All day long I've been feeling so restless...can't focus on anything for more
than a few minutes, it's like something's amiss and I can't figure out what it is...So finally, in what seemed to be like the nth futile attempt (hmph!) in calming down my mind, I picked up an old book of poems (The Golden Treasury) I'd found a few days back while rummaging through some old novels and books stacked away in cardboard boxes. It's really quite old, you know, the kind of book with its pages stained so that they look all yellow and brownish, torn at places...and the paper looked so brittle, making me hesitate to even touch it in fear that it might just crumble into pieces. I guess that's what gives the book so much character...On the third page I found my grandmother's (nana's) name dated 1974 and I don't know why but it felt so strange going through her book, like it found me, like she left it for me...and I felt so warm suddenly, not because of the beautiful poetry (half of which, I admit, I do not understand at all ;)) but because of small notes written here and there, lines underlined, words and paragraphs circled, pencil marks...It got me wondering what she must have been thinking about while reading a particular verse, why she had found some parts particularly interesting? Where she must have been sitting while reading that verse? What she must have been wearing? Was she alone at that time or did she and grandpa share this together? Was she lost in her thoughts, trying to find a little peace and solitude , trying to calm down her mind just like me? All at once, I was able to conjure up an image of her in one of her beautiful sundresses comfortably sitting in a sunny veranda somewhere, rocking away in her rocking chair...and even though I never got a chance to meet her (she died before I was born), I suddenly felt so close to her, like there was something intangible between us...and this last attempt of mine didn't turn out to be useless at all...All's calm now. 
