The Beauty

I am two years ten months old,

beloved first-born: am told my face 

is open as windows, my smiles gems

of happiness, when baby sister is born.

I remember being taken to visit

Amma and the wrinkly new baby 

too in the hospital, in the morning, right 

before I have to go to Mrs. Pinto's "school."

And I remember the chill of nerves

the clunky thump of suspense, feeling 

so sneaking clever when--patting her tenderly, 

I tell my parents: "Baby sister--Chelli Paapa--

is so, so beautiful; I don't want to go to school."

My ploy creeps on, it has lived many lives

it has floated past memory's borders, 

the recall slowly fading.

When I retell it now, on this whole other continent, 

my own kids chortle, roll their eyes, call me 

"playa." My face is a window, is a mirror, 

my face is a door that lets the lie in.

 But my parents have told this story for decades,
in a haze of earnestness, claimed 'blessings
--love or beauty or children, or the hazy
necessity of whatever comes next.  

dreamed a dream

Our moon is too long ago
is very nearly gone

did it fall like plump fruit
into the water? Will it rise?

I am still so afraid, my voice
tears pulled from the well

All "good morning" and "what
seems to be the matter."

Monday Face

 

Bright spot

At said when this picture came to family chat: "got reelected to YDSA and got on the Dean's List selfie."

I'm adding extra credit and top marks for some masterful pattern mixing and the clean toilet in the background.

Our first-born is adulting.

"Snow: Upholder of Patriarchy"

It's Women's March day today and students were supposed to head here for "linner" afterwards, but we had over seven inches of snow overnight and we canceled the linner event in a flurry of early morning texts. At, who was going to offer a ride to other students, was the one who quipped that snow was the biggest upholder of the patriarchy." That kid is golden.

Then suddenly the day was wide open, and I got a few procrastinated tasks off my list, and then T and T showed up for tea and a chat and EBS showed up with a a whole bunch of movie theater snacks for the next "Friday Film Fest" and a whole set of Tupperware because I'm "always sending people home with boxes of food." She had a present for Nu too, and that's the fourth of my friends this year who's given Nu a present alongside me. Love it!!

Big A works tonight, so Huck, Scout, Nu, and I are hunkered down in the rumpus room and plan to watch shows till we we're sleepy. It's not how I expected today to work but it was nice nevertheless.

Little Things

Grocery-store impulse buys are blooming in the tea garden and the hyacinths I secreted away randomly in pots all over the house last month are beginning to frill and flower now.

I'm a bit disappointed though. The last time I did this, it was their scent that alerted me--I'd smell hyacinths and snoop around until I found the blooms. This time around, they seem to be fragrance-free. And it's still lovely to find them and marvel at their easy beauty, but it reminds me a bit of that time when a sinus infection gave me anosmia.

"I like all cake, silly!"

It's been a tough week (we have no word on our Title IX thing and teaching every weekday is oddly draining although I'm still teaching just three classes). I'd been craving cake (openly--like over dinner and on family chat) and Big A, our resident baker, asked what kind I wanted--to which I responded "I like all cake, silly!"

Today I came home to this beauty--simultaneously hearty and delicate and filled with pistachios and raspberries.