The pink and purple spinning teacup ride at the amusement park creates an unprecedented anxiety in my insides. Even the slow mini-mine train ride strikes a terror that causes a rumble in my core. The background music plays as each person takes his or her seat on the ride. Light wispy tones vibrate in my ear and the beat almost pulls me into the highs and lows and spins of the mechanical contraptions. I stand back, not giving in to [...]
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My daughter decided to give me her Mother’s Day Gift on Tuesday. When I picked her up from school, she hopped into the car with a stapled white bag. As soon as she buckled her seat belt, she said, “Momma, Happy Mother’s Day!” I tried to tell her Mother’s Day is Sunday, not today, but she insisted I open her gift. I asked her a few questions about Mother’s Day and what she thought it meant, and she said, “My [...]
She draws without any reservation. Her bucket is filled to the top with crayons named Cerulean and Tickle Me PInk. In the corner of our living room, she carves out a space, where comfort exists in a piece of paper, her colors, and imagination. The blank page fails to intimidate her. She craves to fill it up. With tenderness. With love. With stick figures. It was midafternoon on Monday, the markers of ordinary life littered our home. Dishes in the [...]
When it happened, I felt a little embarassed that she caught me. On Saturday morning, I drove to the local gym for my weight lifting class. In the middle of an hour session, the instructor asked us to add more weight to our barbell. Instead of listening and paying attention to the task at hand, my right arm reached for my purse, pulled out my phone, and checked my email and text messages. While I checked my “important” messages, I [...]
Yesterday my daughter slipped down from the couch and jumped in the middle of the living room and said, “Momma, guess what? Do you know I am growing up?” Her smile was vibrant, her eyes sparkled with a sense of accomplishment. I didn’t answer her question because by saying yes, I’d have to acknowledge that time is moving forward. I still remember her kicking me inside of my belly. She danced in there, especially on my road trips between Waco [...]
If you want to be happy, be. ~Leo Tolstoy White baby powder made the surface slick, so that the discs could glide against the lacquered plywood. On weekend nights, in my childhood home, my family and I made a ritual of playing the Indian game Carrom, a type of table shuffleboard. My Mom and Dad would team up against my sister and me. We would laugh as each of us tried to out maneuver the other. In the background, music [...]
In three words I can sum up everything I have learned about life: It goes on. — Robert Frost This week, my entire family fell like dominoes. My daughter and I started feeling sick, aches, sniffles and fever persisted for a few days for both of us. While we were recovering, my mom and my husband succumbed to the same virus. At one point, each one of us, laid in bed, unable to move because we were too sick to [...]
Growing up, I was the girl who wanted to achieve. That meant several things. In high school, for instance, I wanted to learn French, but I decided to take Latin. Why? Because Latin would help me excel at the Sat’s. I remember the end of my freshman year of high school, a friend of mine, told me to ”find out my rank.” Without hesitation, I marched into the library and asked the woman with the computer printouts, where I ranked [...]
The last two days the mundane seemed quite illusive. I didn’t go for my morning run, didn’t drive my daughter to school, and did very little writing. The routine was completely interrupted by colds. My daughter laid on the couch, with a high fever, headache, and sniffles. The usual conversation, running around, were brought to a abrupt stop. While she laid down, I did too. I was overcome by congestion, cough and a fever too. We both slept most of [...]
“The saddest summary of life contains three descriptions: could have, might have, and should have.” ~ Unknown My first meeting with “Carpe Diem” was when I was a sophmore in English class. It was a novel phrase when I was introduced to it, almost twenty years ago, the idea that we should all live our life by “seizing the day.” The popular aphorism, at least for me, gained momentum when I watched Robert William’s’ character in Dead Poet’s Society and remember [...]
