Any stigma, as the old saying is, will serve to beat a dogma

 

Today's topic may sound a bit weird but I feel, we should be able to talk about everything. Hence, today I am going to talk about body hair!!!

Body hair or androgenic hair or terminal hair that develops on human body during and after puberty. This is usually light and not much visible whether it's on a male or female body.

"Until women themselves reject stigma and refuse to feel shame for the way others treat them, they have no hope of achieving full human stature." ~ Germaine Greer

However, the topic is taking a turn because the body hair grows on both men and women but why only women have to think of shaving them or removing them ? 

Because someone has set the standard for women that they should not show these body hair which is natural yet, they have to remove it if they want to wear clothes such as shorts, skirts, or dresses.

"By telling my own story, I hope to help remove the stigma. It never should be something to hide." ~ Richard Dreyfuss

It reminds me of my school days when I was an athlete - a runner, field hockey player and volley ball player. Sometimes people used to call me a tom boy but it never bothered me.

Sports is a passion and whether I play or not watching them and keeping track of few teams whether its soccer, cricket, hockey and ice-hockey I love it all.

So when you are focused into a sport I don't think I ever gave a thought on my looks and my body hair. On the hockey field I was always with shorts and t-shit and I did a good job on the field.

"Take care of your body. It's the only place you have to live." ~ Jim Rohn

I never heard anyone saying anything about my body hair but praising my game and performance on the matches that I played for my school, which means if no one bothers you, it doesn't matter to you.

After many many years ago a friend from those days messaged me and reminded me of school days and said, we boys used to come see your game and one think we noticed that you never waxed your legs.

I laughed out to that and said, did you really watch my game that time? It didn't matter to me and I didn't get offended and I feel even today that's how I will be. I should remove hair if I feel like not because of society pressure or what men will think.

"Why we have to be so ashamed of our body hair which is natural given to us by nature?" ~ Dawn

This is something I have heard from home as a teenager not to raise hands when you wear a sleeveless top because its a shame to show your armpit hair, you are always supposed to wear clothes that will cover your armpit but guess what, my legs were not covered because I was always on the ground playing sports.

We women have to start accepting and embracing our body hair only then we can get rid of such stigma that's been imposed for generations after generation.

I think we all have the right to live as we want to, as long as we are not harming anyone, that's my way of saying let's live and let others live !!!!

PS: Watch out how many products will go down the drain ...lol!!!!

~ Dawn

Keep love in your heart..!

 

How many of you do gardening? I do gardening as a hobby and as a kid I started first with indoor plants. We had huge garden in the house in front and in the backyard. 

The backyard was not very spacious for gardening since we had huge mango trees which used to give immense of shade that other plants didn't had much hope to get sunlight.

"Who loves a garden loves a greenhouse too." ~ William Cowper

My front yard and my living room was always filled with greenery as I used to love to decorate the interior with real plants. And the garden had all kinds of flowers such as jasmine, rose, trees such as cashew, papaya, guava, mango, jackfruit and tapioca, yam and many more..! 

I have a green thumb as they say, because the plants that people would say is dead and throw away, I used to bring them home and bring them to life. 

It's a great feeling when a plant is revived and you see they are flowering and spreading the fragrance of joy, it soothes you.

Lately, I see lot of people took gardening as a hobby during this pandemic and I think this is the best thing to do because it not only gives you, vegetables, flowers but it also helps with your mental and physical wellness.

"If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need." ~ Marcus Cicero

Gardening, planting trees is not only for your individual health but it also helps to resolve with air pollution and the climate change issues.

These days with national health services also, gardening is considered as a therapeutical because many times our health doesn't need medicine but therapeutic and nurturing is what we need. Everyone is in the rat race and they forget that this is impacting their health at such time medicine can help you temporarily but the medicines also have side effects. When you are young your body may cope but as you age things are tough because medicine can also be harmful for that age and gardening for health is what is recommended. A regular dose of gardening is what we all need, a green care or therapy by exposure to plants and gardening.

"The flower that smells the sweetest is shy and lowly" ~ William Wordsworth 

Many studies in UK and around the world has proven that looking at a green space is much less depression, anxiety and stress.

I remember reading once about therapeutical gardens near hospitals for patients mental health wellness, even at prison gardening has always helped.

Nature has its own way to take care of us mentally and physically. Sunlight as it lowers the blood pressure so does it gives Vitamin D, the fruits and vegetables have a positive impact on the diet and working in the garden is like aerobic exercise and guess what these are not expensive like some of the medical treatments.

Love nature and be with nature you will see the positive change in you!

"And forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair" ~ Khalil Gibran

~ Dawn

There is nothing certain, but the Uncertain

 

Have come across situations where you were planning something and a completely different situation you were placed in? I am sure many of us have been in that situation and many times we panic and create chaos for ourselves.

My experience have been like that as I never planned traveling outside of India. I was very comfortable in my space and that was in Pune, Maharashtra. But situation brought some uncertainties in life and I ended up in Toronto, Canada. 

As an educated person you would think, you have masters degree and hence you should get a reasonably well paying job for a living. The situation is never like that at least that's what I had, in the name of job a simple receptionist job or even a office assistant job was difficult to get. 

"Uncertainty is the most stressful feeling".

New place, new beginnings but I have bills to pay - so how did I cope with this situation?

First of all my internal thought process, many times we think what will happen as things didn't go as per our plan and hence we worry and panic. I am a person who can't stay for long in a panic mode but I know the panic situation will not just go away without taking any effort. So I thought to just focus on what's the immediate thing that I can do to solve things so one step at a time. This has often given me a breather. Any situation, you need to take a deep breath and let that oxygen go into your brain and lungs so you have a freshness of thoughts. 

"Life's most precious gift is Uncertainty" ~ Yoshida Kenko

You know how we talk about pluck the low hanging fruits from a tree?, as that's easier and if there's a way to get it done then might as well do that first.  Small wins give you hope and motivation for your next steps and one by one you only rise up from your situation to a better one.

So, uncertainty in life doesn't have to be filled with chaos and worries and any change in life doesn't have to be filled with failures. All you need to do is focus on the current situation and try to mitigate the problem one at a time so that you can move forward towards that will make you relax and happy.

"When nothing is sure, everything is possible" ~ Margaret Drabble 

~ Dawn  

The purpose of our lives is to be happy

It has been a while since I have written anything. It's not that I have lost the passion to write or I don't have any topic to write...! It's just been a self-learning journey since last year.

The entire world was experiencing the impact of pandemic and I was just getting back from my trip to India. I was thinking great things about the year 2020 since I was able to spend time with my family and parents during the new year and so was happy to return back in California.

That time news of corona was vaguely heard here and there but by the time I resumed to my work, stories started erupting from different places and by the time I could process it, stay in shelter was declared by my company and my county too.

Life is what happens when you're busy making other plans. ~ John Lennon

The initial period was more or less like a staycation, that doesn't mean that we were not working or kids were not attending their classes. It was just that everyone is at home, we go to our work by joining our meeting calls via zoom and meet each other during our breaks, lunch time and best part is that there is no pick-up, drop-off or even commute to office. All this gave more family time, and kids and our pet Reyna enjoyed this reunion at home. Kids were baking and we as husband and wife were cooking. 

In a way pandemic made us realize that there's more to life than just rushing and racing through out in life. The best part for me was that I could sit hours in my backyard and look at nature, I will never get bored of admiring the nature, the birds, the flowers, the fruits, the wild animals that just drop in at times and leave at their will. I never got tired and hence my office moved into my backyard.

Get busy living or get busy dying. ~ Stephen King

My early morning meetings were all from my backyard, the only thing that made me to move inside the house was, that even birds and squirrels wanted to join me on zoom. Too many to party at once!

That year 2020, was full of adjustments and unlearning and learning new ways. When I started getting pain on my right hand shoulder, I realized I cannot just work sitting anywhere but at a ergonomically set desk for me. 

It also made me realize all that cross-fit that I was doing has also come at a still. I was eating more than I was walking. I soon realize that our body is like a car, if we don't daily start the engine and ride few miles it can get rusty and hence, my afternoon walk circling the neighborhood going uphill and downhill up to 5 miles and then doing some leg exercise in the evening. This went on few months but somewhere I was not satisfied. 

I tried to focus on learning some of the skills that will help me in my career and my role at work. Few certifications on technology and Agile course helped me to bring more clarity but after doing so many of them, I felt like taking a pause and decided no more!

I like to learn by doing things and not by reading and then writing exams. I prefer to learn on the job and do the work and learn from my mistakes.

I set some goals for myself and took the help of my daughter, I delegated her the task to pick a place for every weekend one hike. She has the freedom to choose the place and day. That worked well for us, every Saturday we went to different places in Bay Area for hiking and as we did one after the other, the hiking trail were also chosen harder than the previous one and this actually helped me to focus on my endurance. 

You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough. ~ Mae West

So far, my mental wellness was all in the hands of Mother Nature and hiking gave a new diversion into it.

One thing is that you can focus on yourself from every angle but you cannot be unaware of what's happening outside of you. It was sad to see news of people suffering and dying of covid around the world. There were speculations of many companies (pharmaceuticals and non-pharmaceuticals), working on the vaccine and I became impatient with that because people were dying in millions. This started giving me a weird feeling as what will remain on this planet? Will I be there or not? 

One good thing is that we don't watch news, but my alarm after the mantras, it reads news to me and I felt that was enough for me to know rather than watching the drama on TV. Even then it was chaos everywhere. One after the other I heard about people dying and then a time came when I started to hear people whom I have known since childhood are also dying, some of them were my classmates from school and some from my college. It was heart-breaking and sad to see young people dying and then some died because lack of treatment - it was chaotic. 

The way I see it, if you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain. ~ Dolly Patron  

Stay in shelter, continued and so did my hikes. New Year 2021, came with new hopes. By this time, I reminded myself that nature has a message for all of us and that is, stay home, see pleasure and happiness in simple things. The car that I leased after negotiating for greater miles was of no use as I was not even going out for grocery. I remember 2020, I didn't leave my house until late 2020 because you cannot go out as a family and during week day hubby used to do the grocery shopping and weekends were stay at home. Playing badminton, celebrating life in the form of Mother's Day, kids birthday and so on went on. Everything was online, whether it was work, kids school, celebrations or even gatherings all were virtual and somewhere I started getting this feel that this is the basic and be happy with it.

Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up. ~ Thomas A. Edison

The year 2021, came with many hopes and even though there were so many speculations about covid and its vaccine, everyone one by one based on their age and profession started getting the vaccine. These difficult time made me realize how privileged I am, that I have a job and that too I don't have to go into my office to do the job instead, I can work from home. As the time came, I also got my vaccine and until then we as a family restricted ourselves from going out, or even meeting anyone outside of our family. We did keep an eye on our neighbors and senior citizens to make sure if they need anything that we could bring to them instead of they going out and make themselves more prone to this virus. We maintained our 6 feet distance with wearing mask and talked to our neighbors all this and more hikes with family.

Never let the fear of striking out keep you from playing the game. ~ Babe Ruth

This new year also brought me to think some of my passions and love for music. I decided to learn guitar and that is still going on. Besides nature, music and playing guitar gives me immense peace and hence started strumming those chords. During this time, I started meeting my friends on the hike. We never went to each other's house but met on the trail and left from there once we were done. It was one of those hikes, where my friend asked if I am interested in doing Half Dome. I have only heard of it but not much and I just brushed off saying will see. I was given 3 months time to make a decision but I forgot about that topic once it was done!

Again the topic came up and I realized its been 3 months and now I have to respond. My friend felt I am ready for Half Dome and little more practice hikes will help me gauge with the Half Dome hike. I was added into a WhatsApp group and we started hiking on Sundays, as Saturdays I was hiking with my daughter. 

Hiking for me is something to enjoy the nature, it is never the speed, because I believe in walking, seeing every flower, tree and sun and smell the flowers and listen to the wild birds chirp so I was completely shifted from this when I was practicing my hikes for Half Dome.

Not how long, but how well you have lived is the main thing. ~ Seneca

I really want to dedicate my next post on my Half Dome experience until then please do read and share your experience of this pandemic time.

I do want to take a moment and thank all the front workers, health, firefighters, our garbage pickup teams, and many more who were risking their lives by helping us in many ways to keep us going. It's a huge sacrifice that they did and I want to thank everyone, because if they were not there our survival would have been worse. Imagine, if one week the garbage truck doesn't come to pick up the garbage and then what happens its not just one home but the neighborhood, the community, the city and so forth we all be stinking in the filth. 

Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced. ~ Soren Kierkegaard

~ Dawn