The friends have my heart, the alliances have my head but the potluck has my stomach nurturing my head, nursing my heart and filling me with the food for once not only meant for the baby! 

Women have been a communicator of emotions which men find it difficult to express. Previously, I had been picky with the flowers I put in the basket but as the world of womanhood tightened its noose around my neck,  I became a fountain, a reservoir whose tap was carelessly left unscrewed by the gardener in fulfilling his destiny to make his garden lush and green. Slowly, the water level in the reservoir started to drop just not dried. 

Will Traynor( Sam Claflin) and I were on battling fatigue, paralyzed in our own ways. Low and cynical spirits had us both throw away the portrait of our love lives. Shattered glasses of the photo frame on the floor were being mended by Lou (Emilia Clarke) and my baby daughter. As Will on Lou and I on my daughter poured our anger and resentment and for sometime wearing the patriarchal hue of everything wrong with our life, something shifted!  

But when Lou prepared green pesto for Will, somewhere a band of ladies made an endearing effort to not let me be on my own with an array of gastronomic delight. It felt as if my daughter threw it for me! It was then I came to her level- the ground floor where she ran around; to see the world through her eyes. 

In my quest to have some semblance of social life postpartum, I ended up having potluck with the most surreal bunch. Where do I place myself? A woman not completely into the traditional homemaker culture and not completely into the modern society or pub culture but sandwiched between the two and shorn of work culture. Navigating language and culture barriers, I found only one thread common, that is, motherhood. They weren’t the people, I just get up and go to. It wasn’t as instinctive as meeting a friend or wasn’t as tactful as meeting an ally but somewhere between the two. 

Will- alone, bitter, powerless, watching the world go by- has Lou pushing his wheel chair around to sunny parks-around the fortress of a bungalow- under the careful watch of his doctor. Similarly, the potluck came down to my level with no disrupted sleep schedule of the baby, no travelling and no expectations. I even went back to study after bidding them adieu. Guided by the compass of a daughter, I welcomed and embraced the change that had come about. That day onward, I stopped running after people which earlier I felt meant something. 

Gaining a new perspective, I moved when my daughter moved; paused when she paused. The lightness I felt on my shoulder was priceless: from literally hating the world to being in love with it for some time.