I am like Marianne in “Sense and Sensibility”. I sometimes unfairly think that people who don’t appreciate things as intensely as I do…shouldn’t be allowed to enjoy it at all!!!
So I find it hard to share books, music/movie CDs and anything wonderful I happen to come across. So to make amends…I am writing this post. I am sharing something which has brought a lot of joy and beauty to my life.
But let’s start from the very beginning-
It is amazing to think how small things can alter your life. Sometimes random choices we make…bring so much happiness into our lives. When my husband was furnishing our house with basic amenities (before I joined him) he bought a radio alarm for our house. Little did he know that it would become so much a part of our lives.
Everyday I wake up to the sounds of the radio (mostly KQED). Radio is oddly more comforting than the TV or the computer. TV is chatty and frivolous whereas a laptop is the all-knowing guru (I have a feeling that my laptop secretly looks down on me!) But a radio…ah! the radio is your friend. Its not just entertainment or information, it’s about comfort.
When I am tossing around desperate for the last few minutes of sleep, a part of my mind is listening to the radio. When the program ‘California report’ starts, it is time to wake up. I get up, make and drink my cup of tea listening to the traffic report, three minute interviews of authors and musicians and lively debates on “the Forum”. But my favorite show definitely has to be “Perspectives”.
Perspectives is a program that runs for 3 to 4 minutes(at around 7.37am) where people like you and me talk about life’s lessons , love, fighting cancer, death, farming, war, people they know and love…just about anything that moved them and changed their you guessed it right, perspective.
I remember the first program of ‘Perspective’ that I heard. It was called the “Letters from the Holocaust” and was by a lady called Elisabeth Statmore. She spoke about how her heart still grieved for the young lives lost in the Second World War. One line “I grieved in the privacy of a young child’s anguish…” particularly touched a chord in me. By the time she was done…I felt tears stinging at the corner of my eye.
The next episode which stands out in my mind is about “Gay Flamingoes”. It just as witty and amusing as it sounds..and with his wry humor the narrator makes an excellent argument for gay rights!
Slowly I began to recognize the regulars-Richard Swerdlow, Micheal Ellis, Brenda Payton, Susan Dix Lyons etc….
These were opinions of strangers I have never met. But more often than not, I find myself agreeing with them and nodding my head at some similar experiences. For example a guy spoke about how the flowering weeds on Highway 101 brought joy to him while stuck in an endless traffic jam. It brought back memories of evenings on Hosur road-sunsets….flowers on the dividers and how evenings would melt into the darkness of the night in a cacophony of horns and radio stations.
A guy talks about the woes of the cell phone; Another man talks about “Schadenfreude”- German for that guilty pleasure one feels about somebody else’s undoing; A woman talks passionately about being a Giants fan irrespective of whether her team wins or not; Someone talks about how his neighbors supported him during his partner’s death. An American woman talks about how guilty she felt when she met a dislodged Iraqi on a hot afternoon; Another woman vehemently talks out against sagging pants and another man called the president a lame duck!!!
Some of my favorite pieces are “Deafening Silence” by Erica Gies; “December is the hottest month”, “Johnny, I hardly knew you” and “Pet Sitter” by Richard Swerdlow, “Peaches of Brentwood”, “Just one?” by Karen Stephen, “Preserving the beauty of the wood”, “Baby Frog”, “All in the family”, “Get a dog”…
But more than anything else, I am gladdened by the thought that there are people who are passionate about things….that there are hearts untouched by indifference; People who think independently and express themselves strongly and beautifully!
You can hear these programs at Perspective.
Marianne – Robin Hood – Men in Tights