A tree poem from Puerto Vallarta.

David and Liz Garlick are longtime friends of my parents, from way back when (the 1960s I suppose) in the days of Awali, Bahrain. I must have met them as a baby, but I'm not sure. But they've been one of my life's "traditions" because every year they would send us a long Christmas letter, with photographs and stories of their family (and they still do!)

So as a little girl and then a teenager and then an adult, I would always look forward to their letter. It is a bit magical to get that letter every year, to see how their children grew, where they went, what they did, their highs and lows, their joys and griefs, their gifts and their losses.

Eventually, I too starting writing back to them, and now thanks to email, manage to keep in touch more than once annually. When I wrote to them about my PlantMeATree dream, they wrote back to assure me that there would soon be a fruit tree growing for me at their home in Canada.

David - who is a poet and sends me some of his beautiful writing from time to time - also sent me this poem that he had written during one of his many travels:

A TREE.

A tree on a hill.
Not on the crest, just on the side.
There are many other trees
higher up, lower down.
I will never be a huge tree;
just a tree!
A breeze wafts, my leaves flutter.
A wind blows, my branches move
and my leaves speak.
A gale blasts and my twigs fall,
my leaves are rent.
The rain slants!
It is wet, it cleans
but I do not understand this.
I do not care anyway.
It happens!
I am a tree.
Nothing more.
Only small plants are less.
I do not think.
I do not care.
It does not matter;
for I am just a tree.

David Garlick.
Puerto Vallarta, Feb. 2001.

"The mirror's shattered ...

Here's another embarrassing one - also scratched out with the words "iddhu yena" scribbled underneath! (That's Kannada or perhaps Tamil, I'm not sure, for what amounts to "what the hell is this crap?"

I have realised that at this point, I have moved on from tortured adolescence into not-much-more-mature tortured adulthood. I was 21 when I wrote this. Oh dear. I mean, iddhu yena.

The mirror's shattered.
The spell's broken.
The unspeakable has been spoken.
No use for charms and amulets now.
Where have the gentle caresses
And soft whispers gone?
Is everything over?
And am I really and truly alone?
I am so very lost
Without you.

(Written on 29/1/1987, 4.10 p.m. Presumably after some wrenched-apart-from-Bops time of my life. I wonder why I always insist on writing the exact time I finish a poem?)

Snape fanfic: King's Pawn

"King's pawn, Severus. Considered in chess to be one of the most important and dangerous pieces in the beginning of the game. Always kept close to protect its ruler, the King. Almost always the first to be moved, and almost always the first to be destroyed."

- by ?

Nicely written fanfic. Snape compares the two men who dictate his life - his master, the Dark Lord and his friend, the Headmaster - and finds a common thread.

"I am manipulated by the man I call Master, and the man I call friend."

This fanfic is in two vignettes, and I love the single word that sums up so much at the end of each. Something potent and chilling about them: and the last word gets to be Snape's. Can't tell you more than that, dears, it would be a spoiler and I want you to read King's Pawn for yourself!

No wonder I have a paunch

I have been thinking lately, of some of the not so delicious experiences life sends me. Not that I've never thought of them before. But lately I've begun to see just how much more they were, beyond their face value of bad times or difficult challenges or cruel accidents.Recently I lost my voice and was told that I would have to be careful with it for the rest of my life. For someone who works as a clown, with funny voices, song, music, laughter and noise all being essential accessories for my clown character (you can read about her at My Nose Is Blogged, by the way), this was not very happy-making news.So I subsided, silently, into misery for a while. Or perhaps subsided, miserably, into silence for a while - doctor's orders: total voice rest. The enforced silence gave me the opportunity to see what it's like for someone who can't speak. On the bright side, I spent a lot more time than usual, writing and practising the piano, and got loads of laundry and other housework done.The most frustrating part was the way people treated me. Most talked to me as if my I.Q. had suddenly dropped, or shouted their words out as if my ears had given out along with my voice. Some would over-enunciate, imagining that I needed to lip-read. It would have been nice if THEY could lip-read. In the end, it was easier to stay home and be alone.Without a voice, anger suddenly began to feel very very loud. Whenever I got angry, I could physically feel its heat inside me. I had no voice to express it: scribbling down one's indignation on a memo pad just doesn't have the same effect. And so I learned something about something I knew nothing of before; I have often sensed a type of anger in people with disabilities and I think I understand that a bit better now. It's one thing to know something intellectually - "Oh yes, I understand why .. ", but it's so different when you know it with your emotions.That started me thinking of other experiences in my life - I've often been aware that they are "lessons" or "learning experiences", but I never quite thought about this word: EMPATHY.

Each hurt nurtures me.
Little bites of empathy.
Everything tastes good.

So having been in an abusive relationship makes me look at survivors of domestic violence with greater respect and less judgment. And even being sexually abused as a child: would people be turning to Askios the way they do if they were not reassured that I too know their pain?Years ago, I had a little mantra I would repeat to myself when things went wrong, "everything works out for the best". Now I have a haiku that says the same thing.

"I'm an orphaned child ...

This poem I found scratched through rather viciously with with the words, "Yuk not worth reading!" scrawled underneath. But I'm being brave enough to post all my poems, even the ones that bare soul and secrets, so I shouldn't be scared of adding this. So here it is. I don't actually remember what it's about, but I'm assuming that I must have had a fight with Bops, or perhaps broken things off with him in an attempt to get off smack. Or perhaps he just went away to Coorg and I missed him. Who knows. Maybe the poem wasn't written for him at all. Maybe I was turkeying and wrote this to smack?

I'm an orphaned child,
A widow.
A bottle floating endlessly in the sea.
I'm the last lost dinosaur
Crying and calling for no one to hear.
I'm the final dry leaf
That falls from the withered limbsof a tree
Come back to me
I don't want to be free.

(Written on 29/1/1987. 4.20 pm.)

The Abyss Gazes Also.

"He does not resist.
He does not hope.
He does not die."

- lunalein

I'm not too sure who wrote this "fanfic", the link says it's by
violet, but the site I found it on says it's by lunalein aka
tangleofthorns. Well whoever wrote it, s/he is brilliant I think.
I love the style of writing, and the creative concepts of both
this and the other story I found by the same author.

The Abyss Gazes Also is about Azkaban and the Dementors,
and is a wonderful exploration of the thoughts and experiences
of Sirius Black and other prisoners there. Very well written
and such a satisfying read. Here's another quote from it,
about Bellatrix:

"She doesn't flinch. Not even as her Dementor vanishes, and the metal begins to burn her. Scar tissue is the hardest kind to harm."

How the Tree-thing all started.

I remember very little of my childhood, which is a pity, because alongside the bad, I've missed out on the good. Much of my life, I've pretended to remember, nodding and laughing at stories I've put together from other people's anecdotes or old photographs. So I don't really remember the planting of the first tree. It was a magnolia of some sort, I think. The ones with those big waxy white flowers that smell so heavenly. In Urdu, it's called 'franjipani'. My father planted it just inside the gate of House 429 in Awali, Bahrain. It doesn't matter that I don't remember the planting of it, though, because over the years, every time we drove down to Awali, we would pass our old house, and seeing the tree that Daddy planted was a significant part of every drive. I'm sure I have a picture of it somewhere. I hope it is still growing. It must be around 40 years old now, just a bit younger than I am.

My father was a planter of trees. And so, every house that we've lived in, that had a patch of earth, would be home not just to us, but to the trees my father would plant and leave behind as a legacy. In Gufool, in the 80s, it was two 'gulmohars' (Flame of The Forest), one of which was still as glorious as ever the last time i saw it. In Adliya in the 90s, it was a lemon tree in the backyard and more gulmohars flanking the front gate.

At our first Indian home, the Awali township's namesake here in Bangalore, the trees have gone, replaced by a rather glossy commercial building that I'd ask you to please not begrudge - that building makes it possible for me to work full time on Askios (my voluntary job on CSA awareness). And now, at the new family home 'Dilmun', there are many new trees - a custard apple tree that's already borne two seasons of fruit, the 'kari-pattha' tree whose leaves I meet at lunch most days, a remarkable drumstick tree that has seen thousands of sticks distributed over the years to friends and neighbours - and that brings delightful little brown and yellow bee-eaters twittering to its flowers, a lime tree that gave up the ghosts just this year - and of course its heir Tree #1, the new lime tree planted a few days ago.

I've inherited my father's eyes and feet. His ability to make a great tomato jam. His artistic skills. His way with birds. And his tree-planting tendencies. Back in Abu Ghazaal in 2000, I turned a rubbishy old back yard into a fertile little garden and have left behind 6 ficuses growing in a row there, as well as a citrus tree and bougainvillea in the plots around the sides of my house. I often wonder how they grow (and would love it if a Bahrain-based friend who knows where I lived, could pop in and check on them for me!)

Barren spinster I may be, but I'm going to leave behind a hell of a lot of trees!

Snape Fanfic: The Blade

"Have I not paid? I have given my all to the light, that I might live in dark. I have given to the dark, that I might aid the light."

- aldalindil

Just found a lovely little piece on Whitehound's site. It's short and quite magical. The Blade is not really a story, it's just words put together quite poetically, a random musing that creates a picture of Snape that I love. It's by someone called aldalindil, and was written in 2002, which is interesting because she presents the Snape we got to know only in the later books.

Go there now!

"Where do all the dead babies go ..

Where do all the dead babies go?
In some bright garden my son runs free
Laughs and plays with all the others
that were never meant to be
I wonder if he remembers
Gently stirring in my womb before -
And if it hurt him as much as it hurt me, or more?
I want him never to know, never to miss
A mother's touch, a mother's kiss.
For one day I may hold his sister or brother,
But he can never have another mother.

(Written on Jan 17th Sat. 1987, 9:50 pm.)

In case you are wondering, I have never been pregnant.

Snape. A severely good site on him.

I must tell you about Severely Severus, which is an excellent site created by a wonderful human being who goes by the name Whitehound, who has put together a glorious listing of really nice fanfics - nothing x-rated, and all the ones she's selected present Snape in true character.

What is Snape in true character, you might ask? Well, as far as I'm concerned it's most-amazing-man-that-never-walked-the-earth-albeit-a-sarcastic-unfriendly-dark-scary-batlike-greasy-haired-git-who-never-got-enough-sunshine. Just got to love him.

A tree story from Hungary.

A friend of mine wrote to me today after receiving my PlantMeATree email. Peter and his wife Ildi are good friends of mine from my days in advertising. Peter worked with me, and they were also my neighbours, living just down the road in Abu Ghazaal. Many warm memories of the times we spent together -exotic sweet spring rolls made with jackfruit and jam, wandering through the Isa Town souq chasing birds, tearfully translating Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham to an equally tearful listener (that was Ildi not Peter!), agonising over brochure amendments and the suits that brought them to us, my first taste of rosehips, discovering Hungarian music and oh-so-long words. And those of you who have seen my "poet" picture (the one where I'm fleeing the ocean with a tablecloth for a cape) may be interested toknow that it was Ildi who captured that moment on film.

Well, in today's email, Peter wrote the following and I thought it was too lovely not to add to this blog. Peter, I hope you don't mind me quotingyou here!

"it's a strange coincidence with your wish as a birthday present and witha tree in our garden. perhaps you remember that we discussed particularly the different kinds of fruits. once i listed all the trees and bushes in our garden. there was one tree i couldn't name in english. looking up in the dictionary it gave me the word: naseberry-tree. since then i've treated our loved tree as naseberry and it always reminded me of you. we noticed that its name sounds like nazu. apparently the dictionary was incorrect it is a medlar tree as i got to know recently. naseberry is a tropical fruit no matter how similar it is to a medlar. however this plant will remain to be a nazu tree."

So there already is a Nazu tree?! A pre-42 Nazu tree! And Peter and Ildi have assured me that come spring, they will be planting another specially for me. It will be a poplar that promises to grow tall. One day I shall sit under it with my friends and a big plate of hot jackfruit rolls ..

"The pain ..

The pain in my heart
Echoes the pain in my womb
Dark drops of blood
Mime the tears I'm not supposed to cry
I'm lonelier than I was before
Would you have looked like me?
Or did you have his eyes?
One day I shall show your little sister
All the things I was waiting to show you
Teach her the songs you were going to sing
Call her name and think of yours
That only you and I know.

(Written on 29/11/86)

After reading the comment that followed this, I felt I ought to clarify that I've  never had a  miscarriage, and never been pregnant.

Snape. He does not really look like he looks.

The Snape in my head, that is. It's the Snape of the books that I'm mad about, not the Snape of the movies. Alan Rickman is a fine man, I'm sure, and lustworthy in his own way. And in the movies, all I get are snapshots of Snape. The personality comes across so much better in the books.

But I will say one thing for Alan Rickman: That VOICE...I don't know if Mr. Rickman always sounds like that, or if his "Snape voice" is only for the Harry Potter movies. But that voice IS Snape. It's a rich chocolate mousse voice.

And if you don't know what I mean by that, visit Cafe Y on Langford Road in Bangalore, and order the chocolate mousse. It's orgasmically delicious.

Tree #1: A lime tree in Bangalore, India.

The first tree is from my parents, and was planted this afternoon,
in their garden. It's a sapling of a lime tree - what we call "neembu"
here. I now have two neembus - I also have a budgerigar named
Neembu - she's lutino (yellow all over) and is exactly the same
colour as the limes we get here.

Daddy supervised the planting, while Krishna (yes, who used
to work for us when we were in Bahrain - he's here on holiday
and came to visit) did the digging. Daddy insisted that I should
be the one to place the sapling in the earth. Krishna patted down
the earth and watered it, and within half an hour, I like to think
Nature showed its appreciation with a lovely little finale --
 a light shower of rain.

Edited 11 Apri 2014

Plant me a tree!

This year, I turn 42, and I couldn't think of a nicer
birthday present than a garden of trees growing for me around
the world. Over the next year, I hope to find 42 people who
will plant and nurture a tree for me.

Here's what I want you to do:

1. Find me a tree: a sapling of any tree you think appropriate.

2. Next, find me a spot: a space waiting in your garden, perhaps.
Or a neighbourhood corner. Maybe even a large pot for your
balcony (some trees will grow in pots - though not as large
and healthy as those planted in the ground).

3. Take a picture when you plant it, and send me a copy
of the picture, along with a bit of information about the tree -
what tree it is, where you got it and how, why you chose
this particular tree, and anything else you'd like to say.
And in the future, at least once a year, send me a picture
with the tree in it, so that we can all see how it's growing.
You could also send pictures in different seasons, if you like.

4. Look after it for me. Let it grow as long and as strong
as it can, so that there will always be a bit of green for
someone who feels they may never see enough.

The last thing on my mind.

A few years ago, I was being rushed to Manipal Hospital in
a screaming ambulance early one morning, with a suspected
brain haemorrhage. Needless to say, I'm still here: the cerebral
irritation, though still a mystery, turned out not to be a haemorrhage
after all. At the time, though, everyone thought I was dying. I did too.

Lying in that ambulance, blacking out and coming to, over
and over, on waves of pain, the thought calmly came to me:
I think I'm dying. And: Shouldn't this be more dramatic?
But no, it wasn't. It was a quiet, oh-well kind of resignation.

I looked up through the window and saw treetops streaming
past as the ambulance raced me across town, and it struck me
that dying meant I would never see trees again. So I looked
and looked at the trees, trying to stay conscious and keep
my eyes open to take in as much of the green as I could -
while I could.

And then I lived! So now, I never ignore a tree.

Say Goodbye, Gladys.

This was the code-line, to be used whenever Gladys talked too much, or needed to be informed that it was time to move on to another patient. I'd always tell people that if they got tired of the Gladys act, all they had to do was tell her: "Say goodbye, Gladys!" and that would be the cue - Gladys would obediently say "Goodbye, Gladys!" and then I'd snap out of the Gladys act and go back to being Nazu.

But today it's different. Oddly enough, I'm at a loss for words. In more ways than one. For someone who doesn't usually have a problem writing, I'm having a hard time putting this down. So perhaps let's just say it. Gladys is out.

Well, she'll always be there, wandering around the corridors of my head no doubt. But no more clowning as Gladys, that's what I mean. Long story about damaged vocal chords and I think I already went into that in the last post, so I won't repeat myself. Basically - for the next three to six months, I have to very careful with my voice. I've spent the last week in total silence, visited the doc again today, and now for the next fortnight have permission to speak a few words at a time, "only when absolutely necessary", along with various other instructions, medicines and even a series of calcium injections that my bum will play host to. Ouch. (Those of you who are wondering, no, calcium supplements won't do. I already asked.)

No singing, no wind instruments, no Gladys. At least for the next few months. I would really miss singing my favourite Christmas carols. And I'm already missing my flute. I'm hoping that the flute will be the first thing I'll be allowed to use again, once my vocal chords are sorted out.

But hey! Clowns think positive! And I can look forward to developing a new, silent clown character! There's always hope! Who knows, the new clown may be even funnier than Gladys ever was.

Not too many people will miss my incessant talking. My music teacher Mrs. Thomas told me years ago that I had "verbal diarrhoea". I shall have to inform her that I am now severely constipated. Actually, I won't miss the incessant talking, myself. I think it's a good thing, to have to ration out one's spoken words - perhaps it will make me choose my words better, think before I talk, bring more value to what I have to say. But I will miss Gladys. Just won't be the same without that funny voice and that brilliant wit. She was, pretty much, all voice. So I can't just turn her into a silent clown. There needs to be a new persona for that.

So goodbye, Gladys. And perhaps my next post will say hello to someone new.

Aah.

Snape Fanfic: 12 Steps Against Inertia

"..her hair will make beautiful roots, he thinks.."

- tsubaki-hana

12 Steps Against Inertia is a well-written fanfic that starts with Snape's childhood.

It's by tsubaki-hana, written on 5 August 2007, is a one-shot, and (sniff) tragedy. Contains Deathly Hallows spoilers so if you haven't finished reading that, you may want to wait before clicking on the link.

Gifts for Gladys.

A dear friend has just come down to visit from London, and she brought me some wonderful gifts for Gladys - red and white striped clown stockings, three glorious (and easily washable) pairs of colourful gloves in pink, yellow and orange (gardening gloves .. who'd have thunk? They're perfect!) and a multi-coloured pair of suspenders.

It was all deliciously exciting (oh yes, she also brought me two packets of an old favourite of mine: Rowntree's Fruit Gums) .. but horribly frustrating to have to react silently!

Talking of silent (talking?), I am in the process of developing a new clown character. I'm hoping that once my voice recovers, Gladys can be revived - perhaps with her Cockney accent intact, but with her pitch more at my normal speaking tone. But just in case - I wouldn't want this problem to resurface and then become chronic, for I do like having a voice - I am also trying to bring someone new to life. This new someone would be male, and silent. Let's see .. will work on costume, look, and of course name, tomorrow.

Snape Fanfic: Midsummer's Eve

A one-shot (i.e. full story in one chapter) by ReeraTheRed, written on 1 August 2003. Midsummer's Eve is about Snape as a 15-year-old, going back to his ancestral home to carry out one final task. Stars Snape and Dumbledore and is rated PG with angst and intense emotions. Which basically means if you're a Snape fan, you'll be feeling a bit weepy and wounded at the end of it. Quite nicely written, and I enjoyed reading it. Sad but good.

Snape. (Obviously).

He's definitely penetrated my mind.

How could he not have? Brilliant. Dark. Wounded. Nasty. Heroic.

Yes, it's official. I am obsessed with Severus Snape. Gloriously obsessed. No matter what JKR thinks of him, as far as I'm concerned, he's the real hero of the Harry Potter stories. So this space is going to be where I mumble my way through all thoughts Snape. I'll probably post links to my favourite Snape fanfics here too. But now, to bed. All that Legilimens has given me a headache.

(Note from the future, i.e. Jan 2008 - July 21st 2007 was when JK Rowling released the last of the Harry Potter books. I had spent the previous week re-reading and catching up on the other six, and then locked myself away for 10 glorious hours - well, actually, some of them were not glorious - I wept MUCH and also forgot to have lunch) and the end result was clearly an overdose of all things Potteresque but mostly Snape. Ah, Snape. A new blog seemed only too appropriate and so on August 8, 2007 "Obviously" was created (refer his words to Dolores Umbridge in Book 5 to "get" it).
(in July 2008 I changed the labels for these posts from 'Obviously' .. you will now find them variously under Snape, fanfic, Potter)

Shut up, Gladys.

Bad news, I think. Those of you who've had the honour to meet Gladys in person, will know that she talks in a high-pitched Cockney accent. And I've just found out that doing that for 2 or 3 hours at a stretch is not really the greatest thing for my vocal chords.

So here I sit in silence. It started with a little lump in my throat that didn't hurt but wouldn't go away. Finally got the courage to go see a doctor about it. The good news is that I don't have throat cancer. The bad news is that I must have total voice rest for at least a week.

That means no talking. (And those of you who've had the honour to meet ME in person, will know just how hard that is!) It's very strange. Very funny. And very frustrating. It's less than 24 hours since I succumbed to silence, and it is So Damn Difficult.

Plus everyone has started to talk really loud (I'm not deaf, just mute) and also speaking in one-word sentences and waving their arms around with lots of gestures and what appears to be their idea of sign language. I now must carry a note around to remind people that just because I can't talk, doesn't mean they can't use full sentences.

What will happen to Gladys? I don't know. After the swelling's gone down, I'll have to do some speech therapy exercises or something. And then we'll just have to see. Oh, I'd miss Gladys. I don't think she'd like being a mime quite as much.

"All These Tears ...

Oh I am so glad I grew up. Young people reading this, please know: LOVE IS NOT SUPPOSED TO BE LIKE THIS. This is just desperate codependent angst-ridden obsession. I can't believe I actually thought like this once.

All these tears just beneath
the surface
are waiting to break through
if I'd only let them flow
if I could only let you go

But I've sworn to stay beside you
Even if you turn away
And if I have no tomorrows
At least I have had today.

I can cling to my dreams
As I cling to you now
And my dreams may never come true
But at least I have loved you

Everything has a price
And I am quite willing to pay
I would not exchange my
grey tomorrows
For the moments of ecstacy and sparkle of today.

( 9/86)

"Do You Believe"

Reading these poems today, I feel almost irritated at myself. This next one, I want to go back in time and shake myself by the shoulders and tell me that I needed to ask such questions to myself, not somebody else. This is another poem for Bops, written in that worst year of my life. Perhaps I'm too hard on myself. Perhaps I DID write it for myself, but never knew.

Do you believe in miracles?
Do kisses waken sleeping beauties?
Do falling stars grant your wishes?
Does God answer prayers?
I don't know.
I believe in you.
And I wish you did too.

Written in September 1986, for Bops

Once Upon Eavesdropping

Once, upon eavesdropping, my heart broke. Curiosity doesn't always kill. Sometimes, it just hurts a little. All I heard were three words. There were more than those three words, though, carrying over the darkness between their building and mine. I can't remember the other words, her parents' words, though they were louder and shriller, and more.

My three words, the ones that made me stand at my balcony and weep, were softer, and they came from a child. They broke my heart and I cried my tears at last, with her and for her.

"Mummy, don't cry."

I cried for her future, not just for her present. And maybe I cried for my past.