Ladybug's field notes

Are we? Am I? Are you? Are we even more precious because of the wounds, the cracks, the riffs we have in our hearts that we have worked on for years, much alike the ceramic pieces which have gone through Kintsugi ? Are we even more beautiful because we are broken and we did not divert ourselves away from those cracks through the most celebrated addiction of our times, "busy-ness"? Or for that matter dissociated to the extent that parts of us became unreachable along with those cracks? Can we claim higher value than a human who was never broken or for that matter never looked at their broken parts and worked on them? But even before we go there, do we, ourselves consider us exquisite pieces of higher value or are we constantly shaming ourselves about our brokenness and our healing journeys much like the pieces recreated through Kintsugi?  It is popularly believed that Kintsugi or Kinsukuroi came into existence around the 15th Century when a Shogun (hereditary military leaders...

I t is almost time to wrap the year! Although Instagram is offering a photo collage, have photos ever known the story as well as the words? For some may be yes! For me it's definitely a no! In 2022, the bright idea of making life a little more calm struck me and struck me hard! For years a dear friend had been suggesting me to create a physical distance from the people who clearly did not contribute to my mental peace, but I hesitated. It was too comfortable staying in the place I called mine. I stayed there for years. The familiarity was comforting even if not peaceful. In 2019, I almost thought of shifting to another locality after Gogol left for college, but decided against it as it was not really ticking the requirement of being physically far that way, and soon there was covid... In a nutshell,  finally  in 2022, I  started  claim ing  my calm. Well! Ahem! In instalments. .. I claimed  and reclaimed  my physical and mental boundary ​ this year​ ....

"You are a slut! Given a chance you will sleep with every man in the whole neighbourhood!"  "When will you die? Can you tell me when will you die? I can then be at peace for some time?"  "You are so ugly..it is so difficult for me to take you anywhere!"  "You will keep losing your jobs! You don't know how to talk to your own, no wonder you would not know how to talk to the world!"  "You will never become anything in life! I at times wonder if you are our own!" These are just some of the things that children from so called "normal" families have heard and that they vividly remember as adults. Not only that they remember but some of these are repeated when they clash with the larger world and face a challenge. Their families repeat these with a "I told you so..." put in for better effect. If you think of these sentences in isolation, without knowing who said these to whom, you would have asked the receiver of these...

Being a mother of a teenager is a regular lesson in humility!  You are made to enter and re-enter the class as your teacher fears you may not have learnt the lesson well! A teenager can not take a chance on that! Especially if you have a teenager who thrives on sarcasm (like, mine).    Today is a good day to start writing about us because today is one of those days when I barged into his room as his online classes were on, and said (ahem, shouted!),"Do not give me that look! I do not care if your teacher can hear me. Actually pass on her phone number I want to tell her how badly you do your house work! And I want to understand what she thinks about her students failing in basic house work and getting high marks in class exams! How callous was it to run the washing machine with clothes sticking out of the front door?" The boy stayed put on his chair. Only the look changed from, "What are you doing here, Ma?" to "Uh uh! I got myself in trouble!...