Keep on walking

When the monster was that tiny baby, we used to walk and walk to get her to sleep. She was always a fairly excitable kid, however tired, she would not crash into sleep, and we had to calm her down, keep the room dark, calm ourselves down, sing, chant (times tables or something crazy like that), and, when all else failed, walk. Up and down, up and down. My mum would pat (whack) her to sleep on her lap and that seemed to work for her, but the husband and I *had* to walk.

I made a little song to go with the walk, so that we would be singing the walking song, and, well, walking. I remember one time being in Chennai at my in-laws place in the other bedroom, boiling hot of course as Chennai, and especially T Nagar always is, and everyone else doing something to do with gift bags for guests in the other room. And me? Carrying her and walking. And singing the walking song: Monster walky-walk, Amma Walky-walk, Appa Walky-walk, Fan Walky-walk, Watch Walky-walk, Diaper Walky-Walk (what will it take for this child to fall asleep dammit?).

I don't much like blended scotch but everytime I saw the Johnnie Walker ad (what is it now? Keep walking?) I would think, yeah, like I have any other choice! Gotto keep on walking, else this child will never sleep and then I will never sleep and everything will crash and burn and the world will cease to spin. Some days, it surely felt like she would *never* sleep, and I would have to spend my entire life carrying her and walking her. She used to wake up at least a couple of times every night for the longest time (two years? something like that). And it was not like normal human beings who drink water or pee or whatever and go back to sleep, this one would start rolling around in the bed and knocking into me, and most times it made better sense to somehow get her to sleep deeply so I could sleep without bruises on my body caused by her fat head.

Philosophy-wise, its sort of like life. Shit happens, right. People get married. Children are born. People die. Some die young, some die old (you mourn a little, feel a bit weird for a few days, wake up in the morning and hope it was just a bad dream). Jobs. Grocery. Lisol Floor Cleaner. Deadlines. Gotto go see mum. Been so long. Everything is ahead of you, everything is alongside you. At the end though, all you can do is Keep on Walking (except when you are running, or sitting down and drinking Jim, John or Jack... )