Category: writing

the yearly film

priyankasamra

Another year has flown by.

It’s as if the fast-forward button on life was pushed, and got stuck, year after year. Sometimes, it feels as if I frantically try to pull the button out, but still, there it is zipping through the seasons one after the other. Life flashes before my eyes, scene after scene. It seems that I can’t fully listen to the lines, so grasping and understanding the script is far-fetched. So, I store each scene in my mental archive, thinking I will press replay and let the scenes marinate when life slows down a bit. But the scenes continue to pile up, and before I know it, Christmas trees are illuminating left to right.

Then, life throws especially difficult moments at us—those that force you to take a seat and reflect. We replay the scenes, and listen to the dialogue, trying our best to grasp the message of each part of this yearly film. Although sometimes, no matter how hard we study each minute of this movie, reaching an understanding seems unfathomable. Sometimes, the parts that seem the most difficult to understand will give us clarity later in life. Perhaps another year or five. Every now and then, take a break from throwing what’s in front of you in your “for later” file. Look around you and see how poetically this year is written: the beauty of finding your strength in your summertime heartbreak, the numbness of the winter blues, and the commencement of your rebirth in the springtime. Leave the door open on all of the above, not just the good parts. 

Take in the beauty of how the leaves, stubbornly and so beautifully, change color every single year, and how they wilt and dance to the ground to make someone smile at the sound of how they crunch on the cold winter concrete. The stunning intricacy of a single snowflake, it still falls from the sky, knowing its demise in melting into the earth. The rebirth of new life on the same trees, the flowers know their beauty and color will fade, yet they still blossom boldly. Before the branches can rest and catch a breath, a fresh set of leaves form their dense canopy to shade the summertime reader. 

Savor the scenes as they unfold in this yearly film, as the same lines are rarely written again. 

Time is all we have, and also all we don’t. 

 

scenes of autumn

priyankasamra

the crisp november air, as if it had been resting all year for this moment, to be as fresh as it can possibly be. the air has arrived to clear my lungs, shedding the summer layer to mark the commencement of fall just as the green leaves turn orange and dance to the ground creating autumn beds.

the autumn beds, a fond memory of my childhood in toronto. the piles of leaves my father would rake up on the lawn only for my brother and i to cannonball into scattering his hard work all over, he looked at us in admiration, we all laughed.

the morning fog that becomes denser by the day summoning the winter. i open the front door, and see the eyes of my car engulfed by the gray mist. i cannot see down the street, but the mystery is captivating. as if, i am in a little cozy bubble behind my wool coat, boots and pashmina scarf from india, my gingerbread flavored coffee warming my hands. what is behind there? the mystery is haunting but thrilling it’s telling me to go back inside, bundle up under the fleece blankets and dive into a book but also summoning me to come closer to reveal what lies behind the gray curtain. Could it be a neighbor walking their dog? could it be a runner? could it be a car coming full speed?! oh! I should probably get out of the street.

i head back inside, as i walk down the driveway i stomp on the leaves, creating a satisfying crunch crunch crunch. i put on a pot of tea, the faint sound of the water boiling transforms into a loud whistle. the tea bag puffs up like a puffer fish then deflates and takes a seat at the bottom of the cup. the steam escaping into the november air.

the scenes of autumn

 

on writing

priyankasamra

it was a stormy october night, the wind blew the raindrops onto the window and the sky looked like melancholy but beautifully so, like a poem. so i wrote one.

my first ever.

the poem was on a paper towel with a lead pencil as i used whatever was in front of me. papa used to tell me about a poet who wrote down any idea that came to mind onto a wall with a rock. tip: as a writer, you must always carry pen and paper (i’d recommend a small pocket size notebook that can fit in your purse) because you bet that groundbreaking idea will flee faster than the speed of light. 

i loved how words could capture a feeling. although i was only 15 then, the magic of words really boggled my mind. within three stanzas i captured that stormy october night in our oregon apartment, and when i reread it i felt exactly as i did as if i were reliving that moment in time.

the poem was a time stamp, one that made you feel, and so palpable.

i instantly fell in love. 

in school plays, i would take my scripts and rewrite the dialogues, adding more feeling through carefully choosing the words, the placement of the commas, the ellipses, and the periods. dialogue is all about creating a feeling, as is poetry. something that resonates with the audience/reader, or the least makes them feel something.

writing has always been my medicine, more so…meditation. it is my mental escape, my safe place, my safe haven, or whatever you want to call it. 

it is truly mental magic!

in poetry, you can go anywhere and you can be anything…

you can have tea with plato, you can venture through elizabeth taylor’s closet, you can play holi with the children of india, you can swim through space, you can feel your morning coffee traveling down your esophagus, you can feel the california ocean engulfing your feet on a hot summer day, you can feel the pain of a homeless family on skid row, etc. 

the possibilities are endless, and the messages are powerful 

only when we feel do we have the need to act. a central theme in a lot of my writings is adversities and social issues. for centuries, writing has proven to be a great medium to bring awareness to social issues and poverty around the world.

as they say…

art imitates life

a tip to my fellow writers: keep a journal, write your pieces in there with a pen, even if you cross out an idea or word you may go back and like your initial thought better, so don’t close that door. once you’re ready to transfer your work onto actual manuscript form use a word processor. my advice is not to write directly into digital form. as they say “the first draft of anything is shit” so accept that your first draft won’t be your best and that is ok. if you write directly into digital form you won’t get past the first sentence. get a journal, and just. write. 

a tip to my fellow non writers: try your hand at writing. it doesn’t have to be emily dickinson or james joyce good. just get your thoughts out onto paper. these times are tough for everyone, and i’m sure there is a lot of mental clutter you can get out. it might just be your new form of meditation! 

 

happy writing! 

p.s. 

where all my thoughts reside before i type them into my manuscript. as you can see, a lot of crossed out phrases and words! writing a single poem is a process. 

 

 

 

 

a white christmas

priyankasamra

i’m tucked under my fleece blankets, protected from the icy winds outside. i slowly get out of bed, and put on my socks. the room looked bright, but it wasn’t the rays of the sun. i open the shades and brought my face close to the glass, as i feel the cold my eyes opened wide to allow the, what seems like an out of a movie kind of beauty enter my eyes; our entire neighborhood covered in the whitest untouched snow. it was christmas morning. 

i ran downstairs yelling “mummi, papa it’s christmas!”. it was 6am, I was 5. i’ve been an early riser for as long as i can remember. my dad would peer over his morning paper to look at his watch, “very early, eh?” smile then pick me up with his long tree trunk arms and give me a squeeze before he cooked my favorite omelettes “papa’s omelettes” a term i still use, 26 years later. mom would look at me, and put her hands on her hips “do you have to go to work? go back to sleep” i’d shake my head stubbornly and go about my day. 

i’ve always loved lights: string lights, high rise building lights, city lights, christmas lights, diwali lights. to me, they’re just like stars glistening in the light sky, a symbol of hope in darkness. so it’s a given that i’ve always loved christmas trees. we’d have a little green one with gold decorations in our home in toronto, complemented with gold string lights on our balcony and stair banisters. 

christmas was a bit different on the west coast in oregon. cold still, but not to the extreme. rather than snow, i woke up to the wind howling and blowing the fat raindrops onto my window. after slipping into my socks, i knock on my brother’s door  right across the hall “it’s Christmas, wake up!!” then i’d run down the stairs while i heard a “shut uuppp” from my big brother fading away. papa loved white christmas trees, and since then we’ve carried on the tradition. on christmas morning he’d be bundled up by the fireplace with our childhood doggo tuffy, and mom prepping the food or catching up on some paperwork. it was our one day, the most special day out of the entire year to come together and spend time as a family. whether that was catching up on movies, playing boardgames, baking christmas cupcakes, or just doing our own thing until dinner, mine was writing etc.  

my dear writers, the holidays are the best time to write. if you’re like me then along with early mornings, gloomy cold weather also puts me in the mood. the lights, the weather, the hot coffee and soups creates this incomparable cozy ambiance. i call it the writer’s ambiance. 

after my family went through rough patch, we stopped celebrating christmas after 2012. papa’s health was declining, and we moved around quite a bit. boy, do I regret that. something as simple as putting up a tree and some lights would’ve lightened up the mood, no matter what you’re going through. i traveled to india for a cousin’s wedding in december of 2019, and little did i know that was our last christmas with papa forever. this year is the first year we’re celebrating christmas again since 2012. i can’t help but think of all the celebrations i missed out on in those eight lost years, eight more christmases i could’ve had with papa, eight more times we could have put up his favorite white christmas tree and decorated it together. but, most importantly i spent that time with dad. we had each other and that’s all that mattered. 

when we put up our decorations this year i mentally went back to the 5 year old me who shot out of bed every christmas at 6am to see the fresh powder engulfing my neighborhood in canada, the 15 year old me running down the stairs to see dad bundled up by the fireplace and tree in our home in oregon. the 22 year old me applying to jobs on christmas morning wishing i had put up some decorations that year. the 31 year old me putting up two stockings knowing that sometime in the future we’ll be adding another one, and another one for a growing family.  

christmas growing up all seemed like a dream, we’re all really collecting scenes for the movie that plays in our head over and over again. when i think of what life was like with papa around, i think “was that even real???”. we mentally press the rewind button to reminisce and the nostalgia sets in.  it almost feels like that was a different life time…

a white christmas tree, for you papa