Of Poetry and Pasois

With a dose of sun, sea, and solitude.

When I first started traveling, and I mean travel for travel’s sake, it was to explore different places and cultures. I soon realized there was much more to travel — it was education. I was learning about the world (and myself) on every trip, gaining valuable perspectives that cannot always be obtained from books and media. When quarter-life crisis hit, it also became a form of escape. When life felt stagnant, I moved. Traveling to different places, meeting new people, tasting different cuisines, and sleeping on unfamiliar beds meant embracing whatever the world had to offer without being attached to how I would like things to be. When I felt numb and empty, new experiences inspired new thoughts and emotions - even some fleeting moments of joy.

(C) Mary Oliver

My recent travels - especially during the pandemic years - have been more of staycations than exploratory travel. I’ve sought comfort in places that feel like home. Safe and secluded, set up with a lot of love and care by the hosts, and close to nature - be it in the mountains or by the sea. These spaces have offered silence, solitude, and spectacular sunsets.

Sunsets have a way of leaving me in awe every time. It doesn’t matter where I am witnessing them — time slows down, even as the sky changes color with each passing second. Birds chirp their way home, while clouds play hide and seek. If mountains and the sea remind me of how I’m just a speck in the universe, sunsets have a way of reminding me of a higher power. In that moment, that moment is all that matters.

(C) Ila Reddy

Sometimes, sunsets bring out the inner child in me. Since they offer so much happiness and hope, I find myself wanting more. Answers. Insights. Direction. 

When I don’t receive any of these, I shift my attention to the waves. The sight of them coming towards me and receding back. The sound of them crashing. The scent, the rhythm. For now, this is enough.

(C) Mary Oliver

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I took to poetry recently. I didn’t seek it out, rather whatever I needed to read on a given day came to me. It appeared on my social media feed, was shared by a friend, or mentioned in an article. In each instance, the words struck me so deep that it felt like fate. The universe speaking to me - gifting me words I needed to read to feel seen and heard.

(C) L.E. Bowman

My sudden love for poetry - to the extent that on some days it feels like the only language I can understand and relate to - came as a surprise to me because prior to this it was not a genre I enjoyed. As a young reader, I read fiction and nonfiction books way ahead of my age, but poems always felt out of reach - either in language or meaning, even as an adult. There was an underlying pressure to understand the deeper meaning behind what a poet was trying to say through rhyming words - sometimes unnecessarily complex words - that the art form was lost on me. This has more to do with my own lack of exposure and mental block, but the little poetry I read in school put me off the genre for a long time.

Until I came across Mary Oliver’s poems. 

Her simple articulations, profound thoughts, and meditations on nature moved me. Her poems opened up a new way of viewing the world, my life, and myself.

(C) Mary Oliver

(C) Mary Oliver

In addition to Mary Oliver’s poems, I discovered many old and new poets through poetry handles on Instagram. It soon became a form of therapy - helping me process my own experiences and emotions when I didn’t have the words to express them myself.

Maria Popova recently wrote in The Marginalian:

“While good art — be it a painting or a poem, a novel or a song — makes our ordinary lives more livable, great art makes them transcendent. It casts a spell of enchantment on the moment and on the epochs, transporting us both away from and deeper into the common plane of living, unlatching some new dimension of consciousness that clarifies us to ourselves.”

I agree.

On days when poems don’t come to me, I find solace in my daily night walk. It opens up the pores of my mind. It helps me focus my attention on the present moment, detached from the past and the future. I notice the different shapes of the leaves strewn across the walking path in the park, the snails crawling from point to point in the darkness, and crushed jasmine flowers glittering under the moonlight. I sometimes pause to swing in the children’s play area, gazing up at the moon. For a few moments, the world is a magical place. 

(C) L.E. Bowman

In Konkani, leisurely strolls are called pasois. It is my favorite way of exploring new places, but also exploring my own mind and thoughts. I’ve found that walking and thinking, as well as walking and talking, go hand in hand. I am far more attentive while walking, which aids conversation, including with myself. It also aids memory, and I have come to associate certain conversations (be it with a friend or listening to a podcast) with the places where I heard them, and vice versa. Maybe it’s because my entire body is engaged while walking that my brain feels stimulated, and hence more focused and mindful. I’m not sure about the science behind this, but sometimes pasois are similar to poetry — they allow us to examine a moment in time.