Monalisa Dash Dwibedy
Dear Diary,
Life is looking very beautiful today, so is my city clad with a white snow blanket. Wherever you look, it’s pristine white. It’s the white that calls you from faraway lands, the white that knows you and sometimes You feel, it’s the world’s most beautiful city. I can never get enough of this beauty. Welcome to Toronto, Canada where the March snow mesmerizes you and leaves you speechless.
Yesterday evening there was a snow storm. Unless you experience a snow storm, you will not know how beautiful it is. The flowery, feathery-light snowflakes falling from the sky and the wind playing with the snowflakes, taking those snow-petals far, far away. You just keep watching it from your window and wonder about the miracles of Mother Nature.
If you keep your windows open enough, you can feel the storm in your hands and in your face. Feel the wind and snowflakes and the memory it brings with it. For a while, it’s truly blissful. It has its own healing effect. You feel a connection with those specks of magic white dust. However, you cannot stand it for much longer as the ice-cold wind will soon start playing its tricks. You may catch a cold.
This is Saturday morning; a bright sunny day and I am feeling very generous. As I peeped out of my window, snow fell out of the leafless trees, moving vehicles and rooftops. I called one of my kindergarten friends with whom I spent some quality time in childhood. We met after twenty-five years during the Lord Gopinath temple consecration in my native village during my recent India trip. Today she reminded me a lot about our childhood days, most of which I had forgotten.
Her grandma used to tell us ghost stories in the night and we used to listen with our eyes wide open. Once the story was over, I used to be very scared to cross even a very small dark stretch of two houses to reach my house. She also reminded me that we used to play “Doll house” together. Her dad used to bring so many cute dolls from Delhi and every morning, she will bring all her toys to my house so that we can play together.
I loved speaking to her. She told me that she has the newsletter paper cuttings of my recent publications. I felt happy to the core of my being, how many friends of mine collect my published articles or poems? Truly speaking, no one else has ever told me that he/she has collected paper cuttings of my writings until today. I wished our friendship to live long.
After speaking to her, a little realization settled down within me. How blissful it is to speak to someone who is a genuine well-wisher? And how much time have I been wasting to maintain some relationships who are not even close to the mark? This was an eye-opening conversation where the universe had a message for me. I promised myself that I will stay away from all toxic relationships.
People who pretend to be my friends, People who compete with me as well as the people who are in a rat race, I will avoid them for all times to come. I will be spending my time with only a few friends who truly cherish my friendship, who admire me for the person I am, not for my material success. At this moment I can count them in my fingers. I feel more alive now and wish everyone in the world to find the same happiness of being with real friends. Life is so beautiful with true friends.
I am going to raise a toast today to my new-found friendship and will celebrate today (March 4th) every year. After all, the goal is to make everyday a celebration!
(The writer is an I.T. Consultant living in Toronto. Views are personal)
