Athithi Deivo Bhava

I looked up from gathering my things to see the host's father talking to his daughter, pointing at me from across the room accusingly, and saying something about "that girl..." My crime? I was trying to leave without taking food home with me. So I was properly chastised and packed up with leftovers.

It was lovely to take a break and celebrate an early Diwali with the girlfriends, play with some delicious babies, eat some delicious food, and celebrate life and light today.

The thing with the food reminds me that according to legend, Alexander the Great is supposed to have said that in all his conquests, he'd never encountered hospitality as pronounced as that in India. And that always made me wonder (1) how can you tell if the people you conquered are acting hospitable or servile (2) the Greeks and Persians whom Alexander conquered before he got to the Indians also make a big deal of hospitality in my experience (to this day), so I'm not sure what he was talking about. 

The title of this post is from the Sanskrit saying "the guest is (like a) God," which people like to drop into conversation. 

Pic: A crop of me from a group photo today--I tried a thing with bangs, my first time since giving myself pandemic bangs early in 2020.

this intercession

I wear today like a kingdom
though weary and rugged 
how many times can I speak 
about having grown

my memories into answers

and into prayers

begging for rain and reprieve

and reasons to remain

history doesn't have to betray

it can be a recipe

you've always meant to try 

...keep reading

overhead, birds circle in clouds

I map them in words

coax them to perch as guards

although tomorrow

they want to be in the parade

and have the last line

_________

Pic: It's so beautifully, unbelievably golden when I look up.

marking myself safe

It has been a tough week, but I'm still here. 

One of my besties sent me this meme to remind me that I don't have to be super nice to everyone else while I'm feeling terrible. (The small font at the bottom says, hilariously, "Hello 911? How are you?")

Big A is jokingly pretend-placing bets with the kids on whether I'll be hospitalized for exhaustion or a mental breakdown and whether it'll be by Thanksgiving or Christmas.

But I AM doing things for myself. For instance, I had meetings all day, but I made the time to make and attend a long overdue medical appointment. (My finger is still splinted and I guess the days of just expecting my body to heal over are over?)

Also, I went to book club although I didn't quite finish Niall Williams' This is Happiness. It's a delightful, charming, poetic novel set in Ireland (and I should love it for that anti-colonial attribute alone) but I guess I wasn't in the right frame of mind to enjoy it. What I did enjoy, however, was sitting with a glass of wine and my book club friends while they cursed up a storm and exchanged GOTV stories from the trenches. My multigenerational friendships with women (this book club is mostly in their seventies) are some of the greatest blessings in my life. 

Currently, I'm wondering if it's worth it to go to bed as the Saturday class is at 7 am our time. 

Pic: This picture reminds me of the time I was so tired as an undergrad, I tripped over a beanbag and then reflexively apologized to it. Good times.

lost and found (Four for Thurs)

1) My Gaza students may be ok. (My Moodle skills may not.) But I.T. did some troubleshooting, and they can see students logging in, so hopefully this week's online class will be a go. 

2) I thought I was going to get to work later than I wanted, so I was merrily speeding along... Then, I thought I was definitely going to be late because I saw police lights flashing in my rearview. I got ready to pull over, but they just wanted to pass me. Phew. 

3) I heard about Robert Roberson on the way to work. His two-year-old died of complications from pneumonia--but the hospital thought it was shaken-baby syndrome in part because they thought he wasn't emotional enough (he is on the autism spectrum!) Anyway, he ended up on death row, although everyone including medical experts and the arresting officer now agree he is innocent, with his execution date today. But the Texas Supreme Court halted the execution!

4) Pic: There are definitely hints of Fall color around, but inside the woods, it's still green as summer. Baker Woods with L.

"exchanged"

"May she is not her daughter. Hospital exchanged" [unedited]

I got this text from my mom last night as I was getting ready for bed and I couldn't understand it. Sometimes when my mom types Hindi or Telugu words autocorrect changes them into English and really messes things up, so I have to guess at her texts sometimes--I'm used to that. But I showed this one to Big A because it was so strange, and he got it right away and I was SO impressed... he knows my mom and all her quirks so well! 

(I was trying to highlight my mom's quirks and couldn't decide whether to point out she likes the rapper Nelly or she likes to tease me or she loves to hear me sing or that she has the most unorthodox views of marriage and Hinduism or her pre-marriage days or her fighting days with my dad or how I feel my relationship with her was cloned in a novel after we'd had dinner with the novelist. Yes, I kind of went down a rabbit hole after I searched "mom" on my blog.)

Anyway, the background to that text is my mom's baby sister was widowed earlier this year, and although my aunt had wanted to live by herself, the family pressured her to live with her only child who appears to have put themselves on my aunt's bank accounts and then kicked her out. Big A interpreted my mom's text thus: "Athamma is saying your shitty cousin is not your aunt's real daughter, and that your aunt was given the wrong baby when she delivered at the hospital." I mean, what would it matter--my aunt had brought up my cousin, but yes, that is what my mom was saying. And my mom was so proud of A for figuring it out. 

Pic: This one made me cry. Max was hanging out outside and when I went to find him, he was curled up by Scout's memorial. He never met Scout, of course, but we do sound the wind chimes on our first trip outside every morning, perhaps that's why Max is feeling good vibes there? Or maybe (just maybe) Scout lingers there somehow? I swear--every morning, the tree-of-life solar lantern flickers when I sound the chimes... 

faking, making, breaking

I'm talking to I.T. at Lille and An-Najah Universities to figure out where my Gazan students are and if there is a problem with my Moodle page. 

I expected today to be tough and it was: I was skating on the edge of tears and nauseous all day, but I did ok on this teaching day because I had prepped classes ahead of time, and had willing and engaged students. I even chuckled because of two videos I showed--Trevor Moore's "My Mom's A Bitch" (when we studied Robert Browning's "My Last Duchess" because both are terrific examples of dramatic monologues); and this old B&W clip of Carl Rogers and his client Gloria as we went into Rogerian Rhetoric (to show Rogerian modes in practice and also because it will never not be hilarious to see lightbulbs go off as young people figure out what Gloria's old-fashioned problem is). 

It was a long day at work and I didn't melt down until much later with Big A who is the best. He did suggest that I stop taking on more responsibilities and I kind of am. My CASA director had contacted me with a new case last week, but I'm holding off on accepting it until I figure out how it feels to teach an extra online class this semester.

Pic: Things left for me... The book outside my door was expected. The napkin note is a mystery! It was left under the windshield wiper of my car. At first, I thought it was a parking ticket because I'm driving a loaner from the dealership and it doesn't have my faculty parking sticker. And I can't figure out who it is, because I don't have very many "XOX"-style friendships on campus and none of them are an "L." Perhaps it's an "L" from another facet of my life? Why "L" and not their name? How do they know that's my car? (It's a loaner I picked up just last week.) Mysteries abound! 

missing, mixed up, and meandering

Thank you to everyone who sent good wishes to my missing students in Gaza. I hope it's just that they're goofing off. Also, can you imagine signing up for something like "Literature Survey 2: Romanticism to Post-Modernism," while being bombed and displaced? (I can't.)

I've been thinking about them all day and then those thoughts get mixed up with how much I love my human kids and my canine kids (I don't think I'll ever recover from losing Scout). And then about how when the kids were younger they'd get jealous because they could tell I loved my students. It's no secret that students matter a great deal to me and for the time they are in my care, I love them dearly and consider it an honor when I get to continue to be in their lives as a mentor and get to see their new jobs, and weddings and kids and reinventions. Someday, I'll be like Mr. Chips, my kids just lists of all the young people who have meant so much to me.

(And lately, as I get older, I feel waves of affection for young people in general. Babies and toddlers and little kids and tweens and teens obviously. But also random young people. Like the other day, I passed these two young women with their bags of Trader Joe's groceries and two-buck Chucks under their arms and just... I don't know... could see the evening they'd planned for themselves and was just overcome and hoped they'd have the best time.)

This is why I can't understand how we're going about our lives while children are being killed in the most gruesome ways. When there is so much visual evidence of it happening every day. 

Apparently, there's a video on the news now showing children being burned alive in a hospital. Children. Being burned. While alive. In a hospital. Every detail is a new level of hell. 

A whole year ago, I was horrified and the horrors have just kept multiplying and spreading. At the time, I quoted James Baldwin, "The children are always ours, every single one of them, all over the globe; and I am beginning to suspect that whoever is incapable of recognizing this is incapable of morality." And I love the strength and conviction of Baldwin's statement and simultaneously feel so helpless about getting my government (that could end this horror with a single phone call) to acknowledge it. I feel like a character from The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas protecting sanity and the status quo.

(In the meantime, I better go to bed, so I can do ok for my students who can show up. One of them wrote last week, "This class is my all-time favorite class if I could take this class over and over again I would. Everyday is a favorite moment." [unedited] I mean it sounds a bit Groundhog Day, but little did they know when they wrote that, that it would give me a reason to show up this week.)