As a third grade Geography teacher, I taught my kids about seasons – the four distinct seasons in India, the winter (January and February), the summer (March to May), the monsoons/rains (June to September), and the post-monsoon/autumn (October to December) and their beauty. As India welcomed a simmering summer, it also went into the world’s largest democratic general elections – equally heated so far…
On the other side of the globe, the white noise has finally disappeared. What followed, left me quite breathless. Snow and white gave way to blossoms and green. Coats gave way to light sweaters, boots gave way to sandals, and woolens gave way to floral sun-dresses, and jeans gave way to salmon, aquamarine, and khaki bonobo shorts. My first official “spring” finally arrived.
After hearing a ton about the cherry blossoms on the mall at Washington DC I was disappointed that I couldn’t catch them during spring break. But what I saw outside my own apartment and all over Darden left me speechless. Often I would find myself smiling at the blossoms on my walk back home form a day filled with extremely challenging MBA studies taken way too seriously just to realize that the simplest things in life were really just that simple. You will know what I mean when you look at these colors. Shades I didn’t know existed and patterns I didn’t think were created yet.
Breezy & sunny morning with long days were perfect for many things. Barbeque parties, group discussion in the Flagler court in the course “Establishing yourself at work”, procrastinating about data analysis and optimization cases and exams, long lazy lunches with bloody marys, and the fox field races! Darden Alumni come back to meet their batch mates and indulge in a weekend long of festivities during these popular Virginian races. They were every bit the “little women” in hats and fascinators and men in bonobo pastel shorts and loafers. It reminded me of horse riding lessons I took as a child, derby races and polo matches at the turf club in Pune India, of books I had read, and movies I had watched of the old America where people had more wealth than they could exhaust in a lifetime and more time than they needed to relax.
Finally, after getting myself to finish the last exams of the first year MBA, having shopped like there was no tomorrow, trying to fit it all in two 23 kilogram suitcases, still ending up 5 kilos over weight, convincing Etihad airways that this was my first time back home in almost a year, sitting here at the Dulles airport with another hour to go, looking back at the whirlwind of the year that was… the inhibitions, the excitement, the craziness, the frustrations, the failures, the lessons learnt, the triumphs, the tribulations, the euphoria, the calm…it is time… it is time to take a break…it is time to go home… To familiarity, to family, to friends, to vote, and to fill myself up to the brim with all of the above to make it back here…for a new season and to embark on a wonderful & exciting summer adventure… See you again in a month, the US of A!
Life Work Doodles 