Musings of a Global Nomad

Dearest ones Sending you our warmest wishes for the season. As we usher in another Christmas, we are thankful as always for your love, the warmth of your friendship and the memories we share. Life is rushing by, children growing up faster than we want and we find that we continuously get lost in the mayhem of routine. Life seems to take on a faded hue and the world around seems harsh and absurd. What with all the terrorists, idiots, misogynists, ignoranants, discriminators and misplaced ideals, we wonder if there is any place for idealists like us. As we wonder at the futility of it all, we also feel guilty; for having everything and yet feeling disconnected.  But then we meet someone, so ordinary but so inspirational, we experience something that touches our soul deeply, we see our teenager passionate about a cause, quietly trying to make a difference and we feel renewed again. And we convince ourselves that being completely human and fully alive is just this; ...

When my parents last visited us, they were awed when my preschooler excitedly showed them the power point presentations she loves working on. She does this for fun. She chooses a topic, sometimes it’s her favorite band, sometime it’s something as mundane as shoes or there was even one titled ‘things’. She googles relevant images, copies and pastes them on to the slide, does word art, graphics, the works. She may not be able to spell many words yet, but she is a power point expert. She, like all my other kids are Digital Natives, the generation of people born during or after the rise of digital technologies. (And we all, born before 1980 are called Digital immigrants by the way.) There are kids like her everywhere. You see them on the bus, the teenager with the ear plugs, listening to her iPod and texting at record breaking speed from her phone, your 7 year old niece whom you go to when you have trouble figuring out your smart phone, the intern at office who knows what to do when ...

We first met one hot day in Madras (I really can't get myself to say Chennai). I must have been  about eight years old and we had just moved into our new home in Annanagar West extension. My older brother and I were bored that afternoon and deciding to be a little adventurous, we climbed up onto the parapet of our roof. It was exciting; we could see far and wide, a whole new view of our new neighborhood.  Suddenly we heard an unfamiliar but pleasant voice call out to us asking us to come down immediately. We peered down and were startled to see a lady we had never seen before looking up at us with amusement and fear. She asked us our names but before we could answer, she once again asked us to please come down before we fell and broke our heads, and laughing, we reluctantly climbed down and went to introduce ourselves. And thus our relationship began with the lady from the house across the street. She had silver hair tied up in a bun and eyes that twinkle...

Having been in a bad mood all week, I have perhaps been more attuned to all the people around me who are also in a bad mood and this made me realize that indeed we are a grumbling society. This is nothing new and I am sure we all realize it at some point. And... in all fairness I am sure we all do our best to keep sight of the things to be thankful for, but nevertheless we grumble. We grumble if its too hot, then we grumble if the air con is on too high; we grumble if we have a busy week and then we grumble when its too quiet; we grumble when we have one too many engagements on a weekend and then we grumble when we have to stay home all weekend too. We are grumblers. So for all of you having a bad week, this ones for you. It's the weekend and hopefully it will be fun and relaxed and you can find a reason to smile and let the sun into your soul. I for one, am sure gonna try... Life Life is strange Beautiful Hard And fun Some love. Some laugh Some strugg...

Turning 40! Well let me tell you, it is a big deal. You think you are ready, but you aren't. You know it's just a number but yet, it weighs you down. You have been expecting it, planning for it even, but when it happens, you have to take a deep breath and fight hard to silence the one hundred thousand impulses that surge through you, drumming one hell of a scary beat.     It helped that I turned 40 under a beautiful Parisian sky. I wanted to mark this day in a special way and had planned this trip even though it  wasn't  really the best time (midweek, winter and a sick child). But the rest of my gang hardly needed any convincing. And since it involved missing a few days of school, it was, as you can imagine, met with even more excitement).  So yes we celebrated my birthday walking the streets of Paris, eating fantastic but much too expensive French cuisine, taking endless photographs, throwing a key into the river Seine, climbing the Eiffel tower...

As far as romantic love stories go, ours is a pretty good story to tell. What makes it more exciting is that there is a his and hers version but I'll leave you in suspense and keep that story for another time. What I can share is that we kind of had our first date on Valentines day and as many humorous anecdotes as we each have about that night, we both admit it was magical and yes the beginning of a beautiful journey together. No we weren't already in love then and no it was hardly a traditional date or romantic evening for two by any means, but it was the first time we were out together and the sparks did fly and cupid was definitely at hand. So Feb 14th does remain a very special date for us and every year we celebrate that anniversary, reminiscing, laughing, being thankful. And the years have flown...  20 years in fact! Now that's quite some pressure. And so in the days leading up to this Valentines day, I put some real deep thought into what I could give him, thi...

Ever since Pope Francis told mothers in the Sistine Chapel to go ahead and breastfeed their children if they needed to, there have been a lot of blogs and stories praising the pontiff, mothers sharing their experiences and lots more interesting stories of all kinds. It got me thinking back to this really funny experience I had, and so no better to time to share it, than at the peak of all this breast feeding chatter. Spoiler alert: The story is not directly related to the issue of breast feeding in public, it is more about stereotyping, but nevertheless read on, and you will see the connection. This happened when my third daughter was a few months old. We were living in Rome at that time and would attend Mass at the Irish College most Sundays. The Mass was in English, the priests and seminarians warm and welcoming and they had a lovely catechism program for kids after Mass. So one Sunday, we finished Mass and the older girls went off for Catechism. It was a lovely day, the sun s...