September ends, the year end beckons
Tree memories and songs, Mary Oliver’s Upstream and a poem about joy/drowning
Dear readers, hope that this month has treated you as well as it could have. We are now in the eighteenth month of the pandemic and the overwhelming feeling I appear to get from so many quarters is of exhaustion, of mind, body, and soul. And while I can certainly attribute mine in part to how my body has changed post covid, the truth is also that this exhaustion is a byproduct of so many other things, both personal and a collective feeling.
Thinking about this feeling of being in permanent exhaustion mode in context to September, the month is still, well, symbolically redolent of autumn: of letting go and wintering and hibernating. I last experienced a proper autumn back in 2013 and yet, the approach of these months still find me entering in hygge mode, of early sunsets and lengthening nights. Here, in Bangalore, the sea almond tree is the one of the few trees in the city which is furiously blushing red and orange, conjuring up ersatz autumn feels. The pavements below these trees are dotted with flipper-sized leaves - and each leaf is like a sunset: no one is the same as the other. I love gazing up at these trees during this time of the year, the canopy of the overlapping leaves in all shades of green, red, and orange so dizzyingly beautiful to behold. The end of September also means that I have the pink tabebuia blooming to look forward to in November, when the city is cloaked in what is popularly described as Bangalore’s cherry blossoms. The sight of the masses of pink below the blue skies has increasingly become an uplifting way to end the recent years - and I particularly love it when I spot a lone tabebuia tree blooming in most unlikely of places, like a surprise gift from the otherwise beleaguered, dug up city that Bangalore often is these days.
Speaking of season transitions, by the time you receive this newsletter, I will be in the process of shifting into a new flat in Bangalore (it’s been five years since the last time I moved from Delhi to here and oh my god, I almost forgot how painful it is and also, how and why did I accumulate so much stuff?!). I moved into the present one soon after arriving in Bangalore in January 2017 and while shifting to a new one for a change of space, pace, and energy had been long overdue, the one thing I will really miss (have already begun to miss!) is this flat’s tree-filled compound. Whether it was the rain-tree spectacularly canopying over the space, the fragrant creamy yellow blooms hidden inside champaca trees, the avocado tree bearing gifts of fruit, and the fig trees offering fascinating discoveries, I had developed a special relationship with each tree growing here- and it really will be a wrench to leave them. Last year, I wrote as yet unpublished story about tree ghosts, in particular involving a little girl who had moved to a treeless apartment across the city and would keep on hearing tree songs from the trees that used to grow in her old place. I will keep you posted if I hear tree music at my new place:)
Looking back at the houses I have lived in over the years, it occurred to me that a tree has always kept me company in each of them. My mother planted a neem tree many years ago in our Oman garden, whose blossoms scented spring nights and its octopus-like roots rumpled the concrete above. I can’t express how homesick I am feeling on seeing this picture taken on a cool winter afternoon during my last trip to Oman: I can almost see the bats and birds flitting in and out of the tree. A tree almost as tall as our seventh floor building in Pittsburgh entertained me during the one autumn I lived there, turning red almost overnight while a huge peepul tree’s branches and leaves rested on our Delhi flat’s balcony, depositing yellow and green leaf hearts and red berries during fruiting time. When I woke in the mornings, especially on moody gray winter days, the leaves of the red silk cotton tree tree on the other side of the house would be silhouetted against the sky, like a monochrome photograph. And here, in Bangalore, the trees’ rustling had lulled me to sleep on many a night, sometimes even pretending to mimic the sound of falling rain. We do have trees in our new apartment compound but they are distant creatures, the moon and the clouds appearing closer than the trees. But then, it’s been a while since I have had unfettered access to the sky so that will be another and separate joy to look forward to. The sunsets, in particular, I can’t remember the last time I properly witnessed and appreciated one. And if I wake up early enough, sunrises too!
One last word about trees: a friend and I had what I would like to describe as a proto Poetry Under Trees session, which you can read about below. I am really looking forward to conducting these sessions in person, so to speak, so fingers crossed, it happens soon.
I visited my happy place and favourite second hand bookshop in Bangalore, Blossoms a couple of weeks ago and picked up Mary Oliver’s essay collection, Upstream both for myself and a dear friend (aside: happy coincidence that she too was almost about to gift me the same:):) The interesting thing is that when I first returned to writing poetry back in 2017 after a gap of well over a decade, Mary Oliver’s poetry was a huge impetus to do so. I discovered her poems in The Alipore Post’s newsletter and started reading as much as I could by and about her. (Incidentally, if you don’t already follow The Alipore Post’s brilliant newsletter, please do because she curates the best poetry, art, and culture, you name it). Coming back to Mary Oliver, the thing is even though I read so much of her, I always did so via the medium of social media; I regret to say that I had never gotten around to getting her books. I am so glad I bought Upstream that day and am now wondering why I didn’t so all those years ago. Reading Mary Oliver, especially before bedtime is truly an antidote to all the day’s stresses and chaos, a balm for the all the headaches that the day has given us. “Attention is the beginning of devotion,” she powerfully reminds us in the book - and it struck me that in the increasing absence and significance of faiths/religious practices in my life these days, perhaps, it is this kind of attention and that too to the multiple, myriad stories of the natural world which has become my faith without me almost even realising it. There is an essay in the book in which she minutely examines a spider web and the making of it and a couple of days afterward, when I was going down for my evening walk, I found myself stopping and pausing to examine two webs, each immaculately spun and suspended from a wall, the spinners still inside it. And I thought of Mary Oliver’s words.
I am going to end this month’s newsletter with these words from the poet, Elisabeth Velasquez, which embodied pretty much how I felt this month. I feel it so piercingly and accurately reflects in a way the nature of social media/facades. What we see of others is a mere window into their lives and thoughts; what we choose to presume about their lives is based on whatever they choose to project to the world. Even if you are in mourning, even if you are grieving, you can still embrace and reflect joy. Both truths about yourself are true. But these truths are also only a fraction of the many realities that is your life. For me, this poem was a reminder to reflect and share joy while being respectful and kind to the storms I or others my/their lives be facing in ours.
Until next month, dear readers, take care. Until then, I will be found in this imaginary art gallery:)
Much love,
Priyanka
PS If you have any thoughts about this month’s newsletter or what you would like to reading more about in forthcoming ones, please do drop a line…as always, I would love to hear from you.
Endnotes
What I wrote:
I have been following Sharanya Mannivanan’s writing for years and in particularly, really enjoyed her short story collection, The High Priestess Never Marries (I have a specific memory of sitting and reading it in a cafe in Kochi after having attended the biennale back in 2017 and waiting for our flight back home to Bangalore. I usually can’t read anywhere but my bed - any other librocubicularists around? - so I reckon that is why I remember this rare instance of reading in a chair so vividly, ha:) I am so glad I had the chance to read her feminist picture book, Mermaids in the Moonlight and speak to her about it for Michigan Quarterly Review
I wrote this piece about Raghu Rai’s photograph the other day and the way I approach my own photography for Museum of Art and Photography’s website.
A lot of my poems are in response to my images or nature. This one however is based on a conversation with a boatman we spoke to when visiting Varanasi back in January. I also recorded my poem for the first time and it wasn’t as an ordeal as I thought it would be:)
What I read:
Cannot get over this article by Tom Junod about The Falling Man from 9/11. TW: death, violence, terrorism, trauma.
I am in awe of this incredible Kashmir woman poet who created a language of her own to write poetry.