January was such a long month and February was over within a week! Anyways, I started February on a lighter note, went to weddings, ate a lot, visited home then got sick and had an extra day to read ;))
Tell me how your month was and how the weather is in your area?
Here winter is not done with the snow yet ❄️
© 2024 mermaidspen
Write about a few of your favorite family traditions.
I come from a joint family, though the kitchens are different, no distance is heart. We have this tradition of eating together on birthdays, anniversaries and festivals. All sitting together, on the floor, giggling and eating. On such occasions we eat on a single plate (not a compulsion, it is rather fun). Moving out of home, recently, I miss this so much. So now, my husband and I eat together, always. And I’m adamant on keeping this tradition of my father’s family.
On this note, read this piece of mine :))
The walls that embrace me,
keep the shadows at bay;
Nothing grand about it,
but it is a place, where,
I enjoyed playing in clay.
Sun-kissed veranda,
red roses blooming all year long;
Each creak tells its own tale,
a world, keeping everyone strong.
The worn out armchair-
a playground for tiny feet;
A game,
where it was allowed to cheat.
For Home is not just a place.
A home is not brick or stone,
It is a sanctuary,
a shelter from the outside world.
A timeless heaven,
source of light,
sometimes, the whole Sun.
~Kajal, An Ode to Home
© 2024 mermaidspen
What are your family’s top 3 favorite meals?
Food, I have come to realise is a really important component in order to bind a community. Like, I enjoy eating it with people I love but it’s really hard to gulp anything down if I’m surrounded by people I don’t know or I’m expected to bond with. Not long ago I was thinking of this and today I saw the prompt. So, yeah.
Let me show the meals I always enjoy with my family. Tell me about your food too?
Here’s a poem I wrote on “Conversation around the dinner table”
The Lingering scent of yesterday’s dinner;
All the spices are at war.
The need to please is a plague.
I look at the tea cup
calming steam mixed with a craft;
It’s an art to know when to Stop.
Carefully picked cutlery for fun times
but all are lost in the colorful flowers;
Being around and being present
are two different things.
Kitchen tables are playgrounds
sometimes they are war zones too;
The world can heal or end there easily.
(Wrote this for NaPoWriMo ’23 and I absolutely enjoyed writing)
What alternative career paths have you considered or are interested in?
I so want to be a professional poet. To have all my energy invested in doing what I love and making a living out of it. I’m sure, all the writers/poets here will agree with me on this. Honestly, If I knew I could write while I was in school, I would never go with science. And I’m really interested in Literature.
Anyways, here are 2 poems for you on the topic: Home
A haiku
Changing winds are heavy,
Crying child on a distant shore,
reminds me of home.
A rhythmic poem:
There was a girl with a golden nose ring,
left alone, on a shining swing,
with the butterflies in her eyes
there was pain in her eyes-
hard to pin point.
When I asked her about home,
she told me she was born to roam,
I thought she might cry,
but to my surprise
she just kept staring at the sky.
And made me realise-
The beauty of things untold,
a glimpse of beauty
the kind,
that never gets old.
© 2023 mermaidspen
Here’s my September in pictures. Hoping for more such experiences.
I wish you all a great week ahead 🌻
© 2023 mermaidspen
Autumn is around the corner.
Rain barges in, uninvited
teasing me, lingering on the glass
The world of possibilities – worlds apart.
My kitchen smells of mangoes
stuffed with apples;
Maybe I should stop dwelling in memories.
A sparrow sings in the room,
trying to touch the sky-
A world devoid of land and roof.
Constant stimulation in the background
a day passes like a second,
every touch brings back a memory, almost photographic.
Something worse than not having a home,
is to move from one to another.
Kajal, Material memory
© 2023 mermaidspen
A house always does
what a house should do
no matter the cost,
for the benefits are worth.
A high wall, a decorated lawn
Pretty to look at
hard to be seen.
A tall gate, beautiful colours
Stone-cold beauty
Impregnable.
Empty marbles
Indeed a marvel!
A graveyard waiting for all
to join in,
Can’t claim all the land.
Why don’t you just live?
© 2022 mermaidspen
Home.
Comfort to some
trigger warning to others.
I know you hate my generation
The self labbed
Woke people
Who are drunk on one side of a story.
I am a generation
The one who is totally
Failing at being what
We’re to be.
You take pride in
Densely packed
nervous buildings
glued together with curiosity,
not hope.
And call this a living.
You and I have
different understandings of home.
I have seen too much of waves
to call shore
As my home.
© 2022 mermaidspen
The way things are,
I’m having hard time being okay with that.
They say- forever never lasts long,
HOW to be okay with that?
I see my friends turning to art,
Reading shit and calling shots.
WHAT is the meaning of art?
WHERE do I shoot my shot?
I’m afraid of asking questions
for all my WHAT go unnoticed.
The cat on my patio is purring unnecessarily
Is she afraid of living, unnoticed?
All the questions are hiding
hiding behind question marks,
Despite the endless possibility of no’s
All of us are looking for more,
Childhood wounds are surely popular
to leave marks.
© 2022 mermaidspen
There’s this tiny plant at home
which fills me with a desire to roam,
I hold my heart and lay on grass
A shiny thing, fragile as glass.
Walls here are over protective
The colour? Not so attractive,
Feelings grip my ankle, as hard as stone
I’m filled with desires, completely unknown.
The sun is roaming in the sky
A bird is here, to lie,
Earth has me and stubborn trees
You and me- children of a chilly breeze.
I thought I had forever
Was running on the motto of- now or never,
I don’t know how just be
It must take great price, to actually be free.
© 2022 mermaidspen
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