Kyren

Birthday.

“I’ve finished the rice and I’ll be making some baras,” my mother says on the phone, “You’ll be making the salad, na? What time will you be here?”

It’s my mother’s birthday today. She’s turning 68. “Mum,” I say, “If you aren’t expecting anyone, why are you cooking so much?” “Arre, you never know, who comes is welcome, and food never gets wasted in this house.” She is silent for a moment. “You know, I really miss your father today,” she says. “We’d be having breakfast together, and eat bara for lunch.” I nod, even though I know she can’t see it. He would sit at his spot at the dinner table in his pyjamas, coffee cup and mismatched saucer in front of him. He would tease her, about all her cooking, and she would silence him by letting him try the dishes she made. He’d smack his lips and lick his fingers in delight and sneak bites to my sister when he thought my mother wasn’t looking.

“I know mum,” I say. “When are you coming?” She asks again. “Don’t let my grandson eat too much at home, let him eat here,” my mother says. I agree. My son loves my mother’s food almost as much as my father did. “He’ll be eating his first bara today!” my mother laughs. “Okay beti, see you soon. I’ll get back to work then.” I smile. “See you later mum. Happy birthday.”

Seasons.

“I still need to find a bikini and a pair of cute sandals, then I’m all set,” my friend said, leafing through the latest edition of Glamour magazine. “What do you still need to get for this summer?” I shrugged. “I don’t know, actually. I don’t think I really need anything.” The question threw me off more than I’d liked to admit. I tried to picture my “summer” and my “winter” wardrobe to see where I was lacking items, but found I was having a hard time. In my closet, jumpers and cardigans are always fighting for space with frilly summer dresses and sheer blouses.

My Dutch friends take the first sunbeams as a starting signal to clear out their wardrobes. Sweaters and jumpers are washed and put away. Items are evaluated on fit, size and trend and then discarded or kept, and shopping lists are composed to complete looks. It’s a ritual that repeats with every change of season, from boots to sandals, from knits to tank tops.

I’m quite jealous of this. It makes them seem so organised. They always know exactly what they need. There is also something celebratory in marking the end of a season and the start of a new one. Truth is, I’ve never bought clothes for a particular season. I never really “clear out” my summer or my winter clothes. By the time I realise it’s too hot to wear jeans, all the cute summer items have already flown out the stores and new autumn/winter styles are dominating the sales floors. Don’t get me wrong, I love shopping. I’m just not very good at planning it.

Of course I blame my parents. Coming from a country with tropical temperatures all round, and not even a very dramatic rainy season to speak of, they thought the Dutch obsession with seasons to be quite amusing. Why wouldn’t you eat lentil soup in July? Or crave a salad in December? Why wait for spring to clean? My father laughed at his colleagues in shorts and T-shirts when the first rays of sun appeared. “Arre, you’ve become so dark!” my mother would say, “Were you sitting in the sun all day? You shouldn’t be so greedy for the sun, you’re not a Dutch girl!” But she forgot that I am. My parents had soaked up enough sun for a lifetime during their years in Surinam. For me, nice weather and sunlight are still things to be celebrated. Perhaps I should start by clearing out those jumpers.

Water.

“Go wash your head” my father would say whenever I wasn’t feeling well. He didn’t mean my hair. Or my face. He literally meant for me to wash my head. Scrub it. A shower could work magic according to my dad. It didn’t matter whether you just had a shower an hour ago (he wasn’t much into environmental issues, especially when personal hygiene was involved).

I still hear my father’s voice when I’m feeling low or unfocused, telling me to go wash my head. And sometimes I really wish I could wash it inside and out. Rinse all the cobwebs and unhappy thoughts away. Waves of fresh energy crashing through my brain, reaching every nook and cranny where negativity and insecurities may be hiding.

Maybe I’ll go take another shower.

Draft.

These are the first few paragraphs for something I started once. I haven’t finished it (far from it), but someone told me quite recently that the best way to get something done is to just get it out there and patiently wait for feedback. So here goes:

Riya waved to her father who was making his way through the crowd, shaking hands left and right as he slowly came her way. Just as he was near enough for her to give him his coat, a plump woman in a grey sari stepped between them. “Such a pity we always meet at these tragic events,” she said as if they had been in the middle of deep conversation al along. “He was such a great man. Well spoken Gupta Bhai, it really was a lovely eulogy, so true what you said about the body being just a jacket we borrow for every life. How is your lovely wife? And the children?” Before Mr Gupta could properly answer she half turned around, grasping Riya’s hand. “Ah! This is your youngest? She has grown so much! Beti how old are you now? Doing well in school? Now, go fetch your father a glass of water.” Riya threw her father a puzzled look, but Mr Gupta nodded, smiling reassuringly. As she hung the coats she was holding on a chair and moved away, Riya could just overhear the plump woman saying “She’s getting pretty, na? Braces are gone? You know, Rakesh is now twenty-one…” Riya sighed and tried to get to the other side of the stuffy room as quickly as possible. People around her were laughing loudly, slapping each other on the shoulder and talking as if they hadn’t seen each other in ages.

The close relatives of the deceased didn’t take part in the chatter. They sat, huddled together, in a corner of the room. A woman dressed in a cotton white sari was staring at her feet, clenching a tissue with both hands. Riya quickly averted her eyes when she looked up and glanced in her direction. She didn’t know her well, and staring felt like intruding upon a moment that should have been private. Finally, she located a tray with drinks and made her way back to her father with a glass of water, hoping that the plump woman had moved on and they could go home. They were just saying their goodbyes as she handed her father his glass, telling each other to send this-and-that person their regards. “Tell Bhabhi I will come by soon, with Rakesh,” the woman said as she pinched Riya’s cheek, “These young people should meet each other, don’t you think Bhai?” Mr Gupta smiled mildly and nodded as he put his glass down. “My address has been the same for years Mrs Chopra,” he said, “you know you’re always welcome. Now, where’s my coat Riya, your mother must be waiting for us.”

Work.

So today I got some bad news. Work related. So in the grand scheme of things not that important I guess. But it feels important. Like there’s this wall I’m walking into (again).

Although I wish to let go of all these assumptions I make about what other people think of me, and the expectations they have of me, somehow I can’t shake them off. They cling to me like wet leaves.

When I look back at myself, about ten years ago, eager to start my professional career, I can’t imagine that we are the same person. I felt powerful then, in charge of my life, whereas now I feel like I’ve relinquished it all, floating aimlessly, not living up to what I thought was my potential, letting down that younger version of me. I feel her glaring at me. “Is this what I’ve worked so hard for?” she says, “For you to just give up?”

How can I tell her that it isn’t giving up, it’s giving in, instead of struggling against the current I’m letting it sweep me away. If these assumptions and expectations I had of what other people might think weren’t weighing me down, trying to pull me under, I might even begin to consider myself happy. Free.

But the assumptions are mine. The expectations are projected by me. It seems that I’m setting my own traps here. So maybe that’s a place to start.

Fountain.

My father loved water fountains. Any water feature for that matter. Whenever we stumbled across one on holiday, his face lit up and he made me take a picture. “Don’t just take empty pictures Kyren,” he’d say, “always ask someone to pose. You’ll forget what was special about the buildings, but you’ll never forget the people you were with.” We all posed obediently, even if we weren’t completely convinced of the esthetic qualities of the fountain in question.

I went to visit him last week. The graveyard was almost empty, foggy and wet, as if it quietly lay waiting for the end of the world, proving the Mayans right. I took the long route up to the alcove we chose for my father’s urn some time ago. It’s a pretty spot, a curved wooden wall looking out on a small water feature, two benches facing it. I can picture him sitting there, wearing his hat and resting his gloved hands on his cane, looking at the water and the trees in the distance, discussing the names on gravestones, most of whom he undoubtedly would have known.

As I slowly walked back to my car, I crossed a narrow bridge connecting a little park with the graveyard. A sudden sound stopped me in my tracks. There, in the middle of the little pond, a fountain had burst into life. A simple jet, spraying water up some two meters, and letting it fall down again on what was a smooth surface just a few seconds ago. I froze, for minutes, just standing there, blinking, looking at it. I couldn’t remember seeing it before, but now I couldn’t tear myself away. Only when a man crossed the bridge, walking past the fountain as if he didn’t notice it at all, did the spell break.

I wish I’d taken a picture, even though there was no one there to pose for it. Somehow I feel it wouldn’t have been empty.

Love.

They caught my attention because they were occupying the only comfortable seats in the entire Starbucks. Four girls and two boys, all about fifteen years old. The weather outside was terrible, but they were laughing, sipping coffees and sharing cheesecake.

I was there with a friend. We were discussing serious issues: love, relationships, babies, mortgages: grown-up stuff that at fifteen had seemed light years away. Now and then, a burst of giggles drew my attention back to the small group of teenagers. One of the boys—baggy jeans, beanie covering messy curls—was slouching in a chair, and a pretty dark-haired girl with glasses nonchalantly rested a leg on his knee. While their friends were talking loudly, laughing, pointing out things on their smartphones, the couple just sat there, quietly listening to their banter.

Even though they were sitting in the cosy chairs I had coveted when coming in, the couple didn’t look particularly comfortable. He was slouching just a little too much, and the way the girl was stretching her leg was bound to cause her muscles to ache (if not now then surely tomorrow). But they remained in that position the entire time we were there. It seemed like it had happened by chance, or in an impulsive act of bravery, like she had stretched her leg to rest it on the table and by accident had caught his knee instead and decided to leave it there. And now they both were pretending not to notice it, afraid that even the smallest movement might interrupt the spell. They didn’t interact with each other, didn’t acknowledge their touching body parts, didn’t even glance in each other’s direction, but just sat there, leg-on-knee, watching their friends.

I watched them too, and it seemed like forever ago that I was fifteen, when sitting close to a boy you liked, let alone touch his knee, was reason to spend hours on the phone with your best friend, analysing the exact how, when and why of it, until your father yelled at you to hang up because he needed the phone and what on earth were you talking about, you just saw your friends and were you planning on paying the phone bill. I suddenly felt ancient looking at the Facebooking, Twittering, Whatsapping kids in front of me, to whom actual talking on a phone had become a foreign concept.

When my friend and I left, still discussing the how and why of love and relationships, I glanced at the couple once more on my way out. They were smiling at each other now, and I felt myself root for them. Love is a complicated thing. We spend most of our lives guessing at the when, how and why of it, but on that rainy Sunday afternoon, those kids half my age seemed to have it all figured out, sitting there, enjoying the moment, leg-on-knee. Simple. There might’ve been some sore muscles later on, but for that moment, all was good.

Tree.

We’re getting a Christmas tree this year. It’s the first time we’ll have our own tree; somehow we never really got around to buying one.

When I was growing up, my father didn’t allow a tree, it being a Christian holiday and us being Hindu and all. After much begging and pleading, he eventually caved and bought one. It was a fake one, and I think it was less then two feet tall, but I was over the moon. I ran out and bought all the decorations that my allowance would get me, and after I was done with it, even my parents agreed that it was the most beautiful little tree they’d ever seen.

When I became a teenager I lost interest in the little tree, and a couple of times my father had to remind me to get it from the basement and decorate it. I think he’d gotten used to it by then, and it reminded him of the sweet little girl I was before turning all surly and rebellious. After a few years he gave up, and when we moved to a different house, the little tree didn’t survive. That was fifteen years ago.

So you can say I’m excited. I’ve already picked out the first ornaments, and am thinking of ways to keep our cat and our 1-year-old from destroying them. It’s just a tree, but to me it’s a reminder to celebrate my family, my home, focus on the years still ahead. That’s a lot of weight to put on a Christmas tree, I know. I guess I’ll have to make sure it’s more than two feet tall.

Standing still.

It’s scary how certain memories slip away from me, only to surface on unexpected moments when I don’t expect them. A whiff of Old Spice. The sound of a lighter. Blue-black ink. Images come flooding back, fragments of conversation, and the sharp stabs to my stomach of missing you, that remind me that these are the memories I’m left with. No new ones will be made.

Some part of me is afraid that through the years, more memories will vanish, replaced by new ones that need the storage space. Another part of me hopes this will indeed be the case, and that I’m wise enough to select the most precious ones to hold on to. Fill the rest with shiny new images, laughter, fragments of conversation. The trick is to hold on to the right things. And that scares me, because so much seems to be slipping away already, overwritten by the day to day worries that hurl my life forward, when sometimes I really need to stand still. If only just for a moment. Engraving in my mind the way you splashed Old Spice on your freshly shaven cheeks, the narrowing of your eyes when you lit a cigaret, and how you taught me how to clean my fountain pen. I need these memories there, so you won’t fade against the harsh light of the present and future. I’m letting go. But to do that, I need to hold on, and for that, I need to remember to stand still. If only once in a while.

Thanksgiving.

Last night as I lay awake, staring at the ceiling, I composed an entire blog post. Bits and pieces of it are coming back to me now, as I actually get to type the words that I thought up while everyone, husband, baby, cat, were asleep around me. The thing is, I can’t remember most of it. It was brilliant, of course, and insightful, and witty and full of truth, but all that remains now is the memory of how I lay there, in the big bed, with the baby snuggled up close to me, his warm milky breath on my skin, the cat purring and the husband somewhere off in dream land, thinking I was lucky to have this all, even though I might not always experience it that way. Life is and has been crazy. I can’t believe November is almost over. Here’s to December. May it bring more sleepless nights.