The White Lily

I traveled few days back to come back to a calamity stricken home.

The whole place looks like a zoo where the zookeeper left some two month back.

Actually it looks like first there was tsunami as everything I possess is scattered like literally EVERYWHERE!!! I struck my foot so many times that one toe nail has actually gone inside like a turtle’s neck and I cannot even find another one. It broke and now I can’t find it. May be it slipped and got lost under the Everest of clothes or may be it got tangled in the nest of like some million cords. Either way I don’t think I will ever see it again.

Then my poor home must have been hit by a sandstorm, because seriously there’s a blanket of dusk covering the entire place.

Constant laundry cycles, organizing, de-cluttering and cleaning have resulted in some serious blogger’s block. So I will share something I read long ago.

It’s a poem by Mitsuo Aida, a Japanese poet and calligrapher. I came across this somewhere in 2008 when Paulo Coelho obsession took over. It was in the book “Like The Flowing River”. I read it and instantly fell in love.

It’s simple, beautiful, makes sense and hits home every time.

“because it has lived its life intensely

the parched grass still attracts the gaze of passers-by.

the flowers merely flower,

and they do this as well as they can.

the white lily, blooming unseen in the valley,

does not need to explain itself to anyone;

it lives merely for beauty.

men, however, cannot except that ‘merely’

if tomatoes wanted to be melons,

they would look completely ridiculous.

i am always amazed

that so many people are concerned

with wanting to be what they are not;

what’s the point of making yourself look ridiculous?

you don’t always have to pretend to be strong,

there’s no need to prove all the time that everything is going well,

you shouldn’t be concerned about what other people are thinking,

cry if you need to,

it’s good to cry out all your tears

(because only then will you be able to smile again)”

(Mitsuo Aida (1924-91), taken from “Like The Flowing River” by Paulo Coelho)

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