a quarter of a century...

between this conference presentation (MLA, 2000)

and my most recent (NWSA, 2025)

* Feroza, who is beaming at me in the first picture, is one of the editors of the poetry anthology that came out last year.

** I believe Amma took the first photo... I found it in her stash anyway.

kindness at the drab door

surprise snow this morning

and a shock to see that the stubbed toe of yesterday is a bruise half-foot long (the toe itself is so painful and wobbly it is likely broken)

but at work, the kindnesses at my drab office door continue

and that's enough to make me feel lucky

(in some things)

news from far and near

Horrified to hear Megyn "R. Kelly," as some wag on the internet framed her, try to vindicate Jeffrey Epst*in using semantics. Of course, a 15-year-old is a child.

Saddened to hear of Alice Wong's passing. She zoomed with our students twice in the years after Disability Visibility came out and it was transformational for everyone. She was such a champion for Gaza too. Getting E-sim cards out to people so they could communicate was one of her big causes lately.

Defeated to hear that despite the so-called ceasefire, bombs and gunfire have killed and injured nearly a thousand people in Gaza and that rains have swept away whole tent cities leaving families with no shelter. The Israeli government has not allowed replacement aid in yet.

I continue to be mopey (and also mentally kicking myself for not lying out in the sun even once in PR when I had the chance, WTH?). But I reviewed the copy-edited manuscript and sent it off to the editor after sitting on it for over a month. I kept finding something to tweak every time I opened it; I decided I just have to let go. So off it went! I liked writing the acknowledgements and of course I dedicated it to Amma.

And I'm glad to be home.

Pic: Walk with Lynn to The Healing Gardens. Those koi have gotten so big!

here, I guess

This is the only travel I'd anticipated and planned for this semester--my annual trip to the NWSA. All the other trips happened because of tragedy or unexpected success. Anyway.

Big A was working last night, and my direct flight to Puerto Rico from Detroit took off early, so I walked to the airport shuttle (Lansing to Detroit) at 4 am with my luggage (just a backpack, no worries).

Pic: "Home" for the next three nights... I guess that Paris hotel room spoiled me, because I texted "where is the hammock?" to the family chat.

all treats

Our team won SILVER at the iGEM !! (We won bronze last year, so we're goin' up, up, up!) 

I took off by myself for the first time this week, and visited St. Michel, St. Germain, La Sorbonne (where E.M and I presented a paper virtually earlier this year), and meandered all over the left bank.

Then I saw an old friend on the Paris metro and took a picture with him.

I can't wait to be back with family tomorrow. It has been so difficult this week. I guess I've been here too long--at dinner today, the waiter said he was sure he'd met me before, making people at my table laugh.

competing and playing

The actual competition was today...

Advisors got to sit in the judging room silently while the team presented and answered questions. 

(Notes: One judge seemed intent on pressing for industry prospects while our students were altruistically focussed on conservation efforts. Our proposal emphasized our local expertise, and they wanted to hear more about global application--something to remember for next time.)

We took off to see come iconic sights in the evening. I've done "le tour" before, so I elected to sit at a cafe with my book and a pot of peppermint tea. 
 

And off we go...

Early registration and set up and then a LOT of walking today.

Here a quiet moment I carved out for myself at the Tuileries.  

I got a response to the letter I wrote Air France about the kind young woman in Bangalore ("kindness with your mother's name," as Suzanne termed it). The response too was thoughtful and sympathetic: "Acts of compassion and empathy, such as the one you described, are at the heart of our service, and it’s wonderful to know that Lakshmi’s support made a difference for you." I know it's corporate pro forma, but it would be so wonderful if the world ran like that.

"gratitude fosters abundance"

Thank you for the words of encouragement in the comments yesterday... I didn't realize how much I needed to hear them until I heard them. I'll pass it on to At, but please know they really, really helped me too. 

I was a bit downcast today--I blame the cloudy then rainy weather, the national and world news, dropping off excess from the campus gender-affirming closet at a donation center that took me past the homeless encampment, and watching Alien: Earth with Big A last night. Corporate greed and fuckery are everywhere and worries for my kids, kids in general, and the world kind of took over my brain. 

I'm rereading Robin Wall Kimmerer's Braiding Sweetgrass and she gets right to the heart of it: “modern capitalist societies, however richly endowed, dedicate themselves to the proposition of scarcity. Inadequacy of economic means is the first principle of the world’s wealthiest peoples. The shortage is due not to how much material wealth there actually is, but to the way in which it is exchanged or circulated.  Grain may rot in the warehouse while hungry people starve because they cannot pay for it. The result is famine for some and diseases of excess for others.”

She fills my soul when she talks about how gratitude fosters abundance (when we say thanks, we find so much to be thankful for!) and how she taught her daughters to garden so "they would always have a mother to love them, long after I am gone.” So I spent some time with the trees, grass, and plants when I got home to reset. There is so much to be grateful for... It's only a question of redistribution.

Pic: The Maple River on my way to work. It's what the kids and I used to call our "deep breath of beauty."

https://www.pocobrat.net/2024/05/standing-in-beauty.html   

https://www.pocobrat.net/2024/02/check-1-2.html 

https://www.pocobrat.net/2020/01/sunrise-snip.html

https://www.pocobrat.net/2019/10/here-comes-sun.html 

https://www.pocobrat.net/2021/11/maple-moment.html 

celebrate good times

It's my dad's birthday in India... I'm there in every way except in person... And in the meantime, over here, I'm celebrating with JL, DV, and EM, whose birthdays are this week.

When I dropped something off for Nu this afternoon, they wanted to take me out to lunch* and then we kept talking, talking, talking until it was four hours later and I had to reluctantly say I had to go. (* They wanted to take me out to lunch, but the bookstore where we ended up did not take their college "munch money," and I insisted on paying so they said they'd take me out another time. I didn't plan it that way, but this means we'll get to hang out again soon. I'm feeling fairly Machiavellian and celebrating this too.)

Pic: Birthday morning pic of dad, sis, mom. All the hearts. 

gathering my flowers this week

Nearing the end of the first week of Fall classes, I want to record these small, random work-related nicenesses for good cheer. It's like that old labor song says, "Yes, it is bread we fight for, but we fight for roses too."  (Such a poignant song, and this version in one of my favorite movies, Pride, always makes me choke up. Cross-cultural solidarity is my everything.)

Relayed

Two different people told me that incoming first years told them that they were here because they'd met me. I think it means I did a good job of showing how our college would be a good match for them rather than anything more dazzling.

Overheard

I was getting ready to leave for a class when I overheard colleagues in the hallway gushing about how colorful and cozy my office is. I recognized at least two voices and consider them good friends, but felt too bashful to acknowledge that I could hear them.

Backchat

A colleague emailed me to say: “Hello Maya! I do an icebreaker of "Dream Dinner Party" where people talk about five people they'd invite to their dinner party and why and one of my students included you in theirs. I just thought that was lovely and wanted to share!” Yay! I do love parties!

D.M. 

And I saved the best for last. I was already eager to read dear Nicole's novel, Inhale Exhale. And this week I learned that when casting about for a name for a "kind teacher" in her novel, Nicole chose mine. I feel so incredibly honored. And I'm so grateful to be remembered as a teacher. And a kind one! Nicole embodies compassion; to be thought of as kind by her is indeed an honor. This is such generosity, I feel as I did when my old student named a teacher/mentor character in his video game after me.

Pic: Zinnias (I think?) outside my office building this week.

being loud

I'm sure there's a lot happening in the world, but right now, I'm being loud about the ICE raids, the armed takeover in D.C., and Gaza. I just can't shut up about these especially as so many people are being silenced and are being made to feel unsafe to speak. In the case of Gaza, many voices have simply fallen silent, and as with my students in the online course last year, I fear the worst. Speaking up is one way of seeking them out. 

In addition to all the disappearing people, there are numerous words and terms disappearing from the public sphere--I continue to use them as loudly as needed; I refuse to be silent.

Tom Morello's Fuck Ice Playlist is terrific for getting fired up. (It's heavy with Rage Against the Machine, but that is to be expected, I suppose.) 

In the meantime, it's the first week of classes! I'm ready. Welcome emails have been sent, my Canvas sites are published, the syllabuses are loaded up, ditto class outlines and first-day activities and diagnostics. I'm ready, but even after 30 years of teaching, still with that sweet and heady mix of excitement laced with anxiety. Let's gooooooo!!

Pic: We've had thunderstorms and there's a bunch of stuff and mini logjams in the the Red Cedar. From a long walk with Big A to get ready for the Fall term. The app promised a cloudy afternoon, but we were caught in a thundershower.

Felony? Sounds like baloney

Yesterday, dear Subway Steph who lives in D.C. tipped me off that a man standing outside a Subway restaurant in D.C. was "charged with assaulting a federal agent with a sandwich."

This is so ridiculous. Are they going to pretend that a federal agent wearing a tactical vest was in danger from a sandwich? 

Isn't it extra ridiculous that they're making more noise about this than the murders of Minnesota senator Hortman and her husband who were assassinated in their home in June?

My mind kept coming up with more ridiculous responses all day:

Assault with a sandwich? Bite me.

Buddy, you're... toast.

Did you want a donut instead?

Is it a felony because it was a footlong? Would it have been a misdemeanor if it was a six-inch?

Pic: In my "Writing About Social Issues in Unprecedented Times" class earlier this evening. I'm better at photographs when I'm not the one taking them!

home and away

My India fam is back from the trip to visit friends and we've been inseparable all day. Time is running out. This is likely my mom's last trip to the U.S. I don't feel like I can ask her to undertake 24-hour travel for me again. It's tough facing it, but my once irrepressible mom is not as hearty or hardy. 

My sis and I have shared all the hacks and jokes we'd been saving up for each other. And she now knows all my walking paths, so when I send pictures of scenery, she'll know where they came from.

Big A is doing ok... It's his first wipeout in 35+ years of bicycling and I think that hurts the most.

Three nice things for me this week: 1) I got randomly picked as volunteer of the month at Helping Women Period and I shared that on social media in case other people wanted to get involved too. 

2) I got an email from the colleague who runs the travel abroad program conveying some generous remarks from a student. That was nice in itself. I didn't realize until I got a thank you from the provost that the colleague had copied other people too. I thought that was extra magnanimous.

3) One of the editors of a recent thing I sent off wrote to another editor about my piece: "Isn't this just wonderful?" It's not much and doesn't mean anything in terms of production--but it just seemed so cheerful and unfiltered, it has made me smile every time I've thought of it. 

Pic: Huck and Max. A bit serious--they like the extra pets with extra fam around, but they're not sure they like sharing me.

in honor of those who came before us

We're reading Angeline Boulley's Warrior Girl Unearthed for book club. Much of it takes place in northern Michigan--on Sugar Island where L had disappeared to last week, in fact. It is YA, but deftly deals with NAGPRA and the book is wonderfully infused with details about indigenous Ojibwe culture. 

So we took a road trip yesterday to visit the Ziibiwing Center where I was happy to introduce my fam and Mr. Ray to each other. On the way home, we stopped by my office for a picnic lunch.

Pic: Nu's photo of us by the college sign. (I cropped some of it out.)

to be able to see clearly

The day started with Jim Obergefell's voice on the radio to celebrate 10 years of marriage equality (how nice that it seems like longer!) and a long chat with bestie KB on her way to work. 

So it should have been a good day. 

But something KB told me kept haunting me. Apparently, an erstwhile colleague has been charged with sexually abusing a student. I've had this experience before where someone, who seemed like a good person and was exceedingly kind to me, turned out to have been abusive to the young people in his care. How completely unforgivable. And how sad, disturbing, and disappointing that I wasn't able to see it at the time and intervene before any harm was done. 

Pic: I can buy myself flowers... I  bought some water hyacinths and water lilies at Preuss Pets today (where I took this photo). Apparently, I can welcome veritable crowds to parties all year round without worrying about how the house looks, but I want things to look really spiffy for my mom and sis! (I also bought two lamps!)

the hits keep coming

I worked in the garden for six hours straight, with Max and Huck for company now and again, because I could not bear to be around the radio or my computer. I planted, replanted, cleaned the pond, fixed some fencing, and weeded a ton. They say we had a heat wave today. I guess? It was very hot and I was a sweaty mess by the time I decided to head back in. (I barely sweat usually, so this is kind of a big deal.) 

Also, I noticed flat white spots on my legs last week. I think I have IGH (Idiopathic Guttate Hypomelanosis). (Self-diagnosis via Google, and Big A concurs.) I thought it was age-related--like liver spots only in reverse, but no--it's because I'm such a sun-seeker. Also, as a proper Indian person, my first thought was leprosy, and it reminded me of the summer all the adults in the family tested me for leprosy with a safety pin.  

In serious health news, MIL had a mini stroke and has a cardioversion scheduled for next week. She would like me to enjoy my visit with my mom, but I wish I could go / feel like I should go be with her. In any case, this reminder of how quickly people's health can undergo a shift is unwelcome.

And world news continues to be awful. Children are eating dirt in Gaza while trucks with food to feed a million people are blockaded a few miles away. Plus we seem to be drifting into a war. I'm sorry for all the people in the bombed cities in Iran, but I was particularly devastated to hear Isfahan was one of them. I always longed to visit that ancient city known as "half the world." Also, I didn't think I'd be grateful for discrimination, but at least the military won't want my trans kids.

Pic: Yesterday I stopped by my office to pick up some books and water my plants and saw the college spirit rock had new colors. I wonder if it's the work of new Indian students or new Irish students. I've always loved how the mutual flag colors represent the alliances between the Irish and Indian independence movements. 

Five for Friday (Cheer)

1) Blog friends: Jenny listed five cheerful things to buoy herself up after a bad week and I could feel myself slipping into a funk (as my dad would say), so I decided to follow her example. 

Something beautiful that has given me great joy lately is Nance's piece titled "Night Rides."  I've gone back and reread it many times since she first published it. It's got that magical childhood nostalgia and evocative writing--transportive... transformative. 

Also, Lisa kindly introduced me to Jeanie who blogs from my city. Jeanie has a brilliant smile and the kind of warm and intriguing personality that made me want to make up all the time I'd missed spending with her.  So I invited her to a gathering at my place a few weeks ago. As I was about to introduce her to L, L exclaimed, "I know that smile!" Turns out Jeanie is famous! SO many people at that party knew Jeanie from her work on public television. I didn't know I'd befriended a celebrity!

2) Summer break: Not only is it break time. I've achieved peak break-time brain. I had to stop and figure out what day of the week it was. Perfect!

3) Family: Big A has a new nickname at work; the nurses are calling him Dr. Zamboni. Apparently, the E.R. is usually full when he gets in to work, but they love how good he is at getting people care/referrals/tests/discharges, so they're relieved when he's on the schedule because he clears things up. Sounds like a superhero to me.

4) New students: Nu signed up for classes this week, so it reminded me that students are signing up and I peeked at my new student rosters.  And there are so many new-to-me students! Yay! (And also one student whom I've known since they were a toddler. We're going to their grad party tomorrow, actually. This goes against my self-imposed rule of no family or friends in my class. I'll work on dissuading them later this summer.)

5) Pic: From last October's trip to Arches and Canyonlands National Parks. If you asked me, I would say I like water views and green, lush landscapes... but I constantly find myself thinking about these majestic, arid, red formations. Their dimensions make me feel so small and their endurance makes me feel so hopeful. I think I'm besotted with them. I went back and looked through old pictures. 

next week will be better

I saw a thing somewhere that said adult life is about telling yourself that next week will get easier and you'll get to relax when it's over... over and over again... that's depressing.

I'm back in the classroom this week for a workshop with Kevin Gannon of Radical Hope: A Teaching Manifesto. And the thing is, yes... it's supposed to be summer break, but it's so wonderful being in a classroom 'cos I'm so nerdy. And being in this particular workshop makes me feel like things really could get better for all of us, you know?

Also, admin reminded me that I hadn't submitted my annual report, so I started on it... and whoa! I've done a lot!

Pic: I asked Kevin Gannon, who's facing the camera, if I could use his picture--but I wanted to keep my colleagues somewhat incognito. 

three updates and three book-ish developments

1) Just wanted to say Nu's not in trouble for the other night (and neither am I). At this point, letting me know where they plan to be is more about information than permission. It's just been such a whirlwind of sociality since graduation, I flounder at keeping track. 

2) As of today, little puppy Lego is still available. I thought today (Boss Day!) would be decision day, but Big A asked what if Max and Lego (who will be Max's size when full grown) gang up on Huck who is tiny and old--that is giving me pause. Also, should I be taking all the puppies? I feel a bit greedy like the Melissa McCarthy character in Bridesmaids. (But then look how happy she looks!)

3) My mom and sis are coming at the end of the month!!! Or at least we have tickets, so that's progress.
_____________

1) My book was done. But I now have to make some serious edits because it's about trans politics, and the last few months have changed the landscape of trans rights significantly. The illustrator came through with some amazing work this week, and that is giving me the boost I need to complete this task.

2) I started the year wanting to get out a chapbook of poetry, and have made absolutely no progress. I have not even made any moves or submitted to any journals or anthologies. It's June. I should start. I'm glad it's summer and have some time to devote to this project.

3) Pic: Contributor copies of a poetry anthology I have a few poems in arrived today. Right now, it's available on Amazon, but I'm avoiding that site. It should be available directly from the press soon. All the poems in this anthology started here on the blog--most have undergone massive revisions except the one I wrote for Nu, which shows up with minor tweaks.

this brat is back

Thanks for the well-wishes and messages of support, everyone! I'm back! Reentry was "uneventful." And so quick. Immigration did not even need our passports--one quick face camera scan, a green check, and you're through. The whole thing took less than two seconds. That's the good news. It's a bit unnerving how rapid and extensive the system is and how recognizable we are, though! 

Every time, I read the word "uneventful" in your comments--Nance, Lisa, Jenny, Nicole, Steph, Jeanie, and J--I felt like you were sending me a coded message of support. Ever since I shared that I was worried that my social media alignment might make things sticky for me at immigration, you all have been so kind about sending good wishes. It's a sign of the times, I suppose, that no one thought I was overreacting. And in a way that escalated my anxiety, because I could see it wasn't all in my head. Even three months ago, most people wouldn't have considered my fears legitimate. Engie was quite positive I'd be ok, and I'm glad she was right. 

Anyway, I made it through with a watermelon charm hanging off my backpack, my kuffiyeh and other Palestinian solidarity materials in my suitcase, and without scrubbing my social media. It's part of my resolve to be true to myself, not to "obey in advance," and to participate in "good trouble" when I can. 

Pic: On that note, I headed for the Palestinian solidarity march yesterday (half a million strong, by some accounts) and got this photo of Palestinian flags waving under the blue sky and Big Ben's tower. + I met up with someone I met online back in October when we were being onboarded as instructors to teach students in Gaza. KK was just as lovely in person and we had a nice chat as we marched for close to three hours.