HAIKU NOODLES: Gaza

*
Sometimes I kill ants.
How then dare I ask my God
why innocents die?
*

I confess. If there's a lot of them, I might wash them away with water, or spray them with a pesticide, if they happen to be on "my" territory. Sometimes I'll just be sitting there, and one little ant will come trundling along, going about its own business, and I'll squash it with my finger. It's so easy. It's so insignificant.

They say God made us in His image. I hope He's nothing like us.

HAIKU NOODLE: fresh from my freshly-shaved head.

This just came to me in a blink, as I was pottering through my blog, tidying up old posts. I caught a glimpse of a picture I'd posted (see label "gardens") and ..

What is a graveyard
but just another garden
nurturing new life?

Sometimes I think that, whether or not it is true (there's only one way to find out if it is - but I'm not ready to die just yet), it's a good thing to believe in life after death. Of course, many of the world's religions, mine included (I'm a Muslim, in case you're wondering) believe that our death from this world we know, is not the end. But I am beginning to think, given the state of the world today, that it might be a good idea to believe in reincarnation. How else will we get ourselves to take responsibility for the terrible things we do to this planet and to ourselves?

Perhaps we need to give ourselves these fears: that what goes around, comes around - that the mess we leave behind today will be there abundantly for us to struggle through as the children we'd be reborn as - that the lessons we take the time to learn here, will be the bonus points that give us a head start in our next game - and that, in the end, it will be okay to die.

necessary evils?

The dogs howled last night.

Maybe they mourn in advance

for culling to come.

written when corporation got into the stray dog business ..

HAIKU NOODLE: Perhaps this is what courage is supposed to be.

Always so afraid,
I thought myself a coward.
(But no one else knew).

Fear is a big part of my life. Anxiety, panic attacks, nightmares, phobias - the lot. And also the not-so-dramatically expressed fears that seem to have gone with me wherever I go, ever since childhood.

I've been thinking about fear a lot this year. Been through a lot of stress and nearly had a nervous breakdown. Once, many years ago, my friend Pervin told me how inspired she was by my courage and strength. I've always wondered what she meant. Didn't she know what a coward I was? Couldn't she see how scared I was of life? Apparently not.

I read a quotation a few days ago, "Bravery is being the only one who knows you're afraid". That's what inspired today's haiku. But I do see that courage is not just about hiding one's fear. It's not about being brash, or reckless. It's really about going on in spite of the fear.

I don't think I'm all that courageous, because at times it is so very hard to go on, that I don't just hide my fear, I hide from life too. But I shan't negate that I have survived this far. That is something. I may not do all that I want or hope to do, but I am still here.

Maybe that is enough, maybe that is something worth celebrating. And now I feel that perhaps it is okay - perhaps it is courageous - to let the world know:

I am scared.

What it does for me.

In this quiet time
the world recedes. The leaves stir
and tell me secrets.

Around the time Daddy went into hospital, I was just getting into meditation. I used to think it was all about concentrating on something. But as I read more about it, I learnt that it was about emptying the mind. Empty minds! An easy enough concept for us humans, I thought.

It's actually very difficult. My mind would start planning and worrying and daydreaming the moment I tried to still it. I discovered that fighting the thoughts just doesn't work with meditation. Fighting is violent, after all, and trying to link it to meditation makes as much sense as the concept of killing for peace.

So the thoughts would come and I'd learn to label them: oh, that goes in the planning box, that one is for worrying later on - and then I'd move on. Gradually I found it easier. Letting the thoughts in was not as bad as I thought it was. I just had to let them go, not hold on to them to dwell upon. The only time I found meditation didn't work was when I was in the middle of an anxiety attack over Dad's cancer. That time my fears were stronger than my peace, and they flooded in, uncontrollable, and overwhelmed me. That experience taught me not to try meditating in the middle of anxiety attacks! (Deep breathing exercises are a better option at such times).

But meditating, even for just ten minutes a day, does wonders for my sanity, and it's a bit like decluttering or spring cleaning - something I love compulsively! First, I've got to do a wander around the house of my mind, just looking. That way I see where everything is and where everything goes. Then I can deal with it later in an organised way. Otherwise I rush about trying to do everything at once, and the house doesn't look any less messy when I'm done.

But when I give myself this quiet time, of just looking and being - without judgment or planning or worrying or even hoping - that's when the soul of the world opens up and speaks to me.

My lips are sealed.

A friend shared something private with me over lunch, and I joked about posting it as a haiku. Here goes! (Don't worry .. )

Everyone's secrets
stored safely in my mem'ry.
No room for my own.

All my life, I have kept other people's secrets, and kept them so well. But my own secrets, the secrets of my childhood: they aren't here in this head, or if they are, they are stored somewhere else, out of my memory's reach. I pieced my childhood together from a bunch of birthday party photographs and other people's anecdotes.

But lately I find that the body remembers what the mind does not. I don't know which is worse.

HAIKU NOODLE: In defence of anger.

Anger is such a misunderstood, underestimated emotion. Often thought of as a "negative" emotion, it is full of potential and energy. I believe it's only when we misuse it - or don't use it at all - that it has negative effects. It rots within; it turns to something quite unpleasant. But used well, it does wonders.

I've always had a good stock of anger, but much of it did rot and turn into many unpleasant things. It was only after I went through my CSA therapy that I began to actually get in touch with anger - and with most of the emotions I'd stuffed inside.

Today, anger interests me. Not quite an obsession, but I do pick up interesting books on the subject (some of which you'll come across in Book Fair Junkie some day). Studying anger has taught me a lot, about life, about society, about relationships. I've learnt a lot - and I'm still learning. The most important thing I've learned is this:

Anger is just fear.
The snarls of a threatened cub.
No need to snarl back.

All anger has its roots in fear. Think about it. There is always a fear behind our rage or resentments, even behind our irritations. We fear that we are being taken for a ride. That we are being treated unjustly. That we are going to experience loss or abandonment or new burdens. That people are going to see we are not good enough. That no one loves us. Name any anger and I will show you the fear behind it.

And fear .. where are its roots? Back in that place most of us like to deny ever had much impact on us: childhood. It is perhaps the first emotion we experience when we enter this world, and most of us will find ourselves experiencing it again on our way out.

This haiku I've just written tells me how to deal with two angers - that of others towards me, and my own anger towards others. In the first instance, it reminds me that any aggression towards me is less about me, than about the other person's fears. That can give me the presence of mind not to retaliate in kind, but instead to show kindness.

In the second instance, my own anger, the haiku's message can flag me down to tell me that there is a fear that needs to be dealt with, and this becomes an opportunity for introspection, self-awareness and growth.

Anger's good for me. I need it!

Sometimes I surprise me.

Having decluttered closets of clothes, shelves of books, drawers of toiletries, cabinets of expired food products, I've finally got down to the paperwork. I keep finding little gems that I really like, yet can hardly believe that I wrote. Here is one I found, that - to my surprise - is written in the 5-7-5 haiku form. I'm not sure I intended it to be, but then again, maybe I did. My memory is awful. But I do remember why I wrote this: it was when what I thought was the most wonderful love affair, turned out to be just another abusive relationship.

My heart aches. It breaks,
I think -- but really it is
the pain of waking.

That's the thing. All the nasty shit in life is the stuff that ends up being good for me. I need it, in a way, in order to grow. And well, after all, what is fertiliser made of?

the aliens .. eaerth

Leave a door open.

Nature will find her way in.

Earth was never ours.

when kite flies jan 18 2003

from a diary entry 2003 jan 18

when Kite flies

under the sun

her shadow glides

over my garden.

think there is a hiaku in here

dear diary 11 dec 1993

The birds fly in at twilight, hundreds of them, and land on some pre-determined branch of this tree in front of my window.

There is no pushing, no fighting. Each one knows its place, goes there directly in one great swoop, and rests for the night. They seem to know that if they live through the next day, their place on the branch will be waiting for them,. And that is enough to let them rest through the night, and soar again in the morning.

There's so much man can learn from nature, and he does, but forgets; each generation has to rediscover and relish nature's wisdom for itself.

dear diary ? 91 -r 93

How is it we know how to send rockets out into space, but not how to stop one man from killing another?

And we have ways of knowing how the weather will turn, but lack the foresigh to see a young life going in the wrong direction.

And why is it we're disappointed when a millian dollar probe goes astray somewhere by Mars, when nearly half a lakh of children dies every day for the lack of enough food?

We look up and lose ourselves in the heavens, and forget that there are souls lost at our feet.

Butterfly abortions galore.

White worm on my palm
knows that I mean her no harm.
We both wish she'd stay.

This evening my friend and I went to see the Silk Mark Expo 2008 at the Kanteerva Stadium. The silks were absolutely gorgeous. Every colour, every shade, so many different textures and styles. There were fabrics embroidered, bejewelled, painted, printed .. I don't wear much silk myself (only like stuff I can throw in the washing machine) but it was such a visual feast.

At the end, well actually at the beginning, but I missed that section the first time round, there was a special display of fibre and cloth and the like. Then, to my delight, I discovered there was a special display with live silkworms at different stages of growth. They start off as tiny as weevils, and then grow from skinny adolescents into full-bodied plump white caterpillars.

I assume that I was the only woman there who showed such absolute fascination, because the man in charge of the display was so pleased by my attention that he actually picked one up and let me hold her in my palm. Imagine that! A silkworm, sitting in the palm of my hand. I talked to her for a while and told her she was beautiful, and that she was safe with me, and I apologised in advance for her future (we get silk from boiling the cocoons). She seemed so reluctant to leave my hand and go back to her mulberry leaves and her munching siblings. (Hence the haiku).

In all the displays, there was not one picture of what these caterpillars look like if they somehow live beyond the cocoon stage and get to complete their metamorphosis. Not one butterfly (or are they moths?) I wanted to rescue the little worm in my hand, run away with her and let her finish.

But yes, I have silk in my cupboard. And a leather bag on my shoulder. I eat meat and I even have one zebra-skin purse inherited from my mom (back before fur was murderous). So what do I do? Nothing, except thrill to the memory of a silkworm sitting in my hand, and cement that memory with a blog.

Later, over a most exquisite Italian dinner at Sunny's, I was talking to my friend about the worm, and it struck me that a silkworm might just be the worst possible thing to be reincarnated as. Given all the lovely symbolism about caterpillars and cocoons: the growth and struggle, all that munching and spinning and waiting, with the hope of turning into something beautiful and taking flight -- cut short after all that effort, just before the magical rebirth. A butterfly abortion.

Perhaps this is the attraction of silk: the thwarted butterfly, colourfully fluttering in the wind, off a woman's shoulder.

Why DO we do it?

It's almost always the first question asked: "Have you put on weight?" Or, if you want to be nice, "Have you been dieting?" Sometimes it's just a statement. "You're looking chubby." or "You're not eating enough."

Whatever it is, it's almost always a slug, and if the slugger's motives are questioned, will usually be met with hurt expressions, I-was-just-ASKings, or the old favourite, You-can't-take-constructive-criticism.

When there's no slug intended, then we must sigh and accept that there are people out there with poor conversation skills and no creativity. And then we must seethe. Of course, for much of our seething we have only ourselves to blame. We buy into the whole body-obsession thing, and we spend plenty of time running around in terror like headless chickens (nice plump ones) wondering what to do about our imperfect bodies. Because, of course, once our bodies our perfect, our lives will be too, won't they?

(Here I would just like to point out that headless chickens tend NOT to function on brain power).

Not surprisingly, when I looked for answers, I found my inspiration in nature. And at the circus.

The hippo was fat.

No one judged, asked, or advised.

(Fat, and hairy too).

Good questions.

When was the last time
we did something civilised?
And its opposite?

Not a very poetic haiku but something that has been on my mind of late. I'm wondering, if we were to think more about our behaviour, maybe even keep a list or two, which list would be longer? Would thinking about our personal degree of civilisation make us more conscientious about it?

We often talk about mankind, civilisation, our higher status than animals, but sometimes I look around me and think that it is the animals who are the civilised ones, and we are the beasts. Slyer than foxes. Dirtier than pigs. Lazier than sloths. Prouder than peacocks. Blinder than bats. Drunker than skunks.

Whoever came up with those phrases must have been crazy as a loon.

If I could only bottle it ...

I finally got together the paintbrushes, paper and courage to try some watercolour painting. Not the world's greatest artist, but not the world's worst. (Actually there is no greatest OR worst. There are just artists.)

I really hate the way people hang their laundry in public view off the sides of their balconies. (I take mine up to the rooftop terrace for drying that's decent and discreet!)

But a week or so ago, I somehow saw a prettiness on my neighbour's washing line. So I sketched it out and decided to fill it in with watercolour - which I did last night. It reminded me of what I like best about drying clothes in the sun - that wonderful warm aroma they come back in with - and it noodled a haiku out of me:

Sunday morning scent

of sunshine: I go fishing,

my bait on a line.

When a witness smiles

Years and years ago, okay, decades, my father decided to frame a print of the Mona Lisa, and put her up on our living room wall. She terrified me. Especially when I had to switch off the light in one corner and then stumble my way past her to my bedroom.Thirty years later, and Lisa (we're not on a first-name basis) is back with me, the frame a bit battered, but otherwise unchanged, unwrinkled, and just as terrifying. Although as an adult, I found I can bravely out-stare her in the daytime. It's at night when her expression seems to somehow go EVIL and her eyes follow me oh so creepily.I tried covering her up at night, as I do my birds. But that entailed having to go up really close to the picture, tablecloth grasped nervously in hand. Then I tried painting a red nose on her, which actually did improve the situation. But then I got to thinking and remembering how this fear of her eyes goes way back, and it brought back feelings and with it, a kind of resentment. And now she is off the wall, and soon, I hope, out the door. And this is why.

Her eyes followed me
through the rape of my childhood.
All she did was watch.

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.

Learning from Forrest's grandfather.

This is pilgrimage.
Journeying not to, but with.
Destination: me.

We're always on some path. Every breath is another step forward, right? Yet we're so focused on where we're going, or where we want to be. I'm beginning to see that the travelling is more important than the arrival, and that seeking inward is more rewarding than seeking outward.

I'm reading a wonderful children's book, The Education of Little Tree; a true story by Forrest Carter, who was raised by his Cherokee (Native American) grandparents, and there is a lot in that book to inspire me. The grandfather - what a grand grandfather he must have been. I'm awed by the wisdom of his spirituality, I'm humbled by the depth in the simplicity of his ways.

Afterthought: why must the original inhabitants of that continent be called "Native" Americans? Why aren't they called Americans, and the others called Immigrant Americans? They were there from the first. Every one else arrived.

What I see when I look

The miracles are all around me, but sometimes I just don't look. But I'm happy to say that these days I look. And look what I see!

Mathematic trees,
assaulted by stone paving,
reply with square roots.

Over at the Alliance Francaise there's a wonderful tree who refuses to give up. Her roots fuse into perfect squares, making the stone slabs look as though they were embossed into her. She survives by conforming, but it's not a grovelling conformity. She does it with such dignity. Old trees are so wise.