First Rule of Cousins' Club

It's always time to jump on beds.

(Cambridge, MA)

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Trans-Local

Dad's big birthday today

We're just too far away.

But we get

an archana and a pattu

veshti for Ganesha.

And for ourselves,

lunch (with Mimosas).

Now we''re celebrating

(Even though

the birthday boy is teetotal.)

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Twice as Nice

The "Railway Clock" 

my parents gave us is finally up.

(Now we can panic about school drop off

coming down AND going up the hallway…)

Midday/Half a World Away

These names are written under my skin

Their faces are painted on every mirror.

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Unexpectedly...

 The family portrait my mom so desired

turns out a bit Jindalesque?

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A Third Coast

On the brine of memory
the ink of veins marks spots

It is a storm of forgetting;
at each sob, she jettisons

Parents as they were, embraces
in sorrow how they now are

sweeps it all into feeling
grabbing and flailing even so

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Nostalgia and Kindness

It's true that every time I hear this song, it brings a lump to my throat.


Nu says, "That's like you, Mama. You left your mom and Dad too."

At silently thumps me on my shoulder. (Somewhat smirkily, the way he seems to do everything these days, but still kindly.)

Broods: Mother and Father

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How do you say "So Fetch" in French?

Amma and Chelli

(Grandson) Rise!

My dad mimicking At's hair :)

Defiant hair runs in the family…

(I'd be ok if 

At didn't inherit 

the ear hair though.)

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This is a morning

Painted with the colors of my childhood
a door swings, calls my childhood name
the stairs lift me as did mother and father
the breeze, their blessing calling me home

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Look me in the eye!

This picture cracks me up.

(Scout & Grandpa R)

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For Amma

Mother, my diameter
I am yours, your radius.

Gambling into leaf too early
the crocuses are betrayed
frayed on drifts of winter,
sleet, and no daisies
at our feet

All weekend long,

Toronto's lonely songs

their Omni and just me

the same Hindi movies

this time I see alone

Bound to you. Only you.
But found by everyone.

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So Sari

Unusually for me, I turned up to work in a sari. ( A special sari that my Chelli gave me back in May last year!)

 I took an accidental selfie while I was documenting student PowerPoints, and so I even have proof.

Thanks for the sari, Chells!!

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Amma

Called Amma to find out that she'd been sick and feverish for two days.

Sick since she got home from Benares; since she bathed in the Ganges with its famed sin-eliminating waters and decomposing corpses downstream.

She said she only meant to take a token dip but ended up doing nine. She said she swallowed some of the water.

In the last month two childhood friends have told me that their mothers died--one six years ago and C did not make it back to the funeral, the other one month ago on account of which S wasn't celebrating her birthday this month. I loved these "Aunties"--I loved their food, their style, their staunch support of their daughters. I yearn for a chance to tell them this.

I wonder when I'll see my own Amma again.

The kids called Amma this morning to yell "Get well soon, Ammama."

It's only been two months since I was in India.


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Once, twice

Your place is inside someone.
the closing of their heart
a landscape scaled to story

what if you knew everything
About why my sister looks like
my sister, the slap of silence;

the beating that is the phone ringing
The lament of memory in all
the half-remembered childhoods

what if those habits are only errands
dead from scorn; like butter asking
to be left out, sleepy in the sunlight

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Ginger + Garlic

Knowing I have two jars in the fridge plus the curry powder mom made in the coffee grinder = two nights of easy curry anytime I want...


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Spin

Yesterday, after I'd dropped the kids off at school and was driving home to work at syllabi and class prep, I ran over a squirrel. I've braked-swerved-stopped for the suicidal little creatures before and would have this time, except that this one leapt out of the undergrowth before I could harness a reaction. Serves me right. I should have biked/walked the kids. I felt the thunk of its body under the wheel and could see its inert form lying an inch or so from the edge of the road. I felt miserable.

I called my mother.

She was horrified. And suggested that to make up for taking a life, I should scatter grain in the garden for other squirrels to eat.

I'm such a bad person, that all I could think of was--but I'm not the one who eats meat! 

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Happy Birthday, Baby A!

Back

Fair, hostile sky
grumble of wind

music wakes up,

miscommunicates

an umbrella of rain
splinters of silence

In the cramped cage
of childhood

My mothers already
see everything

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New Bike Summer