It comes in waves
A cousin sends me a poem she has written on her father’s death anniversary. The last line gets to me and triggers an avalanche of gratitude and the need to step up to potential. I am thinking of my own Daddy and the ways in which I fill the void of his ‘absent physical presence.’ I decide I will take my existential conversations to the mighty Bosphorus. With a cup of tea. Like my own nonalcoholic, tea drinking father. In some ways the sea feels like a father figure too.
The Bosphorus is waiting like a massive deep blue installation, each wave frozen as a half circle. Dense and colour rich. Droplets of sea water fill the air and sea gulls cavort around giddily like sugar rushed school children on a scheduled museum visit. I have always sought out nature. As a child, for imaginary dress up games, for learning about the beauty of creation… form, shape, texture, colour. I would imagine ultimate comfort to be if I could fold myself into the bell shaped bottom of a flower and fall asleep pillowed against its satiny petals. Like little Thumbelina.
So I start my dialogue with this handsome water body and find resonance … in the choreography of his waves, in his silence and roars, and most of all, in his inherent unpredictability. I learn to embrace uncertainty and understand that every external security is an illusion that takes us away from essential anchors. No house, money, family, lover can ever ground me fully in the magnificent unlimitedness that I am. I need to accept impermanence as a gift. And the real security would be to raise my energy and vibration- this mindful, continuous natural rhythm. The sea does not stop being energetic, the flower does not stop blooming, the tree does not stop sending out tender leaves and buds. They don’t seem daunted by storms, blizzards or predators.
A middle- aged couple approach my table waiting for my consent. The sea-hugging tables are few and full. I wave aside the programmed reaction to be proprietorial about my space. (What am I owner of anyway!) I smile at them and enjoy the woman’s kind face. The waiter comes to shoo them away as apparently the table charges are clubbed together and it is obvious we are not a group. The man announces that he would like to pay for my chai. And he says to the waiter in English: “You didn’t see how she smiled at us. Like we are family.” I finish my chai and leave. My heart is full and my road is clear.
Anupamaa Dayal
This fashion designer is about happy clothes and happy homes for happy women