Long Walks On Leafy Streets

1/6/2016 Rock Creek Park, Washington, DC
Since I wrote the last time we have gone through a bit of a rough patch. First Prashant came down with bacterial conjunctivitis (pink eye). We took him to the doctor and applied medicine and he got better in about a week. The eye infection also caused some chest congestion so there were a few nights where he was waking up every hour or two hours. Putting the medicine in his eye proved to be the hardest part. It took a lot of strength from both of us to hold down his hands and keep his head still while applying the ointment. He is already proving to be a tough customer! Strong in body and mind, he is a fighter as well.

Then on saturday before last I came down with a sore throat. I only have myself to blame for that because this happens time and again. I keep allowing the trifecta of sleeplessness, hunger and heavy physical exertion to happen at the same time. I managed to recover almost completely, in about a day. Finally Nicole came down with the same.
We were lucky that not all three of us were sick on the same day!

Sickness does put a damper on things. It throws you off your rhythm and disturbs the usual routine. What does help is to think of it as a signal from your body to slow down, take a breather, and relax a little bit. I took this time to rest, catch up on my sleep and watch some TV. I enjoyed watching “Frasier” and “Columbo” on Netflix and some sports as well, mainly Cricket.

The same phenomenon occurs in life, mine at least, in a larger way as well. I tend to alternate between the frenetic activity mode of my mother and the relaxed spectator mode of my father. At times I end up doing too much and find myself literally out of breath and turbulent in mind. Then I step back and try to recover my energy and my love of the simple pleasures of life. The two most drastic such episodes happened when I was in my late teens and early thirties, respectively.

In the first case a period of intense studying at school and spiritual practices at home resulted in me deciding that I should renounce my wordly life and become a monk in order to understand the true nature of self. That ended rather quickly, and I might write more about it later, but it resulted in me deciding that I was not emotionally mature or ready to take that step. I spent the next few years unwinding a little bit and living less intensely. I think it helped me to regain a proper perspective on life and myself. In retrospect I am happy with the way things worked out. Everything in life happens for a reason. Nevertheless, I can’t say things would have been bad if I had not turned back, either.

The second episode happened in the late 90’s, on the way back from a trip to Canada in the winter. It was a period of great anxiety for me. I had been getting frustrated with my career as well as personal life. I felt like I was running in place, not making any progress. I was driving my old Toyota Corolla all the way from Quebec to Washington, DC. I stopped by a Canadian National Park just to take a break from driving and walked around for maybe an hour. The park was empty and everything was covered in snow. I realized I was quite alone and in fact it felt like I was in some faraway galaxy. That is how enchanting the scene was. Suddenly all my worries looked very insignificant and I felt close to the true essence of myself. Nature always has a way of bringing me close to God and that moment was one of the closest it brought me to the divine spirit that lives in everything. I was filled with peace and was able to face life without fear or anxiety from then on, because I realized that everything I needed I already had within me.

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