A long list

Because "it is that time of the year"

To be myself. To make new memories.

To recognise the right times for rest, restraint and rage.

To reconcile. I type field reports on a computer, not neat legible prescriptions in a clinic.

To not seek validation, to not vent. It is exhausting.

To write the words till the restlessness rests a while, just a wee while, wait too long and the words will go off for a walk.

To read Wodehouse. A chuckle is my style. A quiet joy, but “it is not a crumb”¹. It bubbles over when a violin strikes the notes of Bahudari

and true to his godly namesake the man picks up the melody playfully. He will sing to me every day even if across the ether and I will travel the miles a few times a year for reinforcement, for rejuvenation, for sustenance.

To erase the recent, unnamed angst that overpowers me when I listen to a deep baritone even if it is only from the recesses of my mind. It is the voice I have known the longest, that I know best. I would like for that voice to be the one that knows me best too.

To be attentive to my own voice.

To be independent, not defiantly but gently. It will free up more space for everyone around me.

To stretch. My limbs, my spine, my imagination.

To smile at the mirror every now and then. Be my own masseuse. To hug myself, to help me release every knot in muscles contracted in needless tension.

To realise that there are things I will never be able to do. I have read Krakauer, Henry Marsh and Sohini Chattopadhyay

I ace vicarious living. I have climbed mountains, removed meningiomas and run marathons.

To not ruminate-I am no cow. Maybe, I should try to be a bull – bullish about saying “Enough, No more! Your cupboards are overflowing”. To look in the corners of the cupboards to colours that have lain hidden and wear them with abandon. Pinks that I have shied away from, browns that ground me and white but that is not quite pure, but richer with a touch of yellow, like the colour of cream on milk to calm me. The reds can take a backseat for a while. Maybe just a touch once in a while like the touch of red on the Blue throated Barbet. (Is this barbet a Bengali? It travels far and wide. A touch of sindoor. But in the avian world it is the male which dresses up)

Photo Courtesy Dr Kallol Banerjee aka the good doctor Location A eucalyptus tree outside our bedroom window Kolkata

To remember that indulging the itch of a mosquito bite is to make it a scar. It is time to move on, review relationships, look beyond those which I cannot give a name. To remove myself from the intersecting spaces of the Venn diagram.

To rid myself of the fancy that I can be everything for everyone or even for one. Can this be a lesson that can be taught in first grade please? I am still teaching myself this. This world is not one colour- it is many colours and in many combinations. Some are yet to be conceived. There is an artist every day at work. Let the artistry begin with crayons, the ones meant for children, Camlin crayons. Canvas is too late.

To retreat into myself, my Ruskin Bond notebook. This notebook holds all the colours of my mind, its black, its white and everything in between.

To rediscover that there are slices of me I like and want to be in love with.

To restore friendships with wedges of myself that are hard to befriend.

To live fully in the present with dreams for the future, the past be damned.

To give myself tall tasks like the ones just listed.

1. A hat tip to Mary Oliver.