Words of dubious wisdom

We were circling the perimeter of our college, as we did every morning before the first class. These were the times when we discussed our quarter-baked ideas with such intensity, such earnestness. On one of those occasions she told me about a break up with her boyfriend of a few years. Apparently he had expressed a desire for some space, some time away.


That's when she told me, "If you love someone, set them free. If they come back they're yours; if they don't they never were." When I heard that I was stunned for a moment at what seemed profound then...shows how untouched by cynicism I was back then... I also hadn't read Jonathan Livingston Seagull until that time.


Not only did this friend apply this philosophy to her lost loves, she did the same with her things, with inanimate objects. If she loved something she owned she gave it away to people who praised it (some people are just too good to be true).


It might be a wonderful thing to do with things - with inanimate objects, however, I often think about the concept of setting someone free these days. It isn't as profound a statement as it seems at first glance, after all.

"Set them free" implies you owned them in the first place, doesn't it? How can you ever own another person? How can you even make yourself believe you owned someone? And so, how can you set free someone you never owned?

There is so much hubris, so much self-delusion tangled up with this Richard Bach-ian cliché. In fact the more I think about this statement the more egregious it sounds.

It makes one seem pathetic, as if one was trying to convince oneself that one is being the bigger person in setting someone free...either that or one is really self-absorbed and narcissistic enough to believe that the person one is "setting free" was nothing but an insentient object, someone with no will, held for awhile and being magnanimously let go.

The other thing that hints at a pathology of sorts, in this philosophy, is the second line that appears to have been added as a loophole filler, the hope that the person one is letting go would realize how much they lost by leaving and will fly right back into ones arms...and as long as there is that hope, how can it possibly be a real letting go or "setting free"?

The last bit "if they don't they never were" appears to have been added as an afterthought, acknowledging the chance that they may never come back. Wouldn't it have been so much easier on the mind to just cut to the chase and believe that this person was never theirs from the moment they decided to leave? How many people ever decide to come back? In matters of the heart isn't there always a yearner and a yearned after? Is it ever equal?

Perhaps I just haven't lived long enough to shed uncontrollable tears at reunions of long lost loves or comeback stories.

How much of this ostensibly detached philosophy is nothing but disguised pride; believing that you are the soulmate the other person sought, the one whose loss he or she will acutely feel after being set free? Why do we even cling at an idea like "soulmate"?

The whole thing makes me imagine a scenario, an alternate plot development for Stephen King's novel - Misery - where a character like Annie Wilkes's , transformed into benevolence after a sudden epiphany, decides to let Paul Sheldon (the author in the novel) free after days of brutal imprisonment.

We're always searching for an un-laterally inverted mirror image of ourselves, someone who thinks, feels, acts the same as us. The idea being that such a person will really understand us. But mirror images are trapped behind glass, you see them, but do they see you? They cease to exist as soon as you walk away from the mirror, don't they? Isn't that hint enough that we're doing time here, on this planet, by ourselves, in solitary confinement, until the end of our days?

Yoga insights

The last time I had my Yoga session I felt ecstatic during and after the class.

I am ashamed to admit that I have always been somewhat skeptical about the benefits of Yoga, despite hearing and reading so many opinions to the contrary. I signed up for classes simply for the benefits of exercise. I didn’t think the practice could help enhance mental clarity or develop equanimity.

I always felt my mind was too distracted and too out of control to reap such benefits. I think a lot of that skepticism stemmed from just not being attuned enough to subtlety, from experiencing life at a very superficial level.

I prided myself on that, the fact that I couldn’t really be touched by much, that I could skate through life until the time life itself came to a peaceful conclusion. But that is not how one needs to live life. One needs to experience every nuance, every detail. One needs to live every nanosecond to the fullest; to keep ennui at bay.

What changed for me in the last class was a determination to focus on breath.

I was scared stiff last week when there was a minor recurrence of an old ailment: asthma. I sat up in the middle of the night when I realized I couldn’t breathe, except in short and jagged bursts. The last time this had happened to me was over twenty years ago and one of the best things to have happened to me since was the complete disappearance of it; except now it was back and I was wondering about how much of it was psychosomatic and how much of it could be attributed to an evil allergen.

I couldn’t go back to sleep that night and kept trying to think of the homespun cures people had prescribed for me back when I was constantly dragging around the shadow of asthma behind me; inhaling steam, ingesting caffeine etc. Some of that did help a bit but I was mostly a wreck. I had my violin concert the next day and I was sure my jagged breathing would seriously disrupt my rather tenuous control on the fingering and bowing that was required. Some over the counter cures helped me tide over that misery until I could see a doctor. The culprit this time appears to be mold. We were using our humidifier the night it struck with such vengeance. The house is as mold free now as we can possibly make it.

In many ways it seems as though this episode was a reminder of sorts, about not taking ones breath for granted, about focusing on every inhalation and exhalation, while doing anything.

In my last Yoga class I was determined to make the most of the breath; instead of trying to observe and mimic my more experienced classmates in order to get the asana right. I decided to tune them out and just listen to the teacher as she called out each movement and the breathing sequence. It worked. Every pose simply flowed into the next one and for the first time in my life I felt this brief period of oneness, as if someone had just turned the round knob on a telescope or a projector, eliminating the out of focus blurriness, the double vision, I was one resolved entity, at least for the duration of the class. I have a long, long way to go, before this becomes a lasting state of mind, a permanent way of life. What I experienced in the last class was probably a breathtaking glimpse at the possibilities.

I was compelled to think of the experience in terms of riding the breath (yes, I do realize I am not the first one to think of the practice of Yoga in these terms), like being in a zone. I had heard about surfers feeling this way whenever they were able to ride inside a tube formed by a wave folding over itself. The feeling can only be described by poor analogies.

I couldn’t help but wonder if it was possible to bring this experience into everything I was doing, my vocal practice sessions, my violin sessions, my attempts at art, my work, my home, my relationships…not necessarily counting each breath but being fully engaged, as it were, being attentive to every nuance and not skimming over any seemingly unimportant detail. In other words, doing away with my approximist ways and understanding for once and for all that there are no unimportant details.

There are so many things that have seemed unnecessary and superficial to me, pride and ignorance always making it worse. For instance, when my music teacher asked me to spend a lot of time singing the notes in the lower octaves for sustained periods of time; trying to push my voice to go to each successive note in the lower range, the benefits of this exercise weren’t immediately clear to me. I was very surprised when she told me that she herself devoted hours of her practice simply singing these notes, dwelling on them. I was just singing them once everyday because she had asked me to, with no clear understanding about the benefits of that practice.

But I do it now. I do it for thirty to forty minutes and explore the flats and the sharps in that lower range, feeling my way through each nuance. I try to form visual images of the notes…how a series of naturals might form a perfect arc and how the introduction of a sharp note might introduce a curl in this arc…hard for a beginner like me to elucidate but some foundations are being laid and concepts are starting to take shape and even though I can’t really judge my own vocal capabilities, I am beginning to notice an ease in gliding over even the higher notes these days, simply because I paid more attention to the lower ones! I have noticed how effortlessly my teacher enhances every note, how she is able to add the emotional element to her singing as she adds the glissandos that take her from one note to the next; years of nuanced practice at the heart of it all.

Another thing that is often stressed on Yoga sites and often reiterated by our Yoga instructor is the declaration of intent, thinking about what you want from your practice and not letting go of that thought as you move from one stage to the next. What could be more intuitive and more sensible than that bit of advice? I did that once when I was learning how to drive. I used to visualize myself taking the turns, staying between the white lines, parallel parking…a very visual declaration of intent. Why did I stop doing it with other things?

This neglect, this propensity to take shortcuts is affecting me the most when I take a look around my home. If there is such a thing as “negative energy” it must be present within the walls of my home. Maybe because it has been years since I paid any attention to the arrangement of things, maybe because messes are always overflowing and spilling and things aren’t organized in the most efficient way.

It would appear as though I have been seeking sanctuary from this negativity in my long commute, in my long work hours, in inordinate degrees of task avoidance because I am usually so overwhelmed with the upkeep of my own home. All it takes is for me to resolve to minimize the clutter, organize things in better ways, move furniture around and make it more of a sanctuary than a place to which I dread returning.

There, that then is my stated intent and things will soon be changing, c'est possible, n'est-ce pas?

Teklanika Sunrise

When I got my very first office several years ago we had the option of ordering office art from a catalog. Every person was entitled to two paintings. I picked a large map of the world for myself since the job had an international component to it and the other piece of art I ordered, after going through the entire catalog and not finding anything except flowers, trees, soaring eagles, all with self-affirmative quotations, I came across the one called Teklanika Sunrise (a Kennan ward photograph). I couldn't stop looking at it, at the flame colored, roiling clouds in the sky, the evergreens in the shadows, as if in awe. That was what I wanted to look at in moments of quiet contemplation at my very first office.

I remember an older co-worker who used to visit me often, just to shoot the breeze and talk about things. Whenever he looked at the painting he used to ask me to take it down and replace it with hibiscus in bloom or hollyhocks. He said it was vaguely menacing and malevolent and it bothered him to look at it. Of course, I wasn't taking any requests when it came to office art for my own office.

It had quite the opposite effect on me, a calming effect. Every time I glanced up at it I was reminded of my insignificance, of my speck like state in the universe. All the thoughts roiling inside my head, might have been similar to the roiling, angry clouds in the painting but they didn't mean a thing in the great time-space continuum. The thought helped me get on with whatever inconsequential urgent matter was dogging my steps that day.

It has been about 14 years since I had that office and that piece of office art. I have changed jobs many times but I could never forget the name of that work or its visual impact. What appears below is my attempt to recreate it:



Last year as I drove through the southwestern, winter desert parts of this country, where cactii and conifers coexist, through Flagstaff, AZ and Sedona, I came across breathtaking scenes like this many times.

Last night however, it was Edvard Munch's painting - Scream (Or Shriek - as it translates from the Norwegian - Skrik) that reminded me of Teklanika Sunrise. The most common interpretation of his painting is that it represents existential angst. Munch told the curious that he was taking a walk one day with a friend when the skies turned blood red and that he suddenly felt tired and anxious. The skies that day appear to have had a similar effect on Munch that my office art did on my co-worker all those years ago. What is it about the skies?



But getting back to feelings of anxiety, I had been contemplating Munch because in a discussion with a friend, about the current state of affairs, in this country of ours, I had said that only two images came to mind, Munch's Scream above and this famous image from The Clockwork Orange, where Alex is being subject to the Ludovico technique of conditioning:



One wakes up everyday to see the gas prices inching higher and higher, one screams when one has to shell out thirteen dollars for a salad lunch, a lunch that would have cost no more than six dollars till a couple of years ago. The crisis is global. There was a formerly prosperous family being interviewed on TV. They owned a fairly successful trucking company and now they couldn't keep their business afloat. They were retrofitting some of their trucks to convert them into tanks. They intended to drive 180 miles every week to fuel up in Mexico and then drive back. They had lost all their savings. The stories are endless.

There are man made crises and then there's nature displaying its fury with increasing frequency with cyclones, floods, fires and earthquakes somewhere in the world everyday. In many ways it feels as though this is the beginning of the end, the decimation has begun, and we can do nothing but sit there with our eyes pried open a la Alex DeLarge, helpless and hopeless as some of our politicians speak favorably of things like waterboarding, as refugees to South Africa are subject to necklacing, as Mugabe demonstrates progressively increasing levels of madness in Zimbabwe. When we hear about Darfur, child prostitution, AIDS, global hunger, buildings in the middle east pockmarked with bullets, healthcare workers in the US who struggle to provide care to terminally ill patients, at their own expense, because the government wouldn't, as doctors contemplate giving up their practices in favor of running convenience stores because they can't keep up with the insurance restrictions, as one sees signs of leaks springing up everywhere, globally, and as band-aid cures fail to stanch the bleeding.

It has been happening, human history is a violent one, none of this is new. We are desensitized - when we think of ourselves as nothing but inconsequential specks in the universe and reassure ourselves that nothing we do will ever have an effect. We can then take a deep breath, discard anxiety and go on with the rest of our lives. Or we can scream in anxiety, feel uncontrollably disturbed, nauseous.

The question is which state will prompt us to take further action?

Fiddling woes and other things

There is a month long break in my violin lessons while my teacher tours Spain. Classes will resume when she comes back in August.

She did hand me an assignment packet before she left: some beginners’ books, some violin standards, 40 sonatas. There’s a lot to practice. Just flipping through some of this music is daunting; my eyes glaze over as I realize the full extent of my ignorance.

The words of a guest speaker at college come to mind, I think it was Professor Moonis Raza, vice-chancellor of the Delhi University at the time I was in college. He addressed us at a function and said that the pursuit of knowledge was like lighting a candle in the darkness – doing so made a small area known to us but a much larger universe now was known to be unknown.

As I delve deeper into music the extent of my ignorance is constantly revealed to me, it is very dark out there and there isn't enough time. But there is a determination to keep lighting these little candles, to see just how much light is possible. My fascination with the subject is such that I cannot help myself.

I sometimes think about how lonely this quest is, there are no guides, no real teachers. I think I am capable of absorbing a lot more than what my teacher can teach me in thirty minutes and in a few months of training she has helped me learn some basics about correct posture and intonation, a few nusrsery rhymes and a few other songs. She has also asked me to practice the scales regularly and how to play slurred notes.

But no one has ever taught me how to read music. I had to acquire that particular skill on my own by downloading lessons some kind musicians have posted on the Internet. I pored over the music theory, printed everything I could find, stored it in a binder and refer to it whenever there is any confusion. But it isn't easy being self-taught.

Yesterday while practicing some music from the summer assignment packet I came across some lines that required "hooked bowing". My teacher has never mentioned this to me, I couldn't figure out what it could possibly mean. It was annotated as two dotted quarter notes - two Gs - connected by a curved line that I've come to understand as a slur. I couldn't figure out how I was supposed to play that! Was it expecting me to start with a downbow. play a G on the D string, a slightly longer note than a quarter note (it was dotted) and then keeping the bow in the same direction play the same note again? That was my interpretation of it but I wasn't sure. There were no notes in my book, just a legend that said:



I was very frustrated about not having anyone around who could tell me what this really meant. So I went back to the net. Found some incredible sites in the process. Someone on a forum had asked this question and some others had stepped forward with an answer. Someone suggested that "hooked bowing" meant playing a staccato slur. This appears to be close to my interpretation - a slur with stops, as I see it or think of it - starting to play the G on the D string on the downbow, closer to the tip, coming to the middle of the bow perhaps, stopping and then continuing down to the frog, in the same direction. However, someone else answered the question saying "hooked bowing", in playing a scale for instance, was doing the following:

ab bc cd de ef fg ga ab

So slurring the first two then starting the next one with the second note of the first slur and so on - kind of like lazy daisy stitching in embroidery.

In some weird way maybe the two musicians are saying the same thing but I don't have enough knowledge to have an 'aha' moment about what they're saying. The second version does however seem like an interesting exercise, something I am very keen on trying at home today.

I am also wondering if when they write:



Do they mean all the notes bracketed by the slur have to be played slurred, or just the end 2? I am certain this is a dumb question but in my ignorance I have nothing to lose by asking it. Again, it is my assumption that it means all notes have to be slurred.

Thankfully, the other thing I learnt yesterday - arpeggios - wasn't so hard to grasp conceptually. Except, I did need to give myself an Internet based crash course in what chords and intervals were.

I did understand the detailed explanations as I was going over it, but my fundamental take away is as follows:

C-E-G is a C chord and it is a major triad with the component intervals of major third and perfect fifth. I understand that as the note E being the third one from the root C and the notes C and G being five notes apart - a fifth. What makes it a chord is the fact that all three notes are played simultaneously. C, E, G struck at the same time on the piano would constitute playing a chord (which of course makes me wonder how one plays a chord on the violin...I have some vague insights there too...but more on that later).

Another chord could be G-B-D or D-F-A. The pattern I see emerging is a skipped note resulting in a chord.

An arpeggio appears to share the same pattern of skipping, except the notes aren't all played simultaneously, a Wikipedia entry likens it to a broken chord (i.e. not played simultaneously). Which makes it easy to see how it could be incorporated in the practice sessions of a stark beginner like me. I could practice a scale such as:

A B C D E F G A

or AA BB CC DD EE FF GG AA or any such combination and I could practice an arpeggio as follows:

A C E G E C A (perhaps)

...skipping all the in between notes. I think I am more or less on the right track here. If some wandering musician wants to stop by and smack me on the wrist or correct a misconception or learning flaw, I would of course be very appreciative.

I am pleased to have a bit of a sense of how to improve my practice during the summer but as I gather my information from various sources while pondering the question of playing a chord on the violin - I come across the word "double stops". Hmm...what then are double stops? Sounds like fingers on two or more strings while the bow glides across all the strings that have a finger on them. I can picture that but I start sweating bullets wondering how I would actually play it if it was a repeating part of a piece of music! How will my brain, my muscles ever get coordinated enough to achieve a flawless rendition that includes so many moving, shifting variables?

Proficient violinists also discuss things like pizzicato ( I get that - plucking of the strings with fingers) but how does one switch from bowing to suddenly pizzicato and make it look flawless? And what exactly is the all important vibrato, martele, legato...what do these things mean? How will I ever learn them.

I can't even figure out how to practice with a metronome. I finally have one. I can set it to 40 for playing something andante ( I am told) but I can't even hear the sound of the metronome over my playing and am still not very sure about the metronome and half note, whole note, quarter note relationships.

So much frightening, daunting stuff to learn and so little time!

The only thing that keeps me going is the challenge of it all and the sense, or rather belief, that it is all about an accretion of incremental changes. Each second, each minute, each hour of practice will get me that closer to improving my sense of how things should be and the learning will accrue as long as my mind cooperates and maybe I can get somewhere after a few years. Perhaps it would help to have a goal...maybe hoping to play some chamber music with other amateurs, on a regular basis, after a few years, perhaps that can be a goal to look forward to.

Peoplewatching in NYC

I search the faces on the streets. I look for frowns and twitches, for slight smiles, or brows knitted together with intensity but I see nothing. When people put their game faces on in the morning they make a concerted effort to do a good job of it.

All expressions are made placid - the only annoyance displayed is at “delayed green” traffic lights or cars crowding the crosswalks. Other than that all is ostensibly well with the world. There is no indication of excitement, discontent, anger, hurt, sadness, no betrayal of any emotion.

I wonder what time slot of the day is reserved for letting go, for finding the nearest loved one to lash out on: the one person in the world who we take for granted, sans compunction (you know we all have one of those), is probably the one who feels the brunt of every bit of angst and anxiety that each one of us radiates. As far as the rest of the world is concerned we’re sans colors or shades.

That’s usually the first impression, gleaned on days when I myself am preoccupied with weightier issues. But there are days when I dig deeper, look further. Some texture then emerges. Like a woman walking a few steps ahead of me, of generous proportions, wearing a long gypsy skirt that sits very low on her hips, paired with a strapless and stretchy top that ends somewhere near the region where her last rib would be, could one discern it with ease. She turns her head left at every shop window that reflects her image back at her. I walk behind her silently mouthing, “…and left, and left…” as I see her head turn each time. Each time she sees herself, she pulls her skirt down just a few fractional inches and moves her top up a few, aiming for a well-balanced midriff exposure I imagine, and then continues walking. This happens many times until the reflection finally registers that pulling the skirt down any further would prove rather disastrous.

What could have been going on in her head? What role was the midriff exposure playing in her sense of well being that day? Had she just lost some weight perhaps?

Then there’s the couple, usually arriving at the city together and kissing passionately before splitting off in different directions toward their offices. I am used to seeing them do this everyday until one day they act as though they can’t stand the sight of each other. They yell and scream and let each other know, in no uncertain terms, how it wouldn’t be too soon if they never saw each other again! The woman then continues on, a few steps ahead of me. I have to pass her just so I can get a sideways glance at her face. Her expression is pleasant, it reflects no turmoil, no anxiety, no unpleasantness…just another normal morning, on just another day. I wonder if her partner, who had walked away in the opposite direction, is also similarly composed. I also wonder how they would be with each other on their reverse commute; would they travel together again, take the same bus home, would they sit on the same seat if they did? Just how normal are things between people? How normal are people?

There are people on the streets who talk to themselves. I look to see if they have that ubiquitous Bluetooth device tucked behind their ears when it looks like a soliloquy is in progress and more often than not it is. Fists get pumped in the air, expressions transform the face as the singular conversations go on, and it could be a very normal looking person doing it. Yes, I have heard that talking to oneself is normal but no matter how many times I hear it I still have trouble believing it.

I have been guilty of irrepressible smiles myself, looking down at my shoes or ahead at nothing in particular while finding it hard to wipe a smile off my face. Sometimes strangers smile back without any clue as to what’s got me so entertained. Admittedly such occasions are rare and are usually prompted by the replaying of something someone probably said to me during the day. I love the days when it happens.

There was also the time, years ago, when I had a deep sense of foreboding about the security of my job. I had been at that job for a couple of years and hadn’t received any feedback on my performance, no one knew me. Then there was an ominous buzz that went on for three months about upcoming layoffs. I remember having lost all my confidence, I probably slouched perceptibly as I walked, didn’t stride as I usually do. And one day I even tripped over the sidewalk and fell as New Yorkers gathered around me asking if I was ok. I can’t help but think that fall was psychosomatic in nature, an outward manifestation of everything that was going on in my head. To others it probably just resembled a missed step.

We march around each day selectively revealing parts of ourselves to arrive at a personal outcome that we desire from interpersonal relationships, each one of us concealing so much more than we’ll ever reveal. Each one a ticking time bomb in our own special way; some exploding publicly and some imploding just a little each day until it all just seeps through eventually or manifests in some way, somehow, somewhere and one is left making excuses for oneself.

And here's the little one

DSCN2035
Originally uploaded by pragya_67

Enjoy!

And here we are at the concert

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Originally uploaded by pragya_67

Ode to Joy

Eagle Flew Out of the Night

Anger Management

She had nothing to show for the time other than hurting teeth and jaws from gritting them or clamping down hard, on anger, on something solid and tangible. She was always surprised at how anger could feel so real and was always stunned by its physicality. Sometime during the night the pain radiated upwards, up her temples, spreading across the frontal lobe and radiating outwards, a shroud of pain stretched tightly across her skull.

You see, she just didn’t like who he became when he was around others and feeling in his element, as though he owned the world. Anger swallowed her power of speech and her ability to articulate anything, so much so that if one was to ask how she was feeling she would probably just say, “I am fine, just have a slight headache”, while inside her world would be churning and turning every morbid shade of grey and black.

It always passed, and its immediate passing worked in his favor. It didn’t stay, seethe or fester. It retreated to a deeper place, a secure place. Like a conscientious werewolf, perhaps, retreating to a safe shack where he couldn’t hurt others whenever the moon shone bright in the sky.

That may be the reason why he pushed it to the limit; perhaps it was his way of working in a balance, of putting her in her place somehow, perhaps it was his warped way of telling her she was not so special.

The irony of the situation was that she knew she was not special. At best she felt like an impostor, a pretender, at the moments when she appeared to shine the most. All that glittered, she was convinced, was definitely never gold in her case. Left on her own she thought she would wither away untouched, causing barely a ripple in her wake. She probably wouldn’t even displace the air that surrounded her as she made her way through to any destination. She believed this.

But she was, nevertheless, capable of black and withering anger at the double-faced praise he heaped on her when no one else was around and the precision with which he proceeded to tear her apart when there were others around. It was possible he thought he was poking innocent fun at her, teasing her but the coat of humor his words usually wore was threadbare and ripped, hiding a feral beast within, bearing its fangs at her.

He was quite oblivious and incapable of sensing how close to an explosion she was during one of those moments when he paused, briefly, to look around and gauge the reaction of the room, having delivered another one of his zingers at her expense; in his element, smiling, waiting for her self-deprecating smile or shrug. Waiting for her to smile and join in, in the laughter he strove to percolate at her expense. That smile rarely failed him. Perhaps it encouraged encores of ever escalating roasts, “Rip her to shreds!”

She didn’t recall ever paying him back in kind. She wouldn’t have known how. She liked to treat people the way she hoped to be treated. She felt she was aware of her shortcomings, her flaws, aware of the dreariness that saddled her soul and alienated her from everyone, from everything. She thought she couldn't possibly be fun to be around for more than a few minutes (the few minutes when she actually made an effort to be sparklingly effervescent).

Her interests never coincided with those of others, if ever there was a person who marched to a different drummer, she knew it was her, but – she wasn't graceless. She wanted fairness and grace always. She thought people could hate her, if they chose, for as many things as they wanted, but they couldn't hate her for being graceless. She couldn't have dreamt of humiliating him in public, under the guise of some warped sense of “good-natured fun”.

She couldn’t dream of walking out on him when he was holding forth or walking out on him ever. After the blackness retreated she had no trouble acknowledging the radiance or appreciating his finer qualities, the things that had always made her feel lucky. But unrestrained anger is a scary thing and it was increasingly cumbersome to shackle the beast.

She wanted him to reconsider his approach, indulge in some leisurely introspection, reevaluate his actions, so that they could enjoy more periods of grace, more serenity, forever.