back in a mandala

If I started something new and started looking for results, my mom would often tell me to stick with it for at least 40 days. Because that's how long a mandala--a full cycle of human physiology--is in Ayurvedic practice. 

I've been away from journaling here for over 40 days. I don't know if I'm any different than 40 days ago. 

I didn't mean to stay away. I was very sad and extremely busy. 

I'm still very sad, but am way less busy.

It has been half a year since we lost mom... 

The nausea that went away has begun to return again... 

Because May is coming and it bears her birthday and Mother's Day.

We should prepare ourselves for May, my sister said. 

Yes, of course. But how?

easy like Sunday mornings

Life was easy today. Being honest so I don't get more undue credit. We stocked up on food for the week, and then... headed for the beach. 

United Way doesn't work on Sunday. Okay. 

We ended the day with dinner at a restaurant and sharing reflections and expectations for the upcoming week.

 I really do hope that they work us hard tomorrow... I need to be so tired I can forget.

Writing responses to the comments from yesterday, I realized I'm the one likely to be a nuisance to other people's sleep schedules. The camp cot, noise, etc. don't faze me as when I'm tired enough and need to sleep, nothing can stop me, thankfully. It is the bathroom sharing that I'm such a princess about. But I'm handling it.

Speaking of princesses, Huckleberry Pup's lab results came back and it's just a UTI! (Yay?) Big A has been having a tough time getting her to take her meds though.

Pic: I adore this pic of food democracy in action as the students carefully consider each purchase picked for the communal grocery cart.

beam me up, I guess

Now in Sarasota, FL, which is a (small) city. I don't know why I didn't know that or why I did not look it up. Whatever happened to my growth mindset?!

But here I am. Long journey--two planes. While we were waiting to board the second plane (we were in Group 8), they began boarding the first-class passengers. A student (only) half-jokingly asked when they would get to travel first-class and I really felt that. I held up my hands in blessing and said I hope it happens soon for them. (So long as they don't go into teaching, I guess.)

Typing this from a camp cot in a church dormitory. The fam was a bit concerned about me navigating communal living because I can be a bit princess-y, but I'm doing fine so far. 

We're supposed to do some grocery shopping for the week tomorrow. I want to make one or two dinners for the group...

I kinda miss Max and Huckie already. I would miss Big A, but he was on the verge of doing something I disagreed with, so I'm a bit mad at him.

Pic: Another crepuscular sighting!

visiting

A video call with dad and sis this evening. I was kind of saying goodbye as I don't know what the internet situation will be like next week. It was so centering to see them.... To hear my sister tell me that I should have a conversation with mom when I wake up on my birthday.

Can I just say how kind everyone has been?!? "Unfailingly" is the word that comes to mind. Family and friends. My community. They have helped me keep the important things going even when other things fell away. 

Steph recently noted that I don't seem to be out walking much, and that is so true! I rarely seem to venture out unless it is with someone. That's a far cry from most times in my life and I hope I'll go back to craving my own company.  

But also the kindness of everyone who stops by! I think often of Jenny's calendar of grief. And I've saved so many comments of comfort and reassurance in an email file that I open up to reread often. I read Jeanie's when I don't have faith in myself because she seems to and seems to know so much that I don't. So it was a treat to get to spend teatime with her.

Pic: The fabulous Jeanie with Max and Huckie!

red.blue.white.

The Detroit Pistons hats we got for Christmas were blue and red, so I assumed the team wearing blue and red were the team to root for. But apparently the home team wears light colors and they were the team in white. 

So naturally I switched my allegiance. We won handily.

Pic: From our nosebleed seats in Little Caesar's Arena. Big A and I were marveling at how we'd never deign to eat Little Caesar's pizza in our everyday lives, but when we're at the game, that pizza is like a siren call!

in these vast hours

float the ghosts of ease 
ascend the essence of sweetness
mysterious peace has brushed me
where light echoes soft darkness
where stillness distills silence 
and the certainty of sleep

___________________________

I may get more than two hours of sleep tonight. (But all my grading is done!)

Pic: NM's busy bird feeder.

midterm thoughts

It's like clockwork how I adore my students by the midterm mark, and this term is no different. And perhaps requited in a small way? One of them wrote, "YOU'RE A GEM" after we'd resolved some tech issue. (I wanted to shout back, "I KNOW!")

Just finished a ton of midterm grading. There was some reminiscing in the answers about funny moments in class like when someone thought the squiggly lines in a document were redactions (à la the Epstein Files) and awesome ones when the class got someone to change their mind. 

When I write exams, I always worry if the instructions are clear. The only person who didn't get the assignment (as they say) was Big A. Huck has some troubling symptoms that could be a UTI (or something more serious). I went looking for reassurance... "It's not serious, right? It's just a UTI, right?" Big A: "Right. Or it could be bladder cancer." Facepalm. StraightLineFace. We have to collect more puppy pee for tests.

Off to the second half of the semester... summer (break) will be here in seven weeks. 

Pic: Sunset with Nu.

memoriam

Baby sis (whose birthday was in Jan) and I didn't feel we could bear to celebrate our birthdays this year. So we've put them on hold.

Starting Saturday, I'll be spending a week with United Way of Sarasota County (FL) cleaning up after Hurricane Milton as part of a college service break with students. It'll be filthy work all day and bunking at a local church shelter at night.

My mom would be slightly horrified at spending a birthday this way--she so loved luxury and soft things. 

But somehow it feels right to me. Not quite a celebration, more as a way of comemorating the gift of this body she birthed. 

In any case, it'll be different.

Pic: Mallards on the Red Cedar. Walk with AS last week.

"I trust"

Thanks to J and Big A, I started the day with a yoga practice that urged me to trust the journey.

I'm trying.

One of the things I think about a lot as my birthday approaches is how this will be the first time I'm here without her in this body she gave me.

At the pow-wow this afternoon with LB and EM, as I watched the dancers in competition completely lose themselves, it made me want to tie my bharatanatyam ankle bells on and whirl until my feelings centrifuge away. 

I love this meme by "Notorious Cree" where they play the "wrong Indian music," (i.e. my kind of Indian) but dance anyway.

Pic: One of the Ojibwe dancers today.  

lining up

Grief has been crippling lately. Meditating at the altar in the middle of the night, seeing Scout and my mom side by side, I found fresh regret for not knowing that mom was going, for not being able to say a final goodbye--the way I was able to with Scout. If I had known ahead of time, I could have flown to Bangalore. 

Past me must have decided that I needed to do more things, because my calendar has been jam-packed.

But current me had to deal with an Urgent Care trip for Big A on Tuesday (Long Covid is no joke) and an emergency vet trip for Huckleberry on Wednesday (waiting on results) and had to cancel some previously made plans.

But I still got to see Lucas Zelnick perform today and see the world premiere of Sally (based on the experience of Sally Hemmings) yesterday. 

Pic: A bunch of us at Sally; I'm nicely nestled between friends.

Dial F for flaky

It's the middle of the night so I can't text to apologize, but I just realized that I absolutely flaked on Saturday yoga with J! I didn't even remember when I texted her today about something else. 

And I somehow napped through my alarm for my video call with dad and sis. I blame the "Oscar Mule" I had at the cinema with my galentines for that. 

(We went to see Wuthering Heights, which ended very disappointingly for the literature nerds amongst us [kinda halfway though the book before Heathcliff does the more Heathcliff-y things]. I think there has been some buzz about casting a white person as Heathcliff [he's supposedly Roma/Lascar]. But also they cast an East Asian and a South Asian in leading roles and the songs were by Charli XCX [who's half Indian] so it's not malice, at least?)

Pic: Dial M for Murder with Big A at Williamston Theater yesterday. It's so tiny intimate.

playback

I know when that note sounds
and I feel touched everywhere
that anything could happen… 
anything bad

unbothered, not hiding its shape 

it is the obviously-wrapped gift
--a rock, a key, a boomerang
you already know

so I am this stranger crying until
it makes me stranger--becomes
my first experience of myself 
as only a memory

__________

A note apropos of nothing: It made me so sad to hear that James Van Der Beek who played Dawson in Dawson's Creek (a comfort watch back in the day that I started dipping back into during the pandemic) died yesterday (so young!) from colorectal cancer. I'm horrified to learn that two years of cancer treatment have left this successful celebrity actor's family needing a GoFundMe to pay for their children's education. The US healthcare system is brutal. [Also brutal, the look Big A gave me when I said Dawson had "battled cancer" because every obituary I had just read used that phrasing. I should do better.]

________________

Pic: The frozen Maple River. The temperatures look like they're going up--gloriously--so all this is going to be melt and runnels soon.

took my breath away

I had been waiting with bated breath to read the lovely Nicole's new novel Inhale Exhale and I devoured it in one long binge, barely pausing to catch my breath. It's a breath of fresh air, and I could hear Nicole's good sense, compassion, humor, and patience on every page. Nicole enjoys Catherine Newman and Katherine Heiny and this elegant and unflinching novel absolutely belongs on the shelf with those greats.

Totally chuffed to see a teacher in the book with (part of) my name! (There's a "Maya" too, but then the world is full of illusion. Ha.)

Also chuffed to see the anthology I was in last year, made it to Bibliomama's 5-star reads of 2025. (I think it says so much about her kindness!)

Pic: Because all my breath-related jests weren't enough, I posed Nicole's novel with a Buddha because the protagonist, Michelle, is a yogi.

Ok, I've been sick (but here's kindness, smiles, and a speech)

I did bring back an unwelcome souvenir as Nance called it, but I believe I'm on the mend. I had to cancel class (can't remember the last time I did that!), but I got plenty of rest and read like a demon.

Loved this essay on receiving kindness titled "How will the Miracle Happen Today." Travel writer Kevin Kelly writes about receiving kindness from strangers all across the world, frequently people who have little to start with. I don't know where I would be without the kindness of strangers... I still think of the office cleaner in Madras 25+ years ago who wanted to share their paper cone of peanuts with me as I waited for my ride because I was visibly pregnant. ("maybe the little one is hungry" Oh, my heart <3) 

All of it is worth reading, and I bookmarked this bit: "My new age friends call that state of being pronoia, the opposite of paranoia. Instead of believing everyone is out to get you, you believe everyone is out to help you. Strangers are working behind your back to keep you going, prop you up, and get you on your path. The story of your life becomes one huge elaborate conspiracy to lift you up. But to be helped you have to join the conspiracy yourself; you have to accept the gifts."

For more smiles, this NYT article, "The Evolutionary Brilliance of the Baby Giggle" really delivers. Turn on the sound for a pick me up! This part blew my mind in a lovely way: "Indeed, this idea — that laughter is primarily social, less about comedy and more about connection — holds true for adults as well, and has been underscored by research showing that laughter overwhelmingly occurs in the company of others and typically follows banal remarks in conversation, rather than in response to jokes or punchlines. The signature belly laughs seen in the video above are involuntary, bursting forth during genuine, uncontrollable amusement. This type of laughter is driven by the brain’s limbic system, structures crucial for emotion, memory and motivation. But by 6 months, our lab has found, infants can intentionally produce a laugh. This ability comes not from the limbic system but from the brain’s language areas and emerges at the same time as babbling. Six-month-olds will deploy laughter to prolong a game of peekaboo or to signal a desire to join in." This made me laugh in delight!

And on social media, I was pointed to this amazing moment on the Stephen Colbert show, where Sir Ian McKellan (around the 20-minute mark) launches into a rendition of a monologue by Sir Thomas More known as the strangers' case speech. First penned by Shakespeare in 1603-04  (for someone else's play) it asks what the anti-immigrant rioters would do if the king banished them for their rebellion, where would they go? They would become refugees themselves: "what would you think/to be thus used? This is the strangers' case/And this your mountanish inhumanity." How relevant for now.

Pic: The more the merrier. Max and Huck with "cousin" Abby at brunch on Sunday.