Burrowing

Mum was at it again. Unbelievable! What time was it? He gasped looking at the alarm on the nightstand. It was 3 am. And it was the 120th day in a row. Anybody would have been impressed with her persistence. He wasn’t. He was petrified.

The shovel in her hand smelled of doom. She was digging, sniffing the ground. It reminded him of a wolverine, only she wasn’t predatory, innocuous really, almost pathetic. All the uprooted crocus and blood roots lay like dying soldiers looking for respite from the continued battery of days. She would replant them of course, but in the meantime they struggled to survive with these rude shocks in the middle of the night like him. The world was meant to be asleep at night, not unsettling roots deep in the soil.

But he knew she had to find all that lay buried. What was the point whatever she was after? Wouldn’t that unleash more tremors of seismic proportion? Especially now that his dad was dead.

He missed him so much. All the summer fishing by the lake, the bowling and baseball on weekends and making wooden trellises together in the shed for the creepers that needed support for climbing. All the hauling of soil in wheelbarrows planning the next move to beautify the garden  brought fresh hot tears. He wiped them away. He was not expected to grieve, he had to fit into his dad’s boots and carry on with his unfinished work. Men have to hold their grief hidden from others and in his case there was his mother’s grief to take care of besides all this digging business now.

But she wasn’t listening to anyone. He knew his mum; she could be stubborn.

“Ben I have to find the remains”, she had told him one morning when he had confronted her at breakfast.

“Your dad’s landscaping skills were phenomenal; he was in love with the garden. So, there’s nowhere but the garden that I should look to unearth what he hid. Not the attic, not the basement, not the shed, nor the garage, no closets either. It has to be the garden. And I’m looking.”

He had groaned and prayed hard that she would give up this hunt. Neighbors looked at them with suspicion having heard weird sounds coming from their garden.

“Stop Mum. It’s just too dark. Too late Mum. Please..,,?”

“ Look at these Ben. I found them under the tulips. Had to dig them out. Was worth it.”

She was sweating. He could see her bent back, wet muddy hands and grimy boots. She was trembling all over, not so much from the damp spring chill as much as from her discovery of what had slept hidden all this while. He looked at the stash in her hands: a plastic container with a bunch of Ziploc bags one inside the other containing a neat bundle of papers tied with a red satin ribbon. Plastic was non biodegradable he realized with a potential to preserve secrets from being destroyed. Some use, he thought, sitting there forever underground. More of a hazard than any good!

“Wrongs have to be righted. Always. Remember that Ben. Even if you don’t succeed, you need to do all you can. The effort counts in the final reckoning.”

What the hell was the matter with her? Was she losing it? What was the correlation of Judgment Day and all this absurd treasure hunt, if there was any treasure hidden in  these Ziplocs that is. What wrong? What right? He needed divine enlightenment this moment to decipher her code.

He went indoors. She was sobbing uncontrollably slouched on the loveseat in the family room.

“ We need to find her Ben. She’s out there waiting for a hug.”

Again her gibberish confounded him. He might have to consult a therapist, he should have thought of it earlier. All this strange digging at ungodly hours had taken a toll on her.

“ Poor Sophie never knowing love, nor a family. We have to bring her home.”

Her body was convulsed with so many emotions at once that it was hard to get her to come to her senses.

“ You’ll help me Ben, won’t you ? She needs our love, the love that your dad didn’t give her. “

“What the......!”

“ She’s your half-sister Ben living in an institution for the developmentally challenged. Look at her.”

His head was reeling. Something burst in his brain before he was able to stop it like shells bursting, a dynamite blast. Was it his dad’s picture on the mantelpiece smiling at him or was it Sophie’s in his mum’s hand that blinded him from understanding the reality? He waited for daybreak to clear his mind.

Distant Socially

I came back from my walk. Everyone says we need to improve our lung capacity, so walking is imperative. You might be able to fight the virus better with a robust lung and immune system. So I try. But I wanted to talk to Meg, my neighbor for over two decades now. I guessed she would have returned by now from walking Lou Lou, her Labrador Retriever.

Meg answered right away. I could sense a wistful note in her voice. It was unmistakable even over the phone. This isn’t the plucky Meg I know, I thought.

“Hey what’s up Meg, why do you sound so low?”

“ You know I really get the need for social distancing  given the situation, no complaints really. Look, I couldn’t hug you when I saw you in the park yesterday , right? And both of  us understood it perfectly. It’s not us, but Lou Lou.”

“ What about Lou Lou?”

Meg hesitated for a split second, then blurted out.

“ Lou Lou is feeling it. She’s really upset today.”

“Aw, why is she feeling sorry?”

“ She’s having a meltdown. Can’t take this social distancing stuff anymore. Am at my wit’s end. She isn’t eating well at all. If she gets sick, I wouldn’t know what to do at this point. The vet who’s such a mighty help is down with the virus. Where am I supposed to take her?”

Pets are a huge responsibility, I know.  But I couldn’t understand how social distancing could impact Lou Lou so deeply that she’d lost  her appetite. This was worrisome. Neither could I help Meg in any way by looking out  for new vets to take Lou Lou to because most vets weren’t open the regular hours during this pandemic. I could bring pet food and leave it on Meg’s driveway. and that would be the most help I could manage. But I couldn't go any closer.

I’ve always felt anxious for Meg because she was in the group of immuno-compromised people. It was heightened  now ever since I was told that this virus absolutely loves such groups of people. She is now recovering from her third surgical intervention of a stubborn tumor that keeps returning to different parts of her brain every now and then. But Meg is built of sterner stuff than this malignant  tumor and fights hard. Every time she comes home from the hospital, she  grins in pride showing me a victory sign over her head. I always love her then like no one else. She fills me with courage all the time. In fact she’s my catalyst.

So it was odd  that she should be feeling the blues on Lou Lou's account.

“Why is Lou Lou having a meltdown?”

“ It’s troubling because she’s not sleeping either. Always restless and moping at the drop of a hat. Very morose.”

“ Could you guess the reason, Meg?”

“ Oh I  think she needs an antidepressant probably. Her vet would know, I’m sure.”

“ I mean why is she depressed?”

“ She really misses her boyfriend Hector. Hector’s owners aren’t bringing him to the park anymore ever since this crazy pandemic broke out and we were told to follow the CDC’s social distancing guidelines. Lou Lou’s not getting why we seem to go play fetch alone in the park when it’s totally empty. Previously, we would synchronize their game time together. You know how social Lou Lou is, friendly to a fault. ”

I knew then that canine distancing was the inevitable fallout of human social distancing. What an unforeseen consequence. Lou Lou would possibly get over it in course of time just as we would sometime in the future.Meanwhile Meg had a lot on her plate. Poor soul.

Absentmindedly I kept tickling Munchkin’s neck while she lazily yawned at me with perfect contentment as though she seemed to say the world was too unnecessary for me to be so worried about. I’ve often seen her reprove me at my most trying moments and have envied her superior indifference of all things mundane. Nothing, absolutely nothing ruffles her Persian fur. At times I’ve suffered her disdainful look as if she’s royalty and I am her attendant lady. I have felt mortified plenty of times whenever she’s deigned to convince me that she has a mind of her own and might be able to help me for a change if I considered the proposition.

We were watching TV and she was curled up like a ball of wool in my warm lap with eyes closed- her favorite  cuddle time.She was the very picture of snugness totally divorced from the world outside and kept purring from time to time. And it was then that she gave me an idea.

“ Meg I have an idea.”

“Okaay...?”

“ You know Lou Lou and Munchkin could have play dates if you are up to it. I think  sometimes she looks at Lou Lou condescendingly, like she always does with everyone, but she likes to play around in the backyard by herself and is pretty inventive. She could do with a playmate. They could both use the trampoline to entertain themselves. What do you say?”

“Oh this is brilliant. Love the idea. We could take turns. Once in my backyard and once in yours and the rest of the time they could watch Animal Planet. Lou Lou dotes on the elephants.”

“ Yeah two friends getting together to work around their boredom. We can’t be together. They can.”

I know Lou Lou well enough to expect that she would be a little hesitant initially with Munchkin’s superciliousness of all creatures, because Munchkin thinks of herself as the wisest feline  to grace the earth. This isn’t lost on Lou Lou, but she would accept her out of the generosity of her canine heart, I hope. Duress brings out the best in everyone and maybe my precious Munchkin might start feeling slightly less vain and more welcoming.

Time to observe a canine- feline bonding during a transition . I am looking forward to this new excitement in my otherwise confined living at this moment in history.

Virtual

I have been thinking lately. When Eliot says,

 “April is the cruellest month, breeding 

Lilacs out of  the dead land,  mixing 

Memory and desire, stirring 

Dull roots with spring rain."

he isn’t wrong at all. Look at April 2020 breeding direness. Our memory of everything hunky dory is mixing with our desire to regain our older life back. The spring rain is stirring up our vulnerabilities and exposing us to new fatalities. Sadly everything is reduced to a virtual reality. Meetings are virtual, classrooms are virtual, church services and temple aratis are virtual, expressing  affection is virtual. We are zooming and live streaming like never before.We are in the age of physical distancing and social isolation to survive the virus. This isn’t a regular human response unless you are in solitary confinement atoning for a sin. Maybe we all are for our collective sins as part of the human race.

 

Despite the encircling gloom of becoming somewhat dehumanized, I saw these pink spring blossoms while taking a walk in the Hidden Lake area near my home and fell head over heels in love with them. Fortunately they are not virtual. They are blooming bursting with hope. Craving for a hug,  I hugged the tree instead and kissed the pink flowers in my hand because in this new reality we are allowed to do just that. I opened my window to let their color seep into my soul and spread their wings like a bird taking flight. It wasn’t a virtual feeling, it was real because I started  humming a tune momentarily forgetting the crisis around. Such  healing that is completely free of the hefty charges of a professional therapist enveloped me with a sense of cool quiet. So comforting.

I saw my neighbor walk her dog right then. Not an usual sight at all. But what compelled me to stop and watch was how she took Lou Lou to the empty park inside the development and played fetch with her pet.  She had a ball and a twig in her hand and every time Lou Lou brought it back to Meg, she kept hugging her and patting her paws and showering her with kisses while Lou Lou looked at her with the most loving eyes. I hadn’t seen Meg kiss Lou Lou so often ever before and we’ve been neighbors for the last two decades almost. She was probably answering a deep seated human need in her for togetherness. When Meg saw me watching from what seemed more than 60 feet away, she first thought of coming close to shake my hands, then backed away sending a ❤️  sign my way and shook Lou Lou’s paws again. I got the hint, took off my mask and smiled my biggest smile hoping she’d understand how much I wanted to hug her too. I think we succeeded in communicating our affection for each other virtually  through signs. But her nearness to Lou Lou both physical and emotional was real, not virtual in the least. She has survived cancer; she will hopefully survive this isolation as well with Lou Lou beside her.

We’ve suddenly become more sensitive to our surroundings. I marveled at a forwarded picture that my friend sent me of a saffron sunset on a spring evening. Her son, a high school junior, took the picture.  He is probably looking out the window more often these days with virtual classrooms covering only a fraction of his normal school hours. He has a lot of time hanging on his hands now with soccer(contact sport) taking a backseat for the time being. He is using new eyes now to admire a beautiful twilight. This appreciation and acknowledgement is real, not virtual, because he catalyzed his mother’s vision as well. Both of them saw the sundown together. This is not in any sense virtual because the photograph capturing a fleeting sensation is real and can be admired by everyone. Nature can’t be locked down.

We must give thanks for all these wonderful daily experiences that normally we have little time to dwell on. A break from our hyper rushed schedules every single day suddenly arrested is giving us time to acknowledge our real environment and a space for introspection. I welcome this but I am also mindful of the horrific viral situation around. So I am in a meditative mood to welcome healing everywhere. Hope we will emerge from this crisis with the wisdom to be more compassionate and caring of the universe of which we are such a minuscule part. God bless!

NYC Mojo

NYC  mojo the dense energy deadly now

but the tough love of Yorkers undaunted

the forever fighters against the insidious beast:

Those needing care waiting for home.

Those caring have forsaken home.

Only gods at work with nothing but love

Ghostly streets, eerie, sinister

as though lifeless lies the giant

the pulse, the throb, the very hum of the

promise waiting to unfurl its wings clipped,

Now the margins sealed, the spills stopped

A roaring machine now a grinding halt.

The tug of the street soul: of kebabs or falafel

with salad on pita with Lebanese flourish

the steaming urgency of rushing bodies

the subway and the sidewalks all driven

to the tallest buildings otherwise bullish

the babble of a million tongues, faces from all over

on the steps of the MET the halls of MOMA

the warm hug of the Big Apple wall-to-wall

Hudson’s amber sunset touching Liberty’s call

the fragrant park walks n the performers will nudge

when the fear’s done n  the fever’s gone

as the Phoenix from the ashes rises once again.