Blog 2. Dis-member and Re-member

Dis-member and Re-member. These two words and their images have been whirling around in my head.

India was dismembered and our little family too was dismembered. Can re-membering heal the dis-membering in some psychic way. Dismembering is violent, active, remembering still and reflective.

It was with these thoughts that last Friday I climbed on to the C11 Bus to visit my lovely dentist in the Archway Road.

We have been snowed under with the coldest winter since years, although it does not feel like the coldest winter for me. The sun streams into my flat and warms it so well, that I have to turn down the central heating. And although I can see the snow on the rootops, and the trees, and the little birds eating the berries for want of other food, I am snug inside. Outside it is a different story and I had to walk slowly and carefully down my snow encrusted slippery road to the bus stop.

On my way as I passed Pollys teashop, I remembered - sitting there with my sister some 18 years earlier and listening to her.

‘ When one has an unsettled life like we had one of the things that can happen is one looses touch with ones instincts.’

I stirred my coffee as I knew she did not like to be interrupted.

‘ And when a trauma is undigested, its get repeated. Have you thought about that?’

I’d shaken my head.

‘ Well then think about it. Nobody ever talked about Partition. And it was a terrible trauma and it got repeated in our lives. In Daddy’s life, Mummy’s life, mine, yours. We never had a home, a country, a room of our own, all scatterred all over the place in three different continents.’

I’d nodded my head, ‘I suppose it was worst for Mummy travelling all over the place trying to keep the connections alive.’

‘What about me? It was awful for me. Flying around all and trying to support you all.’ Replied my sister indignantly.

I smiled at the memory as I settled into the back of the bus and closed my eyes, knowing that I would not need to get off till the very last stop. Aah! Funny how sometimes such a small thing can feel comforting. Because of the snow, I had given myself plenty of time, the bus had arrived soon after me and I’d had no time to get cold. And now I could settle down and reflect and remember.

And then I remembered the first lines of the ‘Dhammapada’:

‘What we are today comes from our thoughts of yesterday.

Our life is the creation of our mind”

What was that telling me? That not everything should be re-membered? That some thoughts were best just left and not entertained…?

Well that’s my blog for today – out into cyberspace – into the cosmos…