Waltzing with the Self...

 Sofia's hand jerked, creating a storm big enough for the coffee to spill over on the table and make a puddle... She let it be, not bothering to wipe. 

As the last sip trickled down the oesophagus,  she sat the empty cup on the brown puddle, picked up a paper napkin from the holder, and began stamping coffee rings on it...randomly. The process relaxed her, and the neatness of the individual rings against the erraticness of the emerging pattern  was liberating in itself...Taking a quick snap of the stamped napkin, she posted it on her Instagram as the artwork of the day for the 15-day art challenge she had accepted to give an impetus to her creative self during this lockdown period. 'Coffee Stampede', she wrote under the caption, feeling pleased with herself. A task was out of the way, and the coffee was delicious. "Maybe, next time, I should try it with the black coffee: spill some right on the napkin, make a stain!" Her mind was already jogging, adrenaline rushing...on the way she picked up some fallen leaves, their rich coffee imprints beginning to invigorate her imagination.

So it was Sofia, a ceramic artist by profession, who by her own experience, made me thrill to the idea of non-judgmental art. "Everything one creates is art," she philosophized. "For, it is an expression of oneself in a fleeting moment...a circumambulating  memory wanting to leave an impression".

As for me, after years of being a proud miniature artist with love for packing in minute details into a tiny space, espousing Sofia's philosophy literally felt like shaking myself off of my back. From creating intricate paintings on pistachio shells, sea shells, tree bark and pebbles with 1 and 0 size brushes, to embracing the freedom which comes from using thick paint-smeared brushes was a matter of 'letting go'.  The next step entailed running  the paper under the tap and squeezing tubes of watercolors over its soaked surface, smudging it all up and letting the streamlets of colors determine their own course...invent and re-invent themselves infinitely. With the sole objective to loosen up, I indulged in several mindless quick paintings, letting myself being carried away by the leftover colors on the palette, and by the mood of the moment. Sometimes it was the criss-crossing courting calls of the crow pheasants which dictated the strokes, and sometimes a sudden rush of wind toppling over the cashew boughs...and sometimes it was just the lazy afternoon silence stretched across the porch which quietly stole into the artwork, à mon insu.

In the wake of the two-week complete lockdown, which has now been extended further,  'loosening up' takes up a greater significance. One just needs to let go of all the self-imposed prejudices, mental limitations and breathe deep and slow...discover,  re-discover,   and un-cover oneself, and revel in those thousand and one facets of one's being which are purposefully kept shut...take this opportunity afforded to us by these innumerable lockdowns, to unmask the Truth within...unlock our hidden Self,  and  waltz with It.