It is days since my fingers have done any tap-dancing. Not that I have not got tunes playing in my head for them to dance in abandon to. I do, and in plenty too. The strange thing is I don’t want to. Not for the time being anyways. Instead the urge is to step on to the balcony and simply stand staring (or should that be stand, simply staring?), doing absolutely nothing. This is what comes of including ‘On Doing Nothing’ an essay by J.B.Priestly in the curriculum of impressionable 14 year-olds. Anyways…
How can I help myself?! The sky looks so divinely blue, the fluffy clouds a freshly laundered white, and the green tops of swaying trees, utterly mesmerizing. Well, umm, it is a different matter that if the skies were an angry grey and the rain was lashing in torrents, I’d still want to stand there and stare. Did I hear someone say that I am wasting time? Whoa! Remember what the poet said? “They also serve who stand and stare!” Oh well, not exactly. What he said was something like, “They also serve who only stand and wait.” But I am sure under the circumstances he’d approve that little tweak I have given to his line.
I can see a leafy Golden Shower tree in a house down the lane. Amazingly so it has a bunch of out of season flowers. There are some bright yellow flowers growing on a bush next to the playground. The Papaya tree by the roadside, right across the balcony, has one ripe fruit as of today, and the birds are making merry by turns, savoring the sweet fruit. The cat (a new one that I haven’t seen before) jumps on to the wall of the house
opposite and seems mortified that we, Luci and I, are staring. It stares right back, for a long time, a withering look that dares us to laugh at its appearance. Luci, not one to be deterred by withering looks given by cats, is beside herself at the audacity of the cheeky thing and barks at the top of her voice.
Butterflies flit to and fro, the bigger ones so snooty that they do not condescend to alight on the ixora or the purple flowers of the garlic vine. The Sunbirds are not so discriminatory. They chatter happily as they flutter from flower to flower, feeding on honey. When they become aware of either me or Luci, they make a quick dash to the boundary wall at the other end. Their flight reminds me of little girls who take small sideways steps even as they run to do their mother’s bidding. There is more I have started noticing: how the flight of the birds differ, how the Mynas swoop and fly in a straight line, the Oriental
Magpie Robins weaving this way and that, the way Red-whiskered Bulbuls dive into the bushes, how shy the White-cheeked Barbets are and how brazen the Asian Koel, what a racket Rufous Treepies make, and the shrill stereo effect call of the tiny Tailor birds which has to be heard to be believed.
The Greater Coucal bends its head down and goes, “Gup-gup-gup-gup” There is no answering gup, not yet anyway. Not wanting the bird to feel lonely, I respond, “Gup-gup-gup-gup”. The L & M is not at home to raise his eyebrows and remind me of what the neighbours might think. At the most they’d think a batty old lady lives in the house next door. I am okay with that. In the meantime, my “Gup-gup-gup-gup” has been unscrambled and found to be wanting of the secret code of Coucals. Suspecting infiltration, the bird promptly shuts up, waits for some time and then tries again.
The tree outside my window, of which I was very fond, was cut down by my neighbors (their tree of course), breaking my heart, as also part of the cement roof of the kennel in our house. Being very “conscientious” neighbors, they had not even informed us of their intentions, even though the tree stood very close to the boundary wall and could have endangered anyone walking that way. Anyways, that tree is now sprouting new leaves in spite of the major surgery it had. From every major ‘cut’ in life, we are forced to grow, never in the same way perhaps, never with the same zest may be, but nevertheless we continue living, drawing sustenance from whatever resources are available. Or from an illusion of available resources.
Yes, that’s another fall-out of this balcony watch. You tend to philosophize on life. Trying to be an amateur philosopher and all is fine, but too much amateur philosophizing while standing and staring, causes legs to ache, especially if you have plantar fasciitis. So I pull out THE chair (link) which Luci promptly tries to usurp from me yet again. But I fool her by talking of non-existent cats on the road, and she snorts and rushes off to check. I chuckle and seat myself. On realizing that she has been duped, not to be outdone, she decides to sit on the peg table that I had intended to rest my feet on.
After a while Luci gets tired of fitting her huge Labradorean bum in such a limited space. Now that she has proved her point, she jumps down and plops on the floor beside me and I immediately put my feet up. I read and she snores. Nothing could be better, except that this routine is clashing with the tap-dancers, my fingers. They are feeling left out. All we do is turn pages on the Kindle, they grumble. We are not being allowed to express our creativity. We are being stifled. We wanna do the tap dance.
So I thought it was time to let them dance.
An earlier one on another balcony: Balcony watch.
What a wonderful post! Enjoyed it thoroughly.
Thank you BoT 🙂
This post is poetic, really poetic. I loved the cadence and rhythm of the words, of life itself. The fingers are tap dancing, to the thoughts in your mind.
Now you have me beaming. Thank you, Ritu 🙂
your thoughts and fingers both tap dance in a wonderful tune thats uniquely yours 🙂
Gee, your post made me all poetic eh?
Indeed it has, R’s Mom 😉 Thank you 🙂
Lovely post Shail..Beautiful details of everyday somethings that ges missed out in the mad rush of city life..Simply refreshing..Ditto..I too would like to write only when I wanted to write..! Tap dancing!
Thanks Paatiamma. I am happy to have an audience who actually listen to whatever I have to say on what I observe around me. I have to thank the internet too, for making it possible 🙂
N we are glad u let them dance 🙂
Thanks, Meena 🙂
When you have such mesmerizing beauty all around you, it is good to stand and stare…
Yes! Thanks Shilpa 🙂
You were not doing nothing Lady, you were observing ‘life’, you were drinking in from the nature which we seldom get to see in our busy lives. And you took pictures to capture this time with yourself. Wonderful!
Thank you, Janu. And I am in that mood to drink in nature these days 🙂
I loved your post today, Shail…so many dimensions of you in this one.
Loves these lines ‘From every major ‘cut’ in life, we are forced to grow, never in the same way perhaps, never with the same zest may be, but nevertheless we continue living, drawing sustenance from whatever resources are available.’ Amazingly beautiful!
Please let you fingers tap dance often…we love to see them dance so gracefully 🙂
Thank you so much, Kajal 🙂 And thank for pointing out those lines. They go into the ‘Shailism’ folder right away! 😉
My fingers are itching too, haven’t had a chance to work on my stories in a while 🙂 Danica
Go for it 🙂 Welcome to Shail’s Nest and thank you for stopping by.
When ever I come to your blog, I make myself comfortable and start reading with a lot of anticipation .. and you never disappoint me ! This is a beautiful poetic post. I could see the blue sky, I could hear the wind and I could feel Lucy’s disappointment on not seeing any cats. Sitting “doing nothing” and just soaking in nature is my favorite past time too !
I am glad you enjoyed the post, Ruch 🙂
All of this, and yet you say that you did nothing but simply stand and stare at the clouds 😀
Such a nice post…
Thanks Jairam. Today was really fun with Sunbirds putting up a show 🙂
There she stands, the queen of all she surveys
what kind is this, this craze
of being able to stand on hours and simply gaze
‘young at heart’, what comes to the mind is this cliche’d phrase
This quality, with you, I pray. it always stays.
Beautiful post 🙂
Oh wow. Thank you 🙂
well, I’m glad you let them tap even though I’ve been enjoying all the photos they’ve clicked!!
Lol. Thank you, Roshni!
That is similar to my favourite musing activity in the hills. Lie down on the grass and stare at the clouds. Haven’t done that in years now. 😦
Time to rectify that lapse, perhaps?! 🙂
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