Author Archives: Pavane Mann

The written and the read.

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I received the most touching mail wishing me well with my new found love.
However, my little anecdote is not about a one love, but the discovery that I still have the capacity to throw my heart over a windmill and perhaps not worry about whether it lands in the right place. Just experience the emotion and the euphoria of doing it, without counting the cost – and most importantly the discovery that the cost is not what matters at all. It is the enjoyment of the feeling; whether it is fleeting or lasting must be left in the hands of the Gods.
I say that quite deliberately, because the moment you start to anticipate the where, what, how, what if ? It’s finished, it’s lost, the euphoria is gone. All those human things will creep in, the doubt, the uncertainty, the wanting, the needing, to have, to hold. With that dissapears the essence of that pure, soaring flight. Why would you want to do that? Also that is what prevents you from throwing that heart over in the first place. Caught for a moment, caught forever, who knows?  If one does it often enough maybe it will entwine with another such floating feeling and fly forever.
Also the learning that no matter what the age, love feels very much the same, there may not be as much angst to it with experience, because perhaps you, like me, can discover it to be a many splendoured thing, but it can be as silly, as electrifying, as embarrasing and as euphoric at 18 and at perhaps 80.
So in short, no my friend, I still have not found the man who will walk beside me and I wasn’t even looking. But now I think, if I can risk it then perhaps there is somewhere out there ‘The Passionate Shephard’ type of man who will risk saying those magic words too.

It’s raining men!

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IMG_4251Nice one’s too. I decided a time ago that the male energy does not fit in my space as a constant, it was a lovely, comfortable feeling; I would not be looking for the sharing and caring, just enjoying the fun of it. It’s been wonderful so far. Other than that decision, I also figured that after living a certain number of years one perhaps does not fall in love – or atleast not ‘fall’ like at 18. I once asked my mother, ‘so when does love and sex cease to be important?’ She said, ‘never.’ I thought, ‘sweet Mommy, what a romantic!’

So here am I, following my well laid plans and another delight rains down on me, or rather creeps up on me. We met and wandered up the mountain, delightful. So many intrinsic similarities, so much to talk about, great companionship – total support (remember we take people up mountains and that’s what we were doing) much laughter. The first wariness should have warned me, we were avoiding each other. But this awareness is coming in hindsight. Atleast I was avoiding him, I don’t know if I imagined him avoiding me. But we were still together in strategic places because it was necessary to share those things, we had a connection, it couldn’t be helped – I would wait to show him the best angle for the sunset (eeks) Did I even know I was doing it? This remembrance is wholly embarrassing. Has it started sounding like that 18 year old yet? It keeps getting better. So be together, bond and then feign indifference. Pretending that one is not feeling all the things one is actually feeling ( so comfortable and happy to be together) – know that one? Straight out of trashy romance.

Then it’s over, trip over, large goodbye party, tears and speeches all around – pour the heart out, because there is an excuse for it and you can in public forum – ‘you are like my alter ego – and – I will never forget you’ – cheese and all in the spirit of the moment and you believe it too. That’s all it is another trip, another lot of great people sharing a great time.

Go away, immersed in something completely different. Come back and realize we have a few more days together, just us. Amazing fun and those two days fly and so do I, and now all my preconceived notions have flown away.

The damn heart has a feeling in it, I don’t even want to call it a yearning or a pain, that means it gets a definition. How incomplete one is, when one is conceptualizing this wholly wise being, and you don’t want to admit that Mommy was right, you are an idiot and romance exists and no matter how long that heart has lived it still knows how to go pitter patter. Isn’t that completely exciting, just the discovery that this feeling can still happen – not just the bubbles and glee – but the angst too. Gracias mi amigo for rejuvenating a lost part of me.

IMG_4247Sorry for flawed photographs, but I only try to capture moments and know nothing about composition and the fact that an insect sat on the lens.

Daughters and dreams

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I have dreamt about it, my daughter has done it. Packed up her custom made flat in Bombay to move to Goa.photo

She has the most charming little house with a huge sit out verandah which is her living area, looking out on a motley garden with old trees. A typical old goan house with tiled roofs, open spaces it all feels exactly like what I always wanted, my camp turned into a bit of house. This is what Rifq is now living in and she is so happy, and the whole deal makes me utterly blissful.image

I arrived to see these twinkling candles lighting up the most beautiful space. My little daughter sitting there, reading of all things, the Mahabharath. I don’t know where they came so smart from. Tucked away in a quiet corner of Goa, hidden by old trees, she is sitting outside on her dining table to work, to eat, to be.

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I who never asked my children to live my dreams, find them doing so all on their own. Motivates me to live them too. My trouble is I don’t know which I want to live first – live in Florence and learn Italian, live in Buenos Aires and learn the Tango, go to Alaska to kayak or go to the Antartica to see the penguins and the Aurora Australis?

At the moment I am enjoying a weekend with both my girls, laughing madly, fixing Rifq’s garden and being happy with my intrepid adventurers.

Of bubbles and glee!

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In continuation and conclusion: I met a man ….. and then he went.

But that euphoria – the sparkle in the eye, the bubble of glee in the throat ready to break into a chuckle of remembrance – all of that stays. Songs are more melodious, the trees are brighter and the breeze lifts your heart. What a tonic this thing is.

Why? What do you call it? Science says endorphins, brain synapse, chemical reactions or whatever. Most call it love or more realistically infatuation, ok let’s stay romantic and say an itty bitty love. Is it the giving of love, the receiving of love, the excitement of discovery, liking being liked?

I have a super life, great children, many people to love and be loved by, a lovely home, work that makes me happy. Not a thing that I can say is missing. I don’t even have a man growing old next to me, needing reminding of pills or whatever, and I do like the songs and the trees and the breeze does still lift my heart anyway.  Yet a man can come along and make the blood sing and the feet dance.

How long does that last if you keep the man? (or the woman in reverse, I am quite certain it works both ways.) That’s such an awful question, but it’s real. Some have it, the books say soul mates or old connections. Or the fact that you work it. And the whole world looks for it, writes, sings, dreams, cries for it. Obviously, look how bright it makes the day!

I think it is just a bit of magic that one needn’t question at all. It should happen every so often. I like that singing, dancing feeling.

Of morality and pre owned cars!

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I met a man. He looked at me with deep, intense eyes and looked and looked.  I smiled, I shifted, I perhaps even blushed, I squirmed, I shifted, smiled some more and moved away.

Uneasy! you bet. He looked some more, I squirmed some more. It’s the pursuer and the pursued, at some point you succumb, you chat, you laugh, you walk together you talk. There is an attraction – what is it? The fact that you enjoy the feeling of being wanted or the fact that it is actually an interesting man? Whatever, the actual fact in the forefront of the mind is that he is not free. Yet you are behaving like that puppy on the road, slowly being enticed toward that stroking hand – lord what a laugh, and you are watching yourself in glee waiting to see what you will do – it is an enjoyment of the forbidden and you don’t know the end. It’s like a drama unfolding all of your own making.

It is a taboo, a no no, for what reason? A sisterhood thing – you do not betray the sisterhood.  My best friend says ‘what nonsense, you are not betraying anyone, it’s not your business, why are you doing the thinking for someone else?’ Another says ‘ They don’t call them used or second hand any longer – the politically correct term is pre owned – that makes re owning better?

But it’s a rule I have – the whole damn thing makes for sleaze and hiding and the whole purpose of an attraction is to enjoy the damn thing – how do you do that if you are in hiding?

So, perhaps no. Then you spend more time and realise, hello, not just nice to be pursued, it’s a very interesting pursuer. So, you happily spend the time. You think; a flirtation, a jaunt, a moment in time.

Then you think some more – are you capable of loving many people, yes, so why is not another capable of the same. And then you think some more – you have not made a vow to love just one etc etc. You are not pre owned – so is it alright? At this point your brain starts to get fried and nothing destroys the equilibrium more than a fried brain. And nothing should destroy the equilibrium.

Quit out thinking – it is a moment in time. You meet a kindred spirit for a fraction of life, you enrich some portion of it for each other and keep the memory for rereading like a good book. Morality thy name is convenience in a used car lot!!

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