CELEBRITY COLUMN: Leftovers, writes Maria Goretti

So not every dish I cook, has to be made from scratch. Mostly on a Friday, I clean my fridge out, it’s like a weekly cleanse of all things cooked and left forgotten. And so like a Sergeant in the army, I survey the spoils of the week, and figure how best to use it. I think I need to also do this in life.

Stop. Take stock of all that I have collected inside, and see what I need to keep, and throw the rest away. We cannot have days only filled with warm sunshine and azure skies. There are times in life when you don’t feel like or want to participate in the day. You want to just marinate in all the words running through your head and walk with all the feelings running through your heart. And that’s a good thing.

Anyway, the faster we all realise that life always will be an interesting blend of what is great for you and all that you want, but do not have in life. We will all be able to live in a bit of peace and more understanding. We are the choices we make, the food we eat and who/what we love, and that pretty much sums up, who we are. So, if you close your eyes and answer these three questions, you will see your life does have a pattern, and if you want some change in your life. Then something in how you live at the moment has to change.

I don’t know, what I actually want in life, but I definitely know what I don’t, and so that’s half the battle won. As a mom, I’m always trying to do what I think is right for my kids, but I don’t really have all the answers, I, too, am just searching my way through life. And more often than not, I am just walking around with all my pieces in my pocket, and flowers in my hair. Is that not how most of us humans are? Broken and still living life like we should.

The choice here is ours. We can pick up our brokenness and our pieces and the leftover of who we once were, and do something brand new with it. Or then we can look at the pieces and forever say, how sad, it used to be so beautiful. Will you find all the pieces of you? Depends on what you are looking for, and where you are looking for it. I think you should let it be. I think some pieces should be left, where they broke. Always remember, there is plenty more and better, from where that came from.

I know that it’s only when there are bits left with pieces missing, that there is a possibility of putting it together into something brand new. I think life gives us a chance to reinvent ourselves all the time, it’s just that sometimes we are unable to see the signs. It’s like that song by Vanilla Ice. “Stop collaborate and listen, Ice is back with a brand new invention’’, ha ha ha the MTV VJ in me, has not really left, but you do get the drift, right ?

So I heard somewhere in a movie. That much as you happily want to do things when you are happy, there is double the reason for you to do it more when you are not. Your passions have to go somewhere. And into a more constructive place.

So invest back into you. Pick up all that’s left, they are still the shiniest parts of you. And create magic with it. There really is providence in play at every part of our life. And you just have to believe in the magic of you.

So, like I was saying, I don’t throw the leftovers away. I use them to make something new, at the end of the day, only I know that these were bits of the roast chicken, vegetables etc, that were still in my fridge. And I make the loveliest roti roll, with a roasted garlic flavoured hung curd, vegetables and meat, I add new ingredients, and what you bite into is finger-lickin good. And my kids love it.

So it’s maximum taste and minimise waste.

And as humans that’s what we need to do. The future has a certainty about it whether you want it to arrive or not. So what do you want to be in the future.

I want to just be happy. How about you?