am. Hmmm. Quite a lesson. Every doctor I went to over the last few months had advised me to "take it easy", a worthy piece of sensible advice I sadly found difficult to follow, so this is what I finally had to take instead:

(That's just my arm partially covered by a pink cloth from the elbows down, in case you are in danger of freaking out)
What I miss a lot is being able to drive my car, a beat up old Maruti 800 whose exterior belies the power of the engine underneath.
It's a drag having to depend on other people for transportation. I miss my independence. Boo hoo! In a gesture of defiance one day last week, I drove myself to work. Even if three of my physiotherapists hadn't berated me for doing it, I had already silently conceded defeat. I was in pain.

Well, on to more cheerful things. A few weeks ago, met fellow bloggers Illusionaire, DaGGylo, J, Vana and mIRC king Simjazz for lunch, which was really nice. I won't tell you who is who... but you're welcome to guess!

This is what I ate:
So, that's about it for now. In keeping with my resolution to take better care of myself, I will try to sleep early tonight.

Take care, everyone. Seriously. Take care.

Easter Sunday

They were looking intently up into the sky as he was going, when suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside them. "Men of Galilee," they said, "why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven."

Easter does funny things to me. Perhaps because it is less commercialized than Christmas, it brings a lump to my throat. I am totally overcome by its message of victory and the hope it epitomizes. Imagine how Mary and the disciples, overcome with grief and their hopes waning, must have felt when they saw the empty tomb! Perhaps indignation and disbelief at first, but then what joy, what immense comfort, what hope for the future, what blessed assurance that their faith had not been in vain!


For many years, I maintained a personal tradition of inviting my best friend (now married and a proud papa) for breakfast on Easter Sunday after sunrise services. Yep! Yours truly, despite her well-known love for sleeping in late, always made it a point to attend the simple but moving sunrise services at the crack of dawn. Well, maybe not exactly the crack, but early enough. I made allowances for the gimmicks associated with religious festivals, and painted Easter Eggs with glee. I even helped with children's choir practices in church.

Sadly, because of many things, circumstances as well as laziness, I no longer do these things, but Easter still retains that special place in my heart. After all, it's the basis of all that we believe in as Christians.

Here's wishing a very blessed and meaningful Easter Sunday to all my friends on the Net. Don't let it be just another day!

Well, I have been inexcusably lazy about updating my blog, so here I am, doing the needful although there doesn't seem to be too much happening in my life worthy of note right now. One reason is that my health has not been too great lately, and I wouldn't want to subject my Net friends to a litany of complaints, and more complaints.

Hmm..well, maybe I can talk about my hair. Notwithstanding the fact that I am still Sweet Sixteen at heart, the sad facts of life contradict the way I see myself mentally. I once read somewhere that a woman's hair is the only thing that God created as a mere plaything subject to the whims and caprices of its owner. I quite agreed with that, and began to ponder on the various reasons why some people are bald, while others prefer dreadlocks, mohicans, spaghetti curls, ramrod straight hair, not to mention all the colours of the rainbow. There might be some sort of logic to their choice of hairstyle. Then again, the very fact that it need not be necessarily logical is the beauty of it.

To cut a long story short, in a characteristically belated gesture of rebellion, I decided to streak my hair during the winter vacations. I thought streaks of blond would do very nicely; something went wrong somewhere, and along with the desired blond streaks, I also had streaks of an indefinite colour, some pink and even a stray lock of navy blue hair here and there. The hairdresser was mortified. I liked it. I loved it. It had pizazz, I felt. It wasn't just about the hair, but about the way it made me feel - daring, bold, glamorous, free, and reckless. Of course, there are certain codes of conduct expected of people My Age, in My Profession, and therefore, one fine day recently, I had to bid a sad farewell to my streaks, and don my more "respectable" hairdo once again.

Of course, I will not mention the fact that some people (including my mom) felt my hair looked like it was sadly parched and had literally been dry-fried. The last straw, of course, was when a woman I didn't know at all, sitting next to me in church, sympathetically whispered, "You have grey hair too?" Needless to say, my "No" was rather curt.
Anyhow, this is how it looked:
Hopefully, I'll hang on to what my hair gave me, even if I cannot hang on to the marvelous hues.
Ciao!