by Swati Moheet Agrawal
I would like to be in so many places. I would like to be traveling and vagabonding. I would like to write in a quaint café in Montparnasse. I would like to get lost in books at Shakespeare and Company. Like Proust, I would like to savor a madeleine dipped in tea dredging up long lost memories. I would like to spend time at La Rotonde frequented by Hemingway, Fitzgerald and Picasso. I would like to lay a wreath at the tomb of Virginia Woolf. I would like to go to La Casa Azul and inhabit Kahlo’s world for a little while. There is so much that I would like to do. But life is about delighting in the moments that are available to us, right here, right now.
The most impactful teachers are those who create the deepest wounds. Sometimes the best gifts can be unwrapped only through forgiveness. In retrospect, I think responsibility and freedom are two sides of the same coin. And what we take, we must replenish.
Happiness is the consequence of personal effort. Some people choose to sail around the world in boats. Others remain in their own small patch, yet see the world in a grain of sand. Sometimes a moment’s solitude in an armchair is all you need.
Innovations are often rooted in accidents. And while everyone makes mistakes, it takes curiosity, wit and skill to treat them as artistic tools.
Flow with the Universe. Once you are in harmony with the Universe, what is meant to be yours will come to you. Lessons repeat themselves. We often experience the same hurdles over and over again because we still have some learning to do. The next time you pray for your situation to change, realize that you are in a situation so that you can change.
When your heart is in something, only good things can follow. I trust in the magic of new beginnings.
Writing gives me moments of wholeness. Flow. It gives me a feeling of plentitude. Writing yanks me out of ordinary living. Writing is a solitary, meditative experience. Life wouldn’t be worth living if I stopped writing.
About the Author:
Swati Moheet Agrawal’s work has appeared in The Alipore Post, Muse India, Nailpolish Stories, Potato Soup Journal, Cogito Literary Journal, Minnow Literary Magazine, The Criterion, Active Muse, Setu, and Modern Literature among other publications.