Death: All logic and some magic

 Ever since my father died in Feb, 2025, mortality has been constantly on my mind. I remember telling my brother: Dad is gone, next it will be mom, then all of us, one by one. He nodded quietly.

All the things I own, will no longer be cared for by me, in the way I care for them. I kept imagining scenarios of my current surroundings after my death. Wondering how and when I would die. 

In my youth I had been a care taker to people in my extended family; such as the grandmother in my marital home, my father-in-law, my mother-in-law and watched over them in their final declining years.

Most of it was sad stories of debilitation and pain. Now my mother has twisted her back bone and is experiencing constant pain, while being unable to move. Surrounded by love and care, she is however, unable to do anything on her own, inspite of having a radical, happening life.

Some one becomes no one. That is death. my sister says that in her current stage my mother has already become nothing like her older self. Then again I realized something.

 Life is everything that you do before you beome nothing.

This line of thinking has helped me reconcile to my own story. I can keep at it, till the very end. Till the last second. 

 I opened this post on the third, but got distracted that day, and  I am writing this on the thirtierth of March, which happens to be the ninety first birthday of my deseaced deity of a father.

Things are picking up now in the sense that I have stopped binge watching K Drama, and am trying to check my limits how much legwork I can do gardening and dog walking.

Sometimes, I am so much on my feet that the pain takes over and I give it a rest. After the MS programme, I almost got a job offer.

Aned today I almost got another. Let's see how that goes.

Nothing makes sense without a job for me.

 No logic in self diagnosis.

Scenario: I am watching a Netflix show. Tension builds up in the legal drama. I quickly close that screen and start playing Solitaire

Diagnosis: Why on earth am I so stressed by unfortunate events taking place on screen? Based on an article on behaviour of people who read the end of the book before the events in it, it appears that I am anxious.

Therapy: I did not read any article on therapy for anxiety. I don't know what to do.

Question: I have found security through hard work and by making tough life choices. There is no one or nothing to stop me from living a productive and mildly adventuresome life. So why I am still anxious???????????????????????????????????????????????????????

Some Magic from the past

 I watched a 2002 film, "Crossroads" on OTT. I thought the lead teen character looked familiar and looked very pretty. 

The flow in the movie was not bad and what struck me was that the teen was not frantically overacting and actually behaved in the "quietish" way real teens tend to. 

So, some fifteen minutes into the film, I got curious and googled the film. The lead teen is Britney Spears, the lovely pop star. The movie did not get a good response from critics, but Iwas actually able to watch it through and consider it to be a decent film. It made a good sum of money, but I think the critics of those days were haters of Britney. 

I liked her singing in the movie too. I think her being so pretty has mesmerised people in different ways. Some people watched her and followed her just for her looks, while some others put her in a slot, may be as a not too creative blond or something like that. 

I was actually impressed with her acting. Her portrayal was not of the screaming, distracted, mean and emotionally imbalanced teen characters of Hollywood.

I have no idea what kind of person a media celebrity really is, nor do I believe any one else does just based on the stories that hit the tabloids, but the teen in "Crossroads" came across as a caring, mindful, put together adventurer and this was owing to Britney Sprears' acting skills.

The Question re-emerges: Magic or Logic?

 Logical scientists claim that the secret to a happy life is buiding relationships. So, I decided to try that. Whenever I have to go out of the way to help anyone who seeks it of me, I tell myself - You are building your community, your people. This person is now going to be your person. 

(Now I need to cajole myself so much because helping others is not really my thing.) 

So now that I am more helpful and reaching out to others and all that, I am hopeful of being not too eccentric in my approaching old age. 

But this morning, someone I simply love and adore called me at five thirty in the morning. I was so energized by this short 15 minute call. It was magical.

What is all this relationship building and socializing really, when compared to the magic of spontaneous bonds that we never ever logically strove for or never even attempted to create? 

I am a coward now

 Obviously, this post has no magic or logic. 

It is about the cowardice I experience when I watch a movie or a series. 'Gore' pops up on the top left corner of the screen, and I instantly close that work of art and look for something else to watch. 

I also find most fashionably edgy series distressing. It is no longer thrilling to watch fictional heroes and heroines face hurdles and withstand the pressure of dealing with the consequences of their stupidity or bad luck. In fact, so burnt out am I from living through the situation I have made out of my life, that even minor troubles in family dramas make me anxious. 

For instance, in a slow paced, picaresque novel style romcom, I started stressing out when a stranger  helps out the lady lead by offering to hold her suitcase. I am now sure that he is going to steal the suitcase. Pretty sure and that this is going to mess up the image of the decent girl with a decent job and a decent image. My feminist fears were that she would look lesser than the hero, who is weird, as men are wont to be.

So I only watch K Drama. Especially the older ones in which nothing much happens except for people walking and talking and eating and drinking. Even this genre has now evolved and tries to replicate the scary, violent side of life and I decided to give up on it as well and started to write this blog.

Enough. I have given ample proof to being in a disgustingly cowardly stage of my life.

 Here, I feel I should mention the great admiration I feel for L. M. Montgomery. I had not thought much of Anne of Green Gables when I first read it in class six. The romance in it made an impression. 

The term kindred spirit remained in my memory. When I saw the series Anne with an E, I thought the series was a very lyrical adaptation of the original and that the language used in it was very quaint. 

Then Saru told me that Anne with an E reminded her of me. I went back to the book to check how much of it had been altered for television. And what did I discover? The language of the book was exactly like what had been created for the series. My first thought was to be impressed by how good my language skills had been at six. 

Soon after, I began listening to the audio books of Montgomery. What a treat it has been! I think I will finish listening to all the books and then listen to them again a second time. I like this author almost as much as I do Dickens.

In "Anne's House of Dreams", Anne meets Paul Irving, once her student and now a 19-year-old College President, and reads one of his poems. She tells him that he would become a great and popular poet. He tells her that her writing is getting recognition too. She tells him/ or muses to herself (not sure which) that what she wrote was only good enough for children/women's magazines and that she would never count among the greats. 

 Wikipedia describes Montgomery's work as children's writing. I do not subscribe to that objective description. It is a balm to my 57-year-old self. For me, she is truly great for she is a creator who helps me dream in the 57th year of my life.

My youth was forcibly aborted due to economic reasons and now I am living in relative peace in my middle age. I have fewer responsibilities and more opportunities for enjoyment now. I am in tolerably good health and would just vegetate away but for Montgomery's "Children's books" that are full of dreams for the future.