I took a walk along different footpaths while visiting a city recently. I felt fascinated by the sights on both sides of the footpaths. On one side there was a row of houses facing the foot path with most houses having a flower garden with flowers of the season blooming. On the other side was a long stretch of lawn with grass, trimmed and maintained well, with tall trees, telling the story of long years of their presence in the history of that city.
What caught my attention is how the pedestrian path had different patterns of light and shadows all along the way.
Th first pattern, the photo below, I noticed was some footpaths have had lights and shadows interspersed all along the distance of that foot path.
The second pattern, the photo below, there were shadows at the beginning or for a short distance along the way. Most of the way looked even with light falling on the path.
The third pattern was, the photo below, where the foot path looked evenly lit with no brilliant stretches or thick shadows. Even if there was a small stretch of light it did not create a contrasting look.
It is along this path, hundreds of people, residents of that street and visitors to the street would have walked during the several years.
As I walked along these footpaths, I took time to make journey into the seventy four years of my life that I was given to live. I could recollect stories from about four years of my life. I walked along these paths each time covering five years of my life. Sometimes I had to take two per three occasions of walk to remember and make sense of the events of each five year.
I started the exercise to recall the events and relive some of them. What happened was well beyond that intention.
I found my life belonging to the three patterns of the foot path I described above, referring to the distribution of light and shadows along the way.
Looking back, on my life, the first pattern of the light and shadows all along the foot path correspond to the way life emerged for me.
I had a disturbing start as a child in the pre-school years with at least three displacements on account of the relocations of my parents on account of the job related needs. While I thought life was settling into an order, I had to leave my home in Kerala to go to Nagpur to pursue my medical studies at 17 years. It was the first time I was travelling outside the state of Kerala with no knowledge of Hindi and minimal familiarity in English. This corresponds to the second pattern I described of the foot path.
It was after my medical studies, subsequent post graduate training, and marriage Anna and I were led to the third pattern that I described of the footpath with some evenness along life's journey. There were significant events all along the last forty years, but the swaying experiences that I went through in the previous two seasons of life, got changed into being steadied and enabled to walk through the different terrains in life in a sobering way.
During the first two seasons of the starting life and going through the youthful years, the events in life had disturbed and choked me. It was through the healing exercises that I was taken through under guidance and supervision of a few mentors, I was able to find the meaning and purpose of those experiences. That consciousness helped to receive them as formative and insightful.
There were some major events in the last forty years, which were demanding and disturbing to say the least. But the way, they got processed by staying centred in the consciousness that a voyage along the ocean of life is with winds and storms. The wind makes the voyage forward and the storm creates readiness to be steadfast and resolute.
I have been through a storm in the last four years at my work place. That caught me by surprise. I was looking in one direction to develop the services in the specialty I was working in. But that direction could not be pursued due to resistance and opposition. That called for a season of waiting during which the new direction emerged. During the last two years, the new direction emerged with clarity and greater ease. The inner ambience within me became stress free and jubilant. I feel glad that the storm was for a purpose. It turned the direction of the voyage.
Now, as I prepare to take leave of my professional role and engage the time that is ahead of me, to reflect and review life's calling for the next phase of my life, what comes upon me is gratefulness and gladness.
It was on 12th of May 1982, I was taken to CMC Hospital Vellore with a knee injury caused by a motor cyclist loosing control and hitting me, which lead to an intra-articular fracture of the right knee with a few fragments. This threatened to be a non- healing fracture at the end of three months. I still do not know how the fragments came together later, to heal my knee which gave me 41 years of trouble free walking. It was a phase of living in the shadow of suspense for about six months.
There were other significant events. One experience which is still difficult for me is to live with a few broken relationships. I do not see the prospect of reconciling them. What is left to me is to accept that shadow, which shall stay in memory.
At the end of several days of walk along life's footpaths, I returned with one sobering feeling: people live in my consciousness as enablers and pathfinders. What appeared as painful experience turned out of be for pathfinding a new direction that I was blind to. So even those who remain estranged, become companions and facilitators who showed me the path, that I would have missed.
Life's journey is a gift facilitated by our life at home. I feel overwhelmed by what I receive from Anna in this pathfinding journey! I feel touched by some others who were close to us in caring and supporting. Now our adult children are others who keep a watch on our pathfinding journey!
The small circle of friends with whom I am in touch are rich resources to help us find sense and meaning of experiences in life!
Let me end this reflection with a stanza of Hymn 'Joyful, joyful, we adore Thee' by: Henry Van Dyke
Thou art giving and forgiving,
Ever blessing, ever blest
Well-spring of the joy of living,
Ocean depth of happy rest!
Thou our Father,Christ our brother,
All who live in love are Thine;
Teach us how to love each other,
Lift us to the joy divine.'
M.C.Mathew(text and photo)
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