Happy 2024!

It's been a tumultuous 2023 and I'm thrilled 2024 is upon us. 

Yes, I'm one of those who likes resolutions. Whether I manage to keep them or not, I like the ritual of goal-setting and the clarity of priorities that come with the territory.

In 2024, I will work for more:

- Health: Close my Apple watch rings everyday.

- Hope: In the darkest of times, there is hope. And I shall cling onto it for dear life. 

Just like how I clung onto dear Dumbo in Disneyland last month. :)

- Honesty: I will reflect on what I expect from others and ask for what I want kindly and firmly.

All this may or may not point towards happiness. I've never been one of those pursuing happiness, since I believe that all emotions are valid and chasing happiness is a sure fire recipe for unhappiness. Folks who try to be happy all the time without acknowledging their pain and the spectrum of feelings arising within them are those I tend to stay away from.

Read this article today and felt a strong connection to the author: https://thebeautifultruth.org/life/mental-health/meaning-not-happiness/

Side note is that I'm in the process of switching careers to becoming a psychotherapist. Now that truly makes me happy! :)

Happy New Year to you all! 

Pssst - any resolutions?

Of course, as soon as I wrote these, I was motivated to change all of it to include fun and whimsical resolutions. I read an NYT article by Tanya Sichynsky who quoted a certain Suzanne,

“I’m still forming my dreams and goals for 2024, but I’m heavily inspired by my friend Jessica. Her 2023 resolutions were as follows: eat as many different shapes of pasta as possible over the course of the year, try a new fruit every month and smile at every child she saw. I’m heavily leaning into the idea that resolutions can be silly side quests that just exist to wedge more joy into my life.” " I totally want to steal from this list and include: - Try a new fruit every month - Smile the widest smile possible at as many people possible every day - Learn the names of and try a new pasta shape every week

The busy man

 

From Pinterest

The busy man

The busy man works very hard

Before dawn, after dusk 

Until his eyes fall shut

We want to chew him up

Bit by bit by bit

Until all that’s left

Are his eyes mouth and ears 

Aha, we think

Finally, we have control 

Take him where we want

Feed him what we like

Place him on the mantelpiece 

Now he can’t work so much 

He will always be with us

But, it feels like there is a but

He isn’t a man any more

Just a puppet doll

But hey, always with us.

- written in jest to entertain the kids. 

Pandemic pets - meet Marshmallow and Hermione

We got guinea pigs. I never had or wanted pets and somehow one thing led to another and now we are the proud owners of two cutie-pie guinea pigs. We went from idea to adoption in just three days. Their quietly curious personalities provide so much delight and comfort for all of us that I think they are therapy animals!

Here are S1, S2 and my caricatures of them.

Sketched by the gullible one who never wanted pets but now fell in love with them anyway.

This cartoonist is the primary caregiver, you should see the excitement on the guinea pigs' voices when she feeds them

She never wanted pets and she said they would stink and poop and be a royal pain.
Now that the pets are here, she is delighted and loves to carry and pet them

We are experiencing the totally unconditional love these pets have for us. Well...not entirely unconditional, I guess. Feeding time generates the most undying affection as does petting time. In a pandemic world full of emotional and unpredictable humans and moments, these pets are giving us much needed, non-judgmental cuddle time!

Permission in the Pandemic

Our home in full bloom. 
Photo credit: A

I gave myself permission

some call it freedom

to let my curls be curls

not tied up, not straightened out

they are a start

to my writing and loving

I let them loose

now I can rein in my tongue

I let them loose

now I can write

my rage flows through my hair

instead of being suppressed

built up only to burst into flames

that hurt everyone and me

now my hair is angry

but my tongue is full of love

now my hair is angry

but my fingers and heart let go

I think before I speak

I love with more kindness

I, me, myself, I now celebrate

my curls have let me think and calibrate.

Coping in the Time of COVID-19

No, we are not alright. I'm not okay and neither are you. and...that's okay.

As I write this, the number of coronavirus cases in my state, California, has topped 12,300. The U.S.  has more than 311,000 coronavirus cases. Woo hoo! America is the best, bar none, yeah? Trump is truly making America Great Again...not. I wonder if he is currently outshining other covidiots by a large margin.

Here are some ways in which many of us are loving and coping through this pandemic.

1. In Praise of the Paranoid:

"Better safe than sorry", "prevention is better than cure", "only the paranoid survive". These have just been a few of my mantras in life. Right now, though, we all fall somewhere on the neurotic scale.  The more neurotic, the better for the individual and society.

Some neurotic things we've been doing at home:

• A and I have been wearing face masks and plastic gloves to grocery shop. 
• When S1 caught a cold, cough and sore throat and passed it onto me and S2, we isolated ourselves from the grandparents who are staying with us. 
• I canceled my travel to Chicago more than a month and a half ago when my paranoia radar was up and almost everyone else around me still seemed fine with travel. V and J were my voices of sanity through that difficult decision. 

I've been paranoid about this for a while. If you were also equally paranoid a month and a half ago, I saw you as my equal, my loving, kindred spirit who 'gets it'. If you were not, I saw you as having a delayed response. "Give it time, s/he will come around to it", I told myself.

2. Love is the Predominant Emotion:

While I see some universal hate against covidiots and Chinese wet markets, love seems to prevail against all odds. I've always been a sucker for love. Loving more enables me to continue living more. While I believe that blood is thicker than water and think it's basic and easy to love family, I'm humbled by how much love and help strangers are offering strangers in these strange times.

We are all on Zoom meetings at work and school, hosting and attending birthday parties online and spending ginormous amounts of time with the ones we love the most, if we are lucky to live with them at this time.

Across the board, instances of loving I've engaged in are:

• Hosting Zoom meetings with cousins and hosting a baby shower for a dear friend J
• Video chatting with my faves
• Checking in on those who've touched my life positively these past few years

As M and I strongly feel, video chat> phone call> voice recording text> text message right now. 

3. Remote Love and Longing:

I've been working from my home, remotely, for the past 5 years. Right now, it feels like the world is catching up to my everyday lifestyle. Finally, I see people, who had strong behavioral inertia to video chat, opening their minds and video apps to video chat with me and everyone else. 

As an extrovert, I'm loving this. I am fundamentally a huggy-kissy person, though. Perhaps because I want what I cannot have, I'm left with a longing to touch the people I love through the screen. A warm hug, a gentle kiss,  a tight squeeze. How much longer do we need to wait to be able to display these forms of emotion outside the four walls of our homes? Sigh.

Among the many small things I've been loving and longing for everyday - waiting to see a new California poppy pop and burst into life overnight in my garden. What a joy!

4. Rise to the occasion...and do nothing:

As several memes have emphasized, this is one time in history when we are all required to save the world by...doing nothing. Simple as it sounds, it is hard to sit back and do absolutely nothing when the world is suffering.

Charity begins at home. I've seen that the ones who don't help around the house or their immediately family generally don't have a tendency to help the world either.

We are all forced to help ourselves and our immediate family during this time. We've offered to help elderly neighbors and we've also started making face masks, thanks to my amazingly talented mom and ever-helpful dad. S1 and I are hemming face masks today. S2, the artist in the family, wants to decorate them and make them "creative".

So - How are you coping during times of COVID?