On Having a Tale to Tell
“I love the play of conversation,
how something fresh and crisp emerges”
said Vidwata
And I thought of starched khaki cotton shirts
from a long-ago summer in Shillong,
hanging stiff on a fraying nylon cord,
woven fabric soldiers
lined up shoulder to shoulder,
fighting the gusts of wind
pushing to free them to fly,
hanging on tenuously by flimsy plastic clips.
The wind knew something
they didn’t yet understand -
that good little shirts
drying stiff and straight on clothes lines
would meet the same fate -
they would get worn, sat on, crumpled, stained
and thrown carelessly in a heap
at the end of a long day,
to be washed, starched
and hung up again to dry the next morning.
Meanwhile, the one shirt
that tore free and danced with the wind,
felt the softness of blades of new grass,
tore along the jagged edges of slate rock,
got caught in a branch,
an unintended flag to freedom waving in the breeze -
rolled in the squelching mud of not-yet-dry summer rain-bogs,
and swaying giddily with joy & exhaustion,
came to rest under the shade of a frangipani tree -
deliciously sated from gulping the tang of abandon -
and it too was collected & tossed into the waiting heap of tomorrow’s laundry.
Except, it now had a tale to tell the others.
Of courage, freedom, adventure.
Of joy and living.
Of the soul-nourishing exhaustion
from taking a risk and
trusting the universe to catch its fall.
And it got me wondering,
if we all end up at the same finish line,
come dinner time,
what do I want my tale to be?
Vidwata posted a short poem this morning that got me thinking tangentially about conversations and agency and freedom. This poem wrote itself from my musings.
So, how are you living your life? Are you riding the spine of the winds of life, finding the joy and the adventure in living fully from the element of your being, or are you waiting like a good soldier for someone else to decide what to do with your time?
I’ve been the good soldier. And I still feel strongly about working with my tribe and aligning to a common good where we can make a positive difference. But I no longer give my agency up that easily or mortgage my freedom to false goals that feed someone else’s ego or fears. And I have learnt to keep my cup of joy full with doing what matters to me.