There are so many aspects of my life that I would like to talk about and most days, I don’t write about them because I feel that it is too much ‘navel-gazing’– a term that I picked up in Toronto. For the uninitiated, it means that one spends too much time analyzing oneself or one’s own culture, i.e. something that is already quite familiar to them at the cost of bigger or wider issues. But when I come to think of it now, I feel that ‘navel-gazing’ does not deserve all that bad rap that it has received. I think it is important to be introspective. I think it is important to understand oneself first and foremost over everything else. It is not something that we can learn in a day. In fact, knowing oneself is a journey of a lifetime. What I have come to realize or let’s just say, I have finally come to recognize, is that the way I understand everything that’s around me and within me is through writing. When I write, I get clarity.
So, here’s what I am going to do. I am going to write about my life. I am going to write about it because I feel that there is too much going on and I need some clarity in understanding what is happening in my inside world so that I can function better in my outside world. These are the areas that I am going to write about.
- Novel
- Book Explorers
- My life—mother, wife, friend, weight loss, reading, travel
- Academic writing– publishing my research
- Soul writing—spiritual thoughts, self-help
Elaborating upon this list, (which is not all-encompassing but most of the things that I would want to write about) I am working on a novel which is incubating inside me for far too long now and I feel that it is time to get it out and set it free! I run a children’s book club with a friend of mine and every day we face challenging ideas and battle them out bravely. I would like to journal that journey. Who knows, it might be the beginning of our website, too? My life revolves around ‘being and becoming’ all those social roles that we willingly and unwillingly accept and/or struggle with. I also constantly think about losing weight. Sometimes I am proactive about it and sometimes I lose the motivation. I absolutely love reading (I wonder why it is so far down in the list) and I read every single day. I simply have to. I would love to talk about the books I am reading and my never-ending and ever-lengthening ‘to read’ list. Travelling is so much a part of me. I travel every day through the ‘written word’ but physically travelling to different places is the way I connect with my soul. But alas, I haven’t traveled as much as I would have liked. That brings me to all those spiritual and philosophical questions that I contemplate on. And finally, this blog would also be about my conscious and subconscious desire to publish my doctoral thesis and what I am doing about it.
In all, this is going to be a mixed bag, because that’s my life. I welcome you to go down this rabbit hole with me. I don’t know whether I shall awaken from a dream like Alice but I am quite excited to chase the white rabbit.
Are you with me?
Writing from the Kitchen Sink 