I don't normally read the entries from all the many journals I have kept over the years. There are just too many, and mostly, I don't have a reason to read them.
Recently though, one of my God-brothers said he thought people wanted to know more about me. I misunderstood what he meant, but while waiting for him to explain, I happened by accident, to come across this journal that only had this one entry in it. Since I was not looking for it, and it came at that time, I felt there must be a connection.
So, here's something from the past, my past, more about me, a 'slice of life'. Perhaps someone will find meaning there, for some reason. I don't always know the exact reasons for the things I write or post, on a logical level.
~ "September 3, 2004
Ah, Autumn; a melancholy season, though I love it anyway, or maybe because of - All the long, hot days of August passing at a crawl - things so dry I feel a need for constant drinks of cold, fresh water.
Waiting, I watch the sky - pale, nearly non-existent blue, flooded by the strong bright sun, it seems like an unsuccessful water color that someone put too much water on.
Looking out through the window panes above the kitchen sink, gives me the feeling of peering out of the windows of an empty house we found somewhere in the country one day.
Finding a way to get in, wandering through the rooms and imagining what it had been like to live there; what it would be like if we lived there - now.
Looking out at a perspective I've never seen, a view in someone else's mind, that person, now gone off to some other place and I, peeking, there - trying to see what they saw, a yard perhaps, it doesn't belong to me, but for a moment I pretend it is mine, and I look to see what it is that I see, they saw; we both; now sharing a vision - a reality that 'was' a life, filled with all the same fundamental yearnings and dreams of this frail species, man-kind.
Back again at my window - it looks over the back yard. The tomato plants Keshava grew this summer, staked up straight and tall, but browning now, from the bottom up. The leaves curling up into themselves despite the extra water I told Keshava he should give them. "Stake them up strongly, give them fertilizer and lots of water, maybe a shade screen too, the sun's so hot; they should be fine then, and keep growing more tomatoes even now, if you do that".
I told him that last part though I doubted it myself, just to get him to want to do everything else. I have always hated to see things die. Especially good, innocent, generous, giving things, like those tomato plants. Their whole life, germination from a tiny seed, growing, producing one heavy tomato after another, though it literally breaks them to do this, they do, even now, as they are shriveling and dying, the heavy, bright red fruits such a contrast to the plant that brought them forth.
Dying now, scorching in the mid-day sun. Of course I could not bear any of this except we offer all their fruits to Krishna, even then, it pains me to see their slow decline. Keshava tells them they are liberated now, chants to them, tells them they will be in the Spiritual World when it is time to leave their bodies, the tomato plants.
He chants to them, most likely thanks them for all the wonderful tomatoes they have given us. Tells them he thinks (or knows) that Krishna
loved their tomatoes; that they have grown the most excellent, wonderful tomatoes and we all thank them.
We appreciate and love them, and pray for them, and we do, of course we do -
Keshava has never specifically said these words to me, not all of them, but I know he feels like I do, so I feel that he says this to the tomato plants. Only real difference between us being that I would try to keep them alive eternally, while he accepts and is at peace with their short, struggling life, bearing fruit only to die.
I suffer for them, he is gracious and simply thanks them in admiration.
Sometimes, my heart wants to break because of these 'day-to-day' cruelties that are everywhere you look, here, in this material world. "But we are not in the Material World" he says.
This is our Temple, this house that I have come to love so deeply. Who knew my heart could be made to ache with love, admiration, desire, need, contentment, faith, peace, joy, hope, and happiness upon turning into our driveway and viewing the reddish bricks of the walls of our home?
Nearly in tears at the site of it, our Temple, our home, our house. It has grown so much in the years we have lived here. Holding it's arms tight around us through Augusts such as the one just passed; as I stood and watched the yellow leaves float down from the Tulip tree - watched them shift from yellow to dark, brownish-yellow, then brown and curly, floating through the hot August air, spinning and drifting carelessly down in the magical movie of life that I am always watching through the panes of my kitchen-sink window.
As the days pass and the air turns cooler, daytime - a little, night-time; a little more, by degrees.
The leaves increase, more and more of them, now, as if they are hurrying just a little - Someplace to go? But now, they simply settle to the ground, some strewn across the deck, on the railings and the patio chairs; chaise lounges, filling up the seats as if to say "we're sitting out on the deck tonight" - all the people have gone in, and so they have the deck to themselves tonight, and tomorrow night, and onward, until Keshava must get out the leaf-blower and shoo them along to settle with the others who are already there, around the base of that big gorgeous Tulip tree that has lived here for so long.
It's so big that three stories up you can look out the window of my Study and see the "tulips" when they bloom right there - you could almost reach out and touch one. That tree wasn't blooming so much when we first moved here. But, it has grown also, along with us and every other living thing on this small parcel of land.
One night last week, as I was going to bed, I stopped to check the back door onto the deck, just to be sure it was locked. Keshava officially does that, because he is the man, and we are an 'old-fashioned' couple in a lot of ways. I don't expect to actually find the door un-locked, but I try it anyway, 'just to be sure'.
As I was doing my little 'checking ritual' I saw what looked like the chaise lounge chairs right outside the door - not their usual place.
I was startled by this discovery and pulled back the curtain to look out. The night was as still as a painting, nothing moved. Some of my common fantasies danced through my head - "had someone been here, using the chairs?". Images and voices and laughter filled my mind...
Mandy, her eyes dancing and sparkling as she laughed and looked at Nila Madhava. Nila, his lips pressed tightly together, a smile at each corner so strong it threatened to make it's way through whatever shield momentarily held it in check for now. His dark brown eyes, deep and somber but glinting with the lights dancing off the laughter inside him - his mind not quite as willing to 'ignore' this little bit of mischievous fun.
Anasuya, tall, young, beautiful. Sincere and earnest. Making sure everyone paid attention and gave Keshava lots of admiration for putting the entire enormous deck together all by himself.
Anasuya, I saw her smiling; always, laughing; most of the time, she made me smile just to
think of her and the things she said and did. Not so much what, but how. Her way was charming.
I could hear her voice now: "guys! but isn't it amazing! Keshava did all this himself! Yes!" - Nila Madhava then "you didn't have any help, Keshava, like not even to bring the wood down?". First establishing the rare credit, and that said, along with Nila's pondering silence as his thoughts whipped through the scenario of Keshava's deck project while I looked at him, watching. I have always loved to watch Nila's mind work."
~
