Remarkably Bright Creatures

Last week Sabal bought me a gift, this time something he’s never bought for me earlier - a book. Given he is not a reader himself, he said he never knew whether I’d like a book he’d buy, but this one he said “gave him a feeling that I’d like reading it”. It was titled “Remarkably Bright Creatures” by Shelby van Pelt. I loved the blurb. But it had to wait for a couple more days until I finished the book I was reading then. (I cannot read two books simultaneously, can you?)

The book starts off in the small town of Sowell Bay in around 2019-2020. Has fascinating characters including but not limited to Marcellus, an extremely intelligent, observant and thoughtful giant Pacific Octopus who is the hero of the story. Tova, over seventy years of age with no kin, forms a beautiful relationship with Marcellus. It is not just the two of them though - through them we meet most of the other residents of Sowell Bay, each unique and kind in their own way. There were times when tears would roll down my cheeks as I tipped my hat to the incredible strength of Tova, the love and kindness of Ethan, the ever supportive Terry, the friendship of the Knit-wits, the naïveté of Cameron and of course the remarkable insights of Marcellus. 

There was a comment from Prasath to my earlier post (A decade later) about how living is what we do in the small, everyday moments of life and I can’t agree more with that thought. This book taught me another valuable lesson, we never forget the ones who leave us (they do continue to stay with us in our memories of the small moments) but we move on. We must move on, no matter how big the tragedy that brought us down was. It touched a nerve for me and gave me a quiet strength which I feel in my heart but can’t seem to put into words. 

I highly recommend reading this, for it felt like a warm cup of hot chocolate on a cold morning, when you want to wrap a blanket around your shoulders only to find your cat tucked in nicely and you just don’t want to disturb him. You know this happened.

A decade later

It has taken me over 15 years to begin writing after a self-imposed hiatus. During this time, I thought I was strategically planning and managing my career while also navigating my marriage and launching a family (human and non-human), while in reality all I was doing was letting life take over the reins. And like most middle-aged women, there came a point in life that showed me the dreaded mirror, imploring me to reflect and reassess the priorities of my life. Do I have my head on straight? Where do I go from here? Something as simple as considering my family’s health and happiness as priority #1 took a lot of time to adjust to. 

But I am getting ahead of myself. For, nothing I think or do has any impact on the world - it became so obvious during the pandemic in an in-your-face kind of way that it got me down a rabbit hole on exploring the effect I have on this world, or even my own life. Clearly, what my priorities are, how I go about executing them and how I can manage my life effectively and efficiently, have nothing to do with what will actually (and eventually) happen. There is just too many “I”s there and frankly, gives the illusion of control over the happenings in one’s life.

Let me explain, imagine a leaf floating in the air. This leaf thinks it can control where it will land, or whether it will land dark side up or light side up (and any other parameter the leaf thinks is important in its flight and subsequent life). So it uses all its energy and focus on “navigating” the wind. What it doesn’t realise is that it is utterly at the mercy of the wind - so it can try as hard as it wants, but the wind will have the final say. But surely, as human beings we aren’t as helpless as the leaf is against the wind? We do have choices that we make - consciously and unconsciously - and it is these choices that become the path our lives take. 

But what happens if we just let fate make these choices for us? 

Well, I don’t know all the answers but I am not sure the outcomes would be vastly different whether we put our hearts and souls into our jobs versus if we just winged it. For now, I have to rush to my Yoga class. My health, for one, happens to be something I can actually do something about.