Letter from Samina Mishra
My dear friends,
It is Day 54 of the lockdown in India. That’s 54 days of
your having lived through an unprecedented situation in human history. Every
generation has stories to tell but yours will be a generation with exceptional
stories to tell – stories that link people across the world and at the same
time also point out how we can all experience the storm differently.
Time is a storm in which we are lost, wrote the poet William
Carlos William. This pandemic has been like a storm – for some of us, it is a
storm that we have watched sheltered in our homes, for others it is a storm
that has ripped away their shelters. But for all of us, one of the things it
has forced upon us is a new way of experiencing time. While you have probably
still had school through online classes during the lockdown, the shape of your
everyday must have changed. When you get ready for school and when you eat your
meals, how you play and whom you play with, how much time you spend on screens
– have these changed for you? And how do the changes make you feel? Does it
feel like a storm in which you are lost?
For me, it is important to have some kind of structure to my
everyday life. So, I am grateful for my work and classes that force me to plan
other things that I want to do around them. Even through these lockdown days, I
wake up most days at a regular time and do my everyday chores in a regular way.
But not everybody is like that, and for some people, a forced schedule can
actually be disconcerting. And that’s ok. For those of you who are like that,
this is actually a good time to understand that about yourself. Pay attention
to how you feel at different times and ask yourself what helps you to feel good
or to do the things you want to. When do you feel the most active and alert?
When do you manage to do the things you want to really well – is it first thing
in the morning or late in the afternoon or perhaps, at night? Do you like
working with others, and if so, can you find a schedule that fits in with
theirs? Do you like to watch the sunlight move across the floor and not think
about anything else? Or would you rather be sorting out your books or playing a
video game that connects you to your friends? Or maybe a little bit of all
those things? It’s ok to not to have to choose just one thing, to be a mixture
of many things, no? What is important is to know oneself, just as important as
to know the world. So perhaps this is a time for you to focus on knowing
yourself.
Give yourself the chance to understand what you really like,
what you enjoy doing, what puts a smile on your face and a spring in your step.
You know that feeling – when you are doing something you really want and you
are doing it well? It could be math homework or baking a cake or playing on the
guitar. If you understand what you like doing and when you are able to do it
well, then you will always be able to tap into that. You will always be able to
pause, and take a step to make a bad day better.
Even as you learn to know yourself, I hope you will also make
place to know others. The COVID19 pandemic and lockdown have shown us how
unequal lives are, and if we are to try and bridge that inequality, then we
will need to listen to everyone’s stories - the stories that played out on
balconies and the stories that played out on the roads. I hope you find a way
to keep your heart and mind open to all the different experiences that this
time has brought.
Stay well, stay safe and stay kind.
Love,
Samina
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