Rewind: 10 months into 2020
A quick rewind to see what happened here, what we learnt and how to get to places where we can grow
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Well, it isn’t exactly 10 months but who starts anything in January? And lest we forget that it’s 2020. So, where do we begin?
Quarantine life seems to have grown quite a lot on an introvert like me. Much like anyone else in the beginning of quarantine, I decided to make the most of this year in what seemed to be inevitable hardship. I wasn’t sure of how to juggle the uncertainties of I baked obsessively, cooked healthy meals and drew nonstop. I didn’t stop to let it affect me, the apparent collapse of the world around. It was one bad news after another, and even though for once I felt I was personally thriving, I couldn’t help but wonder what the point of it all was in a world falling apart at the rate it was.
Friends seemed further away than they had ever before and the urge to protect my family was the strongest I’ve ever known. Last few months, especially since May onward, I’ve found moments where my empathy for the world has shot off the roof. As I sit now to register the enormous list of terrible things that engulfed us this year, from the Australian Bushfires, to the Riots in New Delhi over CAA/NCR to the sudden tragic death of Kobe Bryant, to the millions of lives lost by a virus WHO named COVID-19, just to name a few. The internet is stuffed with memes of how desperately humanity wants this year to end. Talking about the internet, as instrumental as it was in helping raise voices against the injustice we faced, it steadily amplified what felt like the worst year and the beginning of a larger downfall of humanity. The sentiment of being OKAY with not being OKAY has been loud and clear and I was one of the dear loud advocates for sure. There have been upsides, as small as they seem, and all calling to be celebrated. Puzzles and boardgames made huge come backs. Life in sweats became a fashion trend. Weddings happened over Zoom, and Taylor Swift continued to write beautiful, soul stirring and relatable music. We became accustomed to staying at home, despite the fatigue. I wept after watching Hamilton for the tenth time this year. Most of all, and my personal favorite was how beautifully Schitt’s Creek promised inclusivity and I found enormous respect for Dan Levy as a creator. Technology has upheld the vow of keeping us connected and I don’t think I would have been able to get through the better part of the last ten months without having access to the internet to talk to my family everyday and work remotely.
Personally, I woke up to learn every morning that I loved my time alone. I loved spending mornings writing and discovering the song of my spirit and releasing the dreams from my rest out to be manifested. This was a year of many tryings and a year of failing over and over, only to get up and try again. I took up learning french while planning a trip to Europe, way before Covid-19 hit Italy and then dropped it altogether. I took up running for a few weeks, ran a few kms and then paused all together when cases in India spiked beyond redemption. I took up reading a lot more than my plate could handle and realized right now I needed comfort over a routine. I drew a lot more than I thought capable of, that is one bit I’m really proud of. At one point of the lockdown, after weeks of being indoors, and after multiple meltdowns, I realized no matter how big an introvert you are, people still remain to be the core of all human experience, and no distraction can fill that void.
Work wise, I finally had the focused time to build on my voice as an illustrator and take on more illustration commissions than I had ever allowed myself. Early May, I got the opportunity to illustrate an entire page of the business review for The Washington Post, which i personally feel will remain the highlight of my career as an editorial illustrator. I wrote about it here. I participated in month long challenges like The Pattern Challenge by the formidable Melanie Johnson and learnt for the first time how to make repeat patterns. Many of them, I thought were so good as well! Community challenges are always so much fun, just because of how encouraging everyone is. I also drew more than 30 pup portraits for a collaboration with PaperClip & Co and just to let you know - I did not have the slightest clue how to draw pup portraits when we began taking commissions. I got commissioned to do an editorial illustration for environment giant Mongabay, and it turned out to be of my favorite illustrations of the year. Social Puppy, a dog training app that I spent a majority of 2019 branding, released it’s beta version. And finally, I’m now off to work on a secret project that involves the word book, and can’t wait to share it with you all. But before I leave for the festive break, here’s my rewind for 2020 -
Hugging my new bestie in Thailand, 2019
10 things I learnt in these 10 months -
Family matters more than anything. We overestimate the time we have left but most of all, we overestimate the time we are left with our loved ones. This year I truly came to recognize the quiet act of reaching out steadily to my people, praying for them and nurturing close relationships by spending as much time as you can with those who bring the most happiness.
Toxic friendships aren’t worth fighting for beyond a certain boundary and there will come a time when you have to let them go. The wise thing would be to let them go without shaming yourself. Without holding a grudge, and definitely without holding anger for the collapse of the friendship. Go where you are wanted, and stay there till you thrive.
I’ve definitely released myself from a need to control circumstances with so many plans going haywire and I’ve become willing to forgive and forgo things that are too temporary and will not cross my mind a decade later. Something about not having to carry every burden we encounter as our own, and knowing we don’t have to take every worldy affliction personally. It has been calming and liberating to do so in the light of how much loss we’ve been surrounded by this year.
It’s okay to spend entire weeks glued to your phone, eating take out, and having no sense of time in the middle of a global pandemic. I spoke to a lot of friends about this, and we don’t yet process as a generation what we have gone through. For the first time in history, we’ve been asked to do nothing about a war that rages everywhere around us, but to stay indoors and keep that mask on our mouth. It’s the most we can do, and so it’s okay to feel fatigued and lost. It’s okay to not be able to leave your bed for a majority of the morning. It’s okay if your Dalgona coffee looks more like Filter coffee. All in all, it’s okay, whatever you choose, however you wish to respond to this time.
The human mind is invincible. You can train it to believe anything. Our realities are a complex accumulation of the narratives we tell ourselves, the vulnerabilities we allow to shine through us and the over piling of the words we repeat to ourselves. During one of my yoga sessions, my teacher said to me, if you train your mind to believe fear has no standing in your life, it will have no standing in your life. I rarely do this, but I took her for her word and the minute i would see fear creep up like that creepy bugger does, I would very dramatically announce it’s arrival, welcome my friend and declare my win over it. It doesn’t always work, and it’s far from ideal, but it works like a charm. How you nurture your mind is after-all a habit, built with a lot of consistency + discipline + good quality environment.
I reevaluated what self care meant to me. I think through my early twenties I defined a lot of my identity through the lens of others. What people around me thought was best for them, is what I considered to be best for me. Many laughs and miserable years later, I have understood that only I know how to take of myself the best. And I know that because I failed proudly as a parent to my own self over and over till stumbling in the dark with adulthood didn’t seem so daunting. I know now that what works for others will not work for me and I shouldn’t feel any obligation to adapt their self care routine as my own. We all have different skins for a reason. Your combination is for your very own unique skin.
As humanity, we’ve woken up to the impending global climate crisis. There are louder voices for local consumption, higher stakes for eating processed meats, and a careful calculation of what we deem sustainable. We’ve seen this year more than ever the devastating effect of playing with Nature. I’ve said this too many times but Covid-19 is just a symptom of a diseased planet. I recognized one of my greater purposes is to focus my energy on fighting for the environment and contributing even in the smallest way I can.
This period of extended quarantine has made me wonder if I really want to go back to living the life I was living before? Was I truly thriving - mentally, physically? What was my day to day impact on the environment? Is the new normal a better normal for us all? The overwhelming time alone has raised questions for all of us, if they haven’t then you’ve been ignoring the deep consciousness calling out. For me, I felt so spiritually misbalanced through out. I could hardly meditate, there were just too many thoughts rushing in and out of me, and at one point I started sleeping just to ignore the over thinking. Which brings me to the point of how healthy is the way our normal looked if being taken away from us, it can wreck such havoc?
Two words: Be kind. Focus on the quality of your mental health but also be aware that every human is capable of not feeling well, and to have a bag full of grace for everyone around you will make you into a gentler, more loving person. Cultivate gratitude for what other people bring out in you. I remember talking to a friend who told me I should be thankful for the things that make me feel insecure, because they shine light on parts of me that need healing. Cultivate treating people the way you would like to be treated, even if they don’t have the capacity to treat you well. You extend the olive branch, well within boundaries of no harm and see how generosity of spirit brings wellbeing into your life. The words of Maya Angelou ring well here, “I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
Use your imagination and follow your curiosity. Travel is not limited to physical travelling. Milton Glaser, one of my design heroes who passed away this year, is famously known to say that he travelled in his mind to wondrous places all the time. Listen to the spirit that rages within you and see where it wants you to flow. For a while I’ve been compelled to embroider, and what? I haven’t a clue. But I will follow my curiosity and see where the itching leads to.
Our work here is incomplete if we haven’t found a moment to rip off our skins and dance naked in our skeletons for a bit. I hope you all remain safely tucked in, travel far and wide in your dreams and give yourself enough rest if life permits you to, during this holiday season.
Till next time x
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Cover photo Nicole Alice