Bird-brained they might be. Valuable lesson they taught.

Finally, the icy grip loosened. There is plenty of ice all around, yes, but, it was just about warm enough for the melt to begin. People in the neighborhood poked their heads out. I drove up to the grocery store.

A simple act of going grocery shopping. But, what a pleasure it was to stir out of the home, and see people out and about. We smiled at each other--I think we were all subliminally giving that same message of "am I happy to get back to my regular life!"  I suppose it is always thus in life--we never know how good we have until there is a major disruption that forced us to re-evaluate our priorities.  But then, soon we forget those lessons. Aren't we humans the ones that are bird-brained?

I walked past an open checkout counter in order to chat with one of my favorite clerks. She gave me a big smile even before she was done with the customer.

"Things went well with the ice and snow?" I asked her as I moved up to the head of the line.  "I remember you have a long drive to work."

"Yes. But, Friday night was treacherous.  The wipers also stopped working and I could barely see anything out in front.  But I made it back home."

See, right there is a major difference between her employment and mine. Thursday and Friday the campus shut down. But, we get paid anyway.  In her case, I would think that she would have lost wages if she had not reported to work. I was worried that she would turn around and ask me about my drive to work.

Well, she is a good conversationalist and she asked me about my work and the drive.

I flubbed the answer. And cut away to something else.

I returned home and restocked the pantry. Across the window, I noticed that the yard was full of robins. Not crowded enough for me to worry that I had been cast in the remake of Hitchock's Birds. Perhaps more than twenty of them.  For a reason--the ice and snow that were so freakishly unusual had messed up the birds' food sources. I think the couple of robins that visited with me yesterday had spread the word among the robins in the area that perhaps the orangish berry like thingys in my backyard were their only food.

And so they came.

I didn't know what else I could offer these desperate visitors. The only nuts I had--cashews--were salted. I didn't want to offer them chips. Perhaps the multi-grain bread?  I tore up a slice into tiny pieces and tossed them into the snow. The robins didn't even bother to check them out, and they kept going after those berries.

Here is the strangest thing: in all these years that I have lived here, never once have I seen any bird eat them. It was clear that these birds were so starved for food that they were ready to eat these brightly colored ones.  The last time I checked the plant, it looked like they had striped away all the orange and only the green remained. That's ok.

After meeting with the grocery clerk, and after watching the birds, you think I will complain about my life?

You betcha!

I will in a few days. Because, like most of us, I am bird-brained!

I will leave you with this from the old country:

शोकस्थानसहस्राणि दुःखस्थानशतानि च ।
दिवसे दिवसे मूढमाविशन्ति न पण्डितम् ॥

- महाभारत, अरण्य

Everyday there are thousand reasons to feel sad, hundred reasons to worry.
Such things only bother fools; not wise men.

Mahabharata, Aranya

Source

The wisdom of working out--the body and the senses

It has now been two days of snow falling steadily.  So unusual that this robin did not care about me, and was more worried about the snow and the cold.

you see the bird?

I have not stirred out of the neighborhood since I reached home almost forty-eight hours ago. Fearing such a house-arrest, I made sure I picked up the absolutely needed grocery items back on Wednesday.  You don't have to be an eager-beaver Boy Scout to be prepared!  Thanks to that, I can sit out another two days or more. Heck, I have enough coffee to last me a week. And then there is tea--genuine Darjeeling tea, thanks to Ramesh. So, the weather gods can keep sending snow this way, but I will outlast this modern day Vienna siege! ;)

But, I do miss walking around.

Walking for three miles. Or four. Or five.

And hiking.

If only I had the winter gear to venture out in the snow!

In the latest issue of National Geographic, Garrison Keillor remarks that "Winter is miserable only for people who don’t know what to wear."  Aha!  I will be prepared then before the next winter arrives.

I suppose the body is used to the endorphins that walking and hiking generate. It is an endorphin withdrawal that I am suffering from, to some extent. It is not that I am a fitness maniac either. I fully understand that physical health is merely one component of an existence in which the happiness endorphins come from different places.  Furthermore, there is this wisdom from the old country:

शरीर पोषणार्थि सन् यु आत्मानं दिदृक्षति ।
ग्राहं दारुधिया धृत्वा नदीं तुर्तुं स गच्छति ॥

-विवेकचूडामणि

Some people are interested in nurturing their body well assuming that it make their soul also happy.
Such people are kidding themselves; trying to cross a river on a crocodile taking that to be a log.

- Vivekachudamani

This atheist does not care about the soul, but does understand that there is immensely more to life than a fixation on the physical appearance and health.

Stuck at home, am eating more than I probably should.  If this is my behavior when seven inches of snow fall over two days, I should be thankful then that I don't live where it is feet of snow over the winter months!

Eat I did, like this one:

Melted cheese with chives, and salsa .. the halves combine to make me one with everything ;)

Of course, I don't live to eat, but eat to live. Eat healthily and colorfully to live ;)

I know enough not to fall victim to eating.  Again, from the old country:

शब्दादिभिः पंचभिरेव पंचपंचत्वमापुः स्वगुणेन बद्धाः ।
कुरंग मातंग पतंग मीन भृंगा नरः पंचभिरंचितः किम् ॥

- विवेकचूडामणि

The five senses are sound, touch, sight, taste and smell. Animals that are slaves of any one of them often pay the price by their life. A deer follows the sound (of its calf) and becomes a prey. An elephant is enslaved by its vulnerability of touch behind the head. A moth is driven to the flame by its sight. A fish is baited by its longing for taste. A bee loses its life when it gets trapped in the lotus which attracted it by smell. What can now be told of a man who is driven by all the five senses?

- Vivekachudamani

The sound of silence of the falling snow is a wonderful background to think about life, even through such everyday activities.

Thinking is one awesome workout.

The best.

My favorite!

When heaven freezes over!

We know about the expression "when hell freezes over."  But, heaven?

Yes, it can happen.

It did.

The snowfall began even before the sun came up on Friday.  Initially, the snow was fun. Everything looked pretty.

But, thanks to meteorologists--the real one, and not the fakes on TV--we knew what the weekend would be like.

Damn, the forecasts were correct!

By evening, the flakes fell no more.  After the sun went down, I stepped out to view the neighborhood.

"You are braver than me" yelled a voice.  It was my neighbor, with a camera in her hand.  I suppose I was the ambulatory version of "fools rush in."  The neighborhood looked gorgeous with the streetlight illuminating the sparkles on the ground, and the holiday lights on homes adding color to the white background.

But, it was cold.  Colder than all the pretty women who have turned their backs on me! ;)

Saturday mid-morning.

The sun was bright. The sky was clear.

I decided that I had to find out how my friends, the Willamette River and the bike path, looked after the seven-plus inches that fell from the sky.

The landscape was surreal.

An older gent was scanning the scenery.  "I suppose no bikes today" he joked.  We men love to joke in any context.  I wonder if even at funerals our minds are only thinking of funny lines.  We are strange creatures, indeed.  But, was Christopher Hitchens on to something when he opined that the average women simply aren't funny?

Saturday overnight, the temperature went down.  All the way down to 10 below zero. On the Fahrenheit scale, which means it is negative 23 in Celsisus.  Yes, -23 C, Ramesh!

When talking with my parents, my father complained that it was cold for him because the daytime high wasn't even at 27. In Celsius!  I described to him the weather conditions here.

"I hope you are warm" he said.

I live in a land of luxury, where we take for granted the warmth during the cold weather.  Climate-controlled homes.  Hot water at the twist of the faucet.  Refrigerator and freezer stocked with food, and kitchen shelves with more food.  My biggest, and only, problem was that I had only three days of coffee supply in the canister.  What a lucky and decadent life!

Having lived this long, I know that I have nothing to complain about.  And that revelation is no snow-job!

Poem for today: "Spellbound" by Emily Brontë

The neighboring roofs are all frosted.  We are getting deeper into winter, and weather forecasts suggest that if the conditions are right, we might get a sprinkling of snow.  Because snow is rare in this part of the world, we make a big deal of it when it happens, much to the amusement of those who live in snow country.  Within a couple of minutes of snow falling, we also begin to complain about the problems it creates.

It is all a reflection of how much we are impressed by the forces of nature.  Robert Frost famously wrote about stopping by the woods on a snowy evening.  Expressing similar emotions is Emily Brontë in her poem:

Spellbound  by Emily Brontë

The night is darkening round me, The wild winds coldly blow; But a tyrant spell has bound me And I cannot, cannot go. The giant trees are bending Their bare boughs weighed with snow. And the storm is fast descending, And yet I cannot go. Clouds beyond clouds above me, Wastes beyond wastes below; But nothing dear can move me; I will not, cannot go.

Of course, Brontë preceded Frost by more than a hundred years.  I bet even a few hundred years ago, humans--poets and otherwise--found themselves spellbound by nature, and then forced themselves to keep moving because of the various promises to keep.