(Everyone has problems: but for me, the sweep of its force was stormier. It was more relentless than I felt I deserved. I chose the bleak load of the consequences not to hold me down. I refused to be powerless; I romanced the two obsessions – yoga and music. Music and yoga have displaced bad to good in my favor, and the resourceful gains are amazing.)
I peeped outside the bed sheets; my eyes took a brief look at the window through the curtains dangling in darkness. It was a lazy way I noted the approaching day. Curiously, the colors beaming outside the window, dark or grey, or diffused yellow served as my daily alarm clock. How quickly I dashed myself out the bed sheets depended upon the color of shadows washing the window beyond the shuffling curtains. The darker the dawn outside the lazier I would push myself back into the blanket.
If warm sun rays rush inside, in one jolt, I shake myself shedding all the laziness. Eyes fresh from a long night’s sleep, a question suddenly leap in, giving a moment barely to ponder, “How I’m cruising my day today.”
Staying alone after my wife’s death knocked out the rational balance out of my daily schedules. Married for thirty-four years both of us emotionally cushioned enough to take on the ever vacillating good and bad tides. But do I have the intuitive stamina required to defy the intense void after my wife’s demise? The hurt is bitter when I gaze at such inconvenient questions.
Secured too long in the fabric of our marital comforts, to live all alone, I never considered a scared possibility. Deeply distressed I don’t see my wife beside me; the baggage of daily mood swings is a huge burden to carry along for the rest of the days.
‘How I could extricate myself from the incisive dialogues strung from inside.’ The question distances any shred of consolation from me.
Behind our approaches, to neutralize the many conflicts we arranged a rescue cover; the consoling threads of mutual understanding weaved deep are our preserving strengths of respecting one another’s views. The eventuality we both valued as comfortable bondage.
Fortunate enough, between my wife and me from early days on in our married pilgrimage l found out, what kept us fluently floating and not to dive deep enough in the queasy details of everyday conflicts. It was an impassioned binding formula which twined both of us together in a helpful consensus.
It fared like as she came up with any obliging wish, I promptly agreed. The payoff, I received a supportive gesture if I got tangled in troubling situations; which were many. There was a fine tune of unconditionality played which allowed us to calm down in the family shades.
There are no controlling voices in our relationship; I’m glad, ‘I have all the freedom to pursue what I wished’ she spoke with a gratifying twinkle in her eyes. I heard my wife sharing with her siblings what it means a good relationship in a marriage.
In whatever tough situations, we both stood on the same perception; same boundless generosity, which we employed to understand our point of views. It is the best way we celebrated our differences, and it is the unifying wellspring of our healthy possessiveness.
Yoga and music are the favorite recliners of our lifestyle. Both of us have given in to them as heartily as we sat at our breakfast. The twin treats I shared with my wife; much gratified, I would eventually introduce saneness to my body and soul to an otherwise dull forecast.
Today I’m wise to go with these paired hobbies that kept my self-esteem balanced and lowered the stress quotient. It highlighted many answers that prevented the flickers of gloominess in my background. I believed music and yoga eventually gave a subliminal guarantee for me; it came as respite and hope in the stillness of regular meditations.
It was Mani, my wife, from the early days of our marriage, encouraged me to practice yoga. She noticed how the asthmatic bouts persistently troubled me. She introduced the intense breathing postures. “The breathing exercises will inflate your lung capacity” and “Daily work out of thirty minutes is the remedy for troubled breathing” she helped me out with practice sessions.
Back then I didn’t appreciate the reality and heart of yoga. But today, I suspected it would have shattered my mental sanctity had I not recognized its miraculous worth. I enjoyed ease and comfort accepting yoga as my alter-ego. When I made yoga a part of my lifestyle, there is a sentiment attached to it.
Daily mornings, thirty minutes of deep meditation, twisting my body in yoga postures has become one beloved favor I do myself every day. In its stillness, I floated in extreme lightness. In the rhythm of my breathing, lucid in the melody of silence encircling me, a hymn soared gently up to my wife: who helped me to admire the ecstasy and beauty of yoga.
Yoga became a special emotional courier to connect my wife and me. I never missed the ritual a single day, before sunrise, soon after the morning mores, I began what I called a ceremony disciplining ‘my mind, body, and soul.’ All the time never missed her silent echo in my intimate inner-self; as if she is somewhere in a corner waiting to be summoned.
Everything weighed, the habit of yoga has entwined itself around the cover of my solitude; I never scorned the custom even a single day for the last eighteen months. They were the months I started counting the absence of my wife, hummed a verse of a short prayer in my daily meditations – a pulse of stimulus for self-motivation.
Let me bring up one more note of confluence with my wife; its a lyrical ingredient of our blended family life.
It was our love for music. Her choices were traditional music; I preferred western pop and Indian fusion compositions.
Lapped in the spiritual propensity, she allowed music hymned as a background score in our home. Music filled the living spaces softly, like ripples of breeze it touched all of us. I quickly accepted a lively melody is a great leveler of negative moods, and it can soften any harsh conflicts in a marriage.
Affairs, at home, occasionally when aren’t going smoothly. Spikes of ego sharpened ready to sting each other. Cursed muffled tones dominated the peals of laughter. It’s time; we fled to our retreats and allowed the music to hijack our moods. I retired myself, to the beats of my kind of music. She took shelter in her spiritual music allowing herself to get rid of her tensions. Next day, won over by good sense we invited a fresh morning and lightened moods: that is the smart beauty of music.
I believed music expresses that we cannot put in words. It waves through our common sense and gently blows away the clouded tempers. Melody disarms us. Its rhythm pushes us to calmer retreats. Their lyrics let us feel soft and balmy: remarkable are the therapeutic echoes of music. I am charmed by the sway of themes and lines of melodies I got rid of the inertness painfully frozen in my bones – grim aftermath at the loss of my wife.
“Everybody in their lives, at one point or other, is bound to bump into a bunch of bad days. Each one of us has to deal with them. But I learned from my wife’s pure and simple habits how to grapple with the stubborn irritants. If you want to romance good health and peaceful life, she told in her sweet voice, ‘enjoy the magic of music you love’”.
My music selection was very limited. It included a few of my own and a handful of my wife’s collections. I listened to elating tunes and trolls when mornings dragged slowly, minutes weighed heavily. Music has the power that reversed loneliness to something bearable, something buoyant.
I served myself with soothing melodies as background chant during yoga sessions. Or I’m behind the steering wheel, on a long drive. Alone. Or it formed a soundtrack to break the hush of the long-drawn writing sessions.
For a man fated to fill every minute with a sour brew of surviving by oneself; the ripple effect of music transcended monotony and made each day refreshing and cast a good sign in whatever task I favored. As the rhythm of music hits me magically, the disturbing thoughts disappeared. I suddenly emerged alert to an extra bounce in my body; intoxication settled in mind, and a new imagination revealed as flashes of fresh ideas filling in. I felt like floating in an effervescence of artistic flow until I’m exhausted. “In one elevated moment, everything pauses, feels uplifting, a clear calmness settles inside.” And my day’s agenda rushed forward: happy, assured, confident, and disciplined.
I well understood the centerpiece of these two pursuits – yoga and music in the last eighteen months. They both permeated as a healing incentive; each represented hope and promise, a magic potion for mental vigor. Both carried resourceful morale – a wholesome reserve for reading and writing.
Will these small steps rescue me from disturbing emotional bouts? I believed definitely, yes. Is there any alternative mental armor? Supposedly no. I trusted my wife’s advice. I have adopted yoga and music as a psychic power to get back to active life and to live over again. They are good enough serving my needs and my hopes.
Everyone has problems: but for me, the sweep of its force was stormier. It was more relentless than I felt I deserved. I chose the bleak load of the consequences not to hold me down. I refused to be powerless; I romanced the two obsessions – yoga and music. I’m fairly rewarded; not allowed the fluid desolation seep and taint my flow of recovery and prop my little efforts until cheerfulness accepted me. I’m a healed soul now wherein I enjoyed daily installments of therapeutic inspiration. Music and yoga have displaced bad to good in my favor, and the resourceful gains are amazing.
