2020 is the year of staying at home. Deepavali is a stay at home festival for the morning but in the evening, you go see all your friends and relatives and join them in the firecracker fun..
This year it has been a muted affair. The gatherings are smaller and we meet only people in "our bubble" which is a good thing.
We did have new clothes, great eats and some sparklers! San and me teamed up to make a lot of sweets and savories (and she got some guidance from our neighbor on some sweets and they reminded me of my grandma cooking with her aunt Ambulu when we were kids.. they would spend days planning before the cooking started!). We did go solo on some items..
She sparkles better than those sparklers..It was a good thing I adjusted an almost underexposed shot and realized this was actually a good thing!
This is the first Diwali without jr. being present at home. That was constantly in the back of my head and I am not sure how many years it will take for me to realize that you cannot expect to see kids for Diwali or take that for granted anymore! Given every now and then I manage to go to India to celebrate with my parents, know that the kids will come back home after they grow up to celebrate.. maybe more often than I did.
The little one knows of my secret plan to keep her closer to home and continues to roll her eyes everytime I suggest colleges within a 20 mile radius.
Life comes full circle.. What I did to my parents, my kids will do to me. Good news is that I am already in the "brace" position.
It is my sincere wish that we get over COVID soon in the coming year! People are still dying and folks are still denying the truth and reality. Diwali or Deepavali is literally the triump of truth over lies, light over darkness.. knowledge is the true illuminator!
May knowledge and facts make a comeback after this Diwali !!
For someone who is staying at home, we have done a good job dressing up at every opportunity..
Still don't know how my wife is able to handle Jr.'s being away so calmly compared to me. Either she is made of different stuff or she is faking it really well. Have some things to learn and understand.
Once again, wishing you all a wonderful Deepavali/ Diwali!!
Wishing all of you some Yoga (or other exercise if you are one of those people who spend more time debating and talking about Yoga, its origins, who started it, who it belongs to today etc. etc. and spends less time doing yoga or exercising) on this day.
We definitely have more daylight today.. so go use that extra daylight to get exercise.
Sometimes worlds collide and Yoga day and Fathers day are one and the same.. and when the Bifrost opens, I can get to emotionally appeal to the kids to take that photo again.
The darlings did it with a smile!
So
the little one outgrew that shirt and it went to goodwill already.. but Jr. and me still have the same things to wear!
I was surprised that they could both get into Lotus pose.. thought they would give up! Once they got in the lifting part was not hard.
Wish they are a lot more active going forward and don't end up having to find Yoga at a much older age.. it is right in front of them now!
Go get some workout done! I for one wish BYSJ opens soon and I can sweat freely for 90 minutes and detox. It has been 99 days of doing yoga alone at home with audio recordings or zoom classes and I made it 90 days out of 99. Given all the craziness that surrounds us, Yoga helps for the 90 minutes and a few hours after class or sometimes an entire day if I just do the yoga and stay away from any electronic devices!
Based on my personal experience, Yoga works!
I am not trying to sound like a spokesperson for "alldaysmatter".. but then again, if we treated our parents right, maybe there wouldn't be a "fathers" or "mother" day which seems to be a lowest common denominator and a bare minimum towards parents. We live in a culture where Fathers get a card once a year and that is deemed the right thing to do. Happy there is a day designated for this to bring awareness, but IDY is not the one day you do Yoga and forget about exercise for the rest of the year. I dont want it to end up like another Jan 1st for a lot of folks!
Maybe a day for Yoga is what is needed right now to bring visibility. Eventually, everyday will be yoga day.
