Sunday, March 22, 2020

Three Lists!

Alright #lockdownwriting challenge folks, here's your second prompt:
500 words by 5 pm, written and posted on your FB feed.
Tag us.
1. Today's prompt is a list.
2. Make three lists of anything you want. Title each list. Populate each list.
Lists!
I make lists as aides-memoire, mostly To Do lists and shopping lists, and menus when I am expecting guests for a meal. I can't cook for a party if I haven't planned out the menu and requisite shopping on paper. Then there are the endless mental lists, like lists of
1) Things I am Perpetually Planning to do, and Don't Actually Do like sort out the million papers in the several shelves and drawers that I possess, (not even thinking of those in the spouse's study: I value my life!), dispose of now defunct leather handbags, text books that I used in my long ago college years, cassette tapes that hold wonderful music but have been lying in our basement for years now, with no system to play them on: the spouse has been aspiring to get them digitized, also for several years now. (I recently learned that Goonj uses old cassette tape to make some rather interesting wallets). This is a merely aspirational list, with no great intention or ambition of fulfilling it, but, nonetheless, a list. Of acts of omission, if you so wish to call them, of acts which may never take place. I have always aspired to leave my affairs in good order, so that my heirs are not inconvenienced unduly. (Yes, I did throw out all my old underwear a few months ago, when Covid 19 wasn't even heard of). I still hope to do these things someday soon, if Time Is With Me.
2) Things I used to wish for:
Pretty crazy ones, beyond the usual romantic dreams of enduring love and a happy family life, which, I am happy to say, have largely been fulfilled.
I had very specific requirements for my next janam! I was never tall, nor thin. For the longest time, well into adulthood, when motherhood and greed had added to the avoirdupois, I asked to be tall and slender in my next birth. Unhappy feet rendered making myself taller with heels in this janam not really practical, and I was too lazy/greedy to lose weight. Since giving specifications for my next birth seemed eminently doable, I also asked for a good singing voice. It took me years to accept that I couldn’t sing. For most of my life I inflicted my tuneless renderings upon an unfortunate audience, mostly my family. I am happy to say that little children, (at least my little granddaughters) like what I sing, and I do remember several wonderful children’s songs from my own childhood. But, as a music lover with a discerning ear, I want to be able to offer aalaaps and ragas and exquisite Kabir and Meera bhajans to discerning listeners, whose encores echo in my delighted ears!
3) What I Wish For Now:
A future. For humanity. For love. For this beautiful world we have so sadly mistreated. For the world's children to forget what masks are. For air purifiers to become defunct. For a happier world, where there is kindness, compassion, and humanity towards all life forms, as well as our beloved Mother Earth.

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