Stay­ing fo­cused on my goals of peace and in­tro­spec­tion this Lenten sea­son is prov­ing more dif­fi­cult than in pre­vi­ous years. Even though I have de­lib­er­ate­ly slowed down my life, the strug­gle against an anx­ious mind per­sists, but it comes up against a back­ground of proven tri­umph. I know I will be al­right.

Then last week, I again found my­self ran­kled by an­oth­er pre­scriber. I went home, will­ing the qui­et my soul craves, but feel­ing ir­ri­tat­ed. But get­ting old­er re­al­ly brings rea­son, and that wis­dom re­mind­ed me I must take re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for my lack of re­straint, be­cause my calm most­ly de­pends on me.

Com­ing away from that “dis­tur­bance,” I re­flect­ed on how hu­man in­ter­ac­tions are get­ting more in­tru­sive and less cor­dial. No one seems to con­sid­er the oth­er per­son in the mo­ment. Every­one has ad­vice. Every­one feels the need to of­fer opin­ions with­out in­vi­ta­tion. Every­one is an ex­pert on every­thing. Frankly, it is soul-tir­ing.

My in­ner growth al­lows me to see it for what it is, but I do not al­ways en­joy the ma­tu­ri­ty that should come with the calm I am de­vel­op­ing. Be­neath the cul­ti­vat­ed peace, there is still a fire that flares. Im­pa­tience has been a per­sis­tent is­sue, and so, of­ten, ex­as­per­a­tion mounts when I feel as­sault­ed by the in­tru­sions of (pos­si­bly) well-mean­ing peo­ple.

This yearn­ing for soli­tude and in­tro­spec­tion comes from liv­ing in a world where news pre­dom­i­nant­ly high­lights ag­gres­sions, wars, con­flicts and con­fu­sion. But, per­haps, there is a wealth of good sit­u­a­tions up­on which to re­flect, and this over­whelm is just re­lat­ed to my al­go­rithms.

Whichev­er, I have been try­ing to tune out from the fra­cas of this world to lit­er­al­ly pro­tect my san­i­ty.

The “war of words” every­where is dis­tress­ing. I feel a sense of dread when I en­counter sto­ries or com­men­taries about T&T’s Par­lia­ment, gov­er­nance, pol­i­tics, crime, or news; re­gion­al im­broglios; or, worse yet, in­ter­na­tion­al dis­rup­tive­ness, de­spite my now care­ful use of so­cial me­dia and news chan­nels.

I un­der­stand the mi­lieu and how dif­fi­cult it is try­ing to main­tain a peace­ful de­meanour when every­thing around us is scream­ing. The tur­moil sucks you in if you are not de­lib­er­ate in man­ag­ing the swirl. I know be­cause I have to rein in my thoughts dai­ly in an ef­fort to not fight or fight back, to not be judge­men­tal or po­lar­is­ing, and to not be a con­trib­u­tor to the dis­qui­et.

I know strife in­ti­mate­ly. In my dis­reg­u­lat­ed sea­sons, I have sown plen­ty of an­tag­o­nism, but my end goal for this short life is that of be­com­ing a well­spring of har­mo­ny.

With each year, my in­ner con­flicts are less­ened through de­lib­er­ate re­solve. But the past is al­ways clam­our­ing for pres­ence, and I am reg­u­lar­ly drawn back in­to the fis­sures so deeply that they feel like they are now un­furl­ing. The bat­tle for peace then in­volves me speak­ing back to those thoughts, re­mind­ing them they are re­al but they are out of time. They are past.

As the sim­ple life calls out to me, I reaf­firm that it is not my re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to car­ry the weight of the world with me. My days are qui­eter. Busy has no ap­peal. Com­mu­ni­ty is tak­en in ap­pro­pri­ate dos­es. I do what I must with­out tak­ing on too many things.

Last year, I did a ma­jor de­clut­ter, af­ter which I could hear my thoughts so much clear­er. It was in keep­ing with liv­ing in­ten­tion­al­ly. But still, I stress about whether I will com­plete the work I am in­volved in dur­ing my life­time, and I am si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly grow­ing com­fort­able with the idea that a day will come when all of it will be van­i­ty.

As a sex­a­ge­nar­i­an, it is im­por­tant, and I am com­mit­ted to ob­serv­ing my emo­tions in re­al time. I will my­self to main­tain a calm and re­spect­ful de­meanour, en­sur­ing that my di­a­logue pro­motes peace, my em­pa­thy is all-em­brac­ing, for­give­ness is an ex­er­cise in free­ness, and si­lence re­mains my gold.

These days, when I am out, I rush home to gar­den. That pro­vides me more sat­is­fac­tion than many oth­er ac­tiv­i­ties. Then, last week as well, a per­son hired to tend the yard took is­sue with my gar­den.

I should not plant sweet pota­to from the eyes cre­at­ed on the tu­ber; it must be done from re­plant­i­ng the vines them­selves. The ground is al­so bet­ter for the sweet pota­to and cas­sa­va, and I should re­al­ly dig a trench, bar­ri­cade it and plant there rather than in the feed bags that I chose for this plant­i­ng.

I should cut the broadleaf thyme in­to many pieces and make many more plants. Did I feed the toma­toes with bear­ing salt? The paw­paw is prob­a­bly not grow­ing well be­cause I am over­wa­ter­ing it, and peo­ple do not plant pump­kins in crop time. They wait for the rain.

Then, half an hour in­to non-stop be­rat­ing in an adren­a­lised voice, he hears my quiet­ness, looks at my mut­ed face and asks, “You don’t like get­ting ad­vice?”

May the peace of the holy sea­sons of Ra­madan and Lent vis­it and re­main with you!