Time does fly past – it seems like just the other day in 2020 when we entered lockdowns, and now we are nearly the end of 2021.
One welcome news was the opening of flights and travel. Who would have thought that we would be grounded for more than a year?
Ok a small correction here. Time does not fly past – our perception of time changes when we do routine tasks – the more routine, the more we summarize the day in our heads rather than pay attention to it. This is also the reason why somethings seem slower than they are when we first see them – like the seconds hand of a clock that takes ages to move the first time when we spot it.
And so, the way to “slow down time” is to do new things, explore new places and keep the mundane to the minimum.
Anyways, back to the flights. I am sure, like me and my family, a lot of you have pending trips, to home and elsewhere as well. Gayatri was telling me that her India shopping list has been increasing beyond control, and I realized too that I have a long list of my own. It takes a moratorium on flights to understand how dependent we still are on India, and how much we look forward to the visits, even if shopping takes centerstage…
The good news is that it is now the festive season, with Ganesha, then Durga Puja, Dussehra and finally Diwali. And family can fly in to celebrate together. And that is what is planned for the final three months. A stream of visitors with 4-5 days gap in between. Excitement, and anticipation, but a lot of work as well.
Preparing for a visitor is hard work. Really. So many things to clean, so many things to fix, so many things to purchase and so many things to get rid of. After all, we want to present the best version of our selves to our guests, and so it does take a lot of cleaning and tinkering and recalibration of our normal lives to get there.
And the festivals too add complexity to the mix, because now there is God to welcome as well.
But it is all worth it. The house gets decked up, a lot of rubbish gets thrown out and we too end up enjoying the feeling of newness. And of course, the joy of meeting family and spending time with them, after the imposed isolation…nothing comes close to that now does it?
And when it is all done and dusted, one aims to enter the New Year with renewed hope, vigor and a rejuvenated spirit. A kind of spring cleaning for the self.
Am looking forward to it. Just help me get this cleaning out of the way first!
Se you tomorrow!