Surfing and the game of life ...

Day 1: Sunday , the first sunrise we saw at Costa Rica

Surfing is one of the hardest sport to try. It is fascinating how parallels can be drawn between being  successful in Life and being successful in Surfing. Many virtues essential for living a good life are also needed to being good at the Surfing sport. 

Patience: It's a very hard sport to learn and could even be considered as a sport that would take a lifetime to learn. Ie. The level of pro cannot be reached within a set time limit unlike other sports. 

The more you surf, there is always something new to learn depending on the tide we encounter. 

Perseverance: Every body who tries to surf would fall the first time and umpteen times over. The ratio of successful surf could even be as bad as Thomas Edison's route to electricity discovery. i.e.: falling 1000  times and riding the wave succesfully just one time

Opportunity:  Part of the trick to successfully surfing is to wait patiently for the opportune/right wave to take the leap and attempt to surf without falling. 

Growth: The "right" wave could be compared to life's challenges or problems one can attempt to take or solve depending on one's maturity level. ie. An experienced surfer can leap on the big tides whereas a beginner would patiently wait for the smaller tides. 

Courage/ Ability to fight fears: The tides can be dawnting. Especially for a beginner who is not very familiar with swimming in the ocean. Part of the trick to success at learning to surf is to be unafraid/ avoid negative emotions such as fear of the rising tides/ fear of the unknown and taking the leap with mere trust in self.  

Practical experience:  No amount of reading alone would help one get good at surfing. No amount of training/ core conditioning/ practicing paddling on the board outside water would help as much as actually diving into the water with the board. The only way to successful surfing (just like life) is to actually take the plunge and DO it.

  

Risk: A high risk sport. Can fall off the board and sprain an ankle/ knee. The board can hit your head/cut your face. If the waters are too rough/ if we are in too deep we may even drown. 

Luck: Somedays the weather may just be plain bad with lot of high tides. This could even make it not possible to surf for the day/days in a row. Similar to life as to how we never know for sure if we will be alive the next day to get a chance to play the game of life :)!

 It is definitely not easy to understanding these realities , to accept them and keep going on and on !

But the reward, the sweet reward of doing so ................................  

  .........................is to discover your capability to Surf for Life ;).

Pura Vida! Aka 'Real Living' ....

On popular request am writing this real quick prelude post on my recent Costa Rican volunteering trip.
The trip has been the "Week of my Life" trip till date for several reasons which I will pen down in future posts soon.

However, the top most reason for me to make such a statement is mainly attributed to the wisdom/experience I feel like I gained from the trip. This below picture rightly summarizes the wisdom I gained from this memorable volunteering trip.

Wisdom from a Costa Rican Tree

Recapturing these above pearls of wisdom in case the lettering is not clear in the picture for chance blog readers !

Stand tall and proud

Sink your roots into the earth

Be content with your natural beauty

Go out on a limb

Drink plenty of water

Remember your roots

Enjoy the view!

And yea, the reason for such a short prelude post about such a super hyped trip that totally psyched me?
Hmm .. have 'nt you read about the profound statement made by great Shakespeare in Hamlet ~ one of the most powerful ancient plays?
                           
                              Well it goes something like this, and guess it makes a lot of sense too ;)

...................................................................Brevity is the Soul of Wit !!

Boston Musings ...

The last day of a memorable vacation! Can't believe how time seems to fly so quickly when I am doing things I really enjoy. Started the day by planning a small surprise for my friend and was glad to see it work :). Over breakfast at Starbucks me and my friend had a retrospective conversation about the trip including planning etc  . After bidding adieu to my friend I headed to the Apple store at Boston(the largest Apple store in the US). The news of Steve Jobs death during my vacation had disturbed me internally. It felt weird to know that the person whose products had really gotten me interested in electronic gadgets is no more. This event made me contemplate and hope that Apple would continue to design innovative products that will not disappoint it's fans or bhakts like me ;). Several fans had paid their homage at the entrance of the store with flowers and letters.

Posing in front of Apple store with mixed emotions !

Next I headed to the Old State House building. This building was also located near the site where the Boston Massacre took place. This was one of the points of interests of the Freedom Trail tour. A book on Freedom Trail self guide caught my eye as I was browsing through a gift shop. The book was written by a former freedom trail guide and I purchased it being fascinated with the depth of information and history the author had published in it. I decided to spend my last few hours in the city by following the freedom trail. It was a fascinating experience to follow the red trail line with the guide book in hand.

I passed by The Old State House, Boston Massacre Site, Quincy Market, Faneuil Hall and bunch of other historic sites as part of the trail. It was interesting to read the history behind each one of these places as I walked past them. The entire journey made me recollect stories I had read off my high school history text book and as well contemplate on the fact that India was not the only country in having to fight for freedom from the clutches of the British Government.

 Below are some pictures captured alongside my walking tour.

Street Musician playing a lovely romantic note of Titanic

A Chance car crash scene shoot in a movie

 6 memorial glass towers!

                      

Each of these glass towers had some words of experiences from the concentration camp survivors engraved . As I read the first four towers, I was shocked and sad to read what these people had to endure for no clear fault of theirs save having been said to have born under a particular race. The societal evil racism had been rampant in the lives of these innocent people. The intensity of their experiences progressed from bad to worse with each glass tower. It was the brutal truth and I was not able to read the experiences written beneath the last two towers.  

As I progressed further I passed by Greenway park. I found it to be a wonderful place for people watching :).

Kid enjoying life playing amidst water fountain

The next site North End turned out to be quite lovely. It is a colorful neighborhood filled with plenty of Italian Restaurants and pastry shops. Was happy to have landed there just around lunch time :).

I swear I could go on and on about each of the historic sites I visited, but with best interest have written briefly only about a select few :). For folks who are really interested in more detailed information about these places visit http://www.thefreedomtrail.org/ or plan a trip to Boston and explore it by foot like I did to get the best experience :). And yea, touring boston downtown will be an informative and unique experience unlike those of New York/ San Francisco downtown regions :). 

The entire trail made me vicariously experience American History !  Finishing my last post on this vacation trip, the state of my mind while I fly back to San Francisco is that of joyful reminiscence of the lovely days filled with excitement and spent well away from technology and social media :).

                                      A rejuvenating vacation spent "Princess-Style" indeed ;) .

The cog railway teddy bear surprise from my friend would be a gift I would treasure from this trip besides the travel experience :). And now am recharged to go back to the grind with eager anticipation of my next travel adventure :D.

स्मरणं ! Aka Remembering

 While I look forward to my upcoming trip to Costa Rica this spring I can't help but reminisce the  indescribable beauty of the tulips in Seattle I was lucky to visit last spring with some good friends. I knew then that the memory of an ecstatic experience in nature will sustain throughout life and bring joy for years .. 

Just as the bird sings or the butterfly soars, because it is his natural characteristic, so the artist works.
  ~ Alma Gluck

Courtesy: Aarthi's photography

Seeing these tulip pictures makes me still feel their wonderful presence around me, I hope it does for the chance blog readers too !

While I joyfully reveled in the beauty of these wonderful tulips William WordsWorth's poem Daffodils was stuck in my mind for a long time. I could not have better appreciated this poem of his until this experience. I felt like he had raced ahead of me in time and expressed my thoughts through his poem. Whilst being a poem appreciator then, I make this below attempt now to be an amateur poet :)! Though may not be as expressive as him and his work, I feel this is still worth something to be posted on my blog!

Spreading their wonderful  wings, and
Flying in air amongst colorful tulips, and

Gliding; That is their favorite pastime
Definitely not a waste of time

Fluttering amidst nature's gardens 

Wonderful creations nurtured by god
That's what beautiful butterflies do
For being happy without much ado!
 

Whilst I relive the memory in my mind's eye

                                           

I dreamed I was a butterfly, floating amongst these tulips
then reality hit me, and now I wonder

Am I a woman who dream t of being a butterfly, or 

Am I a butterfly dreaming that I am a woman? 

 

                                                              ~ True "Mockai" Artist Vidya  

Mystic(al) musings ...

Draft from an earlier day

Finally making it's way ...! 

Day 3 - Mystic(al) Sea Port

Pure Enchantment !

Starting afresh today we were delighted by a random sweet gesture by our waitress. Me and my friend then headed to the museum Mystic Sea Port. Being my first exposure to a nautical museum I would say this place was indeed mystical as the name suggests. To get the best out of this place, I would suggest visiting this place during a weekday to avoid the crowd and explore the place in great detail at a comfortable pace . Which is what we did and I felt totally enchanted at the end of the day. I felt I could relate to this place a lot and couldn't help but compare the whale ship described below to present modern day ships I had sailed on as a child with my dad.
                                                                                 
          

Charles W Morgan

We first started exploring the Charles W Morgan whale-ship built in 1841, which is currently being renovated as part of a 4 year project and is expected to be set to sail again in 2 years time . The entire process of blubber extraction right from capture of whales to boiling the fat in a furnace(to extract oil) was explained in depth by the museum guide. Throughout my tour of this ship I could not help but recollect fond memories of sailing in passenger ships with dad and family, and draw comparisons to differences/similarities on how this ship had been built and operated. The major striking difference was that this being a sail boat did not need an engine room, fuel etc . It was indeed fascinating to learn how the sails were hoisted and how such a big ship was operated using sails . The bottom deck had rooms for captain, first mate, second mate etc and their wives. Seeing these rooms made me reminisce the time I had spent in my dad's cabin/ room during long voyages at sea.

Next we got to see how the printing press functioned in the 19 Th. century.  The museum guide patiently explained the entire process despite her busy schedule. It was interesting to observe how this process has evolved leading to present modern printers which has simplified the experience of printing to such a great extent.

The process of printing explained in detail by these pictures below. 

Wooden block print form used to print a picture

Rolling the ink

Pressing to get the imprint

Pulling the tray to get the printed paper

Lead characters placed in the required order

The Lead Character Set

               

Fun fact from documentary "Ancient Inventions" by Terry Jones, the Koreans were the ones who had invented the idea of using movable lead pieces for printing words on paper.

Final Output

As I type this blog post, changing colors, changing fonts, setting Italics and Bold on characters so easily within fraction of seconds, I cant help but imagine how tedious and meticulous it would be for me to do the same during the 19 th century.

Truly grateful to technology, indeed I am !

On a lighter note, Can you guess the amount of time it would have taken to create the printed paper on the left ? ;)

Though we missed the planetarium show by a whisker, we got to see the sailor's navigation room with models explaining these concepts on navigation.

• Round earth to flat map
• Direction n speed
• Measuring an angle
• Finding latitude n longtitude

Some more things that we checked out that made this museum visit a worth while one of a kind experience ...

Making of Barrels

                     The instructions in these pills were hilarious. They read something like "Consume until symptoms go away". It was evident that the doctors at that time were not aware of the concept of overdose. Also most of these had a considerable amount of alcohol in them.

Sailor's Drug Store

The rectangular box below is the water tank, and this engine used to be hand-driven by workers. Fire-fighting back then seems indeed strenuous besides it's risky nature.

19 th Century Fire Engine

                             

Horse Carriage Ride

Sailor's Reading room for recreation

A cute lighthouse

                            

We ended the mystical museum visit with an enchanting ride on a steam ship which is the last coal fired steam ship since 1908 consuming about 1000 pounds of coal per day ..



  Serene scenes from the ship ride--->                  

  The gentle ripples the steam ship created, made the water beneath feel like as if I was riding on a violet velvety satin cloth !

Must say, the detailed insight of the lives of sailors of the 19 Th. century that I got from this museum also made me better understand/imagine how my dad's life would have been while he was a sailor!  

 

We ended the day (true to every word in this sentence), by having the best pizza ever our lives at Mystic Pizza !

Fun Fact: A Julia Roberts movie was screened at this place Mystic Pizza

More colorful posts from the trip next ;) !...

स्मृति ! aka That which is remembered

Reminiscing Crater Lake :)

There was a young woman new to the city

Though she was witty                                                                                   

She knew not many a friendly soul in the city

Then she met a very nice person

Whose friends welcomed her in warm unison
They took her along in their trip to Oregon 
And showed her for no fee
A piece of nature, she had not anticipated to see

The beauty of the scenery

Was a symbol of nature's grand finery

The sense of wonder, upon seeing the lake

Was a joyful memory in time, for her to take                                              

                                                               ~ "True Mocka Artist" Vidya 


While I am in the middle of writing about the recent memorable Boston trip, my mind drifted to the past and the memory of my crater lake visit with a bunch of enthusiastic people came to my mind. Reminiscing it's beauty makes me perceive to some extent the state of mind John Keats should have been while writing the poem A Think of Beauty is a Joy Forever . These thoughts led to an amateur's quick attempt at this above poem :).  

 

Cape Cod musings ...

 Day 2 - Beach via Bike


Enthused by the ghost tour trip yesterday night we started the day visiting the shore of Plymouth Harbor. This shore is the traditional site of disembarkation of Plymouth Rock  and the Mayflower Pilgrims. Note the Plymouth rock engraving of the year 1620 to mark the year the Pilgrims had landed at Plymouth.

                                                 In the background Mayflower Ship Model

Next we headed to watch the whale tours. But as luck would have it, the tour was not operating today. Bummer ! So we chose a back up plan of biking along the Cape Cod Rail Trail to check out the Coast Gaurd Beach and the back up plan turned out to be more awesome . The Cape Cod Rail Trail follows a former railroad right-of-way for 22 miles through the towns of Dennis, Harwich, Brewster, Orleans, Eastham and Wellfleet.

We rented bikes from a small local bike shop at Brewster, though I did wish I have been able to bike the trail on my Absolute 2.0 bike instead as the rental bike was no where near my baby . We started biking the trail from Brewster taking a detour at Salt Pond Visitor Center. The state of not knowing what lies ahead but yet being excited about it termed something as "adventure" in mundane words lurked in my mind. We chugged along the way and when we had almost reached the beach shore(which we were not aware of then) we contemplated heading back to be able to return the rental bikes on time. With no 3G signal coverage, we were lucky to meet 2 tourists in the lonely bike trail who enthusiastically gave us the good news that we were only 2 miles away from the place and that the view was definitely worth the effort .  Inspired we continued along the windy mysterious path ...

                                           .... Only to be spell bound by what we saw at the end .

                       

                                                                 Coast Guard Beach


Coast Guard Beach is part of the Cape Cod National Seashore. A favorite among Outer Cape tourists, it is recognized as one of America's top ten beaches, as good as Hawaii or Florida.

Next we had a refreshing break way back at Hot Chocolate Sparrow. A famous chocolate/cafe shop of the locals. Our bike ride back was wonderful. More relaxed with the knowledge that we had enough time to reach the bike shop on time. These following words best describe my thoughts at that moment.  

Soaking in the environment of thick dense trees to the either side of us, tinges of orange/violet/unknown shades of color in some leaves(beautiful they were whether they were on a tree or had fallen to the ground), occasional appearances of ponds with rare glimpses of snow white ducks, coal dark geese, a mystical tunnel, winding roads with just the right amount of steep to make me feel curious, challenged, and above all rewarded !.

Experiencing these thoughts, I returned the bike with my friend and we headed to checkout the lighthouse near Coast Guard Beach by car. A small lighthouse operating though quaint in appearance, we saw. While we were searching for parking amidst dead ends and private homes a small distant wooden chair caught my eye. Curious was I as ever to see why it was placed there and what was lying ahead of it. After dealing with car parking logistics, I scampered towards it. As I approached the chair I realized that it was not one but a pair of wooden chairs . As for what the chairs were facing, am indeed at a loss of words to describe. A mental picture of this place will stay in my memory for sure but I reckoned capturing it in a camera is something that will benefit others who see it as well. Though the latter might not be as good in quality as the former, it is still something ... . 

                                                          

A day well spent !  More on rest of the vacation in further posts:) ! 

Plymouth musings ..

Day 1 - very first day of a going to be memorable road trip along Boston Area ( credits to an enthusiastic friend's attention to details :)

Today has been one of those rare days which begins with no big expectations and ends up making you feel so much wonder for the place you visited. The trip started with unexpected kindness from the enterprise rep who gave us a SUV upgrade for no charge in addition to waiving the additional driver fee .

Plymouth - A gentle introduction to American History

Me and my friend hurried from the airport to the hotel and bought tickets for the Ghost Lantern Tour at Plymouth. The tour is operated by Colonial Lantern company a pioneer in organizing a professionally guided tour narrating the history of this region. More info if interested at: http://lanterntours.com/ .

Frankly, I never knew such tours existed and though I was skeptical in the beginning ended up valuing being a part of the tour . I started the tour with another company and later joined back my friend and the Colonial Lantern  tour guide. Well, am not afraid to admit that I momentarily chickened out at the start of the tour deserting my friend to go by herself, only to join the tour again at a later stage with a brave spirit. I did create some excitement in the group of being "the missing person" in a middle of a cemetery late at night . 

The tour started at the foothill of burial hill.The burial ground founded in the 17 century which is the first Pilgrim burial ground.  This place is very rich in terms of American History and has been a witness of the Pilgrim's lives. The Pilgrims' story of seeking religious freedom has become a central theme of the history and culture of the United States. .Plymouth Colony (sometimes New Plymouth, or Plymouth Bay Colony) formed by Pilgrims was an English colonial venture in North America from 1620 to 1691. The settlement, which served as the capital of the colony, is today the modern town of Plymouth, Massachusetts.

                                                    The cemetery during the day 
The tour guide was enthusiastic and dramatic and did a wonderful job at creating a spooky environment/ mood to the audience. Since the group was large I guess I became brave enough to walk amidst the burial ground at night with a Lantern listening to hairy ghost stories. An experience which was truly one of a kind ! Beyond being mere ghost stories, must say this was a wonderful exposure to American History. As part of the tour we got a chance to see the burial ground of several notable Pilgrims and as well listen to many interesting stories such as those of Captain John Smith - the initial surveyor of Plymouth region for settlement.. Grueling stories around Kind Philips's war( one of the earliest Indian wars) in the middle of the night narrated passionately by a local tour guide walking down Leyden Street, (claimed to be the first street in Plymouth Colony).

                                           In the background, first church of Plymouth
A must visit for any one interested in American history etc.And yeah, the ghost tour would definitely be a A Walk to Remember !