There is a tree outside my apartment. I walk past it everyday as I leave home in the morning. The point to be noted is 'I walk past it everyday'. I "saw" it only today. Just a couple of minutes back to be precise.
It's 6 in the evening and I venture out to get something from my car. It's that time of day when the sun has just set but it still isn't dark. It seems to be getting darker by the minute but every minute seems just perfect. Twilight they call it. I remember first coming across the word in an English lesson. The teacher explained what it meant. It made so much sense that there was a word to describe that time of day. It deserves a word set aside for it. And the word twilight has this far away, mysterious feel to it. Just like the hours it describes.
Coming back to the moment. I walk out the door. It's slightly chilly but not cold. They've turned on those round white lights that light up our apparently complex. Something about the moment holds me. I walk towards the railing. I don't see a soul around. Everything around is really quite. Really peaceful. And really pretty. I hear the birds chirp now and then. There's a distant low rumbling. Feels like I'm back in India. That's when I notice it. A young tree staring right back at me. I'd never noticed it before. Never paused and looked. These lines come to mind..
"WHAT is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare?—"
-W. H. Davies
And in that moment all questions about life, all rigorous planning of things to be done melt away. And everything begins to make sense.
Currently reading P.G Wodehouse. In an English state of mind you might say. Watching English comedy(Coupling), English movies(In Bruges) and reading English novels(Right Ho, Jeeves). Delightful people, these English.
