I took a picture of this unknown bride walking near a white bus on Michigan Avenue in Chicago. With her long white veil grazing the sidewalk her blonde hair stayed perfect as the wind swayed around her. The bottom of her dress looked like small white waves that could not be contained. She stands in the light, while the shadow watches from behind. Wondering about her story, I thought about her beginning. What are the thoughts running in her head? [...]
Memory
This weekend I felt scattered and pensive. This tension arose from some unexpected personal news and the residual feelings of what happened in Boston over the week. Every time I turned on the television these images kept playing like a scratched record on a turntable: news that one brother died in a gunfire battle, another brother alive, captured, but unable to talk, lying in the same hospital building as those who were victimized by him, and the face of Sean, the MIT [...]
She ambles around the dining table and wants to set an extra plate at the dinner table. The dish clanks against the wood as the emptiness reverberates in the air. She’s made all of his favorites: Indian dal, potato curry, and rice pudding. The strong smell of curry sweep the room and her hand dances as she stirs the various textures in her favorite cooking pot. She clings to the past, but it offers her comfort. There is no denying [...]
Another year is ending. As time passes, I cling more to each minute. Every second is filled with wonder and this year there is no exception. These are some of my favorites of this past year. This exercise always fills me with such gratitude. To savor and pay homage to the light in my life. A short capsule of the gems I relished this past year: Favorite Reads: Every year I always want to read more. And this year was [...]
The red tin is one version of home for me. The familiar words of Collin Street Bakery with its glossy picture of snow and horses always takes me to a place of comfort and simplicity. Every Christmas my father ordered this particular red tin which contained a colorful fruitcake. I still wonder why my father who grew up with spicy curry and rice developed an affinity for such a strongly disliked holiday staple. Every year, it showed up on our [...]
Our daughter will turn seven in a few months. It hurts sometimes to say this aloud because I literally feel the passage of time piercing my insides. This week, I felt the sting of this even more because her first grade teacher asked if I would share a memory of her toddler years. I still remember all of the particulars of that day in the green grass. The blue sky loomed over us and felt like a part of us [...]
Time doesn’t always make you forget. Sometimes you are placed in the middle of the place that you dread the most. You are unable to move forward, but instead hurl into a terrain where you feel the breadth of a sudden cold slap in your face. Oh, there is that feeling again, where you revisit the land where mortality intersects out of the walls like invisible laser lights and you try to duck under the lines only to be stranded [...]
During my childhood,birthdays were a reason to celebrate at my house. There was one ritual that always occurred. We bought a cake, gathered around our worn cherry dining table and sang “Happy Birthday” in our best choir voices. We took turns feeding the birthday star. Today that celebration is only a memory. It is my father’s birthday today. I find myself not knowing what to do or how to honor his birthday. Do I revisit past celebrations? Or do I [...]
When my friend’s car pulled up to my childhood home, I always cursed the tree in the yard because it blocked my view. Anytime I decided to look out my window, the green and brown leaves fell like a waterfall especially when the wind hit the branches. As I walked outside, a parade of browns, greens, and yellows made a messy pattern and if I stared at the leaves long enough I could create a picture of an abstract piece [...]
My fingers shook, the palms of my hand screamed sweat and anxiety. I cursed the dial-up modem of my computer. My mom was standing over my shoulder wondering what the digital screen would reveal. “Ugh, so slow. Not now. I can’t wait much longer.” I flipped the ends of my hair in a twist, somehow convincing myself if I continued to do this, the internet connection would move faster. Typing with purpose, I pressed on the keys fast until I [...]
