Showing posts with label Family Tree. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Family Tree. Show all posts

Wednesday, January 01, 2020

Sunday, December 29, 2019

Secret non family

"My secret family wouldn't do this" was a weird sentence I used to say 6-7 years ago. It was mainly meant for laughs, and the kids knew it was a joke, but it used to make them AND BIG A a little bit sad when  said it anyway.  And then Big A told a story about how my secret family was a bunch of raccoons and the joke is very firmly on me these days.

They sent me this picture on the family group text while they were off visiting grandparents in Yellow Springs. Haha. SO funny.

I had planned to take a few days to myself while the rest of the fam was gone, and then our furnace died last week, so I had the perfect excuse not to go (had to keep the taps from freezing). My plans were to veg out with Whole Foods carry out and movies with girlfriends and a spa day. But I slipped in the garden and hurt my back and am sitting here hopped up on Advil and hot tea and and feeling a little bit sorry for myself.

Monday, December 23, 2019

The Waiting Game


Back when Big A and his sister were tiny and being pesky and their dad was single parenting and busy, they'd play a game that had one rule and one objective: the player who was silent longest won. I know about this game because Big A tried to institute this game with our kids--perhaps a decade ago-- and failed spectacularly.

I'm not surprised--At and Nu were in charge of the raita today as I juggled the various tasks toward egg-paratha rolls (Big A's Boss Day pick) and every step of the way was chatter, and jokes, and negotiation (if I measure the cumin you should get the salt, I washed the cucumbers so you should wash the tomatoes, and on and on and on and on). I read somewhere that families should support kids learning to advocate and negotiate for themselves, but yesterday... I was torn between chuckling and wanting to     shut     it     down. The smoke alarm going off (as it does every time we fry up more than 10 parathas didn't help).

Still waiting to hear about things at work... but now I have a tower of toffee tea cakes, well watered plants, fully wrapped Christmas presents (not pictured), and a dwindling supply of unrefrigerated fruit to keep me company.

Sunday, November 24, 2019

Meanwhile in India...


The littlest cousin married her longtime love, and this photo is also full of people I love. 

Wednesday, November 13, 2019

I do declare

Nu (whose finger is in the picture) and I found this Vivek Velanki exhibit by accident. His grandmother, whose passport is the first exhibit is from Madras (like me!). 

I recommended it to the poco students at MSU.

Sunday, October 27, 2019

Divali!

I mean I'd strung up the lights already, and Divali was the perfect time to turn them on. It felt like my own version of Kusama, was our trip just last year?

When Nu and I wished my parents in the morning, they seemed a bit sad for us that it would be just the two of us for the biggest holiday of the year (At is at college; Big A is at a conference). But I reminded them that Scout and Huck would be here too, and that seemed to help some.

As it turned out, there was a teensy Divali celebration at UU and then EM came over for dinner bearing sweets from Dusty's--it was a Michigan Divali!






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Monday, October 21, 2019

Color me nostalgic

These trees on the way home from class are quintessentially autumnal, but my south asian mind is bungeeing into spring and childhood, because it's the kind of green touched by yellows, pinks, and oranges, that we'd call  "tender mango leaf."









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Sunday, August 25, 2019

Tiny tomato


School starts this week, and this tiny tomato in my planter box is the culmination of some of the best moments of the summer: The outside; children's laughter, water-fights, reading; sunshine; Huckie content in the sun; Scout instigating me to chase him...

Hello school year!






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Wednesday, August 14, 2019

Suddenly...


...or so it seems, everyone is the same height in group pics.

Grandpa R and Grandma C are on their way to OH, and we made them road trip snacks and filled them in on our summers.









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Thursday, June 20, 2019

Sunday, June 16, 2019

His Two Parrots




My dad always calls my sister Rama Chilaka [Green Parrot] and me Pancha Varna Chilaka [Multicolored/Five-colored Parrot]. Chilaka is a used as a term of affection in Telugu, but because it's my dad, he made it so highly specific.
       
 I found these finger puppets (at Whole Foods of all places!) a few weeks ago and I saved them to wish my dad a happy father's day.

          I actually didn't get to talk to him for very long--he greeted, marveled, loved, kissed, and blessed me in about 15 seconds because the India-Pakistan cricket match was on ðŸ˜‚.

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Monday, January 14, 2019

January

I keep on feeling my thoughts
You too?
It's a knife--
in the shape of a puffy heart.

*

My child is grandmother's.
Her child,
my mother--
serenades every sunrise.

*

I sit here, the sun sets too
an earthling,
lost on earth, 
feeling the slide of inertia 

_

Thursday, December 20, 2018

In the Old World

I am to reread their wrinkles
search their weeds for memories

even as ancestors' eyes are forced
to close, go masked, invisible.

It will make sense
until you ask about it.

*
They want to open my mind
wrest, twist it wide

then tip it like the overfilled point
of a plate, at the moment when

you're suddenly sated,
free of the desire for it.

*
I mime their scolding for I have no will,
and I am meek. Still they are forgotten

even so, every time--memory by memory
in a language my children will never speak

Aiyo--to think I meant at the start
to hold and shape love

as it pooled its fast and fluid
escape in my heart.

****

Tuesday, October 16, 2018

In Autumn

My hands are birds praying
in time to heart beat, my feet.

Fingers flying across the open
face of my phone, I am looking

for you in a midwestern town
where you have never lived

I am looking for my father
I am looking at my father

I am writing our name in pain
even as the pen runs dry, dies

-------------------------------------------------------



*This was supposed to be a picture of autumn tones in Bakersfield Park, but my phone died as I tried to take a picture. As best as I can tell, it died... from the cold? Apparently winter is coming for more than just tropical me.

Tuesday, October 09, 2018

à°¤ెà°²ుà°—ు

yes, of course, this is
merely the lisp of lips,
a slip, not apocalypse--
only the clumsy glamor

of Telugu scripting round
tripping slow, deliberate.
Daughter to my mother
and to mother's mother

whose words were fated
to immigrate too. I am
stuttering, I hear kinship
knocking, coming on in.

_

Tuesday, July 31, 2018

Mackinaw










Current mood:



Because we drove seven hours
to see a bridge.



Mom's been fascinated by it for years now
and today was a lovely day for it.

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Saturday, July 14, 2018

Babama and Baby NuNu

Recently, I did a meditation that asked me to remember the oldest person (Babama, my great grandmother) and the youngest person (Baby NuNu) I had loved. If they could have a conversation with each other, what would they learn? How would I introduce them? I was in tears then because they would never meet each other as Babama died before my babies were born.

But I was reminded that some things live on. Nu lost her screen privileges this week, and when I was telling Big A about why she had lost them, he reminded me of Babama's principle. Basically, if you enable people to cheat (by leaving valuables around, or being lax about people copying off you, etc.) you are responsible for the crime--not the unfortunates who are compelled by their circumstances to steal, copy, lie etc.

When I trace the timeline of this piece of advice through the generations and geographies it has traveled, it's basically a study of how love connects us.

Now for that difficult conversation with the 10-year-old.

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Thursday, July 05, 2018

Life's Beach-y

It was so hot at the beach today...

Kirk Park Beach allows doggies off-leash,
but Scout Akshaya and Huck Amulya 
were a bit skittish and stayed close to mama.

One with all the kids--whenever their album comes out, 
this pic could go on the cover.


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"I'm a weirdo/doofus/nerd/naif" (Part MXVIII)

I realized during my meditation this morning that my energy for contacting so many people yesterday (the "emotional labor" that St...