8. Desire, Ask, Believe, Receive

‘Good morning, Sunshine. This is me. I’m right here beside you, your resident lover, who you’ve been looking for all over the map.’

This ditty played in my head one summer’s day – it was a Monday morning – post three cups of unsweetened tea and a sweet New Age/healing arts category book.  I thought to myself, “If one looks closely at yours, mine and ours, it could be argued that from one perspective, all our stories are just that. As the Beatles sang, “All we need is love….””

That evening I went to see a 10-minute film on gender, identity and sexuality directed by an artist friend. Urmi is the story of a transgender person who is in search of true love. Shot in Bollywood style, the simple storyline of this ‘man becomes a woman and finds love after many struggles’ was a poignant pointer to every person’s quest for the self and for a place — call it acceptance — within society. The pain, aspirations and small victories of the mostly-single people in the small auditorium were as palpable as their breathing.

Post the screening, a German girl next to me remarked, “We all seem to be looking for something. Some of us find it on the streets; others find it in spirituality while, the majority finds it in the arms of significant others. But I think you can fully find it only in yourself.”

‘Eat, pray, love’, then, is a simplistic but significant formula on the journey to health and wholeness. All our stories resonate with each other. It comes from the fact that patterns don’t differ too much and we can all be classified into personality types based on archetypes. Or for the less scientific, maybe God really did make us in batches of six.

Looking back, I could see that I had rocked virtually every boat and everyone’s boat from the time she was born. Born in a home that favoured boys –especially fair-skinned ones – over a wheat-complexioned girl who had aspirations to be a working woman, I had walked out of a marriage, lived alone and did things that good girls didn’t do.

That night I slept wrapped up in my own arms and in two cotton comforters. It was a long and contended weekend sleep.

The following week began with a Tabula Rasa.

Love,
Venus

Read Volume 7, here.

About the author: Born with a silver spoon, golden girl Venus is a bright and witty fifty-something, whose persona matches that of her archetype. A wordsmith by profession, she believes in saying it as it is. Cougar mommy, woman of the world, she is part diva, part agony aunt, who believes that her vulnerability is her strength. Her life’s mantra: Find beauty, purpose shall follow.