CLI. House Arrest -

Out of commission. That is the phrase I had used a couple of weeks ago when my gut was possessed with some untimely spirit that had made it impossible for me to make one of my cross-country treks. It was a trying time but I thought it was my body’s way of justifying the need for a rest. Take a day off, after the days off you were coerced into taking due to another spirit, this time emanating from the collective, faith-neutral noun, “the holidays.”



I’m out of commission again, for days on end now. The temperature is frigid - even with my fleece-lined university sweatpants and sweatshirt, my hooded wool, water-resistant navy blue coat, my knee-high socks and platformed-tie up Swedish rain boots, one of my one-of-a-kind shawl scarves collected from trips that I have not taken to India, my vintage woven black slouchie hat, (the only one left that exists in the world I’m sure), and my threadbare gloves from England that need to be disposed of immediately. The gloves have stitched on them an appliques of an Egyptian Cleopatra eye that I cannot bring myself to toss away.



One of my youth-transcendent qualities is an intolerance for the cold. Though I have cherished memories of summer months’ frolic and intellectual abandon via internships, research, and self-promoted reading, that would also mean having to forgo the automatic rosy cheeks and milky porcelain tinge of non-color my face would naturally develop during cold weather. It is an aesthetic I equate with the pinnacle of beauty.



I’m under house arrest.



At first I thought it apt for the living-as-though-you-were-under-the-weather type weather to coincide with the new year. I need to be forced into change: Stop stressing on missing an opportunity to walk. Sit it out once a while. Place getting work done in a leisurely fashion on a pedestal. Trust in your metabolic rate’s ability to burn energy. Caloric build-up will be kept at bay for at least a day.



I’m a tree whose trunk-like bottoms are holding up a bark of considerable width, finally dwindling at the neck, past the just as wide shoulders. The tree-top is my hair, glorious in its width insofar as thriving healthily, untouched by heat and extraneous product going out may otherwise have warranted.
 Sunlight is filtering in through blinds mostly closed so that I can partake in aerobic exercises as best as I can without an audience, at least a visible one. The tenants can feel the tree being sawed down. Vibrations and creaking floors are a testament to that fact.



Amidst laughter and high-cheekbones that I seem to have not inherited in as chiseled a manner, I am told to walk around my living room, navigating the coffee and dining tables for two hours. It’s the equivalent to my hours-long walks outside, he said. I caught myself giggling in a lamenting manner. Laughter is healthy, it works some abdominal muscles, but it also seems to represent an elasticity, a not as unmoving determination to release endorphins in the way that would enable me to possess those rosy cheeks I so adore on myself.

Peering through my window at the peak of warmth, I ready myself to go out. A windblown tree later and swirls of white cloud my vision and judgment. Maybe not. Maybe I must prepare myself to once again do a grapevine step behind closed doors and window blinds, numbed by the same melodies, counts, and whoops of freeing fatigue by the teacher’s background dancers in that YouTube video playing full-screen on my laptop. I don’t even need the screen at this point. The moves are etched by my mind’s eye.

I’m under house arrest and downing my second cup of coffee - less black and more brown. The milk swirls around with melted raw brown sugar, mocking me in its intrepid interpretation of the snow outside.
Winter just began and it’s foolhardy to wish for its demise so soon. The characteristics of wintry seasonality superimposed onto holiday fanfare  exacerbate the horrid season’s duration.

I’m under house arrest, and yet in no time at all the outside will be so arresting as to cause me to seek out the no-shoes interior that enables a face mask, a seat by candlelight, a coffee pot, and a few blocks away from a place that provokes deep-seated faith.

CL. Time Better Spent -

Change over time is the basest definition of “history.” Expectation of change is just that - an expectation, a hormone-induced mind game that borderlines the unfounded supernatural phenomenon that is intuition but remains in the realm of respected guesstimation.

Why write, or rather type, up a personal post published of my own accord that is neither promoted nor indicative of any mindfulness that I am using this platform for long-form writing, which data suggests appeals to a demographic I have never been included in, simply because I favor its user accessibility and my resistance to change. Why must I go against the current, so much so, that I cannot bear to spend a minute past the allotted time I have already set for a task?
Do I have a penchant for placing convenience on a pedestal? On the contrary, I am self-imposing inconveniences - train and bus rides, walking, avoiding small talk that would force me to follow the other person up the elevator just so that I can balance at least ten pounds worth of luggage up Manhattan-essentialist flights of stairs.

Self-contrived challenges include flirting with the 80’s - an era I detest in all its trend-driven fashion glory and that I was fortunate of enough to bypass, born into the eponymous Calvin Klein collection-thriving decade instead.

I am no longer flirting with the 80’s, perhaps not even the 90’s, but I do not want to check. I do not want to confirm an intuitive certainty that I am housing in the sheath of limp-less skin I cannot bring myself to look at nor appreciate as I once had: Recovery is a mirage.

Time is passing by quickly but not quick enough. The drudgery of seconds and minutes are amplified when I stare at the subway analog countdown clock as I see the platform getting more crowded. Those same time units could not go slow enough when a whiff of air laced with my childhood associations with New York City- roasted, caramelized nuts and salted dough pretzels- catches the end of my nose, the appendage to one of my three glasses frames.

My time is better spent elsewhere. I should be walking, though running could cut the time in half. I should be researching topics for a thesis statement, though observing the world around me may be more indicative. I should be eating what was already prepared instead of chopping away and sauteing in a false attempt to nourish cleanly, undone by consumption of unnatural amount of unsalted saltines.

– Volta – Over a month later.

I am currently transcribing pages of single-spaced interviews for an approved thesis story. My fingers feel cramped. My skin is cracking underneath the sealant of hand cream, inferior to the temperature drop. I read a headline that come 2050, New York City shall be as hot as Alabama. I did not want to read any further.

I need my seasons, my overturning of leaves. I realize now that time will pass. Conflict will pass in tandem with time. Grudges will be set aside for new ones to be made by people who revel in strife. I’m in their grip. My stars are not aligned, or are aligned, just for that reason.

I have never been one to hold fast unto fortunes near and dear to me. Suffice it to say the taweez was more of fashion statement than anything else.
But what was communicated to me of late, across oceans, and in the land of my ancestors, was so on point. How could they know? Will their solutions pan out or will it have a placebo effect? I cannot say just yet. The circumstances seem to negate the latter question.

Perhaps this period is equivalent to a detoxification period when all the bad must be purged before any good can replace it and then grow. One can only hope. I feel that sometimes I do not hope. That is to say, rather than lose hope, I have none to begin with. Sometimes, there is no hope to lose, or so I think.

From what challenge will I draw my muse from if not from satiating my hunger pangs at the end of the day? What do others do? But no, I refuse to follow. I want to lead. I’ll have to crate a new path down which, or rather up which, I can travel.Tomorrow it is.
The clock may have struck twelve four days ago for everyone but me, asleep, before the days blend into each other.
Here I stand, one resolution resolved at the start, another one as well, but that “change” I am already regretting. There it is: The Relapse, the uphill battle, the inertia-laden waddle that is partially due to my pants that have a bitter relationship with my hip bones, preferring to touch the ground instead.

The very bones the TSA agent thought was a piece of metal I had hiding underneath my university sweatshirt.

“Oh - that’s you,” she said, unconcerned.

I was unconcerned as well, but I was not unperturbed.

CXLIX. Ignorance De-stigmatized -

The top image was taken in my now boxed-up, unfurnished room.

The second image was part of an advertisement for a pen company. I cut out the tagline from the twentieth anniversary, September 2014 issue of Marie Claire Magazine, an action that is not uncommon for me, someone who is inspired by aesthetic intent professed in writing.

I was thriving. I had in hand my Ivy League degree and the degree prior to that, both written in Old Latin. I was thriving, counter-intuitively, or not, on fear. I learned that I could develop intellect and build my knowledge bank without the designated pedagogue, yet I knew I still had to commission at least one more pedagogue’s payday. I needed my masters degree. How I feared for it. Yet, during this period of self-taught lessons, I attained a level of self-discipline no doubt acquired throughout my years on the cobble stoned campus of my alma mater. I sat at the table, all noise tuned out save for crackling of candles that suggested Diwali would eventually come, that time would eventually pass.
I did not know that you existed and I was content not knowing any of you either. Who was the big shot at The New Yorker Magazine who I’m going to be scrutinized by in the ensuing months? I did not know. I did not need to know. I still do not need to know.

Truth be told, I am going to continue living as though you all do not exist. I am going to ignore the chuckles that an example of fashion journalism in The New York Times of all places, received solely due to the subject matter.
Not everyone is an impeccable writer as the judgmental fellow upper east side bus rider and career services professional - deemed as such in order to supplement her income as a quote unquote working journalist - had claimed. I am going to completely shut out the referred to but otherwise non-existent competition that is being forced on me. That is to say, I entered the pressure cooker of my alma mater, at first a delicate oatmeal flake, already a Quaker through and through.
I then exited Locust Walk, a degree-designated Quaker, a cooked and hardened oat.

I’ve become hardened but I will not allow myself to be cooked through, burned, are carbonated beyond the threshold pertaining to a human’s corporeal form.

I’m being pushed on all sides to enter the pressure cooker, to succumb to a second-round of clenched fists and furrowed eyebrows that disguise my otherwise meticulously shaped paternal inheritance, done by my once cracking, but now remedied hands on the daily. This is nothing I have not experienced before. These people are nothing to me; they never were. I did not know of their existence. Their written word hidden in the folds of their own world, a world a part from my own that is arguably the cradle of civilization. This is my home. This is my city. This is my life.

They are just transient occupants. Sheep that have lost their way, if you will. I’ll let them trample around so that they can relieve myself from having to encounter weeds as I walk forward and progress.

It is better to remain ignorant of the hours and the days passing by - better to not quantify: I tell myself to approach with caution the syllabus for a class I wish to complete as soon as possible. It is better not to count down. It is better to close my eyes and lull myself into a mind-sung song during the train rides home. I plead for the train to arrive at the last stop, my stop, so that I could nullify the negative.
You see, I am now on the fringes of a phase that I had unconsciously detached myself from during the time I was attempting to embrace it; applying to academia.
I’m on the cusp of appreciation and withdrawal: happy to rid myself of my fringe occupancy, just so that I can be welcomed by the outskirts, a fringe in its own right, after I get off at the last stop.

The train stops preceding the last are torture defined. I attempt to remain ignorant of the chronology. Placing my head on my neon PINK duffle bag, the seams of which are loosening under the onus of a new phase of life that in turn mimics my shoulder buckling under the onus of the bag’s weight. I attempt to tune out the crackling projection of the conductor announcing stop, after stop, after stop.

Reading material has worked wonders in this scenario. I’m flummoxed though. Reading has once again become burdensome, forced upon me during the days that I am mulling about city streets and during weekend windows of time, carved out to complete pending tasks.

On the train rides home I cannot bring myself to string letters together and so I indulge in the basest form of ignorance.
I try to peak my interest by finding something of interest on one of my fellow New Yorkers - people who not only live here but also cry here, cook here, coddle here, and cool off here.

“I’ve never met an actual New Yorker before,” an international dual-degree graduate student and fellowship winner said in her stilted crack at English.

It’s better to be ignorant.

That way you won’t see me coming.

CXLVIII. Synonymous Subconcious -

After sitting in a blog queue for four weeks:

To wake up with a sinking feeling in the stomach:
It’s a new day. Today is a new day. Sometimes one falls asleep after midnight and things go awry. You wake up and feel as though you have lost something, which may not necessarily be foul. Still, you cannot open your eyes the next morning and say that it is a new day.
You’ve lost the ability to do so. Unless of course you choose a new benchmark as the start of something new. You may choose your birthday or the spring solstice as the time to set forth and live by resolutions.

Say one has entered their subconscious before 12 am. Assuming death did not overstay a possible invitation, one has now exited the deceptive inner abstraction that remains dormant throughout the day. Awake, one can live a new day.

I woke up with swirling motions in the core of my stomach, as if the force of gravity was accumulated in my gut, pulling me downward to the hardwood floors in the prewar New York City apartment that I’m currently living in. Post-weekend, I am back in the place of my birth.
As I typed that, I felt the weight, a product of the force of gravity. This pull was not the same as the one I referred to before. This downwards vector isn’t hellish.
This vector is more in line with my beliefs as well: There is no heaven and there is no hell.
Directional vectors that equate up with the supreme and down as delinquent is, well, adhered to in some religions so I won’t express judgment nullifying its substance.

“Kindly turn my feet in the direction where God is not.”
                                                         - Guru Nanak Dev Ji

My birthplace is the island borough: Manhattan.
I smell all that is familiar: roasted and caramelized nuts, salted pretzels, adobo and tandoori spices. The breeze is gentle, lukewarm and indicative of an approaching academic year or deceivingly early fall - the kind that falls victim to hurricane season and simmers down to a low boil, causing seasonal viruses to bubble to the surface just as children populate public transportation and germs are magnified into the friendly animate globs of mucus from over-the-counter medicine commercials.

Four weeks later:

Ask me not if I would go home over the weekend. I will go home every Friday, without an inkling of a doubt. The sodium intake during the weeks makes my heart pulsate at a frightening speed. I feel the blood rushing. With every step in the dead of night that I take, it sounds as if my ear is touching a conch shell. Unidentifiable liquid has gathered not under my eyes, but in my gut, as a result of the Na+.

So I head home, slightly bloated, awaiting much-needed nutrition, an embrace or two, a trembling visit to my peace of mind and then an unshaken last one before I return to the island borough.

Fundamentally rooted and unsettled; they are only synonymous in their subconscious.

CXLVII. Stressed to Impress -

The reality is that there exists a competition for who can stress the most.

For the first time yesterday, I had an unfortunate encounter with a couple who I had not seen for well over a decade. They immediately began the belittling process; intentions were so vile that their photo could no doubt qualify for the “history” subsection of a Wikipedia entry on the Evil-Eye talisman.
This was an out of body experience and all I could do was stare wide-eyed and remain silent before courteous byes were exchanged.
I continued my walk in a stupor. I could have easily trekked the way from my relatively sleepy borderline Long Island village to the Ivy-covered gates on the Upper West Side of Manhattan then and there.

How many hours a day do you stress?
If only we could quantify the shortness of breath, the number of capillaries making there way to the forefront of otherwise white eyes, and the frequency with which we have to calculate the hours between Tylenol ingestion.

I walked into Zara, a shop I do not care for, some months ago. A clutch managed to stand out. It was a large rectangular leather pouch in a pure white, a color that I have never particularly favored.
My dislike of this color beckons memories of me trying in earnest to draw attention to my black bottoms on elementary school assembly days: I remember sporting my favorite Bloomingdale’s voluminous pleated knee-length skirt that had layers of netting - a statement piece if there ever were one, just so that my white blouse would go unnoticed.

The overpriced clutch had engraved into it the past tense verb or adjective: “STRESSED,” all in caps lock.

My mother, who was with me that day, immediately vocalized the need for me to purchase the “quirky” clutch. It was a perfect match.
Suddenly its pure white color began to make sense: stress and I are like a married couple but as a half-Indian, full Sikh, the color also symbolized how stress could just as easily be the cause of my demise.

Sleepless nights having become all the more common and retail always a common stomping ground for the walking New Yorker, I ventured out to find a means for reducing stress.

Aromatherapy that includes pillow mists, lotion, and face wash, stress balls, similar to the likes sent to me by a graduate school I had applied to as a thank you for submitting an application, and other slightly disturbing paraphernalia that includes the “Keep Calm And [Insert Your Desired Verb + Object clause here]. are part of the stress-management inventory.

The spray was too overpriced, not to mention the fact that it smelled like Vicks vapor rub which causes me to suffer from headaches.
The balls are prone to collecting dust, nondescript bacteria, and when squeezed, its sole purpose by the way, more times than not falls victim to far too long nails left unkempt and uncut due to lack of recreational time. The result is the ball’s Styrofoam-like material collecting underneath my nails, further weakening their already un-animated quality.

Eating certain "comfort foods” could also be a stress-reliever. 

Regardless, I am now at the end of my second week in graduate school and I am finally trying to heed the advice my brother had passed unto me a while back and that alumni had passed during orientation: Do not think of the competition. Ignore it. In fact, there is no competition. Worry about yourself, the work you produce and the feedback that you receive from your professors.

Now, I am still stressed, however, this stress seems to be healthier to me. It is more organic and more conducive to producing a valid outcome.

Come at me peers - or don’t - I could care less.

I’m impressed at how much I’ve stressed; how much I have stressed about myself.

CXLVI A. A Letter's Worth of Explanation -

Dear ———,

         Thank you for your incredible advice and being so genuine. Your articulation of the thirds rule is on point! I completely understand the invaluable experiences that one attains when going out of one’s comfort zone. I’ve been going out of that zone, and, bleeding, so to speak, since early childhood. I was always fighting  and resisting the odds that were overwhelmingly against me - aiming high in academia among a supportive family who put education on a pedestal despite not getting to experience the upper echelons of education themselves.

         With that said, I don’t want to compromise my well-being, which I think I have for some time. I am prepared to sacrifice all concepts of basic human nature, which is a given when studying, but I live by the idea that we can have all of what we want if we try hard enough. I want to prove to myself that yes, the world operates according to a meritocracy. I know that realism dictates that we can’t have it all, but I think we can. Actually, I firmly believe that we can have it all.

         And with that conviction, a couple of days before I received your email, Columbia University’s J-school contacted me. It turns out they accepted my application for for the full-time master degree program and sent the offer three weeks before classes start. I couldn’t give it up. At first I wrote it off and told myself that I was already at NU. Things were said and done. Then again, why do I have to convince myself into compromising? To be honest, I was pissed at Columbia. I had accepted the amazing opportunity I was already given at Medill, however, I knew that Columbia’s program was what I wanted all along.
    
        I didn’t sleep at all due to a sinking feeling that I could only equate with regret. Regret is like “plagiarism”; It’s a nasty little bugger that evokes uneasiness as soon as it’s vocalized.

       Columbia’s academic focused curriculum, based on theory and long-form writing with NYC as the laboratory: That was what I wanted and I talked myself into wanting something different. I promised myself I wouldn’t do that again. Just having finished 3 weeks at Medill, I knew I had to move fast. With that said, I’m flying back to NYC tomorrow and in 2 weeks I’ll be starting at Columbia.

        This week has been one of the most overwhelming, emotional, sole-decision-making, times in my life thus far. As an academic and a raw nonconformist bi-racial New Yorker, I knew I couldn’t pass up something so close to my heart, and my mind for that matter.

        You’re experiences are a testament to your desire to contribute to society and enrich yourself and I truly admire that. I completely understand where you’re coming from. I have such a strong love for New York because of the fact that I’ve been taken away from it so often: I went to Harvard to take classes when I was 16 and cried my eyes out everyday. I went to Penn and came home every so often. I went out of the house time and time again to experience and learn.

        Good luck in ———! That sounds like an incredible opportunity. I am excited to see the stories you have to tell while there. If you’re still in NY sometime this month, we should meet for coffee!

        Sincerely,

        Reshmi K. O.

CXLVI. Game Changer -

Stop resisting destiny is what he told me.
You’re here because you’re supposed to be here, is what another “he” told me.
You were meant to be here. To travel here, is what she meant.
To see and hear that which is here, is what I gathered.

“Stop living in the past. Be content with the present. Live now.”

Stop. Be. Live.

That talk is a little too I’ve-got-corn-on-the-cob remnants in the crevices of my carnivorous teeth that has chomped more on potatoes than poultry. What you’re saying is sweet, but its abstractness is bitter.

I much prefer the old-school: Stop. Drop. Roll.

And that’s what I’m doing. I’m rolling out of three weeks’ worth of graduate school training in journalism.
I’m rolling out of 10-graded assignments and quizzes.
I’m rolling out a huge intake of knowledge that had accumulated with every passing second since having become a master degree candidate.

Birth-marked the master of my mind, I decided to roll out of here, roll out my knowledge, take inventory of it, and then package it into one big advantage over the competition that awaits me.
Then there’s the Mastermind.

Twenty-four hours after I had accepted my here and now, I stopped, I looked and I lived the moment.

There it was: A Mastermind was at work.

“You were given your opportunity. Here it is. Take it.”

Stop. Drop. Roll.

I stopped and mulled it over.
I dropped the here and now.
And I rolled out.

Game Changer: These 21 days worth of knowledge, accumulated into one big sphere, is now rolled out, organized and compartmentalized, uninhibited and ready to be applied.

Like the suitcases that lie amongst my flip-flop enslaved feet, my mind is covered in flattened layers of information. Whilst these layers remain my mind’s occupants, their very nature - that of being rolled out - enables perpetual head-space.

I’m climbing up the Ivy once more:
This time, my mind is open, my bottom-half in tandem with gravity - weighed down by the rolled out layers of skills and techniques honed by hours of studying and invaluable pedagogy.

With agility on my side, I’m climbing up the Ivy-covered quote unquote beanstalk, beyond the clouds and into the sky.

See how she climbs.

CXLV. True Story -

The job of a daughter is thankless. The job of a sister is thankless too.

There is no other way of articulating what I mean aside from the above.I don’t mean to say that I want to be thanked. No, that’s not it at all; that is most definitely not it. Furthermore, being a daughter and sister is not a job.

When and if I cry or show emotion that includes pining, referred to by the fictional Emily Gilmore of Gilmore Girls as a “young woman’s melancholia,” or nostalgia, I’m decidedly referred to as, and I quote, “a psycho.”
I guess you could say that this is the modern equivalent to the yesteryear phenomenon of referring to the opinions of a woman as “hysterics” and thereby diagnosing her with “hysteria.”

When and if I am strong, including the times when I talk back or disallow my male relative to lift a heavy bag because I am more than capable of lifting it myself, I am referred to as, and I quote, “an ingrate.”
I guess you could say that this is the modern equivalent to the yesteryear phenomenon of women, who are inherently the weaker sex, intentionally stirring up dramatics.

So here I stand, knocked around from side to side, bopped here and there, but always standing. My knees don’t give way beneath me.

Yesterday I prayed for you, you, and you, but today I needed to take the time out to pray for me. So I did.

I don’t think this is selfish. On the contrary, I think it is selfish of everyone who I had done for, not to do for me. It’s not tit for tat. Instead, it is the natural way for life to progress. You could think of a circle; something cyclic.

I’m told that I should stay happy always, smile always, and take things that bother me very lightly. Just let it pass over you, they say.
You and I both know that I’m not my only competition.

But why is it that you cannot do the same? Why is it that rain dampened not only your frizz-prone hair that day, but also your mood, and in turn, my mood too?
Couldn’t you take nature lightly? Was the three hour and sometimes less drive too major? I cannot help but think that the large machine which we call a plane set to make the little over two hour trip will be just as much as a hassle for you as was the drive.

I want to say that that is a shame, but I’m not one to reprimand for the most normal and human of functions, such as stress.

Well, I have a new stress and that is one of blasphemy: I didn’t realize that the almighty resided amongst only those who don white coats.

I’m told I have, and I quote, “the problem,” not a problem.

I have the problem of being the girl I guess. You know what I am referring to - that girl. The creative girl who pursues the liberal arts. The girl who has to placate the male ego that has a temper.

I have this habit of referring to myself as a girl, having a late reaction, and then quickly referring to myself as a woman.

You know, that woman who ditched the robe for the less fussy towel wrapped around her modesty when exiting the family bathroom post-shower.

The irony of all of this is that when the woman’s characteristic silhouette becomes less pronounced, she’s reprimanded once more. This time, by others just as much as herself.

It’s stress they say. It’s stress, I stress to them. We’re on the same page now.

Here’s to good times once more.

CXLIV. That's Just How I Roll & This Is How I Bounce -

I’m rolling out, leaving, parting, bidding adieu, and in short, bouncing up an out of here.

Integrity in tact, I’m weaving my way through the crowds. In a renewed exercise attempt, I choose to stand for the duration of my train ride, bobbing away.

As a rule, I cannot bring myself to say “Good morning” to anyone in my nuclear family. I cannot ask “how are you?” The reason is deliberate refusal. Going against the grain, even when anyone in my household directs one or both of the above phrases in my direction, I respond begrudgingly with a nondescript grunt.

They expect my less than friendly excuse for acknowledgement as opposed to habit.

I refuse to partake in formalities among my closest compatriots.

Today I have finished a stint at a publication. I would get more experience, leave the surrounding neighborhoods around my home, venture into the city, and have one more feather in my cap.
The magazine deals with New York City real estate. I was covering the lifestyle side of it, although, the head editor did not feel my position was a necessary one. She made that clear the first day I had met her, during my interview. She, however, was not the editor in chief. No one likes a sore loser, but apparently, she didn’t like the winner either.

I had to fight my way to do something and to earn my first actual paycheck. If it were up to them, I would be paid for doing nothing at all.
I had applied here out of sheer ambition. That is to say, I was getting panicky in early February. What if I didn’t gain admission into a single graduate school? I can’t keep willing myself to write in the confines of my own mind and under the gaze of my own editor’s vision - a long term project.
I needed to do something then and there and so I sent my resume to at least ten publications.

Two weeks later, having my admissions decision to my top choice staring back at me via my iPhone, I signed off all the places to which I had applied.

I would continue to act as my own superior.

The day after I received my best Valentine yet - a promise for a master’s degree, I heard from the only paying editorial internship I had applied to. They wanted me.
Already a venerable veteran of internships and assured of my vast capabilities, I had vowed to only pursue paid opportunities from then on. Reality warrants a desire for money, as does, ironically, climbing the rungs of the intellectual ladder. After all, a willingness to work for free is illogical.

My monthly stipend was exactly the amount I had to pay for my graduate school deposit. A lofty sum and a nascent adult post-grad school acceptance, I took them on. Here I am, deposit paid and then (a very little) some, or sum. The homonyms, “some” and “sum”, are interchangeable in this case.

This morning I left later than usual.
“If you don’t mind me asking you this, do you care that you might run late?”
He knew better than to ask this overachiever said inquiry, however, I suppose my less than shaken demeanor seemed at odds with my norm.
“Apparently I don’t care. The lady is rude. She doesn’t dare to let her line of sight include me in it.”
“Do you greet her when you go in?” he asked, probably expecting the worst due to my stubborn stance on remaining informal at home.
“Yes, but she doesn’t respond.”

No one speaks to each other in this God forsaken place. Prime New York City real estate, the place had just underwent renovations and what a shame that the new layout is the equivalent to an antiquated newsroom; a maze of cubicles where one does not see the other. Communication is lacking and exchange of knowledge is absent. The small-scale magazine that manages to rake in money from Million Dollar Listings reality television realtors, is contrary to present-day journalism.

My head editor begins and ends her writing with questions that she finds “cheeky” but that are instead juvenile. She’s talking down to the readership. The whole scenario is a silent version of The Office should the original sitcom be anthropomorphized into a depressed entity that forgot to ingest their dose of Prozac.

I told him that even if I had not greeted her it does not fall on me to take the initiative. I am no less than anyone.

My father, well-read in my tendency to revolt into full-fledged diatribes when feeling criticized, took the whole scenario upon himself:
“I always greet people. I never expect that I will be greeted in return,” my father said.

*Let it be known that I too don’t have any expectations. It is solely a matter of initiative.

Cont. “ I always say Sat Sri Akaal. (Punjabi greeting that is rooted in the Sikh faith.) I tell each of the younger men who work there and now they all say it. It has become habitual. Anyway, think of it like this. You are praising God, or saying a little prayer when you greet.”

This time I was acting “cheeky,” and told my father that that reasoning didn’t flow in the English language.

“Even so,” my father continued. “I always say ‘Good morning!’ You’re actually just remarking on how pleasant the day, or nature is.”

I get it. The whole greeting process is just a matter of manners at face value but when dissected, is actually something larger than myself and Other.

My mornings tend not to be good anyway. The subway ride is inherently bad. This morning I had managed to get to the workplace on time despite leaving thirty minutes later than usual. I rushed to order and pick  up my medium decaf coffee only to come three city blocks later to my place of work. The coffee was inedible. I asked for very light, or extra skim milk, and one sugar. Instead they gave me black coffee void of any sweet traces. About to throw the almost two dollar beverage away, cursing the morning in all its glory, I got up and walked back to the storefront, demanding a new coffee made correctly so that I would not have to feel guilty for the transaction resulting in my loss.

That was how I rolled, and was just as soon as how I’d bounced.

CXLIII. A Hairy Situation -

You’ve been here, I presume.

You’re situated in a spot that is without back support or does have some kind of hard material on which to lean your back but that is crafted in such a manner so as to have an edge jutting into the small of your back, seemingly in an effort to become yet another disc amongst the many already bisecting your spine.

You’re in a place where things are not fuzzy. All is clear. I would say crystal clear, but after studying chemistry in college, I realize just how complex crystals truly are.
Things are, as the crystal structure demonstrates, complex.
Allow me to explain:

If you eat, you gain weight.
If you don’t eat, you lose weight.
What if, in combination with not eating, you exercised? Well then, you would lose more weight. This is obviously a terrible self-hazardous act, however, what if you’re motivation to exercise is seeing yourself lean in the first place?
In that case, upon eating, presumably not remaining as lean as before, you’re not motivated to exercise?

Things are clear when it is one or the other. Things become unclear when combination is involved.

Combination skin, for example, is a costly attribute to possess - or so I can imagine. A dry-skinned, sometimes peeling person myself, I have only ever known that I need one product in my skin arsenal - moisturizer.

This position of immobility is equivalent to long hair. Leave your long locks out and they get caught on backpack buckles, the wooden grains on your bed frame, and become woven in the nooks and crannies of your apparel. Pull your hair into an up-do of some sort, bun, ponytail, or braid, and the strands rally against each other so that tangles ensue. Odds are the collection of hair caught in your elastic will qualify for the Locks for Love charity.

Successful people do not always thrive on lyrics, “Started from the bottom, now I’m here.” A subset of successful people, however, do. This particular population has their chins perpetually upturned at a slight angle, past all those unwilling to pronounce their name correctly.

This action can be mistaken for pretentiousness when in fact it is a necessary act to fend off vulnerability in the eyes of the other subset of successful people.

This makes for a hairy situation. On one hand you’re deserving of acknowledgement but in the midst of time passing whilst you’re working away at achieving that critically acclaimed status, you’re still regarded as an underling.
Of late I have had the same stanza repeated in my head from the melodic classic song Que sera.
Believe it or not, only recently did I come to understand that the song’s namesake were not just gibberish included for the sake of retaining rhythmic integrity. Que sera is Spanish and translates into “What/whatever will happen.” Que is the interrogative for “what” and sera is the future tense for the verb ser or “to be.”

Fittingly, the song is a dialogue between a daughter and her mother and I could very well hear my mother mixing her English and Spanish just as any other day.

When I was just a little girl, I asked my mother,
“What will I be?
Will I be pretty?
Will I be sweet?
Here’s what she said to me.”

                            “Que sera, sera!
                             Whatever will be, will be.
                             The future’s not ours to see.
                             Que sera, sera.
                             What will be, will be!”

As a girl I was far more independent than now. Overcome with worry and stress, I prefer the homeward bound path. While I prefer said path, I always end up going with what my mind beckons: top graduate school program, here I come.

Just now I consciously chose to punctuate the above declarative sentence with a period instead of an exclamation mark. It should have been an exclamation mark.

This is a hairy situation. It’s a good thing that hair can become untangled, and if cannot, at least it can be shortened only to grow back once more.

CXLII. Ulta, الٹا, Upside Down -

It takes standing on your head, without any supports, to ensure that your head is screwed on straight.

How do you keep your head up? By standing on your head of course.

I was informed that performing a yogic asana, or pose, in which I stand on my head without any support, save for my intertwined hands behind my head, would help to clear my allergy-caused blocked nasal passageways.

I was also informed that practicing yoga in general, was a safe alternative to my recently aborted exercise regimen, the likes of which included balancing four pounds, perhaps more, around my midsection for hours and on the daily.

Does the alternative, the less trodden path, or the winding road provide a more successful outcome? Are the above three slightly evocative, bordering on cliche, phrases synonymous?

The New York City subway is filled with people who have settled into a rhythmic lifestyle because of having traveled the straight path that results from generational circumstances and personal choices alike. The subway is also filled with bodies that stand erect, ready to conquer the ins and outs of days that for the most part are lived as is chosen to be lived and experienced, through a winding path of failures and successes.
The five borough’s underbelly is also the bin for loonies.

I have no qualms about using the term “loonies.” When someone is shouting profanities, banging on the metal contraption that ironically is what are relying on to reach our destination safely, he/she is acting loopy.

In the midst of Spring break for school goers, I had entered into a fairly empty train car. Usually I inch away from someone who, for whatever reason, I feel can be threatening to my well-being. I sometimes found myself in positions of vulnerability when, out of some contrived politeness, I continue to stay put rather than acting on the fight or flight response.

Perhaps I am deficient in that particular hormone, considering my (going-on no longer) diminished frame. But that cannot be because this morning, upon hearing a jostling lady, crazed in appearance and loud in demeanor, bulldozing the sleepy lack of sound waves amongst the Monday morning Manhattan-bound crowd, I immediately got up.

Of all the empty seats, the loony tune just had to sit in the seat directly next to me.

Before her bottom touched the seat that could possibly  give way beneath her heaving and hoeing movement, I retreated in the opposite direction, seeking refuge a few feet away. I heard her shout something. I did not care what her or the onlookers thought. I had to get out of there; just as anyone who had their head on straight would do.

Standing on one’s head is conducive for blood to reach your brain more efficiently, which is a good thing so long as the blood continues to circulate.
In my recent readings about health, beauty, and nutrition, I have come across an unprecedented amount of people who suggests daily massaging of the scalp as a means for increasing circulation. Increased blood circulation encourages scalp health and luscious hair growth.

I’ve begun making an effort to actually massage my scalp a little more often. Though I think for us longer-haired folk, it does more harm than good - tangles and what not.

With that said, I’ve also heard that turning one’s head forward and then combing from the nape of the neck to the floor, which create the same feeling of blood rushing to your head that a handstand would, (though admittedly to a lesser extent), prevents tearing of elasticized wet hair.

Not surprisingly, when washing one’s face, supposedly with the face parallel to the floor so as not to have water dripping down the neck, it is advised to use hot water to open up the pores so that all the toxic wastes can be purged outwards. It is then advised to splash one’s face with cold water to close the pores.

The natural science makes sense, but it’s just that whole cost-benefit conundrum.

The rain seems to have kept away the New York City fruit stand sellers who sell bananas for 35 cents. I figured, eating this banana will be a healthy feather in my cap for the day and stave off the impulse to indulge in another cup of coffee. And so I made my journey, reluctantly so, to a cafe that caters to NYC-transplants and worked by people who bend their back in obeisance despite having a salary.

“How much for the banana?,” I asked the statistic server.

“85 cents,” he said earnestly.

“That’s way too expensive,” I answered before taking off, my voluminous dress picking up the wind currents as I made way for the door, adding to my dramatic exit.

Headstands galore -

I was daydreaming this morning. My daydreams mainly consists of me having an dialogue with someone, whether that be an interviewer for an upcoming meeting with graduate admissions (so over) or internships (beyond over), but more likely an upcoming career opportunity. I never preconceive an interview for the subject of one of my journalism pursuits - that is different altogether.

There was a point in the dialogue when he told me that I had reminded him of someone from his childhood/home/insert something nostalgic here.
I won’t get into the details of the daydream narrative that occupied the crevices of my brain that led up to that moment.

“Sorry,” I apologized to him, if this dialogue were actually to transpire.

“No, it’s fine. I’m always so busy here. You’ve put things into perspective,” he would reply if this were a near-perfect world.

Near-perfect world: Though my thoughts are my own, I’m not gullible enough to believe that they are not flawed.

“I live in perspective,” I replied back to him. This response was altogether involuntary and subconscious. I snapped out of my daydream.

Living in perspective is essentially remaining in the same plane. So that is why I could never refer to my campus dwelling as “home” while the rest of my college peers could.

What is putting into perspective when I’m always and forever superimposed with it?

That explains why this morning I looked at the subway map in the train car despite having been born and raised here, taking the same train journey no less than a hundred times. I studied the subway map in order to identify the New York City grad school I had gained admission to. I took in the ease of hopping off the train directly in front of the school and then taking the same train line to come back home within the span of a couple of hours.
I officially declined that offer - to stay in New York City, near my home.

In order to forgo any apprehension it takes not being in perspective; One has to be turned ulta, الٹا, or upside down.

CXL. Putting into Practice -

I am putting into practice a need to stay positive.

No point in re-visiting the past nor regretting moves already made.
Why must I complain about receiving something that is nothing short of a blessing because I forgot about other factors or just consciously chose to not take those other factors into consideration?

This was your choice; you made a conscious decision. Clearly, you are in control.

I am in control. I am in control of what I eat. I decide if and when I want to workout, weather permitting. I control the challenges I impose on myself. I need to lose control of those challenges that are unwarranted and hold onto those that are, like going out of one’s comfort zone.

So here’s to writing a post not sullied by anxiety and a low tolerance for idleness at the workplace.

There is now less than 90 minutes to go.

I planned on stopping by a soup franchise to pick up free crackers for later consumption. I had made this decision days ago and so spending the extra couple of minutes to refill my overlooked zero-balanced MetroCard to get home won’t be a huge deal.
Consider yesterday - the train took a good 25 minutes to come in spite of your semi-jog to the train station.

It does not matter so much when you get home today because today is the last day of the work week. You have the option of not getting off the bus at an earlier stop so as to walk for exercise because you need to have more meat on your bones. Staying on the bus will enable you to reach home earlier.

The earlier the better: You have to take a quick shower and lather your hair and scalp so as to keep away the subway stench from the past three days.

You are not looking forward to this weekly cleansing. Upon standing underneath the warm shower, however, rest assured you will be overcome with a sense of calm.

At this point I’ll be unwinding, grateful to be at ease, with my sense of self in tact.

Never one to favor being completely alone, I know that my mother will have left work by the time I begin the detoxification process described above and will arrive shortly after I finish the task.

Following the cathartic cleansing will be a therapeutic trip to the supermarket. I’ll walk the aisles, steering clear of produce sure to have been picked by pesky patrons and admire unsullied produce due to the protective layer that is skin: this includes bananas.

I’ll smell the waft coming from the freshly baked items and the aromas from the rotisserie chickens behind the deli counter from which the smell of fresh cheese being cut will also emanate. Not surprisingly, I would never consider eating that roasted chicken, cold cuts, or the bagels, pies, muffins, and cookies being baked in bulk.

I’ll take heart in the fact that here too I have control.

I can go to the self-checkout lane and bag items at my convenience. I can be environmentally unaware and double bag heavier items or those that are prone to causing condensation since they belong in the freezer.

Then I’ll come home and indulge in the wafts of my mother preparing the requested hearty dinner that I need to eat for my own well-being.

The day will go on and I know that the days thereafter will be lived according to my own discretion.

Would you look at that?

Things are looking up already.

Although, in deciding to put positivity into practice while crafting this post, I first had to identify all the negative aspects, the energy of which I wish to release.

That is to say: I’m going to waste time filling up the MetroCard and have to touch the public machine using my knuckles rather than my more porous fingertips.

I’m going to have to rush home because odds are I will exit the bus early considering the fact that it will be raining the next three days and I won’t be able to actively stretch my legs.

I then will have to move efficiently when unlocking the door, putting everything in its place, and washing my hair without pausing to enjoy the hot shower.

How will I style my curly, unsettled, freshly washed hair before heading out to grocery shop?

Putting into Practice is a double-sided task.

Perhaps I overlooked the logic in this process when deciding to put into practice, Putting into Practice.

Perhaps - but at least there is a positive and the positive is quite a bit longer than its counterpart.

CXXXIX. Technology's Invisible Hand -

“Can we check if the mangoes are out yet?”

I asked my dad this knowing fully well that ripe mangoes made for consumption by taste buds exposed to India’s collective flavor pallet had yet to come out.

To be more clear, I am referring to edible mangoes as determined by pairs of eyes that search over the mango’s skin for flaws as if it were a prospective bride or groom, and fingers that make sure to bring Facebook’s antiquated poke feature back into fashion.
The mangoes are prodded with abandon and the boxes are lifted every which way in search of their origin: Mexico? Brazil? Certainly not India. For those mangoes grown on their native land are unavailable in these neck of the non-tropical woods.

I’m missing the mango season, that coincides with the throes of summer, at home. Therefore I am missing the mango-shakes that my parents almost always blend to perfection: The proportion of non-fat milk, to the understated sugary undertones, that are combined with peeled and no longer pitted mangoes, are crushed with ice for a pulp-less light orange delicacy.

“You can buy mangoes over there. There are plenty of Indian groceries where you’ll be, We’ll get you a small blender.” my Dad responded.

I am convincing myself to be less dependent on my parents for matters such as these. I need to learn how to make my own mango shakes. I need to be able to live like an adult: do what I want, when I want, and unhindered.

I need to make and refer to as “home” wherever I find myself.

I was mentally putting the picture of me in a kitchenette, part of a studio apartment that may or may not even have one bedroom, with dry cracked hands as a result of my paranoia that causes me to wash my hands before and after peeling, gutting, and cutting the mango.
I saw myself starting out the task with confidence. My back was erect, a needlessly dirtied bowl or cutting board with the mango pieces that I’ll have to transfer to the blender anyway.
After realizing my oversight, I drop the mango pieces into the blender and put the bowl into the sink. Wanting to get the cleaning of the bowl over with, due to my paranoia of bugs, I’ll clean the bowl and wash my hands before proceeding.

My hands are drier than before.

I then see myself dirtying a measuring cup by pouring the milk in there when I could have poured it straight from the carton and into the blender. You see, I do not trust my measuring judgments and in order to prevent from pouring too much milk, decide to use the marked cup.

Out of habit, I see myself cleaning the measuring cup after pouring the milk into the blender.

My tolerance is dwindling and time is continuing, the minutes accumulating without regard for humans who sometimes describe a minute as “quick.”

Can you blame Time?

I mentally visualize having finally finished the task of making the mango shake.
Problems arise:
The consistency is too thick and I’m getting light-headed trying to suck up the drink using a straw.I dilute the drink and am able to take a refreshing gulp. Unfortunately, I now see myself swallowing a bunch of pulp.

Forget this.
_________________________________________________________

I’m snapped out of my reverie.

“But I won’t have an ice maker,” I blurted out.

I was reminded that there are such a thing as ice trays. You know - those plastic contraptions that when filled with water and placed into a freezer form ice cubes.
Those pesky colorful plastic quadrilateral-planed trays  wreak of the 90’s so much so that even taking out the ice cubes for use requires a task akin to making high sodium and long shelf-life Shake n’ Bake food items.

_________________________________________________________

In order to prevent my back from giving out and not overwork my fairly new laptop, I have decided to use the laptops provided by the place I work in.

Problems on problems on problems - This should not be much of a surprise should you have read my blog prior to this post, or even while reading this post.

The laptop is so old that it is overheating underneath my always cold, and therefore always dry, hands.

The keyboard looks dirty and unkempt. I remind myself that I got over the fear of my fingers coming into contact with keyboards used by the public while in college.

There are over 1,000 files on the desktop alone.
The new Internet Explorer is not supported.
My Twitter feed is stalled.

I’m in the heart of Manhattan.

I think I need to make an overpriced Duane Reade run and buy Bayer for my geographical coordinates.

Where am I located? 
I take a look at the Compass App on the iPhone.

The rapidly moving numerical directions are not keeping up with my New Yorker walking pace.

Forget this.

I know my way home.

CXXXVIII. Admission Made -

I have an admission to make.
I do not take criticism well - at all.

Completely unwarranted and tangential criticism as a result of someone disliking their line of work: I cannot stand being spoken to rudely by people who do not want to work. I’m looking at you financial aid department. My enunciated kindness was taken advantage of. Apparently, I’m not the only one who is flawed.

Furthermore, I do not tolerate someone saying that I am wrong when I am not. Please take note of the second clause, “when I am not.”

I do not care for the passive-aggressive cowardice of someone smiling while telling me that I am wrong: I’m talking about those editors who believe they are God’s gift to the creative minds who carry the load of brainpower - the reporters/writers. I’m talking about those editors who believe that they are the gatekeepers of the free press.

I believe I need to rid myself of this flaw.
I know I need to handle criticism and not stress; the same stress that is taking years off of my life because of the energy I am exerting in preventing my eyes from narrowing, or having my rather thin lips form a scowl, or furrowing my eyebrows in front of the person to whom my anger is directed.

What I do upon hearing criticism is this: I identify all the reasons why I am in the right. They’re out to get me. They’re just waiting for a downfall. Curse them.

Perhaps I am cynical, but I do not care for morbid predilections so early in the morning, editor madam.

If I’m on a learning curve, than you are too. After all, you just started here a month ago. So we’re both new. I suggest you do not flex your bureaucratic muscles in front of someone who has musculature formed by free weights, acquired under the guidance of a father who bench presses a load that is the equivalent to an upright piano.

Was that a threat?

Yes, that was a threat, albeit an empty one.

I have tried to eat more fruit and vegetables, baked or sautéed in mere drops of olive oil, walk, listen to music, inhale scented candles, drink tea (given up a month and a half ago,) and soothingly rub a variety of lotions into my hardened and scaly hands, the product of the winter season and years of malnourishment.

But to no avail, none of this has caused me to stop fuming.

I am upset. I am furious. I am Reshmi, hear me roar.

That reaction needs to stop for my own betterment. This much I know. The question is how?

How can I attain a level of acceptance, of tolerance, or at least the willingness to ignore?

How can I pretend to not see a driver’s mouth form swear words that causes me to throw insults out of the impressive gradbag of insults that I have acquired from years of hearing pointed racist remarks and being an avid walker amongst the crazy vehicle operators of New York City?

I truly do not know.

On the contrary, here is how I am going to deal with all of this and not let it phase me.

Dear editor, believe it or not I am actually using you; it is not the other way around.
You see, monetary compensation is not only an incentive but also the golden ticket to the realm of higher education.

In some months’ time, I’m outie, up and away, a girl in her twenties, lover to none, mother to none, and determined to pursue work that actually matters to society, not pretentious “movers and shakers.” That phrase is thrown around way too much in this office.

I’m using you.

One could argue that this so-called solution to my flaw is not really a solution at all.

Well, there it is.

CXXXVII. Down N' Out -

My mother is standing over my shoulder as I scan the application that qualifies selected students for scholarships to one of the journalism graduate schools I had applied to.

A New Yorker, born and raised, I only met the prerequisites of one scholarship.

“It looks like all the international students are entitled to the scholarships,” to which my mom replied, “it’s unfair. They’re not looking out for their own citizens [Americans].”

I have always been irked by the many international students who attend elite universities in the United States. I’ll just be honest here and disclose the fact that most of these students were born into a family of such economically sound status that they buy their way into and out of the admissions process.

They attend “American” academies and private schools that are microcosms of New York’s Upper East Side in the middle of the desert, tropics, or whatever other non-western hemispherical biosphere they inhabit.

Many of these students told me that they had no intention of staying here - the place where they acquired a higher education. Their lifestyles back home is a cushioned landing pad that breaks their fall upon jumping up and away from the land where they were forced to be wired on coffee, not tea, and perform long working hours to prove their skill sets.

They have it made at home.

One of my peers in college showed me a photo of a mother and her daughter, crouched on their hind-legs. The mother wasn’t exactly smiling, but she wasn’t pouting either. She was doing her job well - staring at the camera without a fuss but just doing as asked by the offspring of the master/mistress of the house.

“This is my cook and her daughter,” my campus-buddy told me.

She then elaborated quickly with regards to the job description of the lady in the photo who was not cooking but cleaning. I didn’t ask for clarification because my eyes did not conceal what’s so very apparent. Her cook was basically a multipurpose maid who had no choice but to bring her small daughter along with her.

“I love that little girl,” she said. “She used to be scared of me because -”

At this point in the conversation, my quasi-friend but more of a forced acquaintanceship by means of dormitory-living, had faltered in her speech; “-because we don’t look like them.”

You don’t look like them? Way to state the obvious.
She continued in her ill attempt to sugar-coat the idea of people serving her “we’re her employers.”

I have tried to consolidate a solid friendship with people whom I just consider to be campus-bodies due to consequence.
One time I had opened up my home to someone.

I used to enjoy the idea of sleepovers growing up, however, as academia continued to make its formidable presence, I slowly discounted every aspect of socializing that I had once associated with those of a more romanticized era.
On the way to my house my college peer who does not hold a U.S. passport had called me. I told her where to catch the bus, a twenty or twenty-five minute ride from the train station.

Not even twenty minutes later I picked up my phone to hear her voice faltering to the noise of undoubtedly a house party or club scene: “I heard the bus-stop area is really sketchy. I heard it wasn’t safe there. I’m taxi-ing it to your house.”

I was taken off guard, insulted, offended and stupefied. New York City is one of the safest places. There is such a network of police precincts that if one were to draw a line between all of them, it would make for a very tedious game of connect-the-dots.
Furthermore, I grew up taking the city bus, as did everyone else, to and from school. My parents would never jeopardize their daughter if they thought I was at risk.
To be frank, the place that the international student from is arguably the sketchiest place on earth.

That aside, these very same students have no roots here. They do not have any family obligations or duties in this part of the world and so they can take off whenever, wherever.
They can hop along state lines, magically sponsored, their visa akin to the elixir from Tuck Everlasting.

Their friends are their quote unquote family. I cannot say that the same goes for me. I can say that it does not pertain to me.
With that said, anything that said person does will be broadcasted. The compensation for their lack of roots will be mass adulation and their silent basking in praise mistaken for humility.

Seems the microcosmic center for learning the English language has rubbed off on others’ knowledge for what the meaning of humility truly is.

Seems to me that I am rooted.

Seems to me that wanderlust is just a means to finding one’s roots.

CXXXVI. A Writer's Apptetite -

A writer’s appetite thrives on observations, analysis of said observations, and recognition.

Recognition is neutrally charged, though it no doubt connotes positivity. I suppose “reaction” is the word that more accurately describes one of the three ingredients that make for my recipe of writer’s success.

When I refer to writer’s success, I am referring to the production of prose that is comprehensive, has a beginning and end, but does not necessarily have to be read, by someone other than myself that is.

Let’s backtrack: In order for writing to conjure a reaction, necessary for success, it must be read.

Positive recognition is always humbling, as is negative recognition.

As I have stated previously, I have taken to reading and while I have become fond of well-written fiction (according to what I perceive to be successful writing,) I still favor non-fiction above all else.

Journalism is for me - there is absolutely no doubt about that. For one, I get to write based on fact. I get to use analysis and not risk falling into a netherworld that is just short of the loony bin that I imagine fiction writers inevitably find themselves in.

As a journalist, I get to indulge in being that introvert who cannot be alone. I get to communicate with people, profoundly and soberly, for a short period of time.Interactions with my interviewees are altogether intimate, professional, and organic.

Most importantly, my socializing with my interviewees is scheduled. The interviews are short-lived, aside from their permanency in the resulting written prose. My relationships with my interviewees are drama-free and untethered. There are no strings attached; The best kind of socializing.

As a journalist I get to remain an intellectual, constantly reading and keeping up with the news.
I can retain an air of self-employment and unlike a physician who roams the wards of a hospital for hours on end, donning scrubs and white coat,  I can remain a forever mobile writer.
I can set up shop at the nearest bookstore or cafe.
I can fully embrace my fashionable wardrobe. I can sport my new Swedish-brand platform lace-up rain-boots in a burgundy color referred to as ‘Cabernet’.

There is no greater validation for my chosen profession than what had happened to me on February 14, 2014.

My Valentine = Graduate School Acceptance from the Friendly People at my Top Choice.

All those months of studying vocabulary words, stringing together haphazard sentences of mind-numbingly boring prose in the reading comprehension section, and solving Level-4 Difficult math problems that I would never actually encounter for the GRE.

All that type typing away on a Microsoft Word document that ran over 30 pages, single-spaced, with severely anorexic margins, and a type-11 font size: A running list of vocabulary words that succeeds in making me fall in love with the English language all over again despite the fact that I did not know the definitions of more than half of the words prior to studying.

There was also a running list of geometric laws, algorithms, and algebraic formulas. I had to endure the wrath of using a qualitative keyboard to write out these mathematical equations.
Multiplication would be signified by the asterisk (*) and division by the forward slash (/).

Months of planning what schools I would apply to.
Months of copy-and-pasting application essay prompts that I would then break up and analyze in order to see what hidden request the admissions officers were actually making to the starry-eyed applicants.

Months of writing and editing everyday until I had essays upon essays that I birthed and waned. These very same essays that I had to reassess and recreate a couple of hours before their deadline at the request of my journalism college professor who has been mentoring me over email until now, despite seeing each other last in April 2012, the month before graduating from college.

I got into graduate school. I got into the graduate school of my choice. I’m going to get my master’s degree.

My name is going to read with the suffices B.A., M.S.

Having submitted graduate school applications, losing sleep over the eminent results, and resting up after having finishing up a life-consuming internship, I’ve taken it upon myself to stretch my abilities and write a story, a work of fiction - a manuscript in the making.

Without a job, unwilling to pursue an internship, and an academic at heart, I have decided to utilize my short-lived “free time” to pursue self-assigned work, a mini contribution to society, and successful writing - writing that is read by others.

It is my belief that any work of fiction has a thin foundation, fabricated from fact. After all, the author pulls from what he/she knows. Whether that knowledge is false or not does not matter so much. That is to say, whether or not someone believes the Earth revolves around the sun does not matter. The knowledge of such a concept, revolution by heavenly bodies, is enough.

I had a story in mind. I started typing furiously away and then I opened my email inbox to find the possibility of working outside the house again as a reporter. The interview is tomorrow.

I continued typing my story, to a less degree now that I had an interview prepare for.
A few days after checking my inbox, I checked my online application status for grad school and found out about my acceptance.

I haven’t continued to write my story since and would you like to know why?

I had decided to write a work of fiction when reality became so conflicted - deciding to wait out outside opportunities, mostly internships, until I found about graduate school, I had not slept for weeks and my appetite was curbed to such an extreme that I reduced to skin and bones.

Prior to finding out about my interview for a writing opportunity and then the possibility of acquiring a master’s degree, I had written my work of fiction up until the conflict in the story; up until the conflict in that phase of the protagonist’s life.

It seems that the recent good tidings in my life, the hope that the interview tomorrow presents (recognition in some form), and the admission to a selective program, has caused me to not want to confront the conflict of my narrative.

Now, however, is the conflict of being in the midst of writing a narrative not yet dissipated to the public.

I am going to finish this story and I am going to publish it - I’ve decided that much.

The question now is: Would you read my novella?

CXXXV. She Resides on a Mountain -

“…some people have mountains in them while some have the sea… even if they are born in flatlands, [they] cannot be parted for long from the mountains. Anywhere else is exile. Anywhere else, the ground is too flat, the air too dense, the trees to broad-leaved for beauty. The color of the light is all wrong, the sounds nothing but noise.”

- The Folded Earth by Anuradha Roy, P. 6-7

Do not get me wrong, I am a New Yorker through and through, however I cannot help but thinking that I am better suited to some other place. Somewhere that has an air of old-world beauty. This place- where daily functioning embraces unique lifestyles and zero chance that a person will be donning the same attire.

Recently a Buzzfeed published quiz that comes with an immediate result-output, has gone viral. The quiz is titled “What City Should You Actually Live In?” The quiz is already limited to the geographical taxonomy of cities which means that one automatically cannot associate themselves with remote locales circumventing urban epicenters populated by the Internet Cafe’s that are so characteristic of the developed-world.

Furthermore, the quiz assumes that everyone drinks alcohol, which irks me. Forget morality and faith as the reasons for my being turned off and instead try and zoom in on a memory of mine that invoked the same reaction:
I was sitting in a senior year seminar for my major. The professor was speaking about something or the other and then made an analogy in order for the students to understand just how impossible that scenario she was talking about was: “It’s like saying that there is a person at the U. of Penn. who has never drank alcohol for recreational purposes in their entire life.” The students broke out into laughter as I sat silently, feeling ostracized by a people who thought non-drinkers didn’t exist.

I took the quiz out of sheer curiosity. I tried submitting the quiz without answering the drink-preference question. Try as I might, I could not leave the question blank - mine was an invalid response. I ventured to guess what type of drink, by name and reputation, would most closely reflect my type of person. I forgot what I had answered immediately after answering it.

In the second that I was waiting for my classification, I presumed to be matched with New York City. Instead I was matched with the Spanish city of Barcelona.
Suffice it to say, I was satisfied. I’m half Puerto Rican, my mother’s grandparents were from Spain, and so I felt a sense of self despite the pointed questions. I was thankful to not be matched with any other European or Australian city, that is for sure.

In the past year I have traveled more than ever before. I went to our nation’s capital for a weekend, the west coast for another weekend, and aside from visiting my brother on occasion in a city that when considered being traveled to from New York, the journey is bisected by the home of my alma mater, Philadelphia. I had also traveled to Istanbul for all of three days, a memory that leaves a harsh bitter taste in my mouth but that I equate with an experience from my past, causing me to grow as a result.

Since these travels from these months’ past, I have become incredibly more patriotic in terms of identifying myself as not just a New Yorker, but an American, born and raised.

I like not having to observe the jarring dichotomy between mansions or dripping in marble palatial-like religious establishments and slums with tin and mud thatch roofed huts. I like that the standard of living for the middle social strata, though not always sophisticate as a consequence of its inherent access, is the safety haven that enables all citizens to go to a pharmacy or the supermarket.

Though we may have our own separate paths - distinct by ethnicity and locale, and the middle finger goes up one too many times on the road, the camaraderie among us citizens standing on line at the self-checkout weighing our own perishable items, shoveling snow in sub-freezing temperatures, and walking around the mall without a care aside from picking up free cinnamon pretzel and terriyaki chicken samples, warms my heart.

I’m an American and I sound like one.

I do not enjoy entertaining the idea of an extended family living arrangement and I am more than ok with that.
I absolutely detest the idea of afternoon naps or siestas.
I deplore the lethargic memories of people sitting in the rain on their veranda dunking fried culinary treats in the steamy and wonderfully aromatic froths of milk during the middle of the day.

I’ve been told by immigrants that I do not understand, but neither do they.

I suppose I’ll never really know what place in this world would suit me.

Trees that are decadent with pine needles and spring-like summers that reflect in pools of earth-sprung water a mountainous terrain, is what I have always pictured as the backdrop of my dreams. When I see pictures of a family trip to Kashmir, prior to my birth, in photo albums filled with pages of glue slowly dissolved so that Polaroids are haphazardly placed, I displace myself there.
Curiosity has heightened to such an extent that I have quite possibly viewed every documentary on the highly contested valley that are available online. I’ve read novels, non-fiction accounts, and articles about the fragile political climate in that region. The journalistic resources about Kashmir are manifold, now thanks to the most recently appointed editor in chief of The New York Times’ India Ink vertical.

If I were to ever settle down in some corner of the Earth that is at a high altitude, seemingly locked in by mountains but surrounded by clouds and sky that feels so perceptibly nearby, I know that at some point in time I would want to step down on a fire escape of branches.

I enjoy the tropical or more climatic delicacies not available to a mountainous terrain. I cannot imagine not being able to smell the basil and mint leaves my parents planted in the backyard during the summer time. I already miss those days in high school, when we knew were not set to move and planting still took place: I would be sent to the backyard with scissors to cut off mint and basil leaves that would be made into a pesto sauce for dinner’s pasta dish.
I’ll miss having mangoes for daily shakes that cool my insides.

I now understand the validity of what one of my college roommates had told me: You decide how you want to live. Your lifestyle is not preordained by the environment you’re in. If you want to preserve a culture and traditions, it won’t be taken away from you just because you live a world away from the traditions’ birthplace.

I have to believe that she’s right.

After all, mango trees do not grow in New York and I have never gone apple picking.

CXXXIV. The Simpleton is Simplicity’s Scion -

Since the beckoning of the year 2014 and the onslaught of two distinct polar vortices, a term recently excavated from old meteorologic textbooks that has now entered Americans’ daily lexicon, I have been without working internet and land-line phone service.

“This couldn’t be more of a blessing”, was my primary thought.
After all, it is almost impossible for me to embark on a job in a field that calls for years of experience that I cannot acquire without an external force; graduate school, which, God willing, will materialize within the next several months.
Furthermore, I am trying in earnest to not intern yet again. I can no longer work such that my resume connotes a willingness to forever work for muft, the Urdu word for ‘free of charge.’
I use the Urdu word because when verbally stated, the sound better translates the exasperation I’m feeling; Refer to the English speaker’s transliteration of a sigh: Ugh — Bleh — Uuff.

Without my hours in transit during the throes of Fall’s interning season and void of any new comedic sketches, online news streams, and the influx of melodic Hindi and Punjabi tunes I only know how to access via YouTube, time emerged to make the seemingly far trek to the newly opened library in my locality, (that I had shunned due to a trivial loyalty to my college library), a possibility.
I now had the time to read books. I ventured beyond the non-fiction shelves so that I could immerse myself in a fictional narrative taken from a character whose heritage could always be traced to nothing west of the Gulf region.

I also had no excuse to not exercise on a budget, or walk miles from home with the primary goal of returning less saturated with calories than I had been previously.

The walking paths I took, adjacent to avenues, alongside highways, parallel to boulevards, and dangerously close to intercepting the path of oncoming automobiles while bypassing snow-laden slivers of sidewalks, eventually caused me to become nonplussed.
Perhaps I had too much time to think to myself because of my rationing use of the 4G data plan on my smart phone, thereby causing my legs to move in step with the frigid winds rather than percussion beats from tablas inherent to the composition of Shabads and Sufi kalams.

My walks began to feel as though I were not exercising but ambling about in an ill attempt to conjure up an active lifestyle of the dancer I once was and to compensate for the just-starting-out journalist who had mastered the language of email and Boolean logic for optimized web searches in order to fight every editor who continues to hold onto the reigns of their age-old tenure; feeling threatened by the promise of my shrinking youth as it were.

Without access to my social media platforms and online research hubs, I felt an ignorance begin to penetrate my being save for the saving grace that was the Columbia Journalism writing admissions exam.
I managed to prep and sat down for the exam throughout the weeks that I found myself under a rock despite stepping on more miles of rock than most New Yorkers on my daily walking expeditions.

I became a simpleton in these weeks of simplicity.

It has been simplistic of me to suggest and believe that my knowledge-bank would form bad credit due to a couple of days without my favorite news anchors posting real-time tweets.
The days seemed censored of every amount of productivity I had when not validated by the keyboard under the tips of my fingertips.

In parallel, it has been simplistic of me to believe that denying myself of any cuisine that isn’t salad, sauteed vegetables, and unsalted crackers, would cause me to qualify as a contestant for The Biggest Loser.

The simplicity has caused me to regress - the exposed ribs of skeletons’ past reflected in my own, so well known to me while meandering to and from courses and corners of cafes that housed the crackers I lived off of on the beaten path of cobblestones.

My first wave of relief and reprieve from the simpleton I feared I was becoming came in the guise of Wi-Fi waves yesterday. Despite the welcome addition to the household once more, I decided to dwell a tad bit longer in the realm of printed words, television sitcoms, walkable weather, and the winding down camaraderie amongst the public at the end of a long-weekend.

Last night, a commercial for an internet provider I had never heard of before was broadcasted. Their conclusion to the mini narrative was something along the lines of Internet no longer being a luxury, but a necessity.

The keyboard is strengthening my phalanges as my thoughts in entropy are no longer stringed into forced words for the sake of taking pen to paper.

Simplicity begets the simpleton.

CXXXIII. Untethered -

I received a notebook for Christmas from my titi, my aunt.
For the sake of providing a more accurate description of my Christmas gift: I did not receive the equivalent of Five-Star spiral notebooks or those seemingly duct-tape bound and cow-print composition notebooks.

Instead I received a thick journal of a soft navy blue textile. The front cover has an engraved quill and the side binding has ridges that protrude, reminiscent of the aesthetic of antiquated books found in libraries that house classics in their original form. Each page is gilded with a metallic gold such that when closed, the side of the book where the pages are exposed is equivalent to the dreams of those early-day Americans seeking out the Western Frontier on their quest for Manifest Destiny.

As the days darken, both due to winter’s inevitable entrance, the stresses of newly acquired adulthood, and dealing with the mid-life crisis of an adult who has experienced adulthood far longer than childhood, I have decided that I want to wind down these final days of the year with plans rather than resolutions.

My plan is to singe and sear off the negativity of others. That large empty book I received could be the medium for carrying out the plan.

I’m not one for writing down something I appreciate or am grateful for on the daily. The whole finding zen and “Dear Self” introduction strikes me as the muse for alternative designs made to update what we have come to know as the straight jacket.

I think Lifetime movies are morbid dramas that could not in any way accurately portray reality. Drama is a genre. I always thought life to be so multifaceted that it cannot be typified into a single entity, like a drama.

How naive and how wrong I was.

It is not so easy to disconnect from the misfits of one’s life, especially when they have taken root in your very biology.

I won’t say that I am going to try and attract positive energy by making sweeping changes to a social circle I cannot fully sever. Unfortunately, future invitations laden with fake smiles will transpire without regard for my resistance mistaken for rebellion.

My plan is to omit any negativity from the written word I put in that notebook - and no better a time than in two days, the first of January and the first day of the new year.

I had tried in the past to keep written record of not feelings, happy, sad, and/or the in-between.

I had attempted to keep a record akin to Benjamin Franklin - I believe it was him, the patron of my college alma mater - who had kept a running log of what he had done.
The journal read like a timetable. he would write down the time he woke up, brushed his teeth, and so on.

The reasoning behind this activity had something to do with not having idle hands and what not.

My sibling used to partake in an activity similar to this, several years ago, as a grade-school-going child. I had found it humorous, his obsessive cataloging of mundane necessities of functioning.

As he grew older, I found post-its thrown around his room. A more mature development of those kiddish journals.
“8:00 AM - Wake Up. 9:15 AM - 100 Crunches. 9:22 AM: 100 Push-Ups. 9:30 AM - Freshen Up. 9:40 AM - Take MCAT practice exam.”

Always one to be quote unquote, carefree and not stressed, my brother was unaware or just deliberately ignoring the goings on around him.

Possessing a countenance such as that is the envy of most of humankind.

So that’s the plan: To be untethered.

Remaining true to myself, having faith be shaken and not yet fully restored, I am determined to quell the rumblings of my being.

I’ll watch a funny program because, well, there is no use in running against the tide from the opposing direction just to stay true to my politics; An action that no one else but myself will witness. I’m talking about you, Modern Family T.V. series.

I still think that the concept of ‘Live and Let Live’ is an oxymoron. How can one live without exposing one’s honest to God point of view and without being regarded as unjust or even phobic? Since when did one opinion stand truer than another?

I have come to associate myself as more of a Republican and then just as swiftly reverted to the Democratic camp my mixed heritage had ushered me into as part of our auto-universe.

Here’s to 2014, in spite of the annual sore point that New Year’s Eve presents.

May the first few hours be the equivalent to those fun-house mirrors so that it distorts a different, more clear and luminescent, picture of the following year.

CXXXII. For I Am The Daughter, Hear Me Roar -

I used to think I was like those Christmas trees that are atop moving cars at the start of December.

Tightly bound in a net-like contraption, I too was held to a degree of constraint or, one could say, refinement.

I thought I was like those automobile bound trees; harbingers of good tidings that invoke happiness and unite families.

I don’t quite feel like those trees that will bring smiles to all who bear witness any longer. Instead, I feel burdened by the onus of worries, stress, and hypocrisy that is synonymous to the mesh-like netting used to wind up the tree.

Possessing the knowledge of where the birth certificates and old photos are stashed, as well as the stories behind said photos, I am positioned to be in the line of inheritance of a history that is rapidly becoming darker in parallel to the fall-approaching-winter days that darken seconds earlier with each passing day.

Paper towels are finished, the dental floss is behind the shampoo in the closet, and we have enough milk for coffee for the next week. I know this. I don’t have to exert any energy or take away from my time filling out graduate school applications to become privy of the list of doodads that are nonetheless necessary for daily functioning in the house.

Bearing the brunt of mudslinging from the bipartisan divide within the macrocosm of myself has caused stress-inducing problematic skin. You’d think a face full of mud would be akin to a facial and cleanse the pores that result in smooth and unblemished skin.

I am re-evaluating past scenarios. Not one for regrets or, of late, referencing the past, the situation in question mandates the excavation of memories.

Time mends everything I keep telling myself, but I cannot forget what continues to transpire. Still, time passing creates memories which are abstract figments of the past - that will have to be good enough.

College was a dark, seemingly never-ending trajectory of bumps and bruises from venal tenured professors and the freshman minus 15, plus another negative five.
While time passing by has caused me to reminisce on the growth of my intellect and the precious ivy winding corridors of a Philadelphia campus, there is no denying certain changes that are here to stay: the less curly hair and the ever-shortening list enumerating my likes.

I am almost appreciative of the timing of this burdensome drudgery coinciding with the year’s end - almost.
The days are clouded over and darkness mirrors the interring of our minds and jovial spirit for things to come all due to lies and hate disguised as family honor.
This hatred makes its presence felt during a time that should smell only of joy and pine trees.

How dare these people, supposedly my own, treat my closest compatriot in this manner? How dare they? Open your minds already; patriotism is nasty when it wreaks of ethnocentric dogma.
Live and let live.
Money isn’t everything - my God, read a book! Learn something and then try and argue that you’re correct.
Whatever you have propagated to others about us, well, that will come back to haunt you and I hope it does - I hope it does.

I want to shed any negative energy and yet some of it is inevitably carried around.

“I want to find someone. I want to marry a man without any… baggage,” I said yesterday.

“Everyone has baggage,” she responded.

_________________________________________________________________

Mother to her daughter (Film Dialogue):

“Then at every step, sometimes as a daughter, sometimes as a sister, sometimes as a wife, I went on sacrificing my own happiness. But when you were born, I promised myself that I’d never let what happen to me happen to my daughter. What if she’s a girl? She’d live her life as she wants. But I was wrong. I had even forgotten that a woman doesn’t even have the right to make promises.”