In which She does those Hideous Dances

After 40, I have consciously moved to a slower pace of life, juggling profession, passion and responsibility - Landscape Architecture, Poetry - Art and playing mum, ever trying to achieve the correct work-life balance, often experimenting with new things.

As a result, in my free time, I started socializing with the neighbourhood women and those from the mothers group, who began to invite me to some religious/cultural meet ups. They say, and I agree that after 40, one can easily catch the poppycock about people. I decided to keep an open mind and dive in.

Mostly it has resulted in things completely not signed up for!!

My first reluctant performance at the Onam celebration, with 50 going on 20 women, was a mix of super slow movements of lighting lamps and noiseless clapping, in circles. They were very patient with me while teaching me the steps, as if it was Mohiniyattam though it was not that difficult to pick up. (I can come across as a no nonsense non dancer type.) My mind drifted back to our famous fusion dance at school on MJ's “Black or White’ , self choreographed by our gang of girls - a mix of Bharatnatyam on one side and what we called the “western dance "on the other side. That was a superhit!

Apparently the one being taught to me is a very famous Onam dance, which one of my relatives bragged about having showcased in a YouTube clip. Don't forget to ‘Like ' and ‘Subscribe' to our channel, her husband proudly announced with a toothy grin. This one may have been leaked onto social media, but I silently prayed, not to be tagged!

There was another vague singing while swinging scene at a supposed- to- be- picnic where one of the ‘extra-vert’ mums started singing Bollywood songs so loudly that the kids were getting worried! She then took endless selfies , some may have been videos which may have landed on social media. I don't remember if I joined in the loud singing loudly enough but the song was about never breaking this “fraandship” ;)

There was yet another of those three tiered fondant caked birthday parties where the mums and daughters had to be twinning! Luckily I have two no nonsense boys, away from the twinning and rainbow unicorn ponies! So I was only pulled into a Party mix of Bollywood Rap numbers in Sindhi with Punjabi choreography executed by another famous 50 going on 20 - reel making aunties gang. I managed to survive the limelight without stealing it!

The most recent hideous adulthood dance attack was at a religious event, our entire family was tricked into. It started out with naïve story telling, then warmed up to chanting and suddenly burst into some farmer’s dance about being overjoyed after all the ploughing and seed planting, ready to enjoy the harvest of the season! Ok. I can enjoy some action but this one would have gone better with some wine! The group dance went on and on in circles that expanded and contracted between chants with raised hands.

All this action made up for everything that was missing in our lives ;)

After a polite wrap up and exchange of sweet smiles, that Halloween night when everyone went to bed, “SHE” arrived… out of my wicked mind corner! The envy- green, grape-eating sarcastic evil twin of mine , from a parallel universe! She always wears a shiny green bikini top and a matching frilly micro mini skirt , with a hat full of grapes and wine-smeared purple lips. “Is this the new you?! “She mocks.

What exactly have you BECOME, Nair Aunty!? Oh is this that profound “becoming” of yours… she laughs away…

#justforfun #nooffense #fortyplusgoingontwenty #midlifecrisis #randomness #oopsembarassed #selfintrospection 

:: My evil twin often surfaces in my mind, helping me look at myself from the outside. We all need this reality check from time to time! ::

:: Picture used for illustrative purposes only ::

Barefoot Soccer Mom

Since childhood, I have been into sports. My favourite sport was and still is table tennis. I used to play for my school and for my college. I have always been one of the good players in our office, playing table tennis at lunch times and in between times. I  represented my school for throwball, kabaddi, yoga and sun salutation competitions. My sister and I learnt swimming at a young age and we would proudly go to the pool on our cycles, swim a good 500m and cycle back.

My husband is the one who’s into football and hence my boys. Which is why I have also been a soccer mom for the past decade. Yet, somehow, even though I can safely call myself a sporty woman, I have not felt comfortable being around a football field! 

As a landscape architect, I have designed parks and open spaces with many a football field. Yet there's something awkwardly uncomfortable around it, for me!

When you have one boy playing in the U14 and the other in the U9, the “waiting period” associated with it can be excruciating, especially for a sport that I am not really interested in!

My boys keep talking only about football, football players, home kits, away kits, centre forward, center mid , off side, GOAT etc. I just don't get it! My mind automatically switches off , exactly like the times when people start speaking in Malayalam with me, because of my surname!

When the boys have football matches, I spend hours and hours waiting around the football field, pretending to be interested, cheering for some time and then quietly walking away with my book, to sit and read somewhere. But as the weather is getting better with October leading us towards a much awaited desert winter, I came up with a great plan!

Every morning , my routine includes a ten to fifteen minute barefoot walk in the lawn, saying the mantras after my flower picking ritual. It's followed by a ten minute meditation under the Frangipani, listening to the birds.

And I thought, why not continue my barefoot grass walk by the football field!!! Football field is the only place that has well maintained natural grass all around it. What could be better than a Barefoot Walk while I wait for the matches to end! Barefoot Soccer Mom! That's my new name!

'No-Woman'Island!

It is a perfectly normal day for basking in the pleasant weather of a much awaited spring in the desert.  I am supposed to go to a project site located on a far off island to inspect the landscape works with a site engineer. I’m always happy to see a project I worked on, take shape on site.

Long unending desert roads lead us to this island, completely deserted in the real sense of the term!!!

On this big island, almost the size of Abu Dhabi, there is only one big palace building for which we have designed the landscape.After working in this region for so many years now, designing a garden for a palace on a private island has always been on my bucket list of dream projects.

We need to have security passes to visit this private island. The ID cards are deposited with a security guard who has a sinister undertone to his words. “No woman has gone on this island” he says!  “We need to double check the security papers”. I feel a slight chill passing through my spine. Sounds like an adventure! I reassured myself.

We need to drive another 50 kms along the mangroovy edges of the island. I must admit, mangroves are the most exciting landscape elements of this region. But the mangroves look a bit sparse today with their roots naked!  The tide is low.  I see hungry sea gulls soaring around occasionally breaking the silence of the fluid water.

We have to take a ferry to reach the heart of the island. We wait for the ferry boat to arrive on our side of the bank. The dry breeze teases my hair. Where am I! Is it a ghost town. I see no one around but an empty silence. Does it hold back a secret? The ferry boatman has dark drunken eyes. That’s all I can see of him. His face is covered. Far on the bank is a little dilapidated house with clothes hung out for drying! Who must be living here! 

We reach the other side. The ferry horn blows and startles me with a realization ... suddenly, I start feeling the eeriness in the air that I had not understood all this while!

The road shows signs for being careful about gazelles crossing by. And all of a sudden there’s a big herd of gazelles strolling around the island, sometimes in little groups running between the desert trees. The sea on one side, the blue sky above and the sandy landscape camouflaged by thousands of gazelles!!! The newborns have a wobbly walk; the older ones sit down for a sip of water. And for a while, my mind drifts back to a usual dreamy trance.

I see the palace structure further up.  It wears a ‘less used by humans’ look. It is because no one lives here! It’s a large empty building by the sea. Maybe the palace is trapped in a curse! Maybe the spirit of an old woman roams here on full moon nights… singing haunting melodies for her beloved…maybe her love story was left incomplete!  …that’s why she stops women from visiting the island! My mind is weaving stories…

But just then my eyes catch a glimpse of a sea of pigeons…about five thousand pigeons perched upon the roofscapes of the palace!!! This is totally thrilling, but my mind senses a tinge of creepiness to it! I am on an island, on a no-woman island, stranded with just about four men and thousand gazelles and five thousand birds!  It’s a scene out of a Hitchcock movie!!!

I finish my site inspections and prepare to leave. The site office is a broken down hut with a creaky doored toilet and a spider to accompany! As I step out, the site engineer asks me if I would like some tea. I suddenly imagine a strange looking boy, with a greased tea kettle and cups with dripping blood stains!!! --- “when’s your deadline?”’ he smirks…

I have to escape!!! I tell him, I need to reach back to Abu Dhabi soon.

I know it’s more of my mind, playing games. But in broad daylight, the island air has a spooky, uninhabited feeling to it…as though every tree, every gazelle, every pigeon knows of some big mystery that I don’t!

The breeze soothes the discomforting atmosphere. Someone’s on my side, I believe.

We reach the ferry. I hear the horn blow. I breathe a sigh of relief when I get my ID card back in hand!

Back to desert roads…and soon back to the hustle bustle of the city.I sit back and relax, now with a smile. My mind has had its own little exhilarating adventure on a haunted island!

Happy Women’s Day ;)

Secret Wish List

There is a huge bucket list stocked up for many years in a neat folder of my mind corner. These are the things I wished to do from ‘the day I have plenty of time on hand’.This week I decided to reopen that folder realizing my gift of time --- which is that precious bracket of five hours I get each morning when my son goes to school. Well, its only a few weeks left for this treat, hence I began to jot my list down for future reference and indulgence.

Firstly, this morning I went for a long walk to the neighbourhood park. I was surprised to see many people using the park route as a short way to reach the bus stop. It has the benefits of a morning stroll before work that adds freshness to the daily routine. It pleasantly reminded me of my days in Bangalore ---the garden city, where most people take their breakfast or lunch break at a park near their office. 

I explored most of the shaded pedestrian paths along the villas that led to the main road side walk , like an exercise in urban design for the zone I stay in. I jogged past cars stuck in the rush hour traffic with a wide smile on my face. I enjoyed being on the ‘other side’ swimming against the rat race. Been there, done that… one item ticked off the list !

Now let me continue with the list further in random order ---

2. Add more graphic elements to ‘quietHappiness’. Spend more time writing and organizing both blogs. Finish typing out handwritten notes and travel diaries. Not to get totally carried away on this one!

3. Yoga ,Sun salutations and meditation for an hour every morning. I am already at it and its helping me stay calm.

4. Add some more aesthetic touches to our home interiors in terms of soft furnishings, more frames and some funky wall art. I might need to include the architect husband and the opinionated son in this task.

5. Check each and every corner of each and every cupboard of the house to discard all the unwanted things building up negative spaces. This is the ocd part of me. So dear mind, it might take a while to tick this item off.

6. Spend one whole day out only with myself and for myself. This is the materialistic me . So let me work out a bargain offer with the husband ;)

7. Get back to more photography, sketching and painting. I am still working on the starting trouble. Atleast I found the old sketch books and paints!

8. Add healthy elements to every meal. Make more soups and salads for the boys. No junk. I am keen to find out how that’s going to work!

9. Make an effort towards wet waste recycling at home and reuse it for my potted plants. Well, I have been pondering over this for long. Now is a good time to put it in practice and give an interesting lesson to my son about environmental issues.

10. Rearrange the fridge magnets. Well, this is again the ocd me. But I will do it . One day. Someday. It needs a lot of mental preparation and concentration ;)

11. Try out ALL the clothes in the closet. Check if they fit and look fine. Otherwise donate. Just to make room for item 6 ;)

12. Have a long indulgent bath at a different odd time each day!!! These are the crazy after effects of motherhood. I am sure new mums and seasoned ones will have this on their list ;)

And last but not the least --- to spend a lot of time with my son. To give him my time when he needs it and not only when I have it. To be available mentally and physically ; to listen to his amazing stories. To actually become a hooded super hero with him and dance around the whole house!  To give him one helluva summer vacation when ‘Amma was there ALL the time’ . So that by the end of it he will say  “Amma go back to work ! “ That’s the strategy ;)

I hope everything goes well and atleast 70 % of things get ticked off. Nonetheless going by Murphy’s law one should always come up with a Plan B. And that my friend, would be best left undisclosed ;)

:: Afterword - Life's Plan B was actually Baby no.2! ::

Facebook (Fan)aticism

To be or not to be, that is the question. To be active on facebook and share your life with others or not be bothered about social networking at all, that is the question! In a random mind frame, I ponder over any topic under the sun that pokes me in some or the other way. Just so it does not lead up to insomnia, I analyse it deeply until it is justified by my mind.

But still, there are many unanswered questions about such sites that continue to annoy me. You constantly need to sieve out the fake.The only solution is not to take virtual interactions too seriously. Because nobody else does. No technology can replace real interactions.The truth is out there. Somewhere.

There are those who believe in sharing any and everything everyday; some of those who selectively share pictures and events ; those who absolutely despise everything about social networking sites and a discreet category of those who take interest in others lives but choose not to share anything about themselves.

To be very honest, I am okay with selective sharing on facebook. Not only to show off my latest look ;) but the intent is more insightful than that. I am quite fascinated by the timeline feature. For me, who loves to document every phase of my life, this technological wonder helps me keep an account of whatever I have done in a specific year and that too, freely available to all my relatives, close friends and most importantly, to myself. 

I read somewhere a while ago that keeping a personal journal gives you a better access to yourself, makes you aware of your own progress and offers an invaluable feedback loop. When I am feeling low, I view my own timeline and listen to what my life has been telling me. It makes me happy to see what I have experienced and what changes have taken place over the years.  I don’t need to format anything; it gets synchronized on its own and hopefully will be available as a pictorial diary even by the time I grow old.

Have we not found a profound reason! So go on and share. Not for anyone else, but for yourself. It is all the more interesting to note the changes.

Disclaimer :  

Any views or opinions expressed in this writing are not intended to hurt the sentiments of any specific individual or community and if so, it’s purely coincidental. The rights to change/not believe in any /all of the above statements at any time are reserved with the author ;)

Photo Phobia

It is a very recent finding. Yes. I have photo phobia. It’s a mental disorder that leads to sleeplessness and sarcasm. I was living with it for quite some time I guess. Some of my photos make me go wildly critical and I find myself laughing and crying at the same time, on the verge of slight madness. Well, in my too - uncomfortable -to- admit- comfort zone, perhaps!

Just today, I got some scanned old school photos from a childhood friend. We were a bunch of adolescent school girls in growing shapeless bodies and obviously unconditioned uncombed tresses. Somebody give them some shampoo please! I thought…I pleaded ...I yelped…! And that’s how my paranoia got detected.

Great. Congratulations. I know a lot more about me now!

This critical medical condition goes way back into a pre digital gawky teenage that broke out like acne into gullible college years. It was until I mastered the art of learning how to take pictures with our very classy Olympus film camera, a gift from my father. The camera was a bit moody. Just like my grandfather, my father and then me. My father was convinced, it was in safe hands as I managed to take some reasonably aesthetic pictures in one single film, without the privilege of deleting unwanted pictures or cropping undesired backgrounds. I had tamed the camera! But by mistake I got the photos printed to a larger size than to a budget friendly postcard size. I wanted to delete some irritating bits and the big size gave me that tempting chance. So I just grabbed a steel ruler and a cutter and simply chopped off the non aesthetic parts of the picture. I now think that was the first time my rare obsession surfaced, which was unknowingly masked off as a creative exercise back then.

A peek into my wedding photo stories is like opening a can of worms! I am yet to find one fairly acceptable picture of myself and my husband in the whole big laminated album full of plastic chairs, slippers and tube lights and a water cooler! But since we got married seven years ago in the olden days when there were no digital cameras but one moderately energetic old guy who most importantly, came free with the wedding hall, and who could barely balance the film camera with a large yellow flash light on it, in his very creative hands, I guess one had to live with such fiascos.

Don’t even get me started with our cocktail party photos. I got about five zoomed in shots of my back. The guy in the photo must be my husband. Well, I can make out from the side view of his shirt! And then there were some pictures of people I don’t even know! That was a superb album --- in my head!

On my engagement day, I had mustered the courage to borrow a small digital camera from some neighbour’s friend’s friend. Some stranger in the crowd accidentally but luckily for me took one photo that day. It was only of our hands with the exchanged rings. All my love to that stranger. That is one of the best pictures I have preserved! My parents, relatives and everyone from the girl’s side mistook the video team to be the photographers, in the end to find no pictures but only a short and spicy south Indian engagement film with mesmerizingly melodramatic sound effects (highly recommended to those with normal mental conditions).

I got my second attack of photo paranoia right after watching that DVD!

And today, the school snaps reconfirmed it.I dare not show you those awesome pictures as I am afraid, the infection might get passed on to some of you dear readers!

My love affair with the digital camera has finally helped me fight this disturbing mental situation ;)

Those who have been suffering in silence just like me, grab a good camera and shoot!...just shoot them all I say !!!

Not my cup of tea

The right cup of tea can make a morning and a wrong one can spoil it. My morning tea was all messed up by the new tea boy in our office. The concoction was not to my taste though it was served in my cup. So as not to sound harsh, I said “It’s not my cup of tea!” He smiled and brought me the same tea in another cup!!!

In a modern workplace full of mixed tastes and cultures, it is not easy to get your perfect tea at the desired time in the right cup with the accurate mix of milk and sugar, especially with the options of green tea, black tea, Moroccan tea and sulaimani chai.The usual office tea boy in my current place of work is hearing impaired and cannot speak. But frankly he was always able to deliver an acceptable cup of tea only with instructions in sign language!!

When I worked in India, tea times were indeed fun times! The office could not accommodate a pantry, so the easiest and most exciting option was to “order” tea whenever required (or not required), from a road side tea stall. This was an interesting exercise of waving out from the window and showing with your fingers the number of tea cups that were to be delivered! And then after half an hour a small boy with greased clothes would bring an aluminium kettle and a few 'washed' extra small tea cups (with saucers). My cup of tea would be ‘half filled’ with a honey coloured liquid of saturated sugar syrup with minimum tea leaves and too much milk. In spite of a common set of instructions, he could never get it right!

Making the perfect cup of tea is an art indeed. It’s a subtle balance of the right amount of tea leaves, accurate boiling time, precise proportion of milk and sugar and finally the ideal cup. The lesser known secret to a great cup of tea lies in getting the exact temperature for the first sip. And that can only be achieved by the famous south Indian mixing technique of pouring the tea from one cup to the other for about four times, in rhythmic flow,not spilling a single drop!

Even after getting trained for almost seven years from a die-hard Indian foodie husband towards this unique tea making skill, I have never been able to get it right! Well, let’s say, it’s just not my cup of tea!!!

IT Trap

Task        : To “just”get 5 A3 colour copies of the concept design report printed and bound …in like an hour!

Hurdle 1 : The printer on this floor is not working(as always)

Hurdle 2 : Sending it out for printing is frowned upon as apparently it costs a bomb (say 25 bucks maximum!)

With exasperation, I call the IT guy who by the way, loves to talk about cricket, food, weather and the colour of my eyes more than my current printing fiasco.

Me       : The document is not getting printed.

IT guy  :  Why?

Me       : I dont know...
             (Arent you supposed to tell me that!)
IT guy  : Is it too big?

Me       : How much is “too big” for the printer?

IT guy  : Oh its an awesome printer and can take upto 100 MB (along with 10 people photocopying and scanning all at the same time) But still reduce the file size and then print…

Me      : Its much lesser than that, but ‘to be on the safer side’,I try the famous file reduction process (from what I know) and after 25 minutes it gets reduced by 2 KB! Oh wow!

But of course its still not printing….

IT guy  : Oh the file must be corrupt…Why is it corrupt?

Me       : I really dont know...
             (Again, YOU are supposed to find out!)

IT guy  : Restart your system…

Me      : The computer has already done that …twice!..Fatal error …and then rebirth! Or reincarnation!

IT guy :  Oh then it’s the software…is it licensed?

Me      :  Believe you me, I dont know
            (Yet again, *$$#@ you can answer that better!!!)

Meanwhile all the people around the printer have gathered like there has been an accident…or like there is a 50% off sale.

“Try another printer” (Oh really… the one that has a permanently dried cartridge??!!)

“Try restarting your computer…the problem lies therein”…(ya right, even the crying baby in the next building will now tell me to restart the system!)

Me    : So I guess I am supposed to figure out the “problem” with “my“computer!..when it’s NOT MY ##@*$$ freakin expertise!!!

Finally, with all my limited IT knowledge, I convert the damn file to separate jpegs and print…for several hours without food and water…and then the best part --- I accept the kind offer from the binding”expert”...AND HE BINDS IT ON THE WRONG SIDE!!! Arrrggggh…

Good Hair Day

Randomness

I was not tagged in one of those '25 random things’ chain as my friends knew that I would end up writing long theories! For those ‘in between times’, I scribble random stuff on bits of sketch book paper lying around on the desk…well, now I have a blog to be able to do that!

I say I am just like “quietHappiness”…but now I have totally become that! My blog is me and I am my blog. We exchange identities every day. QuietHappiness exists because of my life…but now my life IS my quietHappiness! I am possessed. Obsessed. I have lost all productivity in every other sphere of life. Hence this randomness might help in taming the constant urge of writing something.

Don’t take these theories seriously. They are not 25 yet. But these are the sad hidden truths about me …not in order of importance (otherwise its too obvious that I am so materialistic!)

1. I hate my hair. I want to shave my head. But I am not cool enough to pull that off.You see, they are of a mid-way length and have to be tied up. But please...the term “pony tail” is only for silky smooth hair in shampoo advertisements! For “wavy” rebellious my kind of hair, its more the super south Indian “bob” or a broom …maybe that hard porous thing you use to scrub your back with! My sister is a pro at using the best adjectives for ‘Tresses Tales’.“Ship shape “ is something she called my hair when I undid my so called pony tails after school and the hair would still be in that shape! It would move as a whole....indeed, wrecked ;)

2. I despise all that motherhood melodrama…It has made my thoughts retarded! …it is something us mums use to escape the intellectual world . I think my son is way more grown up than I am.

3. I am not a fan of technology. I would have loved to live in a village …farming…pottery…climbing hills, swimming in the river….I can totally live without a phone…In fact , my pigeon must be on its way delivering those messages sent with high importance ;)

*Note – some hi fi fancy stuff is not mentioned for convenience ;)
But if you give me that kind of technology where I can transfer myself from "office" folder to "home" folder without actually having to move, I will surrender to it...

4. A bottle of wine, too many …and I can readily accept my chirpy “Lebanese twin” --- off late she surfaces as Inspector Najma who helps discipline my son in a fun accent ;)

5. I love stain removers more than potted plants. ( and I call myself a landscaper!..maybe they are right…I am a hypocrite!)

6. I was a cat in my last life. Not only do I understand a cat’s psyche but I love a cats’ approach towards life --- Never forget to relax. Strongly believe in your own awesomeness ;)

7. Ironically, quietHappiness secretly lets me be that weird girl gone wild, I need to hide from all… Even if it is open to the whole world, the one you are hiding it from never reads your blog.
(*This one is no longer true...my husband is actually reading my blog!!!...well, we dont hide anything from each other ;)

8. If you can take shortcuts, you must… They might not lead to success each time, but what the hell…life is just trial and error. Blame all that goes wrong on pms ;)

9. I write vague sarcastic hasty emails when I am restless . When you mix wit and sarcasm, its never received well.

10. Long legged spiders and most of their creepy crawling cousins can give me a mini heart attack. Those who might want to kill me for some odd/mean things I might have done, say ten years ago, heres your tip.

11. I am not really a happy, friendly,cheerful person. When I laugh loudly, I look like a witch and my son gets scared...really! I look much better when I am crying. A fairly cute boy in my class told me that when we were 8. Thats the real reason why I cry often ;)

12. I want to get married again… (don’t panic) … to the same man. (no problem there yet)There is one extremely deep and non-superficial purpose to that. Just that my lipstick shade was too bright in the extraordinary yellow lighting… and the wedding photographer(if you call him that) took more pictures of peoples' slippers , some tubelights, a sculptural blue water cooler gone kaput and hundreds of plastic chairs. Except that, everything else was pretty okay. As far as I remember.

13. Even though I love cats, when I was about 3 years old, I had picked up a kitten by its tail and dipped him in a pond to give him a swimming cum bungee jumping lesson!...well, I sensed my feline connection since then as the kitten profoundly understood my feelings …survived and continued to love me :D
(After that incident, my sister, became the’ legal’ guardian of all the cats we petted thereafter…in short, they were in safe hands :)

14. I love collecting all those extra buttons that come with new clothes(and that,my friend, is the only reason I shop ;)

15. I wanted two of my lower incisors one shade whiter, the skin on my legs one tone darker , my nose bridge rotated 0.4 degrees anticlockwise,my brows 65 mm thicker at the broader end and hair, as said earlier , either a bit more curly or a tad bit straight. Mind you, I am an admirer of inner beauty ;)

16. My random access memory isn’t in neat folders arranged as per year or importance. My mind’s recycle bin has a problem with permanently deleting stuff. My design softwares function alright but mental Excel sheets are incomplete. Mostly after Control Alt Delete, the task manager gives up. And, I think I have forgotten the password to restart my system. My son is working on it.

17. I can laugh and cry uncontrollably at the same time on the most stupid incidences until people around me get irritated and terrified at the same time.

18. In my opinion, those who are blessed with naturally fragrant arm pits are the luckiest. Eg: The Husband.

19. In the recent past I have cried over spilt milk maximum number of times…(in the real sense of the term!)

20. Someday I am going to get a ticket for slow speeding in the fast lane...heloo, atleast I have no  traffic fines yet...yup never :D

Well, let the next 5 remain as a soft copy to be edited from time to time in my head. I loved this randomness. Nothing close to “substance’ to be expected under this label…until I go back to my usual comfort zone of meaningful poetry ;)