Tornado of Puppets (yes, that is inspired ;-) )

Hmm…it’s been a while since I posted here. Have been quite busy by my own standards and that has scarcely left me with any time at all to even think, let alone blog! Among other things, I find that I am now laid up (since this morning) with a broken leg. In case that sounds familiar, hark back to around a year ago, when I was in slam-bang exactly the same situation…though of course on that occasion I had broken two bones in three places and this is far less dramatic…not to mention that my car was not in any way involved in this case…

Now, I don’t want to get into just how I got myself into this broken-leg situation, so I would be grateful if you limited yourselves to just expressing your sympathies in this matter… ;-). Oh and yes, in case you’re wondering, it is indeed the same right leg once again…the same one that has already seen two ligament tears, a compound fracture etc etc… On the bright side though, at least the left side of my body is still intact!!! Touchwood…

Me: Hi mom!
Mom: Hi, and going by the obscenely early hour at which you have called, I assume you are in a spot of some kind…
Me: Well, not exactly…just that I think I’ve broken my leg.
Mom: Oh! OK. Right leg, I presume?
Me: Err…yeah…
Mom: Cool. Go see the doc then and let me know how bad the damage is this time…Bbye…

See? It’s as if my folks treat my annual orthopaedic issues like some sort of routine. My conversation with my father ran along pretty much the same lines and even my friends are no longer even a bit surprised when I convey such information to them. It’s more of a surprise to them when I claim that I am in fact intact!!! I guess I just don’t live right…

It’s strange how things fall into place. Just yesterday, I was joking with a friend of mine about how odd it would be this year for me to be on stage for the rock show, without any broken bones…today I set that straight….strange when I think about it. When C made me sing the first time at NJJBTB, I had a torn ligament…the first show we did that we were paid for, I had my right hand in a plaster…Hmmm…maybe there’s a lesson in all this somewhere, but I can’t really see it at the moment…Naah!

The show now. That certainly is a bright spot. The only problem really is that if last year’s experience is anything to go by, my bone is going to be jarring with every strum of the guitar, which does not make for particularly comfortable jam sessions…not to mention of course, the excruciating thought of having to walk up and down two floors for each session…

But even as I recline in my chair, at peace with the idea of not attending classes on medical grounds for the next week or so, I am filled with the thought that there really is no other way I would lead my life. OK, so I have a cast on my leg which will be there for the next ten weeks or so, but then, that apart, there really is nothing I can complain about and the cast too has become such a part of my life that it hardly feels like anything out of the ordinary any more…

Far too often it hits me we’re just too preoccupied with matters that really don’t reflect the present. I mean, let’s see, I loved the way my life was at 18. It was complete. There was just nothing more that I could have asked for and I still feel that if I had to think of the most complete that life ever felt, it would be at that time… Most of us can recall such times. But they’re the past…they’re gone…and that’s life. I’d not go back to that time now. I don’t feel the need to. I find it strange that a lot of people can’t see that…

“You only seem to have good memories of that time…”
“Yeah…what’s the point of keeping the others?”
“Well…most people aren’t like that”
“Or maybe they all are and are just playing a role. Or of course, it could just be that I am not ‘most people’”
“Yeah! But it does seem better this way.”
“True. It always is better this way”

It’s similar with the future. Most people are just too involved in the mad rush to a destination about which they know not. I deride the blind followers of the Art of Living course for never having a clue about what they’re being told. I mock their insistence that they’re spouting wisdom although they are incapable to putting in words just what they have learnt. But for the first time, today, I feel that I understand what is meant by the line, “Live in the moment”. Not for the moment, mind you, but in it…