2013 A Personal Rewind

By vinodnarayan on December 31, 2013 • ( 2 )

Every year is different and why shouldn’t it be so…. if we have two consecutive years moving the same way then there is a problem….. so 2013 was different from 2012… It was a much busier year…. more busy than what I would want it to be… There was not much balance between work and life….. but then life is not a balancing act because chances are high that if you balance you will fall sometime…. so you should let go… at times it might swing far into work and sometime otherwise… nevertheless many things will happen and got done, enjoy the moment when you have it…. here is a long synopsis…. a personal rewind….

Events
One of the interesting and happy thing that happened this year was that my wife got to co-host a radio show that blends her passion for music and poetry in Hindi and urdu Language… so hopefully the year 2014 will have a lot of excitement in stock in that arena… Thanks to the main host and the radio company Radio zindagi for giving her the opportunity… and thanks for the support from listeners and friends…

Rhea moved into High school and Rahi moved up from kinder to first grade…. He started reading and hopefully will get the love for books and stories… With a teenage high schooler and first grader you can imagine the eventfulness of life…

Love has been in the air like last year and will feed more into that air into 2014…..

Reading
My reading list remains still the same when I started the year… not one book that I was able to complete… this was in comparison to the 20+ books I was able to cover during my year long Bart commutes in previous years… Luckily I realized this early and switched to reading more poetry due to the lack of time and that decision was quite rejuvenating in itself…. An excellent atmosphere created by nicanor parra, cesar vallejo, Neruda, Octavio Paz, Ernesto Cardinal, Robert Bly, William Stafford and others…

What fascinated me most was my introduction to the poems of the late Paul Zweig…. in a book that covers the last poems of Paul edited by C.K Williams…. it was a treat…. it is worth to buy a copy and add to the library…. books have also overflown into the garage with my India trip this year and need to find a place to keep them all….

Movies
Though time was less I put a Kindle on my elliptical and that way was able to quench my thirst for movies part by part daily…. There were lot of movies I watched and will list some of the ones that come to my mind… Detachment (English), The Sicilian Girl (Italian), Mesrine Part 1 and 2 (French), Sleepless Night (French), Even the Rain (Spanish), Butterfly (spanish), Balibo (Australian), House of Cards (Netflix Original Series), Kalpanik (Bengali), Gomorrah (Spanish) and many others…

Writing
Writing happened…. sometimes I did feel that I was having more quantity and less quality… but then the more you write you get more chance to review critically and change… The Novel I wrote during 2011 November during the NANOWRIMO competition is still there unedited and unpublished… did not get the time to take that forward and have no idea when that might happen… The blogging has been happening with around 116 english posts (55 Poems) and 117 malayalam (95 poems) posts in 2013…..

Places and More
There was some travel this year… Me and Usha made two separate trips to India for 2 weeks each…. I could not visit Calicut… but the trip was worth as I spent the whole 2 weeks with Amma and Anu’s family in Bangalore…. met a few friends and spend a lot of time with family…

On Usha’s Birthday we went to Eureka for a day and we both got the same tattoo…. A symbol of the moon and sun kissing…..We got it from the same place the tattoo museum Triangle Tattoos in Fort Bragg…Madam Chinchilla who owns the shop was not there this time…. if any of you want a tattoo… I would recommend this place…. there is a lot of history in this museum from the street circus era…. even if no tattoo.. do visit this place if you drive past…

Now as I write this we are back from our stay in Vegas after chilling our Anniversary week….. A new year party awaits us tonight….. and a great year ahead…

Conclusion
On a personal note the year was rewarding… happy and contented…. If needed I too can dig up complaints… but we know that does not help….. So as I see 2013 go I am looking forward for 2014 to be equally good….. and wish you all a very happy new year…. filled with fun and love… Make sure you do not miss any moment that is yours……