Advantages of Looking Down

During the day whenever i can i am often hanging around my balcony. The weather is just right although during the afternoons it is getting warmer and heat is catching up slowly but steadily. Cupping my chin and cheeks with both hands my elbows resting on the railings i love to look down. Down at the society park below where kids who are over with their final exams play. Among them, among the budding footballers, cricketers, basket- ball players definitely there would be one or perhaps two toddlers trailing behind. Desperately trying to catch up imitating the peers with adorable baby clumsiness. Sometimes being shouted upon to just keep away lest they might get hurt. Relentless the toddlers are not to be intimidated and can be seen to be ever so eager to plunge into the thick of things where the major action is taking place. Often whimpering and crying, flailing their pudgy hands and cute-shoed legs in rebellion they have to be airlifted perforce by their respective guardians mostly the housemaids. As i look down i see all that jazz. Sensing the contractions and expansions of my face muscles caged in my hands as i smile and sometimes laugh to see all that drama that ensues. Not to mention the motherly instinct which urges me to just go down and cheat the toddlers with some distractions to calm them down.

There is something that i share. The toddlers and me.
Just like them i still am just too embarrassed when i either stumble or worse still fall down. Especially around people. When no one is there to watch i am relaxed and quickly get up before anyone sees me and get going. But if there are people who have seen me fall flat i go so pink. The ears feel hot and all that reflex of getting up, dusting and straightening the stuff and get moving become agonizingly slow. What to tell of the wish to just vaporize and disappear right there and then. Sometimes i do some drama which looks like a pathetic cover up.
Like the cutiepies i do bawl too although not so loud and clear for everyone to hear.
My FOF has made me a maniac of sorts and when i am moving on unfamiliar terrains i am always looking down. Whenever i've tried to be rebellious and looked up or around i have stumbled.
Last time in the mall i missed seeing Arjun Rampal because of FOF and before i could look up on being told i had already missed seeing him close enough to tell the difference between the screen him and the real Arjun Rampal.

But that was not the purpose of the day today. Talking about the toddlers, me and my FOF. Rather i was here to talk about the benefits of looking down. One benefit i have already mentioned...about all that jazz and thus knowing that the motherly instinct is alive and kicking and that you are not all that detached as you thought you were. The next one is about all that you miss out when you are only looking for, forward- left -right-up- everywhere but not down. Chances are you are going to miss out on a lot more beautiful and more real than Arjun Rampal. Added bonus is an up close and very personal encounter. Like i have and keep having because of my FOF. At least i don't miss out on what the general junta is missing out on. And for that i say HALLELUYAA!!

Beautiful beige colors of the fall, amazing frenetic panorama of insects, not ever seen before textures and colors of rocks and stones, as if chiseled by hands figures of dried wood, feathers...and the spectacular miniature blossoms of that which covers the ground. Like this one.

                                          Common Wood Sorrel. This one baby pink
                                                                     or

yellow

We also know it as chichoda bhaji (edible greens).

Yeah when looking everywhere but down one cannot miss seeing these as the most common ground cover which comes out by itself. i don't know anyone planting it ever. 

But to have the best of Wood Sorrel you better look down especially during this month when they bloom.

As kids we used to chew the leaves of this for its tangy taste of lemons. Now with the eroded enamels and sensitive tooth i can't even when i want to. We just discovered the tangy taste without even having the faintest idea about it being rich in vitamin c. 

Now i know that a drink can be made by infusing the leaves in hot water for about 10 minutes, then sweetening it and chilling it for a refreshing drink. i also know that any wood sorrel is safe when taken in low dosage or else it can inhibit calcium absorption by the body. So does spinach or broccoli or any vegetable that has oxalic acid. The small heart shaped leaves growing in groups of three look refreshingly green and pretty and i wonder how our first drawings of flowers had these even when we didn't know them.

i must add here that shamrock the sprigs of clover or trefoil is one of my two favorite stylized pattern for embroidery still. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shamrock

                           The other being the kairi or Paisley- the famous stylized mango pattern.

Oxalis- that's the scientific name for the oxalic acid that it contains and i wonder why when i have been discovering delights i have not been photographing them or talking about them. Well all talks start this way or another and i thank the kids playing down especially the toddlers who share a lot that is in me that i choose to talk about the advantages of looking down. And btw if it leaves one wondering then FOF is fear of falling .

Image courtesy: http://www.envelop.eu/shop/articles/details/p/wood-sorrel-maternal-tenderness-2