the times

Don't ask why I'm up at 3:27 a.m., but now I'm worried for friends and family in Hawaii and on the West Coast as tsunami waves from the Russian earthquake make their way across the Pacific ocean.

I was just thinking yesterday that this has been a beautiful summer--not too hot, just enough rain to keep everything lush, NO mosquitoes, a record-breaking number of fireflies and butterflies...

It has also been a month since At's ex SLE died, and this was the month of my mom's heart attack and Big A's mysterious illness. And suddenly--or so it seems--we're nearing the end of summer.

Pic: Nu is filling out health information forms, and Max thinks he can help. Huck milling around (under Max), is thinking about joining in, because she knows stuff too. I can't believe Nu will be off and living in the dorms in a few weeks!

recs, hacks, and saves

A couple of recs: 

This NYT quiz on dreams--I'm what they classified as "a big dreamer" but there's plenty I learned about how we dream in the process of taking the quiz. 

This list of most recommended books in The Atlantic. I'm horrified I've read so few. 

A couple of hacks:

If you hit a paywall and don't want to pay or don't feel like supporting Islamophobic/Transphobic outlets like The New York Times or The Atlantic, you could use archive.is. Paste the URL of the piece you want to read into the second box (the one that says: "I want to search the archive for saved snapshots"). Usually, that should do the trick. 

I figured out this next hack myself! When I came back from last week's health nightmare, I found I wasn't able to leave comments on some (WordPress?) blogs like Nicole's, J's, and Jenny's. "Mod_Security" kept telling me that my server was "Not Acceptable!" (Threatening exclamation point and all.) But if I toggle my computer WiFi to my phone's hotspot, I can!

Pic: I saved this meme to my desktop years ago... Good save. And I guess those little things did save me and keep me mostly sane.

trying to be strong

Gaza Poets Society has shared many beautiful poems over the years. Yesterday their message was a stark and anguished plea:

"Save our children"

What else is left to say? How can we go on in a world where children are willfully being sniped at and starved to death. I hope we can let the food waiting outside the Israeli blockade get through before it is too late. Everything else can wait.

*

Big A is so much better (fingers firmly crossed) and a good thing too, because he's back at work tonight. I think he could do with at least a couple more days off work, but he's on the schedule. "I exist to make a profit for the hospital's shareholders," is how he explained it to me.

Pic: I took Nance's advice and took A to spend some time with trees... Things have been so nerve-racking, we've barely been outside together. 

sometimes, and in some places, I can see the long journey old men are making

we're not even thinking of marriage... just

looking for the best biriyani in Queens-- 
we're still in New York but it feels like 

we're in India and A is a bit too white

for this place and so I take his hand 

right then, the old man sitting 

outside the mosque
looks up and then 

strides up to us
to tell us 

love is always precious to Allah
as he lifts his hands in blessing

*

we're making on our way back 

from our Mexican honeymoon

driving through Texas 

and stopping 

at a one-traffic-light town 

thinking it would be an adventure 

to sit at the diner where there are very

few women and every man wears a hat

bow-legged, an old man walks down the aisle 

as if he's in a Western... I don't think he's looked 

at me even once, but gazing earnestly into A's eyes 

he says, I think your woman has a very nice skin color

separate but not equal

Nice: Big A felt well enough to take Nu to pick up their computer for college. Big day in every way!

At had an annual physical scheduled in Alma (Nice). Her final one under my insurance before she ages out (Not nice.) And we had long conversations on the way there and back (Nice). At returned a novel I'd lent her (Nice) in... I don't know... 2018 (Not nice) Saying with a smirk as she handed it to me that she "didn't want to read it"--just to see my face fall (Not nice). She had read it and loved it and cried at the predictable part (Nice). (When the train pulls out the station with Estha saying "Ammu, feeling vomitty...")

At the end of the day, the whole fam went to a restaurant we usually like a lot (nice). At the end of our okay meal, our white server looked at our table and decided to ask if we wanted two checks (Not nice). It's just one of those "mistakes" that happens to interracial families a lot. I found I couldn't finish my dessert after that... 

Pic: Queen Anne's Lace along the Red Cedar. On a walk to clear my head.

not normal

Now that my mom is a bit more stable, I'm beginning to worry about Big A. It's not normal to have a fever for so many days. As Jenny correctly said, my attitude has been that my mom's "probably a bit more fragile than Big A." But as Jeanie said, "not knowing" is scary. 

It's good I suppose that his labs aren't growing any scary bacteria (apparently, they'll keep looking at it every day or two to check). His best guess for now is that it's an unrelated virus that'll work its way out in time.

At some point in the evening yesterday, I looked up from my book to see tears running down his face and thought he was feeling really down. He was. He'd just read about the cardiologist and his family who were killed by an Israeli airstrike. This isn't normal either. There's so much happening on our watch and we're expected to carry on as though it shouldn't matter.

Pic: Max snuggled up to Big A and fast asleep. I need some good sleep sprawled out in abandon like this!

 

"unbecoming"

Stuck in a holding pattern today... Amma is stuck in the ICU (she hates it there because she loves company and is currently only allowed one visitor at a time twice a day); Big A is still holed up in the guest room with his road rash and his high fever.

I had to get out of the the house today. 

I said a fond and proud goodbye to TP, who's leaving Lansing to take up a tenure-track position at Bradley University.* I've known TP since they were a baby scholar and now they have a book out with Rutgers! (*I kept thinking Bradley sounded awfully familiar and only later did I realize it's because that's Sarah's [and Ben's?] alma mater!)

I had to attend a screening of my colleague SS's film Did You Guys Eat at the Broad Museum.

I had to take Max to a vet appointment. (Big A was supposed to, but clearly couldn't).

And then EM picked me up to take me to a "mental-health dinner" at Brody Cafeteria where I ate for the first time today, so I ate three plates of food and three desserts.

Pic: While at The Broad, I checked out Diana Al-Hadid's exhibit "Unbecoming" which plays on the concept of "unbecoming" as unraveling and also (when applied to women) as inappropriate. This particular piece was titled "Medusa." 

telling everyone I know

I usually don't post very much on FaceBook... But I needed everyone I knew to pull for my mom...

and they really came through.

That's the thing I have to love about Facebook, when you need people, everyone from your fifth-grade best friend to the newly-appointed president of your college shows up for you. 

I'm so grateful for everyone's well wishes, I hope they work for my Amma. 

Pic: Screen-grab from my FB post today

airport picnics and no buenos

Today was goodbye. This second week really raced past. My dad is so awesome for managing by himself for two weeks... I really couldn't ask for a longer visit. But it was difficult saying goodbye. 

We found a four-leafed clover to pack for travel good luck. And Nu helped me with the big suitcases and Big A managed to jenga us into one car with all the luggage despite his dinged-up elbow.

When we got to the airport, it turned out that one of their four suitcases weighed more than allowed (50 lbs). So I repacked it so it (and the other suitcases) came in at 49.5. I felt like a hero because we avoided the 100$ fine. 

And I felt like a superhero when our little airport picnic of Parsi omelette sandwiches and veggies from the garden was pronounced perfect. But then they had to head for their gate via TSA and that's when my hero and superhero mantle crumbled and I (we all) (predictably) cried a bit.

And I cried lots more when I got home because Nu and Big A were there to be comforting. My poor long-suffering Big A--I spiraled a bit about my mom growing old, my sister not having a job, and how climate change is going to disproportionately affect places like India.

Anyway... we ate leftovers for dinner (yesterday's ratatouille and yogurt bread) and then I found a giant package of Kinder Bueno that my mom hadn't been able to fit into her luggage and left behind. I try not to eat questionably sourced chocolate, but this package was already here and Nu can't eat it (tree nut allergy), so I set to work. I've eaten seven (maybe eight) things this evening. Each one has two bars. 

Pic: Amma and me. Photo by Chelli (baby sis). 

from here to go-dhuli

our words tear paths

as if we are oracles

our touch gathers

courage as though 

there's no law for it 

mosquitoes now follow us home 

knocking on our window panes

like tiny trickster castaway birds

who are also sorrowful orphans 

it is yet a quiet sky

as the clouds go by 

in the long intimacy

of anguish, a golden

go-dhuli dust blooms

my mother has promised us love

and it is in this clearing: quiet as--

wary as-- gentle as-- worn as-- cattle

waiting and gentling into another time

_____________________________

Note: Go-dhuli, literally "dust of cows" in Sanskrit, the golden hour of sunset when cattle return home; it is considered to be a beautiful and auspicious time and is a nostalgic trope. Cows are revered as archetypal mothers (Go-matha) in Hindu-Indian culture. (I mean, that's where "holy cow" as an expression probably came from!?) Also, my mom and I have a very silly, longstanding act where we play cow and calf.

____________________________

Pic: Nu's photo of Chelli, Huck, Max, and me reading in the afternoon. (Or Chelli and I are trying to anyway.)

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.

here's an idea...

Pic: Here it is in all its gritty glory: "the reason you should care... is not that it could happen to you but that it is already happening to others." This is from Marsha Gessen's crucial piece in the NYT from earlier this year. I can't understand why countries seem to be constantly at war with their poorest and most marginalized citizens here and everywhere.

My India fam is visiting with friends until Friday morning. Another friend may come to us from Friday to Sunday (when they will leave). Yesterday's lunch choice was IHOP ( a solid choice) but I slipped up and got into a debate about politics (bad choice). 

I wonder if this is why I live so far away? I don't know that I could take people I love so much saying stuff all the time like, "But if you give the poor things for free they'll become lazy and won't work." When I heard that, I went hot and my voice got very quavery. I know how precarious the day-to-day is for so many people and how hard they work at all sorts of things so they can stay alive. 

And then I heard it, the constant chorus from my childhood: "Don't be so idealistic."

But why the heck not?

going through the (e)motions

Off to Grand Rapids today to visit the #1 Sculpture Park in the USA (are there others?) and then dinner at a friend's place until late at night when we had to break away to do our nightly video call with dad.

Already mom is feeling some anxiety about being away from dad.

Already I feel like I'm going through the motions and not enjoying this moment as much as I could be. I know I'll look back on this trip... I know we couldn't have done more, but I think I could do better compartmentalizing some of my grief about SLE so not making more of this amazing time we have together doesn't become another regret to tote. 

Pic: Sis, Nu, and mom at Meijer Gardens. The majestic greenhouses are in the background.

meta

I can't believe it has been a week (since my fam arrived, since SLE died... how is life so unrelentingly incessant?).

My sister and I took off for an early morning hike. We did a couple of midday ones last week, but the heat seemed to exacerbate her sadly near-constant migraine, so we thought we'd try a sunrise trek today. 

Later in the afternoon a matinee of Incident at Our Lady of Perpetual Help at our local regional Theater. So hilarious (and Irish!) that when Nu and Big A heard about it at dinner they wanted to see it too, so I'm taking them next week. 

Pic: Being meta about my sister's tee and photography at the Beal Gardens pond. 

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.)

we're worth it

Already unthinkably wild things have been done and said (by my mom, natch) and wilder things have been said in support (by Big A who is her sidekick, sometimes.) 

Pic: Max and Huck aren't quite sure what to make of it all. I seem caught by surprise (and so, so much happiness) too.

under pressure

My mom and sis are on their way!! They'll get here tomorrow!

I'm still finishing up some last-minute chores. I guess I could do them after they get here, but then they'd want to help... and they don't know how to do things as they have a lot of domestic help. I don't want to make them travel all this way to do housework!

Big A sweetly tried to reassure me that everything would get done, and I snapped at him that I was aware of that as I was doing it all myself. Poor Big A, trying to be helpful. And poor me, so irritable. 

Thom Tillis of North Carolina and Rand Paul of Kentucky are voting with democrats to block Trump's horrible spending bill... keep up the pressure!!

Pic: Lansing Pride was lit this year, so many people!

Did I get this wrong?

The news seems so huge, I feel I must be understanding it wrong. Birthright citizenship ended in the United States today (or at least that's what it sounds like). So kids born here many not automatically be citizens of the state? And relatedly, each state can decide what it wants for itself, so we're more like a federation than a republic? We have no national laws?

Also SB1 (Senate Bill 1) prohibiting DEI in education was enacted into law in Ohio. So the Women's Center, where I worked before this (Wright State U in Dayton, Ohio), just closed and all the people I used to work with are out a job.

Pic: With Big A, Max, and Huck. In the grass, looking up.
 

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!)

memento amoris

A snake yesterday; zombies today. Only on film, thankfully. We picked At up from work and got a leisurely dinner and ice cream before seeing 28 Years Later, a franchise At and I are particularly fond of. It was unexpectedly tender for a zombie film. While the memento mori parts were predictable, the instruction--"memento amoris"--was not and it really resonated. Everyone will inevitably die, but will we have loved as much as we could?

While on love, here's an amazing poem I found this week. It's by John Roedel: on the days/when it feels like/I have no power/I serve others/you see/whenever I wash the world's feet/my hands/immediately/stop shaking. Wow. This is kind of true for me too.

And in the love department, we watched the Rick Steves tour of Esfahan ("extraordinary mosques and endearing people") because it's unlikely that we'll ever be able to see it for ourselves now. My love for that one particular shade of Isfahan blue comes from a picture in a book I had when I was eight or nine. 

And since the beginning of this year, EM and I and then Nu and I have been talking about Mississippi Masala--that movie from 30+ years ago with Denzel Washington and Sarita Choudhary, which won awards and hearts for depicting a love affair between an Indian woman and a black man. So that's one of the many, many reasons we're so happy that Zohran Mamdani has won the primary as NYC mayoral candidate--that movie was made by his mom, Mira Nair. 

Pic: At, Big A, and Nu in the parking lot. I love them a lot.