Journey Within: A Quest For Eunoia

Infernal.

That was the only way her mornings could be described since, by the time she turned in for the night, most of her would feel numb. 

It had become a daily occurrence to be woken up by maximum levels of anxiety, frustrations seeping into her waking life. They came to her like clockwork. The pounding headache, the numb throbbing behind her eyes, the clenched jaws, sweating all over, and the clinging onto the thin bedspreads as if holding on to her very own dear life. 

Waking up like a mess was a daily occurrence for Rumi. But there was something different about this morning. 

There was something distinct from the usual mornings she had spent in isolation due to the raging pandemic that was sweeping across the globe. Really, she felt locked up in her home. 

Raging headaches, perpetual backache, strained shoulder muscles, the life of working from home was more inconvenient than convenient. Really, she believed herself to be locked up in her body. 

She had been plagued by nightmares and restless nights of tossing and turning. She had been rained upon with insistent questions of existing and felt pressurised by the frequent bouts of low self-esteem. Frequently they had knocked on her door to sanity, and she often felt trapped in her own thoughts. Really, she was locked up in her mind. 

She never questioned her purpose in life as much as she did during the lockdown. She always thought that where she was, she was meant to be and where she was headed, was also where she was meant to be. Everything was predestined, and that the chips of her life would fall into pieces. But by the looks of things being so uncertain, she questioned the very meaning behind the pain that would often rise from the depths of her soul. Really, she was chained, locked up in her soul. 

But today, the gates of her intangible prisons were opened. It was like the start of a new journey, on a whole new dimension.

She rubbed her head, wishing for the ache to fade while struggling to remember what it was that she dreamt about.

Flashes of students' laughing faces swam across her "vision" as she remembered the final bits of her dream that faded away, leaving her feeling like a mess. Moments that were too sweet to let go of. That's what made her want to run and chase after them, keeping them tightly in the palm of her hand. 

Feeling consciousness seep further into her limbs, with a heavy sigh, she pulled herself out of her bed. Not finding her slippers underneath the bed, she bent over to pull them out. The dark shadows underneath her bed brought back another flash of her dream. Behind the beaming faces of the strangers that she had strangely bonded with lurked some stories that were tinged in darker tones. "He used to lose his temper," "it took a lot of effort to take one breath", and "my sister was crying," that's what she heard. Voices of varying pitches, tones and timbre said them to her in her dream. 

They were all huddled in the soft shadows of a grove, the location of which she couldn't recall. But behind their darker sorrowful stories were more vivid shades of peace that were seeping through their brushes.

Their brushes!

Staring at the generous amount of toothpaste on her brush, she finally remembered what they were doing. They were painting in the grove! 

She seemed to be conducting an art therapy class. Everyone present there was a victim of the pandemic that plagued their world and burst their happy bubbles. 

As the strong scent of mint pervaded her senses, its freshness triggered something else in her waking life memories. The memory of grandma's cooling tulsi and mint lemonade to stave off the heat of the summers, came with the realisation that keeping a cool head is the way to tackle a heated situation.

Life was definitely heated, making her agitated.

She spitted out the remainder of her minty foam, washed up entirely and became determined.

Life was definitely heated, but she had to keep her calm.

Walking into her kitchen, she switched on the coffee maker and set aside some ingredients to prepare her breakfast. Mr Girish would be logging in soon onto the online meeting portal to discuss yesterday's marketing decks, which according to him, were awfully planned. They spent almost 2 months over it, and fifteen days before the time of launch, he had found a million little reasons to shoot it down.

Should she just quit? Should she just send him an extensive email stating a million reasons why he should shove his opinions in the place where the sun doesn't shine? Or should she just ignore him?

With a sigh, she thought back to the calming grove of her dreams filled with other people who found solace in recovering from their trauma with art. She wanted to go back there, wanted to go back to sleep so she could meet them again.

With a heavy sigh, she continued and pulled out the ingredients for her breakfast.

The art therapy class seemed like her very own Ikigai. Before she read the masterpiece of a book authored by Hector Garcia, she believed it to be one of those idealistic concepts that were the product of the creatively liberal mind that only wanted to dabble with the idea of happiness and not the practicality of achieving it. Ikigai seemed impossible in the world that existed today. It was the life that was dictated by emotionless capitalists and their money that had ensnared the whole world into the darkness of mindless efficiency wrapped skillfully in devious words like "productivity" and "mindfulness."

Who would ever believe that it was possible to lead a lifestyle that would strive to balance the spiritual with the practical? It was a balance found at the intersection where our passions and talents converge with the things that the world needs and is willing to pay for.

Scoffing at her breakfast darkly, she stared at the french toast that was now gently simmering on her plate. She then watched the steaming cup of black coffee and felt the familiar sorrow seep again into her bright morning.

Looking towards her right, the brightly coloured papier-mache elephant and the tiny canvases of abstract expressionism art caught her eye. A small voice in her head nudged her to start her own art therapy classes. Even if it wasn't for all of her days, maybe once in a week, she could meet up with like-minded strangers, wanting to seek the same solace in art as she did.

With every savoury nibble of her French toast, her mind drifted back to her early days when she had just started her career and how she spent almost every weekend creating some or the other. Taking weekend classes for painting, learning how to use a pen knife, learning oriental calligraphy, exploring plaster of Paris, decalcomania, watercolour, finishing endless numbers of gouache paint tubes, taking trips to secluded parts of India to work closely with small, unique clusters of artisans, travelling with tour groups with similar tastes and preferences in arts and crafts; she wanted it all back. 

With every hot sip of her black coffee burning down her throat, her mind further recollected how with every promotion, every increment, exploring her creative side seemed less important than earning money that she never had the time to spend.

She couldn't remember what brought about that change, but maybe it was time to reflect on what brought on that change. She padded her way back into her room, getting a fresh piece of clothing to wear for her office meeting, which was about to start in half an hour, and showering. Stepping into the steaming shower, the gentle strokes of lathered strawberry body wash and mint shampoo brought another wave of recollection of her dreams. 

She remembered the part of her dream where one of them said that a couple of spring seasons ago, their family had found themselves amazed by the Macha tea ceremony held in the heart of Kyoto, in Japan. Another had found adventure in the exciting array of street food in Seoul. She thought back to her own time when she studied for her masters in Kyoto and how culturally immersive her experience had been. And Seoul had been on her bucket list for quite some time, especially when her weekends of solitude were usually spent watching Korean dramas on online streaming sites. 

Some of the people recollected their experiences of being awed by the Russian palaces where the Czars lived. The history lessons from her school days brought a smile to her face. She had lost touch with most of her friends from high school, but maybe one of these days, she could reconnect with them.

Connect! 

The Silk Route! 

Another scene from her dream flashed in her mind where someone relayed stories of the silk route and the culturally thriving cities of Tashkent, Samarkand, Bukhara, Almaty, and even Xi'an from China, which was the starting point of the Silk Route.

Washing off the lather, she thought back on her travel bucket list and how she dreamed of travelling on the trans-Siberian railway route. Maybe make a few stops here and there, diverge and enter other cities away from the course. She could even stay a little longer in Samarkand and admire the absolute magnificence of the greatest Islamic architectural marvels to ever be created in the middle of sandy places. 

Sandy…?

There was a niggling feeling in the back of her head, gnawing at the inner recesses of her mind to remember what she saw in her dreams.

... Sand dunes!

She remembered how she entered the green grove in her dreams. 

It was a journey she had taken on, starting with treacherous rocky paths of a steep mountain. But there were fellow travellers in her dream, so the seemingly difficult way didn't seem so difficult for her to walk. The seemingly steep side of the mountain didn't feel so daunting as it visually seemed. Knowing that others were with her brought a sense of security and comfort that wouldn't have otherwise existed. Solitude tended to have that negatively isolating effect on the mind.

It was a funny place... the human mind.

A tiny pinch could very possibly be amplified by it to make it seem like the entire body was under the grips of despair. It had that deluding quality, especially when one's body and mind were not trained to not succumb to such a fallacy.

Pondering over how else she could improve her life, she stepped out of her shower and quickly got ready for her meeting. 

What would have started as an absolute pain in the neck type of a meeting, actually kicked off much better than she expected. Having gained newfound strength in her dreams that were clearly a loud wake-up call by her very own subconscious, she found the tenacity and the cool to win over her boss. She concluded the proposal and planning of the marketing ad campaign just before lunch. With only the delegation of tasks pending on her to-do list of the day, she really wanted to take a quick nap to rest her brain. It wasn't even half a day, and she had thought way more than she usually would have.

Thinking back on how to improve her life, she contemplated picking up physical activity. 

Should she start yoga? Thai Kickboxing? 

Laying out the partially pre-cooked meal boxes from the refrigerator, she prepared the saucepan to bring her lunch to a lukewarm temperature. 

Thinking further on her physical activities, the idea of inducing happy hormones with a good workout seemed like a good place to begin with. Even if quitting jobs or starting a whole new class seemed like a daunting task, a good exercise might reduce the ill effects of the stress that had been building up in recent years. It may offer her some much-needed respite. It might bring her to the other side, which would be a welcome relief. 

The other side… 

The niggling sensation was back...

Plopping happily on her couch to dig into her lunch, she remembered the view from the peak of the mountain. It was the soft pillowy effect of the sand and the sand dunes formed on the other side of the rugged mountain that led her to the oasis, the green grove where she met them. They had all shown their courage to climb the treacherous path that led them to a happier place. The harrowing journey, the perseverance to overcome the toughness of it all, brought with it the fruits of her very own effort.

"I can't wait to travel again!" She exclaimed loudly in the quietness of her apartment, especially when it was only her who would hear her. 

Yes, it was time to listen to her heart, her soul and do what would enrich her own life. Things had been very lacklustre lately, and the lack of variety, the lack of colours had brought upon this weary old monochromatic tone into her life that didn't suit her on a soul level.

Washing up the remnants of food on her plate, she skipped back into her room, switched back into her pyjamas and set the alarm on her phone for taking a nap for an hour.

The realisation that her dream had brought her was painful, but it also brought some modicum of happiness. She didn't realise when she had become so disconnected from herself in her pursuit to become so connected with reality. The mundaneness of her everyday life had the value of routine and discipline in it, but it had numbed her to other aspects of life that she indulged in. Her daily frustrations had piled up till she couldn't take it anymore, but it was a wake-up call to initiate changes in her life that would bring back the colours in her life.

With a smile on her face, Rumi let her exhaustion from the previous restless night turn into the kind of stillness that would bring restful sleep. 

Will I meet them again? My soul tribe in my green grove of the oasis? Will I get more inspiration to turn my life around?

Happy thoughts lulled her back to sleep, and colourful, vivid dreams of travelling to every corner of the world filled her heart, mind and soul with bliss that she had long forgotten.