She & I: The Quarantine Diary (April 2020)

SHE and I sit exploring the worlds trapped inside us. Our paintbrushes become our limbs and we sit in silence, painting our inner worlds. She makes the most boisterous pink flower with acrylic paint, then another one that is purple and red and green and brown in varied parts, and yes, a sun that smiles. I paint pink and red Spring flowers on brown branches with tiny ochre green leaves. We love each other’s paintings and we say that to each other. We both feel happy. We both feel still. We both feel bliss. We both feel complete.  

As always, our silence right now is ever interactive than the conversations of this lifetime. Outside the enmeshed door, the Corona-ridden stillness makes music. And the only musicians are the birds hopping around the greens embroidering our apartment. In a still afternoon, paints on our brushes and a meditative chant on my phone, the chatter of the birds is even more intense. I say I love the birds chirping about. She instantly says “me too” – and I can tell, she is completely riding the wave I am riding. As always. Then I joke about one particular bird making too much noise... She laughs and agrees instantly, as if she too were going to say that, had I not. Then she adds: “but I like this bird”. I say “naughty bird”. She laughs. She loves anything that comes preceded by ‘naughty’. We both laugh a little more and then go silent, dipping into our colours. She keeps requesting me to open the blue colour bottle and then red and then pink and then brown and green... She asks for yellow and I rue that I think I lost my yellow. She says no problem and smiles and goes back to her little flower. Her flower has a huge centre and tiny petals.

She too has a huge centre - her inside world. And tiny words. Precious, precious words. And I hang on to each one of them, like dear life. 

She is a child of four. And I know she has been around for thousands of years.

So I wait, yet again, this afternoon, praying for a few more moments with her...

The afternoon is slipping in, the silence is inviting and the birds are quiet...

I know the music will begin when she comes and sits across, painting orange and blue flowers and twinkling at their songs.

I wait.