Afternoon
"It has always seemed to me, ever since early childhood, amid all the commonplaces of life, I was very near to a kingdom of ideal beauty. Between it and me hung only a thin veil. I could never draw it quite aside, but sometimes a wind fluttered it and I caught a glimpse of the enchanting realm beyond – only a glimpse – but those glimpses have always made life worthwhile." - Lucy Maud Montgomery
The time of day that used to be full of enchantment, in my childhood, was the afternoon. It was this transitory interval of quiet suspended between the morning buzz and the evening hum. The adults, who were not out at work, would be taking a well-deserved siesta after the chores of the morning - sprawled on their beds or mats, gentle snores keeping time with the droning ceiling fans above. And the entire house...and time would be mine!
This was the time to dig into trunks and boxes (containing odds and ends such as a beautiful gold-embroidered red veil from my mother's wedding, tangled jewelry of little value, a delicately painted Japanese fan gifted by some long ago traveller), climb on chairs to take a look at the shelves up high (maybe find a chinese checkers game with all pieces intact inside the dusty, tattered box) or open mystery containers in the kitchen (ah, this is where my mom hid the leftover boiled sweets from last Christmas!).
This was also the time when I felt like something magical was waiting, very close by but just out of sight ... a tingling inside, somewhere just near my diaphragm. Like anything could happen. The vacant afternoon throbbed with possibility, as if I could simply reach out and conjure up something.
One afternoon I found a piece of old cotton cloth in a box, cut it in a square, hemmed the edges and put a small flower embroidery in a corner to make a handkerchief. Another blissful afternoon, I made a rag doll. I had learned how to make a stuffed doll's head in school from a friend's German mother who came in to teach a craft class a few times. You sew two circles together, leaving a little gap, turn it inside out and stuff it like a pillow. In school, Mrs. C had given us stuffing material, at home I stuffed it with some of the random pieces of fabric found in trunks. I used the same procedure to make the body, arms and legs for the doll. Mrs. C had shown us how to give the doll eyes, mouth and hair as well. For the eyes and mouth, you cut out small circles of the desired colour. Then you sew them onto the face using a buttonhole stitch all the the way round the circle - that holds down the edge neatly and draws a line around it. For hair, you thread wool into a big yarn needle and make large loops on the head. Since my doll had a body, I also sewed some material around it to give it a dress.
My rag doll would not have won any beauty contests but I was proud of her. (Also - and I didn't think of it then - maybe it was consolation for something unfortunate that had happened to my doll's head in school. Class four was the year we started writing with pen and ink instead of pencils. The ink came in bottles and had to be filled into a narrow channel in the fountain pen. We had droppers to suck in the ink from the bottle and squeeze into the pen, but for a physically uncoordinated child like me - I was always last in running races - it was a source of mess everywhere. So it was not surprising that when Mrs. C wanted to see our doll heads one day, I pulled out a sad, ink-stained specimen from my overstuffed school bag. Mrs. C laughed, "Oh Sreela", not unaffectionately. It didn't hurt my feelings exactly...it was more like a feeling of resignation. She hadn't been surprised, neither had I.)
Later, when growing older crowded out my long, leisurely afternoons, I no longer opened trunks or made things. I discovered the joy of putting word after word and, like a chemical reaction, creating something entirely new. My dad had this idea that we should take a prophylactic every week to protect us from malaria. The bitter-beyond-belief quinine tablets were crumbly and would start melting as soon as they touched the tongue. I had developed an elaborate process for taking it in a way that caused the least distress. One day, when I was sitting in a chair just so, with my pills and water arranged in front, focusing on placing my arm at exactly the right angle, tongue sticking out so the pill could be placed as far back on it as possible, the whole situation struck me as comical and I wrote a short, humorous piece about it. I'm not even sure that I showed it to anyone - maybe my parents - but I personally thought it was hilarious and got a great deal of enjoyment out of it.
I clearly remember the precise day I discovered that it was easy to write something that captured a feeling ...all you had to do was put yourself in that time and place. It was in class eight and we had to answer a question about the poem "The burial of Sir John Moore" on a test. The sadness of Sir John Moore's men filled me to the brim as my pen traced out the cursive lines..Sister Marilyn, walking around the class and peeking into girls' notebooks, came by and I half hid my writing with my arm (I hated having someone look over my shoulder when I was writing). I already knew that the answer was just right, I already knew I was going to score well on that test ... just by that old familiar tingling feeling.
And then, I grew up...and afternoons became ordinary.
But I believe in renewal. I believe in spring. I believe in "the astounding resilience of the human spirit" (Maya Angelou) and that the "world (can) become beautiful again from the beginning according to the heart's measure" (Odysseus Elytis).
The time of day that used to be full of enchantment, in my childhood, was the afternoon. It was this transitory interval of quiet suspended between the morning buzz and the evening hum. The adults, who were not out at work, would be taking a well-deserved siesta after the chores of the morning - sprawled on their beds or mats, gentle snores keeping time with the droning ceiling fans above. And the entire house...and time would be mine!
This was the time to dig into trunks and boxes (containing odds and ends such as a beautiful gold-embroidered red veil from my mother's wedding, tangled jewelry of little value, a delicately painted Japanese fan gifted by some long ago traveller), climb on chairs to take a look at the shelves up high (maybe find a chinese checkers game with all pieces intact inside the dusty, tattered box) or open mystery containers in the kitchen (ah, this is where my mom hid the leftover boiled sweets from last Christmas!).
This was also the time when I felt like something magical was waiting, very close by but just out of sight ... a tingling inside, somewhere just near my diaphragm. Like anything could happen. The vacant afternoon throbbed with possibility, as if I could simply reach out and conjure up something.
One afternoon I found a piece of old cotton cloth in a box, cut it in a square, hemmed the edges and put a small flower embroidery in a corner to make a handkerchief. Another blissful afternoon, I made a rag doll. I had learned how to make a stuffed doll's head in school from a friend's German mother who came in to teach a craft class a few times. You sew two circles together, leaving a little gap, turn it inside out and stuff it like a pillow. In school, Mrs. C had given us stuffing material, at home I stuffed it with some of the random pieces of fabric found in trunks. I used the same procedure to make the body, arms and legs for the doll. Mrs. C had shown us how to give the doll eyes, mouth and hair as well. For the eyes and mouth, you cut out small circles of the desired colour. Then you sew them onto the face using a buttonhole stitch all the the way round the circle - that holds down the edge neatly and draws a line around it. For hair, you thread wool into a big yarn needle and make large loops on the head. Since my doll had a body, I also sewed some material around it to give it a dress.
My rag doll would not have won any beauty contests but I was proud of her. (Also - and I didn't think of it then - maybe it was consolation for something unfortunate that had happened to my doll's head in school. Class four was the year we started writing with pen and ink instead of pencils. The ink came in bottles and had to be filled into a narrow channel in the fountain pen. We had droppers to suck in the ink from the bottle and squeeze into the pen, but for a physically uncoordinated child like me - I was always last in running races - it was a source of mess everywhere. So it was not surprising that when Mrs. C wanted to see our doll heads one day, I pulled out a sad, ink-stained specimen from my overstuffed school bag. Mrs. C laughed, "Oh Sreela", not unaffectionately. It didn't hurt my feelings exactly...it was more like a feeling of resignation. She hadn't been surprised, neither had I.)
Later, when growing older crowded out my long, leisurely afternoons, I no longer opened trunks or made things. I discovered the joy of putting word after word and, like a chemical reaction, creating something entirely new. My dad had this idea that we should take a prophylactic every week to protect us from malaria. The bitter-beyond-belief quinine tablets were crumbly and would start melting as soon as they touched the tongue. I had developed an elaborate process for taking it in a way that caused the least distress. One day, when I was sitting in a chair just so, with my pills and water arranged in front, focusing on placing my arm at exactly the right angle, tongue sticking out so the pill could be placed as far back on it as possible, the whole situation struck me as comical and I wrote a short, humorous piece about it. I'm not even sure that I showed it to anyone - maybe my parents - but I personally thought it was hilarious and got a great deal of enjoyment out of it.
I clearly remember the precise day I discovered that it was easy to write something that captured a feeling ...all you had to do was put yourself in that time and place. It was in class eight and we had to answer a question about the poem "The burial of Sir John Moore" on a test. The sadness of Sir John Moore's men filled me to the brim as my pen traced out the cursive lines..Sister Marilyn, walking around the class and peeking into girls' notebooks, came by and I half hid my writing with my arm (I hated having someone look over my shoulder when I was writing). I already knew that the answer was just right, I already knew I was going to score well on that test ... just by that old familiar tingling feeling.
And then, I grew up...and afternoons became ordinary.
But I believe in renewal. I believe in spring. I believe in "the astounding resilience of the human spirit" (Maya Angelou) and that the "world (can) become beautiful again from the beginning according to the heart's measure" (Odysseus Elytis).
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