Category: non-fiction

Categories
non-fiction Opinion

It is Okay to Cry Out Loud

My two-year-old had a particularly rough Monday.

First, in the wee hours of the morning, it is raining and dark. He is in his school clothes, strapped in his car seat. In front of his daycare, we find out the daycare is closed forcing me to take a day off work.

At home, he and I stare at each other’s face with confusion on what we should do with one other.

The first response from a distracted parent…

I turn the TV on, snuggling with him in bed as I flip open the lid of my laptop. Ten minutes later, he is tired.

“Mama, turn the TV off.”

I look at him like, “dude, what is wrong with you?” I do not allow screen time and here, I have opened the floodgates to it, enjoy!

I turn the TV off. We stare at one another. He pulls on my hand. He is leading me down the stairs. He wants to start this day that refused to begin with the school closure.

I call the gym. They have a play area where the caretakers are well familiar with him and he with them. It would provide the outlet the little guy needs. They have room. Yay!

My boy and I ride in my aging mini-van to the gym. He is the happiest I have seen in the day. An hour later, I return dripping in sweat. My lemonade (from the lemon life threw at us)!

He is waiting for me. The caretaker says, “He was just not the same without his older brother and sister (who are at school,) and just waited for you to return.”

We come back home and the garage door refuses to open. I reach for my keys, and the home key is missing on my key chain. I circle the home to see if my carelessness would pay off with an open door. Nope.

My boy waits patiently as I try for another fifteen minutes for the garage door to open. The garage door tends to stick and not open on rainy days. I struggle with it.

After a half hour, a memory returns to me. I had taken the key off while getting my car serviced. Five minutes later, I feel it buried in my purse. I hop out in joy. Open the front door. I am in my home, at last.

I walk to the garage and press the garage button from inside. It refuses to budge. Then, I realize what happened.

In America, where only massive storms force the power out, there is no power in my home on this sunny day. I am shocked. I go back to the front door where a neighbor is walking his dog.

He confirms he is without power too. Anyway, my boy and I are at least inside our own home.

I heat his lunch on the stove instead of the micro. He eats it silently. The only fuss he is making is not leaving me alone, even for a second. Not playing. Not doing anything fun. Just silent.

Moments later, he rises with his water cup to the water dispenser. Presses the down button and there is no water.

And, the calm and composed baby of mine, slaps the cup to the floor and bursts out crying!

I hold him and explain to him that we have no power and hence, no water. He leaves the rest of his food untouched and goes to bed.

The light comes back in an hour when I shower after my sweaty workout from the morning. But, to my little one, I must say…it is okay to be calm. But when life slides down a slippery slope and nothing seems right, it is okay to cry it out too. Be human.

Here is to the comfort of electricity we enjoy in the US! And the ability to cry out loud on rough days.

 

Categories
non-fiction Opinion writing

When Fireworks Light the Sky

At the #10mincon, word got around that fireworks will light the sky if the Reds win the game. But when the fireworks crackled over the John A Roeblin Suspension Bridge, we were no longer sure if Reds won the game or not. We certainly had won. That was clear.

For greater part of my life, I remained away from Facebook. Because the people I loved were right in front of my eyes. In 2015, I violated my cardinal rule and joined Facebook with solitary intention of meeting fellow writers like me, better writers than me.

And, here I was. The year was 2018.

Irony called my life happened.

While three of my books collected electronic dust itching to smell paper of a bound book, I attended my very first writers conference, #10mincon, organized by a Facebook group called #10minutenovelists (founded by Katherine Grubb)  🙂

That morning, I kissed goodbyes to my little ones, and off I went on vacation (from all the joys of parenthood) to Covington, KY. It was a happy journey clouded by a nightmare from the night before where I was unable to hand out business cards to a single person in the entire conference. Studded amidst the rolling green hills, appeared Cincinnati, Ohio separated from Kentucky by Ohio River. I bridged the distance from Ohio to Kentucky in a minute to arrive at the Embassy Suites hotel.

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What followed was unprecedented. I met people who were just like me, eager to mingle and eager to share their knowledge. But I did not know that when I arrived.

When I first entered the room, I carried in me a lonely heart of a mother who missed the laughter of her little ones and stared at the countless heads of strangers from the back of the room. I found an empty row when Pam Humphrey and Glenda Thompson signaled me to join them instead.

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With Glenda and Pam

The lectures that followed from Katherine Grubb, James Scott Bell, Donald Maass, and Janice Hardy require thought and many more blogs to capture. It was intense, and it was worth every penny I spent to get there.

I would like to thank the entire team of #10mincon who made it possible, who put their heart in every little detail from inspiring speeches to getting the highest quality speakers to us to the boxed lunch souvenirs on the day of the departure.

I even won a free book from my new friend, Pam Humphrey called the Blue Rebozo! Not a coincidence.

Fireworks crackled that night befitting the emotions of all present in the conference. It was not an end but a new beginning.

I returned richer, bolder and purposeful. Not only did I bring back new lessons but new friends as well who had shared personal stories over the span of two days.IMG_9782With my new writer friends (Gretchen Grey-Hatton next to me) and Donald Maass –  the author that first inspired and influenced my writing through the “Breakout Novelist” book.

To the 10 Minute Novelist team, Bravo!

Categories
non-fiction Opinion Tech

Journey Beyond the Headlights

When I was a little girl, I wanted to be a teacher. Teacher craze lasted a few years. When teenage acne took over, I had a distant family friend visit us from the United States. She had an eclectic selection of high-heeled shoes my sheltered eyes had ever laid eyes on. And, she told heroic tales of her experiences being a detective. So, I wanted to be a detective. So, as my wants blended with the winds and went place to place, I too floated from a small town in rural Punjab to a small Midwestern town in the US. Destiny winds continued to sway me around. I found myself in a high-rise in Downtown Chicago in 2007, at Buc, France giving Agile training in 2015, and last summer, I joined Allstate in Chicago land as a Program Manager.

One thing is same in my aged heart from the one that beat in me as a child – desire to get better, anxiety to succeed in life and in career. The burning desire had me chasing “the road less traveled” or simply “the road I wished to travel on.”

I recently changed roles for the third time, I must say, within Allstate in my first year itself. Blame the burning desire inside me that is waiting for the right winds to propel me because all I can see is as far as the headlights of my near vision.

What do I do? I am an Agile Coach, I change people’s behaviors for a living. May I say, I do the same at home as a mother. Beyond the headlights, only lies the ashes from my desire of where I want to go and where I want to be.

For now, I am teaching myself a lesson I have applied all my life. Do the best you can. Give the best you can. And, worry not for the rest. Let’s roll!

Categories
inspiring moral non-fiction Opinion

Ten Ways to Break a Predictable Routine

Habits make us, shape us, keep us grounded. We follow same routes to work relishing the comfort in the familiarity of repetitions.

But have you ever pondered what makes a vacation so special?

It is the ultimate reset of routines.

But why wait for a vacation to gain a reset. Daily, there are opportunities to do precisely what a vacation gives you. Try these ten ways to break that routine and have the vacation experience right where you are, doing exactly what you do.

  1. Go where the tourists go
    Take that boat tour. Go visit the local museums. Suspend your legs in a lake and watch the ducks float by. Take a picture like a memory keeper of unusual things. That is what tourists do what we do not in day to day. Go to city center, people watch.
  1. Do something you are afraid of
    Break your comfort zones, be it in applying for a more challenging role at work, signing up for a marathon, march for something you believe in. When opportunity knocks on your door and you start to wonder how you would juggle things around or learn a new skill, say yes. Learn that new skill.

    Can’t think of anything? Go Bungee Jumping or Sky Diving.

  1. Eat at a new restaurant
    Drive to a new restaurant at least once a week. Eaten at all around? Try a new dish or venture beyond your normal miles. Go on a culinary tour – like ice cream shops, coffee shops, frozen yogurt, French bakeries, Greek restaurants…what ever culinary outlet your neighborhood allows. Do not hesitate to expand the boundary in which you normally eat.
  1. Cook a new recipe
    Cooking is cathartic but cooking in a short amount of time because you must, is a chore. Break that chore by trying a new recipe just for the fun of it.
  1. Take a new route to work
    Auto pilot is great. But the awareness you possess while sitting over a giant canyon observing each contour, each hew of sunlight is worth tapping by breaking auto pilot on any given day.

    Once I took a back road to work because of traffic and the smell of wild spring flowers is still a fresh memory years later. New routes take you out of auto-pilot, force you to notice views we innocently glance over.

  1. Watch at least one sunrise and a sunset
    Instead of waking up at the same time, rise with an alarm on a clear day to just watch the sunrise and do nothing else.
  1. Read a book for the fun of it
    There is solitude in your outer world as you submerge yourself in a book. But your inner world bubbles with the contents of the book. Sometimes, you must dive into another world to escape your own just like watching a movie, and book is the perfect medium.
  1. Celebrate the little treasures
    Why wait for a birthday to celebrate? Celebrate the little things – like when you did something you were afraid of, or you cooked a new dish. In the little celebrations breathes life.
  1. Write a Journal
     Write in your journal. After all, if you have reached number 9 of my blog, you have already altered your life. If you have altered your life, chances are there is lot of emotions inside of the new sights and sounds you have heard. Write.
  2. Take a hike
    Tourists hike. Some active people do. But even if you are a couch potato like me, get outside, find a scenic trail and get on it. Do not walk to get your step count in. Walk to gain a new experience.

 

So, pause and think of all the routines you have grown to be comfortable in. Break them. It will alter your attitude and open new doors of opportunity, I promise.

Categories
non-fiction

Dua – My Love, My Treasure

You take my worries away. You smile and I cry tears of joy. You plant kisses delivering loving ointments to life scars. You are my treasure, my everything, the secret sauce to the essence of my happiness.

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The joy of my life, the pillar supporting my back is you, my determined and confident shadow. When Dua makes her mind, there is no turning back, because she is hard working, resilient and razor-sharp focused. She was just born when she earned the title of “my rock.”

So, my darling, have a wonderful birthday and all days of your life. May your life be as full as you make mine. May the love you shower unconditionally bounce back and you live life drenched in it. Happy Birthday, my doll, my treasure. You are five years old.

Categories
non-fiction Opinion

Summers are Difficult Time for Working Parents

To be exact, 82 days, two and a half months of interruption equals a summer break.

But who is counting?

I am.

I am a working mother, and with both of us, husband and wife, who do not share the break with their children, summer throws new dodge balls on an already packed schedule. Summer is a uniquely busy time for working parents. Here is why.

 

Change in schedule

Clockwork schedules are not just for newborns. Adults too are slaves to habits.  Summer requires adapting to new drop-off locations with new times and rules. New habits form as old ones are broken, and that can challenge an already busy routine.

 

Camp locations can be inconvenient

Sometimes, the best camps aren’t the ones near your home unlike the public (or private) schools. Nonetheless, not just adding on to the already long commute (for those like me with a forty-five-minute normal commute), it is also now having to remember the new routes. You can no longer rely on auto-pilot wiring to get to the same places daily. And, as soon as you adjust to the new routine, summer is over.

 

The uncertainty

Picking the right camp is step number one. A lot can go wrong from the camp selection to living life in the new camp. Do the activities appeal to kids in reality as it did on paper? Does the camp provide the right outlet for the energies little ones burst in? Will they meet nice people? Will they get along?

Often times than not, a child comes home with a fight (especially for my rough and tumble boy). That is followed by lots of tossing and turning in the sleep at night, what to do, and what not to do.

 

All weeks of summer are not created equal

When all the loose pieces of the summer puzzle fit – the people fit, the work fits, the commute fits … wait, there is another dodge ball.

Summer weeks are created unequal. June is summer school (half days, four days a week). And, rest of the summer are full-time camp – this is true for my situation but will vary from district to district, home to home, decision to decision.

Two weeks could go problem-free and in the next cycle enters, say swimming – chlorine filled, dry unmanageable hair, sun burnt skin and their companion, tears.

 

Not to mention, THE HOMEWORK

Research has shown that complete interruption in academics has adverse effect on their scores and abilities. So, schools such as mine have not only offered part time summer school (awesome offering) but also sent books worth of homework. What about my plan for home work for my child over summer?

Our elementary school excels in acknowledging that children need to be children. So, they have no homework policy during the school year, a joy because I can choose an activity for our evenings – a music lesson or simply cuddling and sharing tales from our day. Summer is an exception and quite possibly, the antagonist to that policy.

 

More work in each day – lunch and accessories needed

In the academic year, on any given day, I can ask my kids to get lunch from the cafeteria. All I have to worry about are the funds on their lunch card, an act I can complete from my desk or bed with a click of a button. Not true for a lot of summer camps.

Lunch and healthy snacks are not the only extra items to pack. Washed swimming costumes and towels on swimming days, tennis rackets on tennis days, sunscreen, mosquito repellents, and extra snacks for field trip days. No biggie but another complexity and new routine to incorporate in already full days.

 

Camps do not cover entire summer

Camps end a few days to a week before the start of the academic year to give their staff a break, I suppose. Parents that have planned well, may have a vacation planned ahead of time and those like me who do not have that extra vacation, hunt for a nanny or alternative for the week. One such week I spent with the nanny calling me every twenty minutes in tears, “Your daughter is crying again, miss. She won’t listen to me.”

 

Here is to another summer, to change, and to living life in general.

Categories
non-fiction Opinion Travel

Drowning in a Vacation and Coming up Whole

Lake Patoka

I woke this morning with my daughter already snuggled in bed with me. That was unusual in my household where my babies cherished their spaces, their beds, their rooms. They only snuggled with me wide awake with twinkles in their eyes and love dripping from their hearts.

She was burning hot. As I contemplated dragging myself out to get her medicine, loud shrieks of my littlest made my body shoot up, and I sprinted to his room. He was hotter than my daughter. He clung on to me with a ferocity I did not know existed in the world. I glanced out the window momentarily and realized the tropical storm had flooded my entire driveway. More rain was due later in the day.

A deep sigh. Lots of positive thoughts therapy later, I thought about what I was doing at all other times of my life other than now. Last year this time, I was preparing for Alaska. That is what I needed, a vacation. I needed one desperately. But my vacation days were going into days like this – sick days, school volunteer days, and the little time that was left was reserved for Writer’s Conferences I had cherry picked to attend later in the year.

Life, what can I say.

Last Friday, I was feeling exactly the same way, exhausted, overwhelmed and hungry for a break even though my kids were fever-free. But not just that, I had dropped the potty-training plans for my two-year-old over the long weekend on an idea – idea to get away and find vacation getaways in my stereotypical mind, the blandest of all united states, Indiana, the neighboring state, also the state we had business to take care of. So hungry was I for a getaway, that I found the little slivers of Indiana that were not the same old flat lands interrupted intermittently by windmills, and we headed out.

Vacation unfolded.

Post breakfast, kids smelled the aroma of my nail paint as I painted my hand and toe nails with Dua drooling over the nail paint. It was vacation so I got up and painted her hands next, and she emitted her sputtering laughter. I had just finished coating the last pinky nail when Mir, my two-year-old, erupted, “Mamma, see!”

Outside his window was a giant windmill. The next ten minutes were spent with, “Mamma, see!” and lots of laughter.

That evening we soaked our feet in Cataract Falls and sat down listening to the water thundering down giant boulders. Cataract Falls were Indiana’s biggest waterfalls, and the hungry discovered it.

Next morning, we visited a dam with ferocious, growling, water-sprayer river, the Hoosier National forest where kids bathed in a natural lake in the sweltering ninety degrees hot summer-like day.

Lake Patoka
Hoosier National Forest

We ate ice cream from French Licks ice cream cum coffee shop in the town called, “French Lick.” Yah, I thought the same thought when I heard the name, but the town itself was a little slice of culture, hilly and our waterpark resort was atop its own mountain where kids were uncontrolled with a dose of hysteria and laughter that evening and the next morning.

We returned this past Monday. Thursday is here with sick, hot babies, and I am thirsty for a vacation already. So once again, I can unwind, interrupt my routine, forget my worries, and escape from my realities even if for a week at a time.

Until next time, these words will suffice to relive and remember – another time, a less-stressful time.

 

 

 

Categories
non-fiction Opinion

Memorial Day Gratitudes

“Hey, do you want to go the Memorial Day Parade tomorrow?  It starts at 9:30 a.m.  We could get our yard work done instead.   The forecast is for temperatures in the 90’s starting late morning, and we could start it while the weather is still cool,” said my husband, Mark, in a hopeful voice as he sat across from me in his living room lounge chair.

My head jerked up from my book.  “Of course, I want to go,” I said, an incredulous look on my face.  “We have to go!  It’s not even a discussion.”

Mark recovered from his transgression with a smile and a shake of his head at the reminder, once again, how important the parade was to me.

The next morning found us along the parade route in our northwest suburb of Chicago.  We clapped as the vets marched past, many walking, the older ones’ riding in cars.  We waved at the sea of scout troops and village organizations, along with the politicians always looking for voters.  We tapped our feet at the lively music of high school and local community bands.  We both agreed it was a grand parade.

As I stood on the sidewalk and watched the waves of participants, the memories of the enormous Memorial Day parades of my youth in the mid-1950’s flowed back to me.  My dad and uncles had, thankfully, returned home after being overseas as part of the US Military in WWII.  Patriotism was at a high.  We wanted to honor the veterans who in the prime of their life gave up marriage, family, schooling, and careers to go off and as my dad put it, “do our duty.”  There was no question of doing anything else on Memorial Day.  We had to do our duty to thank the vets.

Through the years, I have learned change is always in the air and so it is with Memorial Day.    The holiday has so many meanings to so many people now.   We still, rightfully, honor the vets, but it is also a celebration of the start of summer, a chance to foster the community spirit and feeling of good-will and most importantly, the opportunity for everyone to get together, see their friends and neighbors and enjoy a community event.   What a wonderful occasion.

My dad and uncles have long since passed away, but I know they would have liked the spirit of today’s parade as much as ever.

Originally posted on https://bookofdreams.us  

 

 

 

Categories
Childrens moral non-fiction Opinion

Amplify the Chatter of Birds

“Seventy-Five,” said my son as my head tilted up in pride.

The journey to seventy-five was not linear. Eight years ago he was born. Any one that held him exclaimed, “He is so tiny.”

He was tiny, weighing a meager five-pounds, eight-ounces, having barely crossed the underweight threshold of newborns, his size presented a contrast to the whirlwind of energy he gyrated in, storming into busy streets, pounding his legs in a constant bounce, the invisible strings under his legs, a permanent dimension of his personality.

That was Sahir. Six years later, when Sahir held his little brother, mesmerized, speechless, admiring Mir, that was the longest he had sat still. His reasons for not moving needed to be grand. That was quite unlike his tearful welcome to his sister, born three years before Mir. Crocodile tears were not of joy but of heartbreak of having been left alone so we could get Dua, the reason for all his misery.

Seventy-Five was not a score on a school exam. It was better than any lesson I could have taught him in the confines of a book or a classroom.

When I learnt I was pregnant for the very first time, as I and my husband stared at the test, I envisioned what lessons I could teach my child that would equip “it” to face the world with dignity. I guess the seed for “Seventy-Five” must have planted then.

So, this morning as I placed the call to the local gym bowing to the ferocity of my laziness to cancel, I knew I was going to miss working out (the only healthy act of the week) on one condition, and that was to invest the sunlight of a warm Chicago Spring day in the confines of nature.

So, here we were, hiking along Fox River, on a hill over numerous islands in the river as Dua hopped like a bunny on my right, behind me Mir sat like a king on his stroller pushed by his dad, and Sahir played with my left hand when I came up with a game of silence.

The game was to stay silent and ward off all noises, the occasional cries from Mir, the tick of the stroller wheel against the hard concrete, the swish of the fast bikers overtaking us, or the whir from the factory we passed along the way across from the river. We were to focus on but one sound, the chirps of birds and really hear the chirps, how different they were from each other, their pitch, was it a cry for help or a song of joy.

I explained my game to them with one thought, “Ah, they are but an eight-year-old and soon-to-be, five-year-old. Let us see how far this goes.”

At first, it was hard not to discuss the sounds that were now reaching our ears. Soon, seconds melted into minutes. A heavenly tranquility transcended into our hearts and minds and my kids, miraculously, played along.

As our happy hike breathed its last whispers, we started to notice the multi-colored, yellow, orange, birds that were making the sounds. When we reached our mini-van parked right next to the shimmering waters of the Fox River, I asked them, “So, how many sounds did you hear?”

Dua said, maybe, five, and an, “I don’t know,” despite the fact that she was the most serious “silence observer.”

Sahir thought a moment and said, “Seventy Five.”

He made my day. I needed to train their minds to hear these little treasures of nature most ignore. I needed them to stop and stare at the river flowing underneath the hill we were on. And, I remembered Sahir, the little peanut, always skinny and tall, jumping around like there was no tomorrow, pausing to not dilute the noise of birds by the chatter of every other noise. He practiced amplifying the chatter of birds this evening and for that I will always be grateful.

Categories
non-fiction Opinion Tech Uncategorized

We want someone else in the city.

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Put on your best clothes, check. Speed to the station, check. Pay parking ticket, check. Stand behind the yellow line, check. Take the train, check. Step out of the train along with countless bobbing heads, all walking fast, almost speeding with you like competitive eight-year-olds, check. Behold numerous larger-than-life billboards inside buildings, some reckoning you to move to warm Arizona, but all making you feel like someone important (just like a super hero), check.

About a decade ago, I worked in the city. Since then, I found a job in the suburbs as my family grew. A training course propelled me to take the train to the city for three days in February of this year. I went as a tourist, as an outsider.

In the decade of departure from the city, I had forgotten the energy that flourished in the city, the young that made even the middle-aged people like me, feel important, if only along the neck-to-neck walk with them.

The bustling cafes, the trendy clothes…ah, the list goes on.

My past years witnessed my ex-company relocate to the city. I  heard of numerous others embarking on the same journey. Why?

When I had questioned my previous employer why, they said they wanted to tap into the younger, bustling crowd, go where the momentum was.

In that reasoning to move to the city, I was also hearing, I was aging. They wanted the fresh folks, just graduated with new ideas. When did experience become underrated? Hint, salaries. Why bother gaining experience when (relatively) cheaper labor can be readily available?

Are there no old people in the city? Sure, there are. They may live there. They may well commute there. They may be valued. But for the vast majority of my peers with little children moving with a company to downtown meant sacrificing family life and not seeing daylight at home.

The company probably was more interesting in my budding children than me.

This is the harsh reality for the tech industry. I wish I knew the exact formula for success past forty, as I have yet to reach that milestone as fast as it is approaching, but bubbling in the hustle of downtown Chicago, observing the fresh new faces, their confidence, I also wondered if merely moving the location of a company was a guarantee of a company’s success.

Because a great company should value talent, regardless of geography or age or gender or color. And when large corporations make such decisions to aim for profit at the cost of signaling the lack of value of employees’ personal lives or experience, it is a two-way street. They too lose in key fundamentals that make a place worth working for, period.

I spent the three days in city savoring the delectable food in the restaurants, staring out the train window listening to blasting music. But the most cherished part of my day remained coming back to a loving home. For companies can move where they wish and can be replaced but the truly irreplaceable parts of my life were taken care of. I enjoyed the oomph of the city and was afresh proud of my decision to remain close to family, so I could take pride in my work as a professional and as a mother at the same time. Downtown Chicago can continue to bubble with energy, and I with love. Maybe, some day when my kids have grown up, and I have more of “me” time in the day, a startup that distinguishes not between old and young, and only sees talent, will reckon me to check all the checks and take the train to the city and feel young again.

Until then…here is to another day, and another week in suburban Chicago.

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