While tying the thin rope to the lower branch, I felt something tickle my ear, and suddenly the music playing in my right ear stopped. The gentle whisper of the leaves brushed my ear; the sensation still ruled my senses, but the absence of music reminded me that my right ear pod had fallen. There was no sound of it dropping down.
The leaves on the ground had simply grasped the fall and the sound. I was convinced that I would find it, so I continued tying the rope and stretched the bird feeder a bit higher.
Thereafter, I confidently sat on the ground to find it. The leaves and the vines had carpeted the ground. I sifted the leaves and walked my fingers through the entangling vines that had attached themselves to Mother Earth, as a child would hold a mother’s fingers in a tight grasp, afraid of stumbling. The twigs threw a block, and the fallen branches seemed to object to the search. My fingers walked through the ground, trying to lift the creepers and find a white ear pod. The white colour among the green leaves, the dark green stems, and the dark brown branches seemed to be a possible find, until it was not.
But while I was rustling through the veins of the creepers and finding my way through the soil, suddenly the search turned into a touch. A touch that felt warm, soft, and kind. Going through the leaves and feeling through the twigs, I felt the kindness of the earth. The gentle, grainy soil and the fresh leaf smell suddenly wafted through my senses, and I felt transferred to an evergreen forest where the misty air rules the senses and the walking paths that appear to travel endlessly calm down the weary traveller. Mother Nature has the best smell that eases out all the stress, calms down the restless mind, and the feel of plants heals the pain. I sensed the love that the earth gave out and placed my palm to hear the beat. The rhythm of life that nature sends out every moment.we just need to tune our senses to this frequency, and the anxieties will evaporate like the rising mist, leaving us calm and in touch with our inner selves, holding out the branch to us to stand up and embrace.
Some of you might think that I was dumb enough to realise that the ear pods come with the facility of “Find My Ear Pods.” And that’s a good thought. But I prefer Android, and finally, when I tried that, it didn’t work. The app failed to look for it, as the communication between the app and the lost ear pod was like a tourist talking to a local. The tourist keeps asking questions in broken English and uses all the dances of the hands, shakes the head, and cranes the neck, trying to make himself understood, but the non-English-speaking local person keeps looking confused, helpless, and still a bit amused. Though he wants to help, communication, being a life-saving skill, doesn’t exist between the two. On hindsight, how many of us fail to communicate with others even while speaking a common language? No wonder the communication between the app and the ear pod failed.
It was only when I stopped looking for it that I spotted it resting under a small branch that had hidden it while I was discovering the joys of nature.
I found the ear pod, but I discovered the touch of the earth that I had forgotten.
