Reflections of a restless eccentric

 This is a rather late post (my 5th wedding anniversary was on Feb 7), but better late than never, right? I write this as I reflect on the past five years and how my marriage has evolved over this period. There was so much that I could talk about, and I wasn't sure what to focus on. So I asked myself this: What is the most important and meaningful thing that marriage has given me? And to my surprise, the answer was this. Me. More precisely, a new and improved me. Before you conclude that I've lost my marbles, let me explain. 6 years ago, in 2018, I was just finishing my Masters and starting a new job. It was then that I met my to-be husband. In our very first meeting, I felt that he was a very cheerful, positive and grounding presence. As someone who was very influenced by the energy of people around me, I realized that it was very important to surround myself with uplifting people. And so, I went with my instincts and decided that he was exactly what I needed in a partner. Six...

 For more than 2.5 decades, I have been an animal lover. I find joy in being around animals and watching their behavior. Strangely, my interest never included birds, and I never wondered why. In 2020, my husband bought a camera with 100x zoom, and I felt like this new world of birds opened up to me. It was then that I came to this startling realization - I hadn't been interested in birds because I had never been able to see them clearly. Thanks to my short-sighted vision, I had always seen them as tiny dots in the sky. Other than a crow, pigeon and sparrow, I hadn't seen any birds at close quarters, clearly enough to see their features and identify them. But now, all that had changed. I saw colorful kingfishers, vibrant parrots, an alert owl and so much more.  My husband became an avid bird enthusiast, and I initially just tagged along as company, but later genuinely developed an interest in them. I became good at spotting birds, and the number of birds I could identify went u...

Many of my friends who moved abroad have told me how much they missed the sun. I have empathized with them, but never fully understood what they meant. When I decided to go to Massachusetts for an internship, I said a prayer of thanks that it would be during summer. I love the sun and bright sunny days. What I did not know, and naively did not look into, was that summer came with abundant rain in Amherst. So I packed my summer clothes, leaving most of my rainy and winter clothes at home. The first day I came to Amherst was a cold, rainy afternoon. The skies were dark, and a cold wind threatened to freeze my limbs. My poor fragile umbrella struggled to hold up. It rained incessantly all afternoon and evening, and a feeling of gloom and foreboding set in. Was this how my summer was going to be!? The next day dawned bright and sunny though, and I once again felt cheered up and uplifted. The very next day, as I was walking to work, the skies suddenly opened up without warning, drenching me...