Dear reader,
Today marks two years of this newsletter’s existence, and it’s wildly exciting and truly terrifying that so many of you are here to read the words I’m writing. Sometimes when you choose to go down a different path it can be both scary and lonely. So thank you reader, for being there on this journey with me and for giving my words your time. It means the world to me. 💛
And now, diving into what I want to explore this week, I’ve been thinking a lot lately about paths; the paths we choose to go down, and the paths we turn away from. For each path that we take, and each one that we refuse to look at, holds within it both beauty and suffering.
My life has gone down so many diverging routes, and my mind seems to have its playlist stuck on shuffle, so on some days I feel rather like an oxymoron. Here are some of the paths I’ve been wandering into lately:
Hume’s leaf warblers migrate in the winters all the way from the Himalayas, down to Southern India, while flocks of Alpine Swifts make their way here from the Alps. These are the paths they take, every year, year after year, and on some winter mornings, if destiny permits it, our lives intersect for a brief moment. And then I find myself wondering how much beauty a single moment can carry, and without pause the answer comes back to me as infinite.
On some days I ache to follow in the shadows of others, in a bid to feel like I belong. Those paths gleam like silvery spider webs, bewitching when caught in the sun’s rays, and that glow makes them seem like the easier option to take - to conform, to blend in, to simply belong. But over the years I’ve seen that while the shine of living a lie doesn’t fade easily, it does burn you from within - leaving scorching holes in your stomach that your self-esteem bleeds through. So I shirk back, and stay in my lane, and patiently wait for the ache to abate.
At night, my dreams flow smoothly, a whole other life playing back for me to dip my toes into, for me to colour myself in, for me to try on for just a while. A taste of all the what-ifs there never may be. And I find myself satiated with these brief indulgences, rarely wanting to linger there in the morning sunshine.
On other nights I find myself transported to where the stars shine bright. Under glistening Sirius, who beams patiently a stone’s throw away from Orion, I walk, whilst Castor and Pollux, hand in hand, follow me on my way home. Or perhaps they are the ones leading me home.
One trail that appears before my eyes every year, seasonally, offers the most beautiful things life has; it glows like sunflowers. But it is also the most dangerous, the most difficult to navigate and to endure. And when I think about venturing down that path, some part of my heart extends its arms around me, to protect me, to stop me, perhaps to save me.
Between silk-cotton trees and blooming little ironweed flowers, I encounter my shadow taking a shape it has never taken before. It mirrors my soul, almost exactly, and I can’t look away as it flutters in the breeze, but as I bend to touch it, it disappears.
Lately, the allure of taking the high road has diminished. Perhaps that’s because it’s exhausting to always remain uncomfortable; when I keep my opinions within me, they stifle my organs and squash my soul, leaving me breathless. I can’t wrap my head around why we choose to settle into patterns that offer us discomfort, but I know that in spite of my determination not to, I will soon stray into them again.
Sometimes when I trek through to another life, I find myself in a room where all my unacknowledged desires emerge, and joining forces they turn from ghosts into a giant boulder of concrete, hurtling towards me, determined to take me down. And I find myself searching desperately for the book, the one book, that will save me.
For it is always words that have saved me.
And somehow, this year, in these past six weeks, I haven’t found them. Until a few days ago, when these lines of verse made their way out of me and into my notebook:
i wonder what mary oliver would think of the way i’ve trekked to the lake of how my feet have stomped on every leaf as it lay there drying, dying of how i’ve not spared a thought inconsiderate would her heart break? would she frown? would she ask me to try harder, be better? i’m trying to walk in her footsteps but to walk in her footsteps i must first walk
Whichever path we take, it will carry within it, the shadows of all of the other paths we could have gone down. We shy away from regret, the idea of an ideal life being one that has no regrets; having truly lived implying having done everything we ever wanted to do. But would there be any learning, any growth without regret?
If we never gaze at the paths we didn’t take, at the roads we ran away from, would we know what we truly desire? If we didn’t give our regrets time, if we didn’t dwell in them, briefly, would we ever learn to treasure where we are?
In the spaces left between words, in the spaces that are yet to be filled with words, I can trace all out these paths I’ve strolled down - domestic bliss, corporate jungles, hyper-anxious evenings, daily struggles shadowed by insecurities, still and silent ones that erase my doubts, and all the ones I’ve steadfastly ignored, the corner of my eye keeping a watch on them to make sure they don’t suddenly emerge directly in front of me.
And all of these paths seem to ask me the same question: Are you where you want to be? Are you finally who you want to be?
And perhaps, somewhere in the maze, I can trace out my answer.
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Love,
Sukriti
Fabulous yet again 👏👏