What the mind forgets....

 ..... the body remembers.

I read this a very long time ago, and it has stayed with me. 

In 2009, I got my first tattoo. I think there is also a post on it somewhere in this blog. Of course, it's me after all. How can I not have written about it!

The first tattoo was a rebellion. It was a tumultuous time in my life. Just a few months before getting inked for the first time, I remember lashing out at my bestfriend/roomate at the time for her tattoo and being extremely judgmental. Come 4 months later, there I was, with this same friend, at her tattoo parlor and asking for my first tattoo. My idea of the design when asked - ' I am in pain. So much pain. My heart is on fire. So do me a burning heart'! It was my era of vehemently making and sticking to all the wrong decisions. What could one more do? This was my justification. 

It's been 17 years since then. The burning heart tattoo still remains. I have been wanting to cover it up with some other meaningful one. I just haven't found the perfect one yet. But in the meantime, somewhere along the years, I read the phrase 'What the mind forgets, the body remembers'. I took that to heart, and I realized it was so very true. A lot of my memories from those days are hazy, but the day I got my first tattoo, my exact conversations on that day, the journey to it, and everything else surrounding it are still so vivid in my memory. So I decided to make this a ritual. To the rest of the world, these are mere tattoos. But to me, these are my milestone markers. That even if one day my mind chooses to forget, my body will remind me. 

2015, I got tattoo #2 and #3. Well, technically, tattoo #2 was a disaster, so #3 was supposed to be it's cover up. But as luck would have it, it came out to be even more disastrous than the original! But I lived with it for over a decade. Thankfully, it was something I could hide from the outside world pretty discreetly. And of course, as was history, these too had their story etched on my permanent memory.

Come year 2020, tattoo #4 came along. I had researched and finalized it for many months before I actually got inked because I wanted to make no mistakes this time. 'Aham Brahasmi' in calligraphical hindi and a trident design. For the first time in my life,  I felt confident, proud, and happy to get a tattoo. And for the first time, I was finally getting a tattoo for a positive memory. 

I swore to be done with tattoos after this. I guess I spoke too soon.

It's been 2 weeks now. The disastrous tattoo#3 has been covered up into the most gorgeous and meaningful design I could have ever dreamed of! So finally I have tattoo#5 that I cannot stop flaunting! And since I didn't want it to feel lonely, I got tattoos #6 and #7 as well. 

Well, #1 still needs a cover-up. I am still looking for her perfect design to transform it into something meaningful for my purpose. That is going to be the last and final tattoo #8 (to come).

I know I need to be done for now when my 9-year-old tells me that 7 tattoos and 9 piercings are enough for now! Oh - Did I mention I also got the septum piercing and Navel piercing while getting the last 3 tattoos? 

All because I read a beautiful line that chose to stay with me and make itself a purpose in my life!!!!

Happy to have been inked - yet again! And absolutely in love with my gorgeous non-conventional piercings!

Holler in Holland!

Not Holland, Netherlands (although sure, that would be a dream!), this is Holland, Michigan.

If you have been following along, you will remember a few posts back when I mentioned I had finally convinced my husband to do a 10-day trip to a lakeside city. It was this one. And then you will also remember how we pivoted to an actual seaside destination instead. So Holland, Michigan quietly got shelved for the summer.

I was disappointed. A part of me had really been craving that Dutch-summer fantasy. Windmills, tulip fields, canal energy, all of it, well.. just in West Michigan.

I love that the universe sometimes conspires to give me what I wish for, in ways completely unexpected. A work trip. My favorite kind. Except this one came with zero choice in the matter. I was mandated to be there. For an entire week. In Holland, Michigan. Right smack in the middle of the exact dream I had already grieved and let go of. What can I say? Honestly, I should have bought a lottery ticket that day! Chances are I would have won it. 

Being mandated to travel solo to your dream summer city, spend a week there in blissful solitude, and have every meal expensed is a genuinely elite life experience. Work itself was hectic, sure. But everything outside of it was pure joy, starting with the six-hour solo drive in a rented beast of an SUV. No one to argue with on my choice of the mind-blowing 6-hour playlist! Pit stops at whichever travel station caught my eye. I piled up on every sugary and savory road-trip snack I wanted, because the only consequence I had to answer to was my own scale. No small humans with a sugar high to manage on the other end of it.

After work, I drove straight to the different beaches, every single day. I stayed out well past when I should have, just to catch the sunset. It was brutally hot the whole week, but I refused to leave without watching the sky do its thing first.

As much as I loved strolling the streets of downtown Holland, if I have to crown a favorite spot, it's South Haven, no contest. Walking the pier with that beautiful red lighthouse standing at the end of it and the beautiful lake just all around it was absolutely breathtaking! And right before the beach, there is this impossibly cute little street. The quaintest shops, the prettiest cobbled sidewalks (I am a complete sucker for cobblestone; it is a real weakness). The ice cream was outstanding. The parking was an absolute nightmare, especially when you are piloting a full-size seven-seater SUV that towers over every sensible sedan around it!

But honestly? This trip was exactly what I needed. A little break before my big break.

Thirty Years of Paper Flowers

What’s your favorite flower? She asked in her usual tiny little voice.

Typically, my answers to her have always been pure dismissal. Because that’s who you become when you are a mother, juggling hundreds of tasks in a day. Every interruption is noise. So, you just do the bare minimum to stop it.  For all the other times she has asked me this exact same question, I have replied each time differently. One time it was a Rose, another time Jasmine, sometimes Daisies or Tulips. And on an even rarer time it was Hydrangea. Because that is what I could see from the corner of my eye, at my neighbor’s yard. She never questioned my choice. Simply listened and resumed her play. I never went back to change or correct my answers ever. This was the routine. Has always been.

But today felt different. Not typical. For the first time ever, in a long time, my head heard the question. Not just my ears. And I thought. For a few seconds. Because I realized I had never really asked myself this question. Sure, yes. I have been flattered whenever I received roses or tulips as gifts. Loved myself a little bit more when I adorned jasmines on my hair. Admired the beautiful daisies and hydrangeas my neighbors painstakingly tend to. But are they ever really my favorites? Do they mean something to me? Have I ever felt connected to them?

My favorites are Bougainvillea.

I never knew that until this day, when she asked, for the millionth time maybe.

But why? Is it their vibrant color? Or the fact that they are deemed as the never-dying ones?

In Malayalam, we call it the ‘Kadalasu Poovu’, translating to the ‘Paper Flower’. That’s how I have always known it. I was maybe 38 years old when I learned its English name. Until then it was always Kadalasu Poovu. Maybe that is why it never featured in my list of favorite flowers, ever. Because I didn’t know how to say it to anyone who didn't know Malayalam. Or even the ones who knew.

And I also never came across any flower shop selling Bougainvillea bouquets. So I always steered clear of keeping this on my list altogether.

But they are truly my favorite. I love everything about them. Their color, the way they look so beautiful, all clustered together. But most of all, because they remind me of my childhood. My childhood summers.

My maternal grandfather had the most extraordinary gift for gardening. The garden was always in full bloom. The path from the main gate of the house to the entrance foyer would be lined on both sides with flowers of every color, size, and fragrance. Every evening, the grandkids would join him in watering the hundreds of potted plants and countless fruit trees around the yard. But my favorite was always the beautiful bougainvillea arch he had created right above the gate. Climbing up the gates to sit on the top railing, with the arch just right above my head, always made me feel like a princess. Like I was on top of the world. And everything and everyone else was beneath me, at my beck and call. Even on the hottest summer day, sitting up there, on the gate, beneath the arch, was what I loved to do. I never allowed anyone to pluck the flowers. I guarded them fiercely, because they were my arch to royalty.

A few days after my grandfather passed away, the flowers started falling. I was aghast. Because I remembered how he always told me that these flowers never fell. They just grew and grew until they grew no more. And slowly then, the leaves fell. Then the stems. And eventually one day, there remained only the steel arch, barren of any life that it had once held. I still climbed the gate. I hoped against hope that my presence might coax the plant to grow again. Until one day, the uncles decided to take down the rusting arch as well. It was cited as a health risk. That is probably the day my heart truly felt the loss. Not just of the beautiful plant it once held. But of the one man who had made it beautiful.

That was the last I ever saw a live Bougainvillea.

It will be 30 years next year.

On the day my girl made me realize this, the pang of nostalgia that hit me was bad. I did not want to forget my favorite flower ever. So the first thing I did was buy a potted faux bougainvillea for the house. It sits where I see it first thing every morning, stepping out of my room, with the beautiful eastern sunrise casting its golden glow on it. Exactly like I had always seen it when I was younger.

Maybe one day, I will have a live Bougainvillea arch. Or at least a living potted plant.