Impressions
About a week ago, I got a call from friends living on another continent. These days calls are so rare and I was delighted to be talking to them in the old school way. It was more than six months since we last talked and there was a lot of happy news to share despite the times we live in. We all laughed and I heard them say that they sometimes wonder how a person like me is sitting still at home for over a year. This was the sort of question that almost everyone in my circle has been asking me for a year. Sometimes I tell them that they do not have any idea of the contradictions that exist in me - I have always been the kind of person who can sit still and rot in a single place. People chose to see the things they want to see or I show them the image that I want them to see. Both hold, I believe.
"Do you remember the time you walked more than 15 km to go to the library just because you felt like it? " - My friend asked. I have almost forgotten about that self. I haven't walked even a kilometre for more than a year now. It feels funny. The memory of the person I used to be has become hazy. How did that happen? Is it something that happened because of the pandemic and the isolation putting us through? We are becoming some sort of island without any linkage to the past or future. I can sense that something is keeping me afloat, but I am not sure what it is. I am, in a sense, content with life. But does contentment always comes with a sense of detachment? Sometimes I feel that I am detached in an almost terrifying way.
I have learned to accept that life goes on and even though we think that we have some control over where it takes us, we don't have it. Maybe that's the biggest lesson from this pandemic life. Detachment is fine. But it doesn't mean that I don't care about people. It is just that I can love the people without wanting to close the distance between us. That feeling is empowering in a way.
Still, I was wondering what's it that keeps me afloat. Then I came across the below Tibetan quote in my favourite book. I don't know how it escaped me in the first reading. But these words touched my soul when I read them again.
"Emptiness is the track on which the centred person moves."
I have never attached a positive connotation to emptiness. But this time, it felt right to be acknowledging and accepting that emptiness can be a good thing too. It made me realize that I am finally letting go of the heaviness and leaving behind a track of something that used to be there.
