We celebrated the end of summer by taking a road trip to Show Low, a place of refuge in the desert. This past weekend smelled of crisp mornings of timid sunshine and the sounds of water running across a stream of rocks in a creek. The pine trees emitted a scent of rosemary and green lush forests decorated mountaintops. My daughter collected small pine cones that she called “acorns”, ate smores, and ran around barefoot on the golf course. My [...]
August 2011
The hot room lacked furniture. Sitting down meant taking a colored yoga mat from the corner, placing it on the floor, and criss-crossing my legs. As soon as my legs hit the floor, I noticed the bare beige walls with chipped paint as the only decorative embellishment. The goal, in theory, was simple. We were required to meditate for thirty minutes. There were no indicators of time, other than the meditation leader’s cue to stop. The idea of doing nothing [...]
It was three o’clock in the afternoon, the sun’s intensity radiated hot and the golden rays ransacked the cool that my daughter and I sensed in our home. Nothing was atypical about this summer day in the desert. Mid-August meant temperatures over a hundred degrees and the taste of sand lingering from the recent sandstorm. Another sign of the summer: My five-year-old daughter needed an activity to stop the incessant, “Momma I am bored. What are we going to do [...]
Dear N., Today you don’t amble, but run with fury into your first day of Kindergarten. The night before, as I tucked you in, you asked, “Momma, will you miss me?” I turned my head in the other direction because tears formed a little puddle in a tiny corner of my eye. Tilting my head to the side, I told you, “Of course, N., I will miss you. You don’t know how much.” I asked if you wanted to stay [...]
“Why is he alone?” “I don’t know. Maybe he wanted to come alone. People do vacation solo.” “Really. I don’t think so. A two week bus tour in Europe and he wants to travel alone?” My husband and I sit on the same bus and the seats carry the scent of brie and French perfume. My eyes gravitate toward a family of six from Kansas whose teenage girls look like the Spice Girls. Next to them is another Indian couple, whose [...]
On Monday afternoon, the countdown began. In less than seven days, our one and only little girl starts Kindergarten. There is an ambivalence injected into this beginning, knowing that she will enter into a world of reading words, adding and subtracting, and interactions that see-saw between happy and hurt. I’ve secretly wished for this week to move slow, so that I can take a snapshot of all those moments that will lead to her latest milestone. We spent part of [...]
Sometimes you encounter words that bear repeating. This is one of those posts, where I repeat the words of another. This was Apple CEO Steve Job’s commencement address delivered on the Stanford campus in 2005. It deserves your attention. Read it. Are you connecting your dots? Are you living the life you intended? I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be [...]
The sky announced its arrival. Hues of light pink, blue, and white blended together forming a marble layer cake in the air. I captured this image two nights ago, minutes before thunder, lighting, and a torrential downpour hit the desert. A hard rain pelted the pavement and the trees bended as if they were doing yoga. This fast flurry of showers gave me pause. Because where we live, rain happens in flash. Just as you start humming to the beat [...]
Balmy and hot, I cannot sleep. The fan creaks as the spokes move in a circular direction, but even after continuous momentum the air is still stagnant. Outside I hear a cacophony of sounds, the horns of taxis and Marutis beeping every two minutes, the hollow high pitched voice of the man selling spintops on the crowded street, and the latest Bollywood songs coming from the rikshas. My thoughts are interrupted by my grandmother, my Nani, who offers me comfort by [...]
