The road is always a good place to find a friend in any stranger. It was late in the evening. I was going somewhere accompanied by few other people I had met on the road.\u00a0 Some of them were moving fast while others were not in a rush. All of us were moving silently as if we had nothing to talk about, but inside each of us we had a story to tell.<\/p>\n
Suddenly I stopped but no one stopped with me. The man with the flowers and chocolates ran off to see his children and wife. The old man kept moving slowly and steadily. The beautiful woman walked away with her little dog. Everyone left me \u2013 they were just pretending to be friends on the way. Some more were coming my way but I did not wait for them for I knew they wouldn\u2019t wait for me. People were moving and I was standing all alone near the lamppost by the tree.<\/p>\n
I often come here and watch the tree. I couldn’t climb the tree nor could I climb up that lamppost to see if everyone was fine in the nest. I was kind of worried about the birds that lived in the nest. So I called out to the lamppost, \u201cDo you hear me?\u201d But the lamppost was too tall to hear my voice properly. I couldn\u2019t grow up to that height nor could it bend itself a little. I used a sign language\u00a0 that the lamppost understood well. I asked the lamppost, \u201cDo you see the nest in the tree?\u201d The lamppost replied, \u201cYes, I see it everyday.\u201d And then I asked, \u201cCan you see the birds in the nest? Is everyone fine over there? Are they together?\u201d The lamppost replied, \u201cYes, they are all sleeping, covered with warm feathers and everyone seems to be happy.\u201d<\/p>\n
But how could I believe that lamppost? Perhaps it was lying, just to make me feel happy. I said to the lamppost, \u201cHow can you say that? What if you are lying to me? Perhaps you are not telling me the truth just because I can not go up there and see. Why don\u2019t you tell me that the eggs are stolen? Why don\u2019t you tell me that the little ones are dying without their parents? Or why don\u2019t you tell me that the nest is empty?” The lamppost said nothing at all.<\/p>\n
I stood on the ground, watching the leaves falling down. Finally the lamppost asked me, \u201cDo you know what is written on the fallen leaves?\u201d I said I could not understand anything. Then the lamppost said, “Let me read it for you then.” The lamppost said, \u201cIt says: I often see you here. Who are you? Where do you come from? Where do you go?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is written for you. It is the handwriting of the tree,\u201d the lamppost said.<\/p>\n
Milan Rai\r\n<\/strong>Artist, Activist<\/pre>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Everyone among us is running in some kind of a hurry, oblivious to the deeper aspects of life. However, if we stop and listen carefully, we can receive messages we have never imagined.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":4074,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":""},"categories":[636],"tags":[769,770,623,771],"class_list":["post-4066","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-experience","tag-busy-life","tag-listening","tag-nature","tag-slowing-down"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/mindbody.com.np\/shop\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/lamppost.jpg?fit=1000%2C737","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pd0y3h-13A","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/mindbody.com.np\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4066"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/mindbody.com.np\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/mindbody.com.np\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mindbody.com.np\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mindbody.com.np\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4066"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/mindbody.com.np\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4066\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4075,"href":"http:\/\/mindbody.com.np\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4066\/revisions\/4075"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mindbody.com.np\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4074"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/mindbody.com.np\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4066"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mindbody.com.np\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4066"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mindbody.com.np\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4066"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}