Seasons Greetings

Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house Not a creature was stirring — not even a mouse: The stockings were hung by the chimney with care, In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there. –Clement C. Moore

Christmas and the holiday season have always been magical for me. I'm the kind of person that goes all out for holidays- I love all the lights and ribbon, I devour Christmas movies, and I'm blasting holiday songs as soon as it's past Thanksgiving. My favorite Christmas Eve, we got to spend at Magic Kingdom in Disney World. We watched a late evening performance of The Grinch Who Stole Christmas and then we stayed to watch the special lights and fireworks show. My dad planned the whole trip and I know he would have moved heaven and Earth just so that his princess could spend Christmas Eve at Cinderella's Castle. Although we're not Christian, Christmas time has always been synonymous for time with family, an opportunity to think about those less fortunate, and a desire to spread happiness and light to those around me. Over the years, we've developed our own holiday traditions- I've rarely ever missed a year of A Charlie Brown Christmas or snuggling in with a comforter to ring in the New Year with Anderson Cooper and Kathy Griffin. Holiday dinners are a big deal and we are constantly trying to outdo ourselves. In the end, the holidays are about being grateful for the experiences of the past year and hopeful to everything the New Year has to offer. Our warmest wishes to you, this holiday season. Wherever you are, we hope your holidays are joyous and beautiful ♡

Love,
Soumya

        

           

 

Bobbing Seaside

A fishing bob is a buoyant, usually red, piece of cork used to suspend fishing line. The line is cast into the water and the bobber rests on top. As the waves lap around it, sometimes it remains fully submerged in water, other times it trembles just above, basking under a scorching sun. Sometimes, I like to think of human existence using the analogy of the bobber. Everyday, we are constantly bombarded by negativity and violence. We bounce along, contemplating our existential conflicts. We are one among billions of bobbers in an endless ocean. And sometimes it is so easy to slip under the water, to want to isolate yourself from all the troubles, to find solitude in the confines of your own silent bubble. It is easy to be overwhelmed by the tribulations of daily life and become caught in a cloud of cynicism. But no matter how much it wants to, the bobber can't stay under water and it emerges again into the light of day. In literature, the color red, like the bobber, signifies a beacon and a desire for attention. I think it is a beautiful thought that no matter how dark the world gets, we will send our beacons of light up, to let others know we are here. And we will ride the waves of our worries together.

Switching Out of Cruise Control

This summer, I started karate with my brother as part of my Ultimate Bucket List Challenge. The front wall of the karate school is a mirror. We begin performing all our motions facing this mirror and, just like in a dance or yoga studio, its purpose is to help us self-correct the mistakes we make in form, stances, and motion. Karate is all about self-discipline and focus. We are constantly correcting ourselves so that we can be stronger, more efficient, and maximize our power. Our respect for the art, our superiors, and our peers comes from how hard we work and how much dedication we have to doing the motions correctly. Unfortunately, life doesn't come with a mirrored wall, a reflective surface where we can see what exactly it is that we are doing wrong. Still, it is our responsibility to analyze our lives and constantly strive to be the best possible versions of ourselves. Practice makes perfect and as a young person, I find my greatest weakness lies in my lack of practice living. Over the last couple weeks, as the demands from school, extra-curriculars, and other activities weigh down, I've learned that it is very easy to stop living and to start letting the events of of our day shape our lives. In effect, I find myself going into cruise control, tumbling around in whichever direction these external pressures take me. I don't want to hand over the reigns to my freedom so willingly. Although life will continue to be surrounded by all the things that are expected of me, I refuse to let these things control me. I am the master of my own destiny. Without a nudge to the steering wheel, a car will undoubtedly run off the path and into the nearest ditch, however noble its original intentions may have been. The road to discovering the best possible version of myself will be lost if I do not stop to evaluate the decisions I make on a day to day basis and the values I hold strong to my character. Here's to being our own greatest leaders.

Autumn Told Me Bedtime Stories

They are trees. But they are also hard candies: cherry red, bright orange, apple green; round and hard in their shiny tin cases. Brilliant yellow feathers cocked sideways in hat brims. Curving icicles, deep red tinged with frosty pink tips. Dark purple and olive green, gut-wrenching nostalgia. Liquid-fire down slick throats and brick-laden air that pulls you down as you suck in, turning cheeks rose. Silhouetted against a slate gray sky, oil pastel, heavy and dense, a blanket foddling us as we drift, drift, drift... and the leaves, tumbleweeds dancing 'cross cold barren land. The energy falling, dropping dangerously, suspended animation in deep blue oceans. Colorful skirts, swirling whirlwind, sleepwalking to the dark caves of sorcerers, moon full and heavy in the sky, quivering like a drop of water on your lip.

People on Pedestals

Paper Towns is a book about a boy named Q and his infatuation with his neighbor Margo. Q and Margo were friends many years ago but now Q just observes her from a distance. When Margo asks Q to come along one night to prank people in a spree of redemption, and then disappears the next day, Q is sure that she is some kind of goddess and all her acts have noble beginnings. The author, John Green, says he wrote the book specifically to combat what he calls the male gaze, which has been propagated in all romantic literature (see: "It is the East and Juliet is the Sun.") - men looking at women, instantly elevating them to heavenly proportions, and then being disappointed when they realize that they are just human.

The truth is, we are all Q in some sense. We see celebrities on t.v., we read about people in books, newspapers, and magazines, and we have an instant tendency to disproportion them into larger than life characters. We put people on massive pedestals and the great punch line is that we are personally offended when they inevitably don't live up to our expectations. We are naturally disposed to be all or nothing: we either "love" a person or despise them, there is no in between. Why are we so insistent in stuffing all these qualities into a single person and propping them up like mannequins in a show case? I think it is because we see something of ourselves and who we want to be in the future in these people. We need super heroes, someone to stealthily admire from far away, someone to use as a benchmark for all the things we want to fix in our lives. But I also think, all of us are a fine mixture of good and bad. We are all capable of being what we love and what repulses us. What if we became our own super heroes? What if we walked through life picking only the shining ripe cherries, snatching only the glimmering pearls and we put them inside ourselves?  What if we really truly decided to introspect and became our own benchmarks?  It is true that all of us are just human. But don't be misled by the just.

Stress-Culture?

The day stress comes into your life marks the day you begin your journey toward adulthood. No matter what generation, there is always some turning point at adolescence when stress becomes the most constant thing in our lives. This dark shifty knight follows us through adulthood, cripples our soul and spirit and withers away our bones. We live in a stress culture- stress is the most dangerous drug and we are addicted to it and can't free ourselves. We propagate it in all fields of life- through the media, through conversation, through actions. Stress is an indicator of success- you're so busy and stressed out? That's great you must be doing it right! You pulled an all-nighter? Wow, I wish I could do that! You're on your fifth cup of coffee this morning? That's fantastic. But there is a dangerous line to walk. Succumb to the the pressure, crumble under the weight, and fall swiftly out of the graces of society. It is a crucible we have voluntarily suspended over our heads, adding more and more weight, pulling it closer and closer to our bodies until we are squashed into nothingness. Scientifically, stress causes problems in all areas of our lives- sleeping, eating, social interaction... gone unchecked, stress can lead to high blood pressure, obesity, and diabetes. It can induce body pains, headaches, and illnesses. We are slowly killing ourselves.

Why? What for? "I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear..." wrote Thoreau in Walden. Stop whatever it is you are doing right now. Look out the window. See the rain pitter pattering down. See the dark green tree silhouetted against the deep gray sky. See it moving its branches, swaying this way and that, to accommodate for the blowing wind. Hear the rain as it pings down onto pavement. Hear the swoosh of the cars as they rush past through the puddles. Close your eyes and take a deep breath. Feel your fingers and your toes wiggling. Imagine the stress leaving your body. How do you feel?

Why is it that we chase so fervently that which is not life? Why do we let our lives become the slaves of petty frivolities? Why do we burden ourselves with pain instead of setting ourselves free? What are you afraid of? What will happen when you stop being stressed? We can't escape from stress, we can't run away from it. But we can duck out from underneath it. We can refuse to expending our precious energy on that which does not matter. We are the masters of our own destinies.

Why I Write

A good friend came over to my house recently and we were having a quite deep conversation with all of our usual shenanigans interposed, of course. She was sitting leaned back in my spinny chair and I was sitting criss-crossed on my bed. It was early afternoon, the sky was blue in the window behind her, the sun was high. We somehow managed to meander into the topic of the one thing we do when we want to unwind and relax. She immediately answered that she plays the piano; I just as quickly responded that I write. The conversation brought forward a question to my mind and I have been thinking about it a lot since then. Why do I write? As far back as I can remember, I have always seen the world in words. And this is kind of a marvelous concept because what are words really, other than a fantastic human invention. I remember the summers as an eight or nine-year-old kid when I would go biking around my street. The street we lived on back then was a circle. I would race around and around that street rushing faster and faster as the stream of words in my head grew larger and more defined. Eventually, I'd have to run inside to scrawl whatever bits of poem I had stuck in my head into a little composition notebook that I called my "poetry journal". Back then, I was churning out poems as fast as the spokes on my bicycle wheels. Later, the red spiral bound diary that was home to the long, rambling, angst-filled, rage-ridden entries of a pre-teen; that was the only diary I have ever kept. In the middle of the night, after countless hours of tossing and turning with the perfect idea for a story, finally jumping up to turn on a light and find some paper and a pen. Half-crafted novels are sprawled around the house- in notebooks, journals, on loose-leaf, and on my laptop. Days will stretch by when I have the perfect idea for a piece to write but the words won't come out, tormenting me, and it's like trying to squeeze toothpaste out of an already empty tube. Every situation is a metaphor or a beautifully crafted analogy waiting to happen. My mind obsessively strings together words and shuffles and reshuffles them until they fit in perfect order. I believe every experience in life is a mixture of growth and reflection. These two aren't binary, rather they coexist. However, while we are constantly taking in huge sums of data, processing it all, and growing as people, we each have something special we do to reflect. The world is literally swamped with brilliant geniuses of writers; some who have passed away, some who continue to share their magic with us, and others who are yet to be discovered. I am ever inspired by these amazing human beings- my voice is tiny in comparison to theirs. Reading their words teaches me empathy, compassion, courage, and love. Writing my words shows me I care. I believe in the power of words to fuel change and heal souls. Nothing great was ever accomplished by a single voice. Rather, it is the glorious harmony of many voices chanting together that creates magic. I'll toss my voice in there with the rest of them, screaming as loud as I can. Will you join me? Why do you write?