On a lazy Sunday morning, I am sitting with my mom and I want to have a cup of coffee. I asked my mom if she could bring me a coffee mug. Now, at my home, my mom and dad only drink tea, and coffee is not a regular thing. So my mom was looking for coffee mugs, and after going through multiple shelves, she found one. The sight of that coffee mug took me down the memory lane:

"It is the summer of 2019. I am in a small shop in Leipzig, Germany trying to find something good to take it back home. Going through multiple souvenir items, I came across this coffee mug that caught my eye. A very ordinary black-colored mug. On reading across the product description, it said that it glows when you pour hot substance in there and also had a picture of how it would look like. Until now, I had only known about things that glow in the dark and had no idea that something like this exists. It was super fascinating to me, and I wondered how this works. Searching on the internet, I found that there are certain dyes/chemicals used in these mugs that are heat sensitive, and when exposed to heat they change their structure and absorb light of different wavelengths. So when I would pour hot coffee into this mug, a mermaid would appear saying " I lost my heart to the sea". Well, what can I say, even I have lost my heart to the sea. Getting flashbacks of the sea..

I am 19 years old. I am with my friends at a beach in a small city in India. This is the first time I have seen the sea. It is phenomenal, and it fills me with so many emotions. That feeling of being free, alive, happy, and fortunate enough to have this beautiful sight in front of my eyes. Water touching my feet, body, and soul, taking away all my worries and making me realize the endless possibilities and our tiniest existence on this planet. Makes me wonder how our perspective changes when we look at something so gigantic and deep!! Nature is astonishing and divine!!

Changing the lane and moving back from the sea to the summer in Leipzig..

I bought that mug and came back to my apartment. It is my first time in a foreign land. I share my apartment with a wonderful lady. I remember the first time I moved into this apartment, she was not there but had dropped a cute note saying "Enjoy your stay and I will see you on Monday". She had a radiant and beautiful personality. I have never seen someone as kind as her. Staying with her, felt like home. I guess it is not the place but the people who surround us that makes us feel homely. This city, this place where I came in as a stranger accepted me with all its kindness. I met so many wonderful people during my stay and now it was time to say goodbye. Goodbyes are the toughest and when we immerse ourselves in a new place and adapt to it, we drop a part of ourselves in there. But in return we take something priceless from there, we take new experiences and memories!! Memories that let us look back in time and relive the past."

Walking out from the past to the present:

Sitting and sipping hot coffee with the mermaid and my mom. Feeling blessed for those experiences and looking forward to the beautiful unfolding of this process called Life.

I do not own any pets but there is a cat family that lives at my house. Mostly, they stay on the terrace except when they want food, they enter our room. Look, I am not a great cat lover but I like to watch their behaviour, so I let them do their thing. After all, I am a behavioural biologist!! So a very interesting something happened today. As I woke up in the morning, I could hear the cat meowing repeatedly. I decided to look at what was happening, and it was the baby kitten meowing. This kitten was outside my kitchen window, walking on the railing of the neighbour's house. It felt like it was trying to call its mother and kept on meowing for like fifteen minutes. All this while, I was waiting patiently to know what was happening. The meowing stopped after some time, and the kitten is now trying to jump to the railing of my house but is scared because if it could not land perfectly on the bar, it will go two floors down into a drain. Seems scary to me, and I guess it was for the kitten too! It was looking up and down, adjusting its front legs, trying to take a leap, stopping, then looking and adjusting again and again until it finally took its leap.

Mission successful! Landed perfectly on the railing of my house and entered inside.

Watching all this happen for nearly half an hour, I realised that it took so much courage for the kitten to jump to my building on its own. When with its mother, I have seen it do the same in seconds. Doesn't the same situation apply to us humans too?

We are scared to do things on our own for the first time, be it riding a motorbike for the first time, doing an experiment on our own, moving to a new place, coming out of our comfort zone. But when we have someone by our side, things seem much easier. Why is it so? Is it because of the trust that we have in them that they wouldn't let anything bad happen to us, or is it because we gain strength from their presence and are ready to face the worst?

What do you think??

I wonder how beautiful life is!! Just this moment, where I am writing down my thoughts on this piece of paper, the way the ink of this pen is flowing on it. The warmth of the teacup on my hand, the smell of this tea!! Beautiful sunrise, the buildings around me, the background noise of the bikes honking, people chatting, kids playing, and so much more...

All of this makes my morning routine, and I am grateful for these moments of enjoyment.

We do not know what tomorrow will bring, but we can certainly be present at this moment, live this moment. I am really happy at this moment, and I want you to feel the same. I was hoping you could stop thinking about anything else at this moment and feel what is going on in your surrounding. Maybe you could find something that brings a smile to your face, that gives you hope for a better tomorrow. It could be the least expected of all the things, just little moments!!

If you want, you can share what little moment(/s) brings you immense happiness??