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ShareThe tall brass idol of the Bodhisattva caught the corner of my eye as I sat watching television.
It was shining like gold; the metal smooth, polished to perfection.
I looked at it again, and noticed that each of the little clutch of brass statuettes and bric-a-brac that stood in the corner was gleaming with new life.
The maid had obviously used a lot of elbow grease to rub away the patina of dust and tarnish that the city's humidity had layered them with.
It's so beautifully crafted, I thought to myself, picking up the standing statuette, and it still looks new after all these years.
I had in the past, while clearing away excess stuff that invariably collects when one lives in the same house for many years, thought briefly of giving this and other brass statuettes away. They stood mostly neglected and forgotten in some part of the house or the other, and were a lot of work to keep shining and clean. After a few years of trying to fight the effects of the weather on the brass, I had given up, and the neglect had made them dull and lifeless.
Now I was glad I had not given in to my whim. And was looking at them with fresh, appreciative eyes. It's only when someone else notices how nice something we have taken for granted is, that we suddenly find it means something to us, again, I thought.
In fact, this was true of a lot of things I owned.
My books, for example. I had collected them lovingly over the years, following a practice I had adopted of buying a book only after reading it, and if I liked it enough to want to own it; but how often did I care to look at the collection or re-read something I had really liked at first read?
Good books do evolve over the years: as the mind changes and expands with new ideas, a good book can reveal new facets hidden between the lines, the words can lend themselves to release new layers of meaning like a scent unfolding. But I had not let myself delve into that joy, despite my best intentions.
It is true of our relationships, too, I thought... as the TV set droned on. If we do not constantly work on keeping the give and take, the words and the exchanges, the thoughts and the emotions on a to and fro between those we live with or love, the relationship tends to grow a patina of sameness that dulls the shine of joy and feeling.
Yet we let it happen. Between friends, in the family, at work... What can be a vibrant glowing relationship often sinks into the brown of everyday familiarity that does away with the effort that is needed to keep it alive. Everything needs elbow grease of some kind,
I thought. It's a good thing to remember.
