The Montalvo Arts Center in Saratoga, California, gifted me a lyrical evening where the main protagonist is light. I got to experience a unique blend of imagination and craft, art and science, dark and light, silence and music, and fantasy and reality. British artist Bruce Munro took me away to an unknown world where darkness was a stage and light, a performer!
His creation, beautifully named Stories in Light, is an art installation that blooms at night. It gifts us wonder, beauty and joy – the intangible yet fundamental components of our life and existence.
While standing inside the National Lynching Memorial or the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, in Montgomery, Alabama, I read these death notices.
- After an overcoat went missing from a hotel in Tifton, Georgia, in 1900, two black men were lynched, whipped to death while being “interrogated” in the woods.
- Mary Turner was lynched, with her unborn child, at Folsom Bridge at the Brooks-Lowndes County line in Georgia in 1918 for complaining about the recent lynching of her husband, Hayes Turner.
- William Donegan was lynched in Springfield,
illinois , in 1908 for having a white wife. - Ernest Green and Charlie Lang, both 14, were lynched in Shubuta, Mississippi, in 1942 after a white girl said they were threatening.
and the list goes on ……
I strive for an hour of silence every day. It has become an essential need like air and water for me for a mindful and conscious existence amidst a world full of noise. The constant noise from the surroundings and electronic gadgets perturbs my concentration and my time for reflection. As a result, I often spend days without writing a single sentence and this inability to write hinders my inner peace. When it happens I simply pack my bag and get lost somewhere in search of silence.
If I could I would divide the rest of the leisure days of my life in two ways. On some days, I would like to roam freely in wide and open spaces in nature – sea, mountains, meadows, forests, deserts and on some days I would rather confine myself in a cozy room and contemplate. Recently during my trip to Blowing Rock, a beautiful mountain village on the scenic Blue Ridge Parkway in North Carolina, my days were exactly the way I would like them to be.
When a piece of cloth is exposed to sunlight for many days, that cloth slowly loses its brightness and color. Likewise, when my mind remains exposed to modern city life, the whirlwind of traffic lights and its cult of timebound to do lists, it starts craving solitude, silence, and wilderness. During this moment I break free and decide to get lost amidst mother nature. Still, there remains an in-between time. I call it the transition time. The time which helps to bridge the gap between city life and wilderness. During my recent visit to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, McKinley Edwards Inn in Bryson City proved to be an excellent refuge that helped me bridge the gap and relax. Here I present a memoir of moments in McKinley Edwards Inn in Bryson City!
As soon as I entered Rams Horn Village Resort, a soothing greenery embraced my eyes. The moment I stepped out of my car, the autumn wind swept a fallen leaf just in front of my feet. I took that leaf in my hand and looked in front; I saw a bending road ahead adorned with leaves; some pale and some in deep colors. I saw an empty hammock swinging alone. Perhaps there was someone a few minutes ago. As I walked down the bending road and heard the crunching leaves below my feet, a quintessential autumn feeling washed over me.
Never before did I enjoy such a vibrant autumn. Never before did I meet a morning decked up beautifully in gold. The charming yellow leaves of aspen trees during the fall in Grand Lake made me realize that departure from the life need not be scary and instead can be beautiful. The fall foliage in Grand Lake is like a poem; a poem that can be lived.
The best way to explore and experience the wonders of the oceans is an underwater dive. If you can’t, then the best alternative is visiting an aquarium. I wish someday I too will dive because the world inside the ocean is mysterious and unique. I got a glimpse of that world when a submarine took me down 106 ft below the surface of the sea in Hawaii. The charm was so enthralling that I keep going to aquariums. Recently I visited the Monterey Bay Aquarium and loved watching another world in slow motion through glasses.
At Monterey Bay Aquarium with my daughter Chirantana!
With an MSc in Business Information Systems, I am a social media and digital [...] 
A cup of coffee has always been my favorite companion on my [...]
