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Maybe Eat a Mango

 Maybe Eat a Mango The face is glum, the day is ho-hum, When the blues come a-visiting, And the heart feels heavy, When your footsteps are slow, And your mood is low, Maybe eat a mango. Nose sniffing the ripe fragrance, Senses awakening to yellow radiance, As water pours over the mango, A small corner of the soul a-washes, The knife carves out goodness, As it cuts into the mango’s tenderness, With wafts of sweet delight swirling the air. You bite into sunshine, gold, Your heart assumes the softness of the mango, Your face melts just a little, Your eyes unfreeze a smidge, The mango’s glorious taste consumes it all, The blues, the mood, the ho-hum Maybe eating a mango turned the day around.
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Of Suitcases and Anxiety




I was making my way to graduate school on foreign shores in my late 20s as a late-blooming adult. If you know of the intricacies involved in embarking on such a journey, you’d immediately understand that an Indian student traveling to North America involves packing your whole world with you and maxing out the 32 kg, 3-free bags limit of airlines. Well, it was aeons ago at this point so my memory eludes me on whether the limit was 2 bags of 32 kg checked-in and one carry-on or 3 bags of 32 kg checked-in. 

It seems such a trivial worry now but then, it was an all-consuming anxiety. How am I going to lug all of those suitcases forward from the point at the airport where my family can no longer accompany me? How am I going to lift these things onto a trolley? How am I going to push the heavy trolley? How am I going to unload the trolley at the counter to check the bags in? How am I going to transfer bags? How am I going to collect the lumbering bulk (which were not overweight though, exactly 32 kg each) and get to my relatives on the other side who would come to receive me? 

I spent sleepless nights going over every move in my head in detail. I envisioned how I would ask for help, who I could potentially ask for help and constructed the sentences I would use. On-the-day-of, goings-on looked nothing remotely like my rehearsed imagination. 

I made it though. I did it. Just like many other achievements in my life that I did not think I would be able to accomplish.

It’s ironic that for present Me to be able to wave away the intense worry of past Me as inconsequential is only possible because I did the hard thing through all the stomach-churning and windpipe-constricting anxiety. 

Past Me, I give you a hug for being brave. Bravo!  
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