It is the first misty day of this autumn. Maya and I awake at 7:15 to the sound of autumnal silence. I luxuriate in the silence, the stillness for a few seconds. Then, Maya starts chattering away, zooming from 0 to 60 in 2 seconds, faster than any Ferrari. She’s hungry, impatient for a glass of milk. We head down. As I start brewing my cup of coffee, I see the mist in the trees. By the time the coffee is ready, the whiteness envelopes us. I hurry Maya to the window and show her the mist. She wants to go outside. It’ll be cold, sweetheart, I say, lets go out later.
A cup of coffee washes away my resistance. I dress her up in warm clothes, throw a jacket on myself and with a camera, we head out. Everything is still. Maya rushes into the whiteness, thinking she can somehow clutch it. The air is cool without being cold or even nippy. Maya walks the usual circuit around the neighborhood. She stops by at the toy tortoise and starfish outside a nehighbor’s house, a favorite stopping point. “Bye, bye”, she calls out after she’s done touching them and examining them.
A squirrel runs across the road and she points to it. There’s no one out. For some unknown reason, she loves large rocks and stones. She points out one by a neighbor’s house. As I stop to take a picture, she looks at me in surprise and looks down. I forgot to have her pee before she left the house. In her excitement, she forgot to tell me that she wanted to pee. And now, she’s done it on a neighbor’s driveway. We both look furtively around and seeing no one, flee the scene of crime.
She wants to cross the road to a street filled with gingko trees. A solitary mourning dove sits on the wire silent. The morning is without a soundtrack. The leaves have begun their autumn conference. The early delegates, brought in by the storm that blew through earlier this week, crowd the ground. Maya bends down and picks up a few golden gingko leaves. She finally selects two and holds one in each hand as she continues her walk. Most gingko trees are still covered with drak green leaves. But a single gingko tree stands, half barren, with the remaining foliage golden, muted by the sunless sky. I think about life, how some age faster than others. We all age, goes a saying, but only some grow up.
Walking the block with Maya is to be awake to her sense of wonder. Some small pebbles catch her eye. She hands me the gingko leaves and picks up a couple. She examines them carefully, turning them this way and that, all the time commenting to me in a familiar yet unrecognizable tongue. A neighbor walks her dog quickly, vanishing in the mist like some apparition. Bow-wow, says Maya, after her.
As I walk in this early morning mist, scenes from Hindi movies of my childhood rise up. A scene from Silsia, with Amitabh Bachchan and Jaya Bachchan walking a winter morning, ensconced in shawls, and the morning mist ensconcing them all. I remember how much I wanted to see that mist and walk in it. That mist reminds me of my mother yearning to see Kashmir and snow, to walk in the mist too. Now I walk in the mist, my yearning satisfied, but she. She is far from me.
In some other place, birds will be heading south. Here, whales will soon pass us by, migrating south too, to create life. In some other place, it is already south, and they await the birds and the whales. The autumn is not a bad place to be, I think. The days are not too short, nor are they too long. The days are not too hot, nor are they too cold. There is a measure of balance, a place with a perspective to enjoy the days past and the days ahead. Strange thoughts crowd my head on mornings like this.
Maya drops the stones and brings me back to life on this street. She takes back the leaves from me. She wants to cross the street, but it is not an intersection. She reluctantly continues and then. Another tree, another delight. She hands me the leaves again and tries to reach the tree, balancing herself on small rocks strewn around the tree. They shift underfoot, causing her to lose balance. She stretches out her arms, catching herself from falling and continues. She is intent now, all talk ceased. She walks to the tree and hugs it, smiling at her success. I bend down and snap a few pictures.
She looks at me intently and says that she wants to pee. Hold on, I say. I pick her up and walk home quickly. Just a minute, sweetheart, we’ll be home soon. She’s glad to be home, to relieve, to have enjoyed a little romp around the block. And as for I. I’m glad to be alive.
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