And on and on

Lots of tears at the therapist's today, and I worried aloud about having to teach in a couple of hours. She wisely said that I was offloading them in her office so I didn't have to take it with me to class. She turned out to be right.

Walked to class and back like a champ. And then I shelled out for a deep-tissue massage after class just to make sure I would keep feeling okay.

So Bae

I'd taken the BART in to the city when I arrived, but I was running a bit late and took a taxi back to the airport. I'm so glad I did! I got to see the sunrise over the bay, have a great conversation with my Eritrean cabbie, and got an upgrade at the gate from a kind, young woman who called me "milady." OK.
Late yesterday I was elected caucus chair for the year, and I'm not sure if that deserves congratulations or commiserations yet. Not bad for a day which started with me and my roomie EH poring over the weather app and trying to figure out what the wavy gray lines were. (Fog, duh.)

Madras Madcaps

SR and I have been taking this picture we call the "Madras Madcap" series at NWSA because we both spent time in Madras and like to wear hats and things:

            2019                                        2018                             2017
    

Panels, panels everywhere

For someone who was was dismayed about three nights away and was ready to leave the day they arrived, I ended up having a pretty good conference. I went to every panel I could and learned so much. Special love to MG's activism panel and the Kashmir Studies Collective.

DTW ----> SFO

 

I took the shuttle to the airport in the ice and snow sometime around 4 (am) and Delta then spit me out in San Francisco and I had to hurry to the Hilton in Union Square to grab my NWSA badge (but it turned out I hadn't registered!) and I had to pay for registration (but I couldn't find the card I wanted to use and thought I had lost it and needed to report it lost, but it tuned out to be there all along!) and then I couldn't find the room I was supposed to be presenting in... but I finally did and I somehow presented, answered questions and then took myself off for some quiet and a tea. It was as much of a jumble as this here picture: Christmas tree, skating rink, homeless person on the wet grass, and all.

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.

By the time I got home

By the time I got home
I was worthy of love
I was dressed in hope

your words don't reach
are just not as sharp
I see myself here

I see myself here
not as you see me
not as you say I am

November surprise

Snow was predicted for today, but it seems to have caught everyone by surprise after all. It was so perfect and powdery and pristine out. Also surprising: Me being out in it.

And later today, from At's article in the school paper about carrying his passport card on him: "The real reason I hold on to the card is because of my immigrant mom, who is worried about her son being stopped by the police and detained by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (I.C.E.). She herself carries numerous documents in order to prove her legal residence and her parental relationship to my sibling and me." 💖 

Tiny Dragons

With L and Nu at the MSU Global Festival, where Nu could have gotten their passport stamped at all the booths, but decided they were too grown up 🙄. We  had a good time, nevertheless. I found lots and lots of stocking stuffers--all the proceeds go to funding international studentships, so I didn't even feel any guilt.

The dragons are also a tiny way of celebrating the new D.A. of San Fran, the lovely and kind Chesa Boudin, whom I knew way back when in Oxford. I'd been paying attention to Chesa's campaign since he aired it on his personal FB page months and months ago. I tried to tell At, but he didn't pay attention until Bernie Sanders endorsed him. I hope it teaches At a nice lesson about paying attention to his mama 😛.

Cave (2019)

Fake fire, fake furs, small happinesses...

Earlier in the day, Nu and I went to see Harriet with C. I know there have been some (small) controversies about casting and veracity, but we all liked it. Some parts were especially difficult to watch, and as always slavery seems unintelligible--how do you come up with something so fucked up?!

Nu was quite generous to me :). Usually, my almost teen is annoyed if I make involuntary startled sounds at the movies. But when I whispered my apologies at this one, they shot back: You're not the one who should be apologizing.

I wanted to caption each frame with the work of Angela Davis, Ijeoma Uluo, Brittany Cooper, and Robin DiAngelo. My words were much less sophisticated though. At one point, I was all "Cry me a river, jerk." My best work came when I led a round of applause at the end of the movie. Nu and I think we'd see it again with the boys (next week) and the puppies (on demand).

_

Line

I try to drown in light

slight and brown

the river writes 

leaves drop graffiti

set out to swim tonight 

#MSU #RedCedarRiver

TBTN

I'm a proud mama/advisor 😍 

• End the silence, stop the violence! 
• My dress does not mean yes! 
• Feminists unite, reclaim the night! 
• However we dress, wherever we go, yes means yes and no means no! 
• We have the right, to not be scared at night! 
• Say it once, say it again, no excuses for violent men! 

#MacCurdy #Alma

Say "subaltern"

Of course, I overdid things... and of course, I cooked until I ran out time... of course we'll be eating leftovers for days... but of course these are the greatest students.

I still want to try the pumpkin halva I made up in my head for the G/F kid and the two vegetarians.








-

Way

The doc's office left a message on my cell and I called them back between classes.

They have to continue to keep an eye on things.

I'll count that as not bad news.








_

Giving up

All those pictures of golden trees, and I got it just today. Summer is over. We're not climbing out of the 30's for the foreseeable future (two weeks on the weather app) so I brought in the tomatoes that'll never ripen and the couple of At's peppers the deer didn't eat.

L&C who dropped by for tea proceeded to have a long discussion about the movie Fried Green Tomatoes (which I haven't seen), then it turned out one of them was talking about Thelma and Louise all along. Ha. Exciting.

Witness

my illiterate left hand startles
as I write my children again

Empty at last
opening fists
to make nests

singing the quiet like a top 20
ashes, wishes wafting off me 

In review

With Big A in Denver (conference) and then off again to Traverse City (triathlon) it's been almost a whole week of living companionably with just one human--Nu. Most of the time, it's been just us, doing school and work and schoolwork and school/work, cooking, watching baking shows, baking, reading, making tea for each other, having sleepovers in the rumpus room with scary movies--one big huddle of squeals, jump scares, and puppies. Scout and Huck randomly taking off to bark at windows and doors adds a nice touch of freakout to any scary movie experience, I must say.

I made us leave the house yesterday to go to a comedy show at JG's temple and took L, T, and C along. But even there it was just mostly us as this silly selfie demonstrates. 

Catch

tickles start in my palm, aim for my pits
catch in my throat: I am open, I let
my shame (shame) show

here are bugs leaking from my breath
like starry maps from blind eyes. O
I have lost my fingerprints

I must just be falling asleep I must be
falling falling falling into depths
or deaths. I don't

know the presidents who visit in my
dreams on boats shaped like me,
wooden as my smile. I fight

I find my freedom with my fists and feet
the slick of water still gets me though
entanglement, undertow

-

Intergenerational witchery

Nu is wicked in L's wig, my dress, their own hat and cloak. All witches need a coven.

My own coven supported me through the day surgery today--the kindness of everyone from students to colleagues to friends carried me through. The texts timed just as I entered the hospital, EM's refusal to let me cancel, and the offers to drive me home were all I needed for now.

And I actually drove myself home before the lidocaine wore off.








-

Ok, last one--I swear

The walk back from class was glorious, but I'm not even sure all my pictures don't all look the same at this point. It never really looks how it feels anyway--like I'm flying into a blaze of radiance. (And now I'm thinking about the California fires and firefighters and their bravery, and the animals, and the injustice to prisoner-firefighters...)

I needed that moment. Nu didn't want to go to school after our late ER night, At had to stay in town to follow up with the hand doc today and canceled his classes, so the morning was very different from my usual quiet puppies and prep mode.

And then with Big A's early return, it turned into a completely impromptu whole fam-bam reunion. There was Chipotle and TV and teasing and arguing, and I fell asleep on a couch in the midst of all the happy noises.
_

Not according to plan

Big A is still in Denver, so I'd cobbled together some childcare for Nu on my long teaching day. Nu would take the school bus home, walk to L's, help her plant a tree and hang out, and we'd both have dinner at L's before coming home, and collapsing in pajamas for our "sleepover" in the rumpus room with Scout and Huck.

Instead I started receiving texts on family chat from At while I was on my way home telling me that the "sprained" finger I'd asked him to have looked at ten days ago, was actually a dislocated finger, and Dr. H at our family practice couldn't get it to stay in place despite a couple of times of "popping it back" (™) because his muscles and tendons had knitted wrong in the intervening days. Big A told him to go see a colleague of his at the E.R. in Lansing, so that's where we spent the rest of the evening.

It took several tries of Lidocaine and people tugging on his finger (and At making the inevitable fart jokes) before they could get the joint positioned and splinted. It was actually pretty traumatic. There was so much numbing agent that the base of his finger started to bleed, and despite his general good humor and inability to not be a sweet smartassy jokester, it was clear that the pain was getting to be too much. Not to be outdone, I somehow lost my insurance card despite putting it back in my wallet. And Nu having somehow ingested a peanut butter chip in a cupcake earlier, vomited repeatedly--but elegantly--into a plastic bag at the E.R. All in all, we made quite an impression at Big A's work.
_

Peak Color

L said she was taking her Californian houseguest on a color tour of Fenton, because we're at peak color right now.

Everywhere is so beautiful, that I was almost late to class this afternoon because I had to keep stopping to take pictures on the way.

I can barely see trees or sky. If I keep looking, I won't think of anything else. We're that golden.


_

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!






-

A Tower of Sugar

Nu accompanied me on a Target run (I needed eggs) and came away with this tower of sugar.

Big A said he could tell I wasn't feeling ok, because I've never even looked at a PopTart before in my life? 😆











_

A day

 A strange day... I got touched all day long. I was remembering Nu's amazement when they discovered me wearing tights when they were a baby and how they kept running their hands down my shin bone--"so silky, mama, so silky." So Nu enacted the strange thing for old times sake. I also got a a very tender kiss and good wishes when I dropped them off at school.

The ultrasound was, of course, a lot of awkward and uncomfortable contact. Although less awkward and uncomfortable and painful than a mammo. But goopier and with more prodding. I can't win this. I was asked to make a biopsy appointment, so I did, but now I don't want to go to it. It's the week before NWSA, I have an important meeting at school the day after, it will be At's Boss Day that weekend,... etc.

I ended the day with the international potluck that CP was organizing in town, and I had my hair touched a bunch of times all day by the nurse and late dinner guests? I don't know, I give up. As I was walking in to the ultrasound building, I got all these texts--from LB, MZ, and others, and that gave me a little boost. I'm going to think about that now.

_

Uh-Oh

I'm waking up better every day

Oh, no. I'm not healed, I'm just 

growing into to a better person.

Magic. Just one more day to go;

getting some answers tomorrow.

-

Wednesday/Birthday

I headed to the Broad after class
for a few last-minute birthday things...

and then we celebrated Big A's 4* birthday...
We're getting up there!

This year's candles sit atop the requested cinnamon muffins
Nu learned to make in a delicious "Food Science" class.
_

Falling

i think Fall is finally happening...

It took a couple of COLD days,

when I may have panicked and 

ordered two stoves off the internet.

_

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."









_

A wild rumpus

 ...aptly, in the rumpus room. The mess of Pocky wrappers, dunkers crumbs, juice boxes, and karaoke poses attests to a good time.

In the afternoon, we ended up at the UAW picket line where K's dad was, and joined them for a while. Earlier, when I texted him about bringing the kids there, C said that since a tentative agreement had been reached, this week was about thanking the community for their support. "You'll get to see the best in us," he said. I almost cried a puddle-full right then and there.



_

Birthday reprise (now with sleepover)

Happy Birthday NuNu!!

#Dada's 'tupcakes"

_

Almost there

But things get in the way.

The ultrasound is a whole week away, so I've been trying not to think so much about it. But once in a while, I'll feel it in the shower or something and realize that I'd been hoping it would (magically) go away.

But, obviously, it hasn't.






-

For a few moments...

yesterday, after the concert, it was lovely to have At nestled into a corner of the kitchen, flanked by columns of pictures of earlier Ats.

And then it was time for him to drive back to college...

_

At the end of the day:

Black Violin

with these guys--

The music was invigorating

(also the walk to the Wharton as it's 40 and super windy!) 

_

_

Meanwhile, while we're still in the garage...

I have yet to start the car to take At back to college, but the ping of Big A's pic to family chat shows that the babies already miss their oldest sib.


The heart knows what it knows.






-

Another day, another new view...

Walking to work gives me a lot of time to finesse class as I walk to it, and lots of time on the way back for wayward thoughts.

Such as if I didn't have long hair or breasts, I might run more frequently and further.

Part of this was because I was headed to the radiology office after class to schedule the damn
ultrasound that the family practice ordered. But it's still weird to fake myself into thinking of cancer as a fitness motivator.

-

Heading back...

and driving really slow, so we don't run out of battery power, and I'm staying/playing in the car with Scout and Huck as the others go get dinner (Popeyes!) while Bluey the E-Tron charges.

Why do electric cars cost so much? Why aren't there more EV charging stations? Why does it feel like it's more difficult when you're trying to do the right thing?






-

Celebrations

Celebrating with Grandma S's cake...

Celebrating Grandma S's show at the YS Arts Council.

-

Happy Nu Day!

😍 12 today! 😍 

I've had this picture in my office for years and posted it to family chat yesterday so everyone could marvel and love on this deliciousness all over again.

Have to say, this picture is just quintessentially Nu: Comfy pants, fancy hair, serious gaze, and unlikely friends (here a rat). The dimples on her fingers are gone though as well as whatever it was that made the Korean aunties at Saya dote on her. (Saya is gone too, :/)

It's 3:33 am, and I've just finished the birthday decorations and presents... off to bed now!

#18Months #LivermoreStreetHouse #YellowSprings
_

Pause

We're in the car and just a block from school here. I begged Nu and they took a break from torturing me with BTS long enough to take this beautifully composed picture of the sky.

I really like the emphasis of the red traffic lights.

The baby is so talented.












_

New order

I've been taking the long way home after the Poco class stopping at places (so far this week--Pitaya, Target, Urban Outfitters, the Visitors' Bureau, Insomnia Cookies, and the Vinyl store), loading up my backpack when I get something, and counting it as weight training and aerobic exercise.

And just a day after telling the person who called from the doctors' office that I don't want to go to a followup, I found something... and Big A is adamant I need to see the doctor right away.

It's must be the middle of term, because I caught myself thinking it would be a nice break from grading. So there's that.

#RedCedarRiver #MSU
_

Tableau

So I'm in a car. I'm in a car stopped at a traffic light.
On the block on which my son lives now. It's by the--
by the Starbucks redux, by the telephone pole, by the
old 7-11, the zebra crossing, the Asian buffet--And. At--

At the zebra crossing, a mom looks on fiercely as: her
skinny toddler drops her hand, and steps precisely--as if
at prom, then delays--to tiptoe the three steps--three steps
away to press the button--the button that will summon the

white walk-sign man. And then I think she says thank you.
That's it. Oh. NoNo. there's a baby too, who anchors the mom,
who had yielded attention for a moment, but is now bouncing--
bouncing, appealing, willing mom to look--look back. Willing

her to smile back. I imagine the baby is a girl; the toddler is a boy.
I'm not reading their signs, only feeling my past. And they're so
close, so I'm smiling and nodding my encouragement to the child,
the baby still bouncing in the pram, the mom. Nodding to myself--

It's that familiar. Memories buzz in the car's hum of silence. The
residuum of busy, sticky hands I've let go. Panic--a fog. The years
alertly sliding in--backlog. Stuck waiting for a sign--green--walk--
wait--ok fine--we're waiting--so incoherent with longing, still, life--


______________________
Ha. I've managed to sneak "At" And "NoNo" in there.

-

"And then, mama..."

"Doing an after-dinner Huckleberry"

_

One Night in Lansing

 Nu looks so lovely dressed up for Navaratri visits. even their severe hair looks very model-like, I think.

I slept over with the three babies last night and this morning Scout and Huck seemed the same, but when I went to give Nu a goodmorning kiss, they seemed taller? Like they had grown in the night?

Big A said I was still taller by a hair; S, U, and E--our Navaratri hosts said Nu was already taller.

Nu is technically still eleven until Friday, so I should get used to being the shortest human in the family and to being addressed as "little mama" by my tall pre-teen. I'm sure I'll grow into it. Get it? Ha.




-

Thud

Last week was a rainy blur, so I don't remember which morning this was. But yes, that tree fell right into our tiny veggie plot and the putative garden... so: BOO.

It would have been more boo-hoo though if it had fallen a few feet to the right and taken out windows and skylights, so there's a bright side?

CF was going to spend the night here, but showed up early, laden with sweet gifts, but congested and wanting to get back to her own bed. I was in the process of making soup for dinner, so I packed up some for her to take.

I am sad and will miss our plans for intergenerational girls' night. And C's disappearance hacks heavily into Nu's plans to watch Derry Girls  all over again :D.
_

Here Comes the Sun

I was so delighted to see this bright face over the Maple River.

(In a show of what we used to call
"deep breath of beauty"
when we all had to drive to Alma for school.)

(Also: Kids, please don't try this in your cars.)