Round and around, Part Two
Inviting you
Dear, Reader.
Imagine it’s just after 4 on a Sunday afternoon and I’ve invited you to tea. And you, my old friend, are here. The clocks have fallen back and the fall sky is already dark. We sit across from each other, a circle made of two in this small rectangle of a room. It’s technically a dining room, but I have covered the floor with a faded red rug and placed three comfortable (read squashy) chintz armchairs on it. Two chairs, a tall pile of books on the floor between them, face one short wall covered with large windows. You take one of those chairs and I sit on the opposite chair, a tray with a teapot and two now-empty cups on the coffee table between us. I must’ve forgotten to close the kitchen window and it’s getting cold in the house. Don’t get up yet, you say, we’ve just had a cup of hot chai. I smile and sink back into my chair. We are warm thanks to the tea, we agree, and our friendship.
We are talking about life lessons.
These conversations around tea have a different quality than those around any other drink. You’re warmed, vivified, but there’s also a melancholy perfuming the air the way the guttering candle on the table scents the air with smoke and bergamot. And because we are friends and it’s dark outside, it’s easy to slip from melancholy into truth-telling.
“What is the one life lesson you’ve learned?” I ask.
“There are so many…” you say.
“Yes, but is there one particular one that seems specific, almost super-specific, to your particular life? If someone were to live your life, what is an essential tip they’ll need?” I try to explain what I’m asking. “If someone is going to live my life, I would tell them to watch for a circling, a kind of coming back to similar situations repeatedly. I don’t mean this in a repetitive dysfunctional pattern kind of way. Instead it feels like the same cycle comes back again and again. Each time, I’m somehow changed, enlarged, and yet looking at the same thing or a version of it. It’s almost eerie in its predictability.”
Dear Reader, what is the one particular thing you’ve learned about your life?
Best,
Priya
PS: Part 1 of Round and around is here.
This weekend I experienced a couple of these conversations. I’d say one of the things I’ve learned is that everything passes, feelings, the bad, the good. It often circles back but there’s a flow I can live in.
That was such a creative and well-written way to invite us to share our own life lesson, Priya. I really enjoyed that!
There are of course so many lessons I feel I’ve learnt (or are still learning), but one that I’ve been thinking about a lot lately is that — things always work out better than I expect them too. Like there have been so many times where I’ve worried and fretted over some upcoming situation only for it to go so much smoother and better than I could’ve ever imagined. In fact, this has happened so many times that after many of these occurrences I’ve started telling myself “next time I won’t worry about the next thing” and yet, try as I might, I still find myself worrying. So, I guess, I haven’t fully learnt this lesson yet.
Thanks Priya :)