Category: Love

A memory for my Pensieve

20160730_215920I am a Ravenclaw. My favorite subject is Charms, and I am particularly adept at producing a corporeal Patronus (it’s a Golden, er, silver Retriever). Potions is a close second; my current project is to brew a perfect batch of Felix Felicis over the next six months. I own a snowy owl as well as a purple Pygmy Puff.

I am, most assuredly, a Potterhead. I’ve loved the Wizarding World since I was 11, and J.K. Rowling and her incredibly detailed universe captured my imagination like nothing else. However, in spite of all the times I tried Levitating my shuttlecock instead of hitting it with my badminton racket, in spite of all the scrapbooks and zillions of sketches of Harry I made on the last page of every notebook, in spite of reading the books over and over till I could recite the chapters off my head – I have, for the most part, been a Potterhead in isolation.

Growing up, I have been laughed at, mocked, and gently rebuked for this obsession of mine. I’ve been reminded, multiple times, that this is all just a distraction, and I need to focus on reality. I lived in a world without midnight release parties, without crowds around me clamoring for new books the way I was – I grew up feeling different, feeling like I wasn’t understood – pretty much like every Muggle-born witch before she gets her Hogwarts letter. I grew up with my magic intact, but just better-concealed. Over the years, I have cultivated a casual, ‘oh yeah, I guess I like Harry Potter’ attitude, even though I know that deep down in my heart, it lives on in all its obsessive, many-splendored glory. In true Ginny fashion, I gave other stories a chance, became more comfortable in my skin, more myself – and yet, never truly gave up on Harry.

Yesterday evening, on the eve of Harry and Rowling’s birthday, I attended one of the many many midnight release parties for Harry Potter and The Cursed Child. And it was a revelation. People of all ages were running across the bookstore on scavenger hunts to find Horcruxes and Fantastic Beasts, making glittery wands for themselves, and playing across a giant chessboard. We all tried on the Sorting Hat, we decorated and left out socks for the House Elves (Hermione would be proud!), guessed the number of Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Beans packed into the Triwizard Cup, and with the whole place decorated with House banners, owls and Dementors, Hedwig’s theme playing in the background – it was completely magical. I couldn’t help squealing for joy when I popped into the girls’ bathroom and found a troll. Such attention to detail! There was a Muggle wall, where everyone had put up lightning-bolt-shaped, funny, poignant, heart-felt messages about what Harry Potter has meant to them. This was it, in this moment in time… I found my tribe, my people. Yes, we were all crazy, but in the best possible way. And isn’t it absolutely incredible that one woman can write a story of such epic proportion that she inspires millions of people to dress up in robes, sport scars and flourish wands – one woman, causing such multi-generational mass hysteria! If that isn’t magic, I don’t know what is. Being there, celebrating Rowling and her world, surrounded by people who were unapologetically reveling in their mutual wizardry – it felt like coming home. Finally being wholly accepted, and celebrated for who I was , what I loved… after all these years, I’d finally made it to Hogwarts. All was well.

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!

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I’ve been holding off on this post, mostly because I don’t want to be the seasonal blogger, who gets inspiration to write solely from changes in the atmosphere. Does nothing else touch me, affect me, move me enough to get off my passivity and actually pen down my thoughts and impressions on this forum? But you see, while normal inspiration comes from little anecdotes and events in the blogger’s life, weather is something external, something beyond our control, and if that much raw power isn’t inspirational, well, what is? (Such rationalization!) Oh well, if weather ends up being my prime muse, so be it!

I heartily dislike the cold: arctic wind slipping through and caressing every bit of exposed skin with its long, frigid fingers, the wintry chill which permeates you with every icy breath you take, the sheer amount of layers you have to put on, even if you’re walking just three measly blocks to your destination. I feel miserable when my nose and tips of my ears freeze up – but that is nothing compared to frosty toes which I can’t even feel anymore, and am half-convinced that I’m going to pull off my socks only to reveal ten little blocks of ice. All of winter, I’m basically a popsicle in a pink coat.

I’ve always claimed that given a choice between living in the wintry depths of Siberia and the Death Valley in California, I wouldn’t even blink before picking the valley; how long I would survive in either is a whole different question.

However, no matter how cold the winter is, the moment it snows… I fall in love, all over again. Soft, quiet snow, drifting down all around you is somehow incredibly peaceful. It’s as if the snow cushions you in a cottony blanket and isolates you – from sound, from people, from your worries and turmoil. Because when you’re walking through the falling snow, you just exist, right there, in that beautiful moment suspended in time. The world is beautiful, dream-like, and leisurely. Instead of keeping my chin tucked into my scarf and striding along my way to hurry into the warmth of the indoors, I can linger, turn my face up to the sky to catch snowflakes on my eyelashes, and melt them on my tongue.

A soft cover of snow adds a sprinkle of magic to the mundane. In the immortal words of Roald Dahl, “watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you, because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it”. I believe that snow is one of the most likeliest of places to find that elusive magic, that spark, that little ember of wishful hopes and dreams and unfettered imagination which we all had in abundance as children, but that which we convince ourselves, with the advent of age and responsibility, is fanciful, unrealistic and ridiculously naive. However, if you put all of these hardened, cynical adults into oodles of piled-up snow, you can sit back and witness the magic – watch them morph back into the children they once were: making snowmen, women and angels, skiing through Central Park, clobbering each other with Quaffle-sized balls of snow (yes, I’m a lot more familiar with Quidditch than say, football – or is it soccer?), gleefully snowboarding through the inconceivably traffic-free streets of Manhattan, and most importantly, laughing with abandon. It’s a sight to behold – the carefree joy, the profound happiness. When it snows, it reminds us just a little bit of the children we once were, of the magic we once believed in.

And that momentary reminder is enough to keep me warm through the bitterest of winters.

 

Unapologetically pink!

Historical romances with happy endings, 

Princesses, ballrooms, and dukes condescending, 

Movies from Disney, books with covers pink, 

These are a few of my favorite things!

There, I said it. I have an ever-growing romance with love stories, a romance which I’m rather coy about, a romance which I suspect is too superfluous for me, a romance whose extent I try to keep under wraps – and treat as a guilty pleasure.

It all started when I turned four and firmly toppled in love with Disney movies. I figure one is expected to leave behind the wide-eyed idealism and belief in the power of Twue Wuv after a certain stage (moody and misunderstood teenage seems about the right stage for that). While I like to think I’m a little more worldly-wise and cynical now, I can’t deny that a big part of me still lives in the world of make-believe.

Eventually I started getting my daily dose of Happy Endings from romcoms and romance novels (there are only a finite number of Disney movies after all). But I’ve always felt that loving love isn’t something I should be too vocal about – when people ask me what I like, I usually prattle off a list of books and authors carefully chosen from other genres, but it takes a lot more guts to ‘fess up to my addiction to romance. My reasoning being that I’m a smart well-educated scientist being trained to deal with facts, logic, and rational thought, and I ought to be reading deeper and more meaningful literature about life, the universe, and everything – real people, problems, and issues at hand as compared to the romance genre, which has no great literary plot devices, is rather frivolous and ANY person can read and understand. Romance has become my ultimate secret indulgence.

But you know what? All that ends right now. The truth is: I don’t love romance in spite of being a rational scientist, but because I am a rational scientist. Because I’m supposed to deal with cold hard facts, believe only what is tangible and quantifiable, reason out conclusions based in logic and critical analysis … perhaps my profession is all the more reason to seek escape is frivolous romance with its unrealistic tales of impulsive (and frankly, implausible) courage, perfectly imperfect protagonists and guaranteed happy endings.

And yes, it’s not just the unrealistically wonderful parts which I love but also the seemingly insurmountable obstacles. Something bewildering, a feeling of hopelessness, of pain which keeps the female lead struggling for several chapters. While that makes me ache, it reminds me that problems exist, no matter what universe one inhabits. And even that is satisfying because I know that somehow the power of love will overcome it all. There’s a sense of reassurance that if right now your life is going through hardships, if it’s not making you laugh and smile and joyful to the brim … well, that’s because your story is still going on. These are your Seemingly Insurmountable Obstacles to overcome, and with time, effort, and determination borne of love or revenge or just a burning desire to prove oneself – you will reach your Happy Ending.

So yes, since this is the month of love, I figured I’d jump onto the bandwagon and proclaim mine: love stories, my love for love stories, and ultimately self-acceptance and love. To accept the person I am, accept the silly frivolous side of me along with the rational one, and to love myself, just the way I am. To stop worrying and over-analyzing the kind of person I ought to be, the kind of things I should be interested in – to cut myself some slack and live the way I want to, love the way I want to. I’m pretty certain self-acceptance is the right step on the path to my happily ever after. I’ll make sure of that.