Yesterday - Charles Aznavour

Yesterday when I was young
The taste of life was sweet as rain upon my tongue
I teased at life as if it were a foolish game
The way the evening breeze may tease a candle flame

The thousand dreams I dreamed
The splendid things I planned I always built, alas
On weak and shifting sand
I lived by night and shunned the naked light of day
And only now I see how the years ran away

Yesterday when I was young
So many drinking songs were waiting to be sung
So many wayward pleasures layed in store for me
And so much pain my dazzled eyes refused to see

I ran so fast that time and youth at last ran out
I never stopped to think what life was all about
And every conversation I can now recall concerned itself with me
And nothing else at all

Yesterday the moon was blue

And every crazy day brought something new to do
I used my magic age as if it were a wand
And never saw the waste and emptiness beyond

The game of love I played with arrogance and pride
And every flame I lit too quickly, quickly died
The friends I made all seemed somehow to drift away
And only I am left on stage to end the play

There are so many songs in me that won't be sung
I feel the bitter taste of tears upon my tongue
The time has come for me to pay
For Yesterday When I was young...

"He was by divine choice only a poet and often unhappy but with him one had the feeling that he was catching every minute as it flew and turning it upside down to expose its happy side."

Lawrence Durrell "Alexandria Quartet. Justine"

Karela is a bitter vegetable widely used in cuisines across Asia. The taste is bitter. Very bitter. It is eaten raw, stuffed with green mango or few other things, fried with spices, pickled, boiled. 

An unexpected perk to the brave who bites into it is the sweet, crunchy, very refreshing aftertaste. It leaves one wishing for more. It keeps me going to the Indian store on the delivery days to buy the freshest one possible. I developed my own way of choosing the ones I want from the box of many, different in size, ripeness and the color. After choosing a few, I then begin to look for my favourite one, the karela that is ripe and soft. The one with yellowish undertones in its greenness. I open this one at home right away or save for a student to see. 

Life is karela. Bitter, very bitter. It is lived raw, stuffed with green mango or few other things, fried with spices, pickled, boiled.  It takes just a few bites into the bitter flesh to learn about the refreshing, clean, sweet aftertaste. To recognize the sweetness in the bitter even before biting into it. To make the biting all the more wanted, experienced to the fullest, sweet and happy.

The opened one, with crimson red seeds inside is like a boat. A boat that sails amidst the gentle or fierce waves of life. Look at it, feel it, draw it, write a poem about it. Live it one moment at a time.

"The meaning of life is to love others as we love ourselves and to serve others"

Amma  (Sri Mata Amritanandamayi Devi, Hindu spiritual leader)

If you never experience both happiness and sorrow,

You will never know the difference between the two.

                                                              Tibetan Proverb

Wei Wu Wei

Why are you unhappy?

Because 99.9 per cent

Of everything you think,

And of everything you do,

Is for yourself —

And there isn't one.

— Ask The Awakened

the Door

I am standing in front of the imaginary door. This door consoles me when I think that I can not go on anymore...with whatever "terrible" things that happen to me...

On my side of the door there is me and passions that eat me up alive sometimes, there is work and everyday routine, that drives me crazy sometimes - making me just plain happy other times.

Behind the door is the cessation, the end of what I think bothers me. There is calm of no thinking and no deciding. There is turbulence of my inner world, there is torment of having opened that door and entering, of knowing that I opened it too soon.

On the door there is a magical screen. I see happenings in the world around me, the happy and the sad events. I see other people, animals, plants going about their daily, hourly lives. Since it is the magical screen, I don't have to hear, feel or smell what I see. I can taste, though, taste life as it is - as bitter and as spicy, sour taste of grief, sweet of skies and cold of rushing rivers.

Watching life as it happens this moment or thinking about what I just saw that already changed for the next thing... Watching and tasting all that arouses a powerful urge in me - to stay on this side and turn around and look for those that I might help if only a little bit.

I know there are many doors like that in the world. As many as there are people.