Escape Room: Mindgame Edition

Sitting at my kitchen island on a Monday morning, perched on a bar stool that has a back support. I am habitually inclined to not lean on it. My body is also cold, not showered since the night before, and my body and heart are chilled. In contrast, it is as if I was in the midst of a rapid-fire round, such that one word is at the forefront of my mind and on the tip of my tongue nestled away in my always tightly closed mouth: shackled.

Do you know that phenomenon of having a word repeated so much that it loses all meaning? Well, I think that the lost in translation mouth-feel is less so a result of frequency and more so the product of continuity – repeatedly saying the word in a steady rhythmic chant. I, however, paused over the word, shackled. It echoed and reverberated in my mind, so that I only had to say it once or twice at most. Part of it reminded me of an old rival schoolmate’s surname- Shukla- with origins traced to the Indian state of Gujarat. Another word that it reminded me of was chuckle, so far-flung a verb that I could not imagine my face contorting in a way that could enable me to produce an audible chuckle. A deep-pitted sadness formed when I briefly checked the exploratory arena of recommended Instagram posts and came across Charmed actress, Shannon Doherty, who came out of the woodwork in a new debuting October edition of Elle Magazine, speaking of her breast cancer experience during the month dedicated to the illness’s impact. The nostalgia of the early 2000s sitcom, the rawness of a debilitating illness, and a blurred and under-saturated photo of her immediate family in a June Father’s Day tribute to her late dad, exacerbated my feeling of being frozen in my Long Island kitchen on a chilly October morning soon to be defied by warm temperatures for the rest of the week. And yet the overwhelming sentiment is that a world without October is one that is morose. I felt the opposite, but I also knew better than to ask the hypothetical existentialist question, why me? October is a month punctuated by grisly imagery, like starved skeletal paraphernalia and haunting apparitions that serve to emphasize death. My less than amiable feeling toward October is not out of the realm of understanding.

A couple of months away from a new year, October always personified the starting point of the holidays: A celebratory marathon– honey and apples to usher in the Jewish new year dovetails off of seasonality. A single-file march of cars siphon off farmland in eastern Long Island, its passengers on their way to pick apples in the orchards that smell of warm cider. Honey in milk is the old wives’ remedy for illness onset by cooler temperatures. November, is a harvest month, tepid before winter’s onslaught of icy sterility – a white blanket of snow and overcast skies. The political landscape adds a flurry of feelings with Election Day, followed by a patriotic coming together on Veterans’ Day, and then a demonstration of national friendship and fragility on Thanksgiving Day. This marathon of events is reflected in the annual New York City Marathon held in November. All the boroughs thruways’ and main arteries are shut down. Mustard oil fills earthen clay lamps for Diwali, and candelabras begin to appear in windows where December’s advent before Christmas is the last month of an environmentally friendly calendar.

Though this block of time is suggestive of burnout, my flame is ignited and I actively seek escapism. I ushered in the autumnal equinox with a trip to Vermont, arguably the most beautiful during the fall because of its foliage. Unbeknownst me, I chose the final weekend before the alternatively colored leaves crisped up into a finely scorched top crust of crème brûlée that would shatter with a slight breeze, exacerbated by revelers’ vehicles accelerating through Smuggler’s Notch, one of the most scenic routes best admired whilst sitting in an automobile that begins in Stowe along Route 108, north toward Jeffersonville. The journey is a steep climb and steeper descent with two-way roads deceivingly permitting only a single-file stream of cars lest one projectile over obtuse natural rock formations and into the buoyant swirl of higher altitude air, reminiscent of a hurricane’s eye. That I could lend to you a true experience of the winding road through increasing elevation, being side swept by an active waterfall, scarred by limbs and boughs, and then bandaged by leaves of all colors, would be equivalent to wishing for a man-made capacity to smell through a screen – a pixelated slow motion breaking in half of a thick Levain cookie.

I never tried a Levain cookie, though I was born and raised in New York. And perhaps that explains the lack of experience: I cannot be bothered to wait in line, my time too important as I race-walk to pick up my mobile ordered coffee via an application that I reluctantly downloaded in a last-ditch effort to avoid AOL Dialup-level loading times.

My go-to bakery is one that isn’t trending on social media and is instead the East Village haunt that has remained a brick-and-mortar for over a century, with backlit stained glass running along the edges where the ceiling meets the walls with built-in shelves that are lined with dried amaretto and pignoli nut cookies, biscotti, and sfoigatelle. An outing to Veniero’s Bakery, where the air is an ambrosial amalgamation of almond paste and rum-soaked pâte à choux, is an escape. Here, I imagined myself, not in Italy, but instead in my childhood home backyard, the venue for my blowout birthday barbecues and the quintessential Veniero’s tiramisu cake. Coffee beans dotted the piped edges. I had called dibs over them before even tasting my first cup of coffee at eleven years old. The strength of the coffee was curbed by milk: a foamless latte in a teacup with a slender handle and delicate floral motif in the center.

Day in and day out, my mornings at home or monotonous, following sleepless nights. I am riddled with anxiety about my exercise – forcing myself through high intensity intervals. I tremble and tears streak my face that is sallow, sunken, and sad. That’s what I see staring back at me as I roll up my hair into a tightly wound bun that threatens to unfurl; this is something I wish would manifest into my entire biology. I wish I were not so tightly wound. I wish I could unfurl, and relinquish the grip.

I did what I do: Something that I do not want to do and that is contrary – something that irks me and is a pet peeve. I never completed this essay, retaining the grip. Friday, Saturday, and Sunday were high-stress. I felt spoken down to, judged, and I too became defensive, combative, and reactive. My colon was constricted, my body numbed, my mind softened, and my limbs limber. I felt agile and in fight. I felt high, flying high, and running on cortisol and adrenaline. I was the tin man, the scarecrow, and if only I had a heart for myself.

It’s Monday. I am sitting at the kitchen island. I felt free, unshackled by the weekend that invoked hell. But an hour in, I felt that same sentiment – frozen, entrenched, locked into my mind and out of my heart. I suppose I do have a heart, then. Perhaps I should not rely on a mind so altered by academia and anorexia.

When No Leaf is Left Unturned: A Spooky Turn of Events

Upon August’s end, pumpkin poppers, spiced lattes, cereals, morning oven buns, and assortment of other Cinderella-vehicular inspired products, hit the market.  That cohort of people with fond memories of chemical-hair dye, Sun-In, who relish Mr. Softee jingles co-mingling with Monster Mash, unleashed their fury at this man made attempt to prematurely end summer. Compared to the year before, however, there was a marked drop in displeasure. And this is in spite of this year’s initial onslaught of pumpkin paraphernalia predating last year’s then unprecedented arrival. Perhaps even the most summer-obsessed did not take offense to Halloween’s early arrival because the idea of time moving on spawns some type of hope that the unfortunate events will become a distant memory.

It’s like my father quips incessantly with regard to my stalling recovery from anorexia: time does not stop for anyone. The world will continue to turn with or without you. Not a very cheery outlook, I agree. But then again, we’re approaching Halloween and thankfully, calls for making merry have not yet infiltrated Wal-Mart’s rotating campfire cookouts, back-to-school, trick-or-treat section just yet.

The events from this year include a debilitating airborne virus, an economic blunder that enabled the rise of industries once on the brink of extinction – think pantry staple legume products in the United States that include beans, lentils, peas, and even peanuts, to rise in sales by more than double- a critical juncture between racial tension and inequity, and a scrutinized look into policing without due purpose. Additionally, political discourse during a presidential election year that continues to brim with controversy and uncertainty further complicated matters, so to speak, as the main manufacturers in the legume industry and other Hispanic specialty culinary products, GOYA, now teetered on possible bankruptcy. Calls for boycotting their products emerged because the CEO supported President Trump who racially persecuted Hispanics, the very demographic his empire was erected on.

A half Hispanic, myself, I can say that I have not touched a bean aside from preservative-free locally churned hummus and cereal made from chickpeas, during the entirety of the shelter-in-place: from mid-Spring and well into the summer. Ironically, however, I likened myself to a burgeoning bean pod: bumps, peaks and valleys, that popped from beneath smoothed out skin as I continued to weight restore and work on building muscle mass. Once June arrived, however, this string bean became dehydrated, and like the basil, chives, and other herbs growing in the backyard, began to shrivel up and wrinkle underneath the strong sun rays. I became flaccid as I stopped adhering to any meal plan, and pushed myself to some impossible standard of fitness at home. This is my now.

“Take one string at a time and unravel it,” my father told me. He has a way with words that immediately pulls me to Earth, grounds me, and forces me to engage my brain cells like I did all the years prior to only thinking about food and movement. When I studied anything, I let text linger across my tongue, sit inside my head, before I would break it a part, mindfully. Instead of a fork or spoon, I used a pen. Instead of ingesting the words like morsels of food part of a meal plan, I digested their meaning and absorbed their value weighed in mental growth, fortitude, and understanding.

I am an interlocked web of worries, compulsions, and I am stuck. He seems awakened, like someone who has seen the light, showered, dressed and ready for work. I can take the end of each strand of web, breaking down the dream catcher-like web into isolated entities. I hear that. I see that. I want that.

The spooky season is upon us and yet the dream catcher, purported to enable positive dreams to pass through the gaps formed by intersecting strands of thread and nightmares to be caught in the intersecting strands so that they do not permeate one’s resting mind, does nothing to quell the monsters that lurk all around me. All I feel are my dreams, ambitions, and goals, being caught up in a childhood bedroom with bubblegum pink walls. Instead, of the sweet scent of Bazooka warmly wrapping around me, reminding me of my sweet future, I feel as though I have stepped on a wad of gum that leaves me attached, stuck to the ground beneath me.

I wish for the loopholes that the visual of a dream catcher represented because they are akin to lingering hope. Perhaps there is a way to maneuver my way around potholes and roadblocks, speed bumps and uncoordinated traffic lights that cause me to stop every few seconds at a red light, my destination in the distance, as I sit with my first-world problems: Guilt exponentially proliferating as I sit in the Fiat 500 pop in a color that is a cross between a baby blue and pistachio green.

I feel stuck. I feel that the market all around me is saturated, that leaves have already been un-turned, and that there is no value in my presence. I cannot be a stakeholder when I have a stake wrenched squarely through my heart. It’s the spooky season, and when the antidote that is a bulb of garlic has no affect – no roasting of garlic has caused me to recoil inward and opt for the aluminum wrapped order of garlic knots or fluffy and stretchy garlic naan – then the final resort is a wooden stake, according to urban legend.

As with most urban legends, their veracity is questionable, and so I have begun to seek out answers in the boondocks. I have taken to hiking, mistakenly identifying the preserved landscape for being paths not yet trodden, when in fact, the earth has been stamped on, the rocks have been nudged, and the journey has been made time and time again. Perhaps my New Yorker city roots have made me naïve – naïve about suburbia automatically being an isolated realm and free market.

A genuine soul who approached me when I was stressed, alone, and literally sitting alone on the mezzanine of the high rise Ivy League residential hall, messaged me on social media. He referred to my stressful 24-hour living Instagram video story where I mentioned the absence of directions on my hiking trip that made me scale a mountain and trek through a laborious forest. “Missing signage always = turn around,” he said. And suddenly, my father’s voice rang in my ears again. He told me to change my route.

In a classic devil’s advocate, semantics-focused argument that hardly tamed my ego so much as it stroked my penchant for academia, I accused him of suggesting that I was lost, which I took offense to. Instead, he said, that he alluded to my course was flawed due to navigation. Think: A global positioning system, or GPS. Sometimes, when traveling, satellite connection will be lost, causing detours. Then again, today, he suggested that his employees, business partners, and anyone whose path I crossed, knew that something was “wrong” with me; that signs of success, like career moves, were nonexistent. If that was not offensive, well, I don’t know what is.

That being said, my friend said that “in both life” and “in the wilderness,” - a distinction that I appreciated because hearing someone philosophically say that life is wilderness itself, well, that would prevent me from taking him seriously - there is no path not traveled. Things have been touched already, but that does not necessitate one to move and exert energy on finding a mythical location that doesn’t exist.

During these past two weeks of fall foliage sightings, I have not felt autumnal in the least. Masks muffle schools’ cacophony of sounds that usually reverberate across the nation, with study hall sessions for standardized examinations, dances, recitals, and practices. The air is thick with humidity from morning till evening. No amount of limited edition scented air fresheners and candles can provide the feelings of crisp air across once tanned skin, suddenly turned a shade of porcelain. I walk on leaves strewn, but I don’t hear a crunch, the sound deafened because the leaf has been muddled in the rainfall. The rainfall, too, seems silenced by the sound of the leaves that cover the ground. This isn’t natural. If there is any welcoming attribute of rain, it’s the audible ping and pang against the ground.

While I feel that the number of years I have occupied this Earth ages me – 30 – and that my millenial generation is now outdated by a single letter, ‘Z’, this eerie ambience has caused a youthful desire to resurface. That want is for snow to be in the forecast. I want some semblance of realism in what seems like a twilight zone. I want nothing more than a blanket of snow to cover the ground in silence. I want to see the eggplant haze of electrical luminescence reflecting off of white fluff. I want the barren branches poking through the marshmallow-like precipitate that accumulate upon them, punctuating the night sky to become ignited like S’mores roasting. My world is teeming with angst for a past and a future reunited, and for daydreams to materialize.

You Can’t Handle the Truth, and other Phrases Based in Reality, Even the Disordered One

Nothing will change if nothing changes. This phrase is irksome, to judge it mildly. My brother repeatedly said this to me in a last-ditch effort at helping to reel his younger Ivy-educated, popular, all-rounder sister from stumbling face-forward onto the Long Island buckled sidewalk he knew she laboriously clambered on while talking to him on the phone. Easier said than done was another phrase that seemed less a guideline and more so, a mandated lecture. Change inevitably leads to the unexpected, and that can cause anticipatory anxiety.

During one of my many readings about navigating life through a pandemic, I came across an argument for quelling anxiety by re-watching repeats of films and television series that were previously aired and seen. During the depths of my disorder, my nightcap was re-watching episodes of Gilmore Girls. My father, who has determined that I am the karma he has to live with after I quipped that he would be suffering from a cosmic backlash, would endlessly pick on anything he could in a subconscious attempt at pathologizing all I did into a symptom of anorexia nervosa. From the sweatpants I walked out the house in that he claimed was me feeling uncomfortable in my body and hiding away from who I was, to my penchant for watching Gilmore Girls, now celebrating its 20th anniversary in 2020, which he claimed was me being stuck in a rut and not moving on.

I stopped watching television series all together, however; still unemployed and also focusing on recovery from the grips of an eating disorder, both treatment professionals and kin suggest that I should take this time to do absolutely nothing. That is to say, they want me to preoccupy my headspace with things other than numbers, schedules, wallowing about a dearth of jobs and inactivity on the career front. During residential treatment, a quarantine of its own, the weekly visit with the psychiatrist was like a game of Ping-Pong. We tapped our chatter with an endless array of commas, keeping thoughts buoyant, floating on air currents between us.

Our initial getting to know one another started with him stumbling on my name, and then us coming to the mutual decision to not dabble with any type of medication and instead focus on rewiring thoughts with intellect and behavioral practice. He wanted me to practice mediation. He wanted me to focus on nothing aside from my presence, breathing, grounded to the Earth. He didn’t want me to take out books from the library, (not a possibility regardless,) for “how to do nothing.” He did not want me to study. He wanted me to just do absolutely nothing. I never did master this, but I won’t say that it was due to lack of attempt. I was about to say lack of trying, but I feel trying is a loaded concept; There are degrees of trying based on time and effort, both of which are quantifiable. Whenever he would pass around the landing’s hallway, where I sat next to the window, busying myself with reading or writing, I would immediately stash away pages, pretending to not be preoccupied.

It has almost been one full year since I left treatment, and though changes have come and gone, I have found that recovery has not yet surfaced and the phrase, old habits die-hard, rings in my ears. I suppose this penchant for knowing what is to come - by nature, a habit is a repeatedly practiced behavior with known though not necessarily desirable, outcomes – parallels to me re-watching rerun episodes of old series. I know the gist of the dialogue, the climax, the conflict, the impending resolution, and the cliffhangers that I have clambered up time and time again without falling over. According to news write-ups during the pandemic, people have been coping increasingly by viewing old television shows, production having ceased aside, because there is no anticipation. You know what will happen.

According to my therapist, climbing up this tumultuous terrain without having yet crashed, is me using old behaviors to cope, like eating less, moving more, and running on empty. It is not until I begin to see yellowing cracked skin and feel depleted, as if I were wading through water, that I temporarily snap out of my reverie about everything being fine. He said I was playing a game of Russian roulette. Either that or I was playing with fire. I nodded silently, knowing this without him having to say it, but also appreciating the clarity he provided me with. What he said next, however, held so much truth that it sticks in my head with the adherence and purpose of a pale banana yellow Post-It note: I was like a substance abuser, endlessly scheming for my next fix of exercise or low calorie concoction.

It’s not true that with practice, makes perfect. If there is anything that feeds this illness, allowing it to grow and thrive, it is the concept of achieving some self-actualized state of otherworldliness. Perhaps asceticism, hallucinating from starvation, reverberating heart beat no longer cloaked behind an exposed rib cage, and quivering due to tingling sensations from an electrolyte imbalance, is associated with achieving a closeness to both the very concept of life and whoever you believe is its creator. Organized religion aside, that this vast world and its inhabitants are wondrous, mammoth concepts, is an observation that is irrefutable. This concept was suggested by journalist and comedian, Sopan Deb, an agnostic, mentioned in his memoir, Missed Translations.

Could it be that I extend my dining experience with volume eats, like low caloric food items that cause bulk and a feeling of fullness, in order to distract myself from the world at large and not just to quell this feeling of being deprived of food? Could it be that sitting for an hour, munching, never feeling quite satisfied, is me resting my not yet healthy body after a strenuous exercise routine as much as to assert that if I could not have control over my career trajectory, then at least I could have some sort of control over my body, and in some way, my recovery? Am I numbing out, yet again?

These questions are answers. These questions and answers, two for one, or, killing two birds with one stone, are figments of a mind bifurcated. In one hemisphere, or on one hand, so to speak, there is the disorder that assures me I am safe and fine and, on the other, there is a healthier, rational mind that signals starvation and an undernourished body that is ailing and screaming for more- more care, more rest, more food, more variety, more commitment. And in this way, is the crux of the issue: more is never quite enough.

Wrongfully Convicted: Coronavirus, Civic Unrest, & Cencorship

Today, the first of June, I feel safe, but that is not to say that I do not feel extremely anxious. It is worth noting the current state of affairs in the United States of America. Even the concept of “state,” is irrelevant because nothing is static in nature. The news continues to evolve, from a space launch contingent on unpredictable weather reports and a global health crisis, to a politicized handle over a health crisis that conceived economical and sociological blunders including parameters for what qualifies as essential, like community prayer, and then the desecration of my maternally inherited home church, St. Patrick’s Cathedral.

I would say that I lost my appetite; the integral indicator of hunger, an excitement for eating and trying new flavors, has lessened to such a degree that my body’s internal survival mechanism has to be oiled and as such, has fueled my hand to grab at odds and ends in the pantry.  Notable signs of my body in deficit are a penchant for irritability, begrudging self-inflicted epithets, and a fast-paced flurry of internal thoughts that combat one another. I still need to weight restore and nutritionally rehabilitate. I need to utilize coping mechanisms. I need to be proactive. I have made progress, but it is stunted. I have to do – I must do – I need to- I want to- I should and I could have.

I am convinced that today, June 1st, is the official start of summer because it marks the beginning of the last month of the academic year. This June, I am excited for my birth month because I am no longer approaching a dreadfully low body-weight. Then again, I was paralyzed for most of yesterday and this morning, when I crawled out of bed at 5 am, preoccupied with not only my possible regression regarding weight, but also the city of my birth burning in a hell fire under the auspices of justice. Silencing voices for the sake of solidarity is a form of censorship I cannot get behind. The fringes finagling their way into a pursuit of their own accord without regard for a common humanity is the obliteration of any decorum. A war waged inside a country is oxymoronic, and the solidarity that was being forged in light of a universal mortality, is being broken now too, by the very same mortality.

I took a hiatus from writing this, when on June 2nd, I crashed and burned, coping the way I knew how and that has time and again proven unproductive. I cried at my lackluster attempt at nourishing myself in a balanced manner. I reprimanded myself for withdrawing from plans to create a more sustainable means to an end. Instead, I reached the desired end in a last-minute effort, a push, or a sprint that resulted in feeling unhinged and out of control. I broached this scenario with my therapist.

He said that I spoke as if I committed a crime. My mom asked me bewilderingly, “did you do anything wrong?” I obviously thought I had; otherwise, I would not be so reproachful. My therapist combated this thought process; He told me, “You cannot be the judge, jury, and defendant all at the same time.” I found myself wrong from my own perspective, and that yardstick was inaccurate by definition.

This may all seem rather abstract to you, but I professedly did not want to provide a specific context because the situation is stealthy by default. It is so very individual, my last-minute approach to reaching a goal, that the entire day runs according to an ill-conceived plan until the dead of night, when I realize that the plan was self-sabotage, that my body requires a greater dose medicine that I never provided it with. You could say the imbalance, with this diction as used, would cause me to overdose. In this case, the medicine for someone recovering from a restrictive eating disorder and still needs to weigh restore, is food.

My therapist continues to communicate that food is not a drug. You do not become addicted to it. We need food. It’s necessary for survival. Now, you may think that I am ridiculous for articulating the rudimentary knowledge of a human’s basic needs. It was never lost on me that food is essential for survival. What was lost on me, however, was how and why I chose to make a direct connection with food to my emotions, to how I moved, and to life’s heavier and lighter moments. It all felt so wrong and contrary to how it should be. It felt wrong. It feels wrong. And yet, from the perspective of my treatment providers, and my mother, I am reassured time and again that I am not in the wrong. I did not commit a crime.

This rationale is still difficult for me to assess. I waver backward and forward, and try to intellectualize it as best as I can. My therapist usually ends our conversation with, “try and relax,” which does nothing for me except provide permission to do so, just as they provide me with permission, or rather, directions, to eat at a surplus. I always respond to his fruitless closing remark with, “easier said than done,” to which he acknowledges. After all, if it were easy to find peace and not be at battle with one’s self, there would be no need for therapy.

It’s no so much that I have wronged, and it is instead the feelings of guilt and regret that spawn this idea of wrongness. Interestingly, last night – the evening of June 4th and the wee hours of June 5th – I had dreamed, yes, being courted on by a graduate school crush who I have not seen since 2015, but also dreamed of crouching down in front of a wad of cash, and picking it up. Finder’s keepers: That little jingle rang in my ears until I saw a small bi-fold wallet about two inches away. I felt uncertain, incredulous, but decided in the span of a second to send the money to whomever it belonged to, assuming that it was the wallet owner’s stash.

What is wrong, and what isn’t, is a tug-of-war between subjectivity and outright truth. Assessing wrong from right inherently provokes judgment. There will inevitably be contrasting views, and to invoke censorship so as to enable one viewpoint’s voice to ring and not compete with external noise is to eliminate any defensive play. One is playing offense against an unarmed individual. If this is not hypocrisy, then what is?

Communicating via expression, visual cues, as discussed in my last post in light of the mask-wearing mandates to prevent the spread of Coronavirus, imparts judgment from the get-go. Disapproval may cause one to furrow his/her eyebrows. Exasperation may cause an eye roll as opposed to a muted sigh. As a half Punjabi woman, courting seemed to me to occur primarily with facial recognition: cues with the eyes including the length of time staring, or quick flutter of eyelashes. And after my dream about possibly having unrequited love between me and that graduate school crush, (I am almost 30-years-old and have never experienced a relationship much less a date,) I opted to check an astrologer’s horoscope published on a health and wellness digital publication that I venture to daily.

As a Gemini, the astrologer said something that rang true: “Being discerning and also forthcoming with your words will draw them in.” A couple of years ago on a road trip to Boston, my parents and I were sitting at the boutique hotel bar in Cambridge, having breakfast when a man sidled alongside me. I was deep in conversation with the host behind the bar. I rememeber being animated, and free in speech, mind, and style. My parents stared at me and asked if I had noticed that I had grabbed the attention of the man and that he seemed entranced. I scoffed at the thought. According to them, at the time, all I had to do was regain my health from the grips of anorexia and there was no stopping me and the pursuit of love.

The horoscope continued to read: “Unsurprisingly, words of affirmation is the love language of Gemini, for whom conversation is a form of foreplay…to connect on an intellectual level. Seduce their mind, and their heart will be yours forever.” Dabbling in language as a hobby, craft, meditation, and hopefully, career, could not be more coincidental. That being said, in recent days, the call for silence, muting, and blacking out, is at odds with my very ethos. To suppress my words and to flirt with becoming comatose is a dangerously dark approach to seducing sustainable change. If this conviction is wrong, then I believe the judgment best be left to the stars. The stars seem to have spoken.

The Unsolicited Sensory Experience

I’m in the library, in my house, where I scamper immediately after having breakfast and sipping on coffee ever since the shelter-in-place order. My mother ventures here each morning when she is officially on the clock for at-home employment during the pandemic. I follow suit, in an attempt to engage more with my writing, consume news, and create possible career moves. The library is a small carved-out pentagon from a bird’s eye view, or even a small dog’s view as I sit on the floor. It is windowless, and smack dab in the middle of the upper foyer of our two-floor house, across from the landing that overlooks the never- enlightened Italian handcrafted crystal chandelier, showcased in the large bay windows that look onto the outside world.

The room’s ceiling has a large spotlight over the desk for ambient lighting, but the recessed lights are the source of brilliance. The library’s ceiling also provides the access point to an attic I have never seen because it for storage rather than inhabitants. This fact only exacerbates my childhood desire for a secret-space like the attic from Charmed, which housed family heirlooms, like The Book of Shadows. The room’s floor is the only one covered with commercial carpeting rather than hardwood. I always opt to sit on the floor, back against the bookshelf, laptop cradled on my lap, feet asleep, as my mother sits perched on the leather black chair behind the desk, aggressively tapping her keyboard and throwing pens down for dramatic effect. I don’t care for the sound effects, and I let it be known.

I’m in the library, because I feel like it is my alcove, my nook, and my right, as if declared so by the three framed degrees hanging on the wall with my name on them. The library has two printers, a fax machine, a landline phone, and two bookshelves. There is a stationary drawer-set with an array of staples, erasers, highlighters, pens, pencils, computer paper, and an alphabetized file cabinet for home-finances and miscellaneous paperwork. My medical file is far too thick from years of hospitalizations, and near-death experiences, diagnoses, and blood work: I am the student with the most detentions and complaints collected by the principal. It seems to contrast with the academic accomplishments.

The library provides me with visual cues: This is a space of seriousness. This is a space where one is meant to be productive. This is where intellect thrives. This is where you think lofty thoughts, create crafty projects, and carve your place into the world. This begs the question: which world are we speaking of? Are we speaking of the world that feels like it is falling apart?

There are five senses: the auditory, the observed, olfactory (smell and taste), and the tactile. With the strict stay-at-home mandate, sensory experiences are key to maintaining a sense of self beyond one’s endless stream of thoughts. I could attest to the counterintuitive feeling of overstimulation upon discharge from quarantine in its own right: three months’ of hospital medical unit, inpatient, and residential treatment for anorexia. My first day outside of the Long Island residential treatment was a flurry stimulatory experiences that would otherwise be considered mundane. The treatment center was a renovated chic and cumbersome large Long Island family home adjacent to a golf course that included meal plans with coconut and lime-spike quinoa, all-American peanut butter and jelly white bread sandwiches, and dreaded frozen vegetable lasagna on weekends in the chef’s absence. The day my parents came to pick me up, I first made a trip to Whole Foods Market. It was around the last week of summer in September, and just being in the parking lot was a lot to handle. My senses were akin to a newborn baby exiting the womb, subject to light, hands, negative space that left limbs flailing instead of tightly nestled in a fetal position, and noise.

The next morning, I awoke to the sounds that had haunted me in the past: my parents’ movements. My mom running the shower before 4 am, running down the stairs and then up again to collect whatever she needed to carry along. My dad also woke up before sunrise to go down into the basement and sweat it out. Even as I shut out that noise of movement, thinking about just how far I came with being at peace at not having to move my body every waking second, I could still hear car engines running outside. All of this stimulation reminded me of when I was a toddler, and the fear invoked by the toilet’s loud flushing noise during the evening. It was loud and scary. Later that morning, I told my dad I needed to purchase fruit to have with breakfast. I entered the driver’s seat, put the car in reverse, but realized I had forgotten how to operate a vehicle, backing my father’s car out of the driveway and immediately crashing into a tree. Everything was overtly stimulating.

So now, the stimulatory experiences are much the same. Let’s begin with hearing. The quarantine has unearthed newfound forms of communication. There is the socially distanced drive-by parade of cars that entail honking obnoxiously and yelping out of windows. At first, it was teachers reaching out to their students in the community, showing that in spite of remote learning, they did not forget the need to educate. Afterward, people took to their cars to celebrate birthdays, weddings, and acknowledgement of other milestones.

With spring’s arrival, the breeze causes the newly bloomed plants to bristle and the birds have begun chirping well before sunrise until well after sunset. More people have emerged outdoors, onto their front lawns. Kids, otherwise shuttled from school into a yellow bus or designated car, are now playing outdoors. They squeal, yelp, and chatter.

Smell: The aroma emanating from houses and wafting into the street are no longer solely in the vicinity of takeaway places. Now, one can smell meat cooking on grills, onions caramelizing, and confections baking in the oven. Even the aroma wafting from carryout establishments are more potent due to curbside pickup and the sheer volume of orders. Pass by a Dunkin Donuts drive-thru and one can smell their distinct coffee blend from a few yards away.

Taste is an experience that has also been exacerbated. With having to adapt to the circumstances, because of the unavailability of staple items included in one’s dietary preferences, many have had to make due with tasting new flavors. The sense of taste is heightened as one attempts to decipher notes of sweet, salty, tangy, and umami. Wearing masks that cover one’s nose and mouth is conducive to sitting with a lingering aftertaste. Furthermore, one’s appreciation of smell and taste can be heightened, especially if lost due to symptomatic coronavirus in which appreciation for your daily morning coffee is spiked when you can no longer detect its deceivingly robust yet mild fragrance and mouth its acidic bite.

Though we cannot embrace a friend, shake a healthcare worker’s hand, or even so much as elbow-bump due to the 6-feet of separation, tactile sensory experiences have been magnified. It’s a case of reverse logic in one scenario: Making an effort not to touch one’s face during the day has made our inner rebellious child want to forge ahead. Allergy season makes it difficult to not rub one’s eyes. Speaking of season, the very palpable seasonal transition into late spring and eventually summer, has caused us to perspire more. The touch of clothes on our body and its effect on temperature is exacerbated.  But in another respect, the mask makes direct contact with our face. Its strings caress our ears in a scratchy hug. Our skin may be sensitive to it and react.

Speaking (auditory) of mask, our vision is hindered but also a gateway for unspoken speak. We have become privy to eye signals, much like nodding or shaking one’s head. We can detect furrowed eyebrows, squinting, rolling, and so much more. We see ourselves on Facetime and Zoom, discerning features we had not before paid much mind to. We scan our supermarket aisles for anything we may need or want, shifting our gaze a million times per minute in order to make the trip as swift as possible so that more people can enter the establishment with less of a wait-time and also to spend less time in contact with others.

And then there is perceptive intensity, the sixth sense, or the mind. Our feelings are heightened, and while they too are valid, they are fleeting. We can no longer walk out the door and break off from the soul-sucking complexities of strained relationships by coalescing into crowds at the mall. All those articles for how to avoid conflict with family members during holidays, Band-Aid remedies, cannot stand up to this lengthy drawn-out stay with one another.

We can no longer nonchalantly walk down a sidewalk without having to be on guard, crossing the street every time someone passes by. Trips to the market or local essentials stores – think, Target – have become burdensome. It’s a grad bag of not knowing the waiting time to enter, the availability of items you want, and making sure not to prematurely dispose of your mask and gloves should you, on a whim, decide to go somewhere else before coming back home.

All of the above issues exacerbate our sense of self, value, and place in this world. We all know that there is a very real issue of mortality – people are falling ill, entering the hospital, suffering, unable to be with kin, and sometimes, unable to return to kin. We struggle with weighing the importance of our problems in comparison to the problem of a pandemic. The oftentimes-used psychology about others going hungry, or without another essential basic human need, in order to place our sheltered and fed bodies into perspective, is pervasive at this time. As a result, our minds struggle to grasp whether or not our problems truly are problematic.

In the midst of this global health crisis, I find myself drawing parallels to my own health crisis. In my own recovery, a driving force of hope and will to overcome lay in the “before.” There was a “before,” and there will be an “after.” Many of us have visceral sentimentality about the past – taking the train or plane to a place of discovery. For me, that was Manhattan. I remember being among throngs of people, sashaying and sidestepping foot traffic to my destination, gulping the outside scenes in thirst. I remember the past when I would look forward to some sort of plan for my upcoming birthday that I always had childishly conceived as a summer birthday, when in fact, the second week of June is 2 weeks’ shy. All of these feelings are heightened and warranted. Take note: They are not nonsensical. But also take note, that we are capable of imbibing so much experience simply through our senses, and that is a saving grace.

The Power of Softness: Opt for Soft-Serve Lest You Get Freezer Burned.

At the beginning of the end of March, a month that I have deemed the longest, the powers that be placed strict quarantine orders on New York. I quickly realized that I would have to establish a new routine. I am speaking with regard to fitness. The gym had finally closed, and I had both suspected it would and was also wary of my continuing attendance because perspiration droplets hung thick in the air – the very petri dish for contagion- as well as keeping precariously close quarters between panting gym-goers. Furthermore, the demographic of people who frequented the gym at the time I had, early in the morning, fell squarely within the highly vulnerable category: aged and with compromised immunity. In fact, the classes that once ended on a drill of burpees transitioned to more body-kind standing crunches. Everyone was on edge. Change was on the horizon.

In spite of my daily at-home hour-routine of exercise, save for one day, I noticed that, (and perhaps this was all a figment of the psyche), I had become, as I put it, “soft.” I felt my thighs touch after years of draftiness passing between both legs. A few weeks of noticing this phenomenon, of my thighs touching, feels less foreign now. In fact, I feel like a rule-breaker for not only accepting this newfound physique, but also for my thighs contradicting physical distancing orders. I also became conscious of the rounding out of edges across other parts of my body. Flexing my arm to a 90-degree right angle reflected the stark reality of how staying home could flatten the curve. My once voluptuous baby bicep bulge had suddenly flattened to a soft line.

This concept of softness irked me because I likened it immediately to a soft landing-pad, or something meant to cushion an otherwise hard fall. It’s the painstaking concept that I am trying to reframe and undo: that with pain, comes strength or success. In fact, causing undo pain for no reason only provided me with a self-fulfilling yardstick, which, as my therapist put it bluntly, was me feeling sorry for myself. It hurt to hear this, but I can now assess exactly what it is he meant.

Softening, to me, was always less hardcore and therefore, easy, or mild – a cop-out of sorts. Even in academic vernacular, the “hard sciences,” or biology, chemistry, and physics, are notoriously difficult. I did not want to major in the hard sciences. As part of the premedical cohort who decided to take a whole host of other courses that better aligned with their passions, I can say that enrolling in pre-medical’s hard science requirements while also majoring in a softer subject matter, is double the work because there is no overlapping in the syllabi. By honoring my desire to pursue the humanities, I had unintentionally increased my course load.

Premedical students learn about the properties of solids, liquids, and gases. Liquids are soft, fluid, and without a defined shape. Solids, by definition, are hard, and are made up of a tightly-knit crystalline structure. This matrix of aligned particles that make up solids, is ordered. All things that are in order, or obedient, is considered good. To have something be defined, as opposed to left up to question, is also a positive. In this respect, there is no doubt nor guesswork. One is firm in stance and therefore not fickle. In fact, being so decisive reflects a confidence. In this manner of speaking, being soft is weak.

Solids are hard. Liquids are soft. Sensitivity, too, is considered being soft. When one is sensitive, there is a high likelihood that one will shed tears. Tears are liquid. Liquid is soft. When solids are exposed to a certain temperature, they can melt, a chemical reaction that causes them to become liquid, or become soft. The concept of melting harbors ideas of failure, or a zero net profit. Take the effort necessary to create snowmen. They’re solid, but only temporarily, and once the temperature rises above a certain degree, the snowman melts. All the works is unaccounted for, and it is as if no work had ever been invested in the task. Even if one did acquire memories, or even engineering and/or artistic skill sets in the process, all evidence is lost. Or rather, there is no instant gratification or immediate reaping of a reward, so to speak.

Two days ago, I was experiencing an extraordinarily difficult time. I decided to take up the suggestion my therapist had mentioned in the past: to speak twice a week. He is my second outpatient therapist, and I had one a few years ago who was just starting out in her practice, experimenting her newfound classroom knowledge on me, the young woman with anorexia. She too had suggested I meet more than once a week, but my instinct told me that it was less out of guidance and more so out of acquisition for increased income. I bring this up, because my therapist now is, as mentioned before, is uncensored. He suggested that I take up two sessions per week only if insurance coverage applied.

So I reached out to my therapist via text message, while outside, on a dark, rainy, day. At first he said he couldn’t speak, to which I obliged, and then my phone buzzed – would I be able to pick up his call in five minutes? If there was ever a time I needed someone to listen, it was now. My parents would suggest I speak with my therapist more than once a week as well, but this advice was derived from a place of having lost patience, and perhaps helplessness. I think a bulk of their reasoning originates from sheer ignorance. They believe that the “professionals,” should have the answer. The truth is, he is there to listen, judge when necessary, and provide options for how to deal with forces that cause me distress, which could manifest in less than ideal ways. And this doesn’t just apply to me. Every human could use a therapist. I used to think it was soft, but there is nothing quite as valuable as investing time and energy into bettering one’s self, one’s approach to life, and handling situations in a manner that builds you up rather than break you down.

I told him indirectly that just listening this time would not cut it. I needed something, anything, tangible and that I could use. He suggested breathing techniques, which I shot down immediately. Yoga is already difficult for me due to its leisurely pace. Once a coffee-toting New Yorker, sidestepping tourists and dodging subway cars with the group of dudes who yell, “Showtime!,” always a- you know how the rest goes. I was playing hardball with him, which, as he brought to my attention, I always did.

When he told me to schedule more than one session a week, I knocked it down. When he told me to breathe in and out, to ground myself, I scoffed. When he suggested I journal, I told him that as a writer, I did that in more ways than one and that I never censored the content. I was grasping for a tool, a skill, to help pull me out of a downward spiral exacerbated by the external: the environment at home, the current global health crisis that humbles all, leveling us to the same level of mere mortal. And then he told me to close my eyes.

The idea of closing my eyes was obvious, but welcome. To shut out the darkness of the overcast skies, the people clad in lines and wearing masks, the parents whose disappointment held thick in the air creating a never-ending humidity, weather aside; Closing my eyes was revelatory. Next, he wanted me to picture myself sitting, feet planted on the ground. I saw myself finally deigning to use the overpriced rocking chair that sat in the far left corner of my room, near the window. It was one of the many furnishing purchases my parents made to fill our house that seemed more like a museum meant to be guffawed at than to be utilized.

I saw myself sitting, back leaning against the tufted canvas made of a nautical stripe fabric. I saw my forearms lay against the cognac tan leather patches on the arms of the chair. I saw my feet planted against the hardwood floors, loquaciously rocking without so much power as to lift my feet airborne. My eyes were closed, and yet I could see my room in my mind’s eye – the room that I designed, the room that haunted me. The room that I wish I could enjoy, but never quite matched up to my childhood bedroom, small, cotton candy pink painted walls and pink carpet.

He told me to envision the sunlight coming in through the window. Once he gave these directions, that was all it took for me to suddenly transplant myself into the room where I daydreamed about a future husband, a wedding of grandeur, an Ivy League education, and upcoming dance recitals, birthday parties and other social gatherings. The sunlight had always provoked very real feelings and memories for me. Every morning, my mother would greet me with the chime, “Rise and shine.” Summer was my favorite season. It was the time I would spend all day outdoors, coming in only to recharge with a mango or banana smoothie, a toasted bagel with butter, or a basil-infused omelet. I would only come inside when I would swap out rollerblades for sneakers to play wiffle ball. Summer was when school was out and I volunteered at the library, cycling to and from, along the avenue. It was the time I would take public transportation into the city to participate in research. Summer was when my hair had golden streaks running through it, and my skin was, still dry, but not painfully so. Summer was when the sun’s rays would wake me up from my slumber, shining through the stain-glass floral motif that I had on my bedroom window.

I saw the sun’s rays shining through the slits in blinds. I felt them warming my skin. He then instructed me to picture myself as a stick of butter.  I visualized the stick of butter, unraveling the parchment paper that it was wrapped in with demarcations of Tablespoons – 8 Tablespoons are in one stick. He then said that it was not me, but my anxiety that was the stick of butter. I separated myself from my internal angst.

The sun hitting me was simultaneously melting the stick of butter, and with it, my anxieties melted away. I felt alleviated. And then my cynicism resurfaced. I told him that this little device was a temporary fix. It distracted me. He replied that sometimes, temporary is all that we need in the moment. We need a Band-Aid to lessen the heightened degree of anxiety. We need to bring the intensity down. When my anxieties melted away, softened, my mind was no longer in overdrive. That is not to say that thoughts came to a stand still. That was not the goal, to become completely numb. Here, soft did not equate to weak, but instead, had the exact opposite affect. I felt stronger. Artist, Cleo Wade, has a poem that reads, “To be soft is to be powerful.” I came across this page from her book on social media, and ever since, have made it my mantra.

Soft is not necessarily bad. Solids can become soft. Snowmen can become soft. Without softness, summer could not arrive. Without softness, I would cease to exist. My very being, my name, Reshmi, translates into the adjective, silky. Silk is a soft fabric, one with sheen such that when the sun’s rays hit it, they expose the terrain of a body underneath. Softness is uncensored, unbiased, and undeniably not in the defense. Softness is courageous, and especially for me to deny the experience of softness is to deny myself of life.

Fatal Attraction: When You Spend Too Much Time with Yourself

Mirror, mirror, on the wall - a chime from fairy-tale lore, is a thought that is less realistic than it once was. Sure, there are mirrors on the wall, but more times than not, they function less to reflect an image, and more so act as decor. Tall and overbearing standing mirrors lean against walls as showpieces. In this case, the mirror’s longitudinal plane is not perpendicular to the ground such that when one does choose to stand in front of it, his/her reflection is skewed. Its like the phone camera roll’s editing adjust tool that enables you to make the photo’s top or bottom half more prominent and creating a focal lens on specificity that forces the rest of the image into a peripheral sight-line.

Mirrors also tend to house superstitions; Sometimes, a glass, which has reflective properties, when broken, foreshadows death. Similarly, urban legend reports that should one say “Bloody Mary,” three times as the clock strikes 12 AM, one will see her image appear in the mirror. For some respite from all of this bad joojoo, let us retreat back to the very jingle that asks who the fairest one of them all is. Though childlike, this jingle suggests the personality flaw of an untamed ego. Inherently, we are comparing appearances by using the superlative, fairest. The famed quotation, defining comparison as the “thief of joy,” further underlines the undesirable qualities of a mirror.

During this time of social distancing, or as some people suggest that it is more accurately, physical distancing by a minimum of 6 feet, the time we spend with ourselves is at an all-time high. That may sound off kilter because after all, we’re always with our own self. Though tactile interaction may have decreased considerably, we still co-mingle with others using written and spoken words, and images that are both static and moving – video conferencing, real-time chatting, and Face Time. Furthermore, walking outdoors provides sensory stimulation: birds chirp, the breeze ruffles prematurely bloomed flowers, car motors run like army vehicles on a mission to go to and from essential places like grocery, and pharmacy, and there are signs of life with sidewalk messages scrawled in chalk.

Having spent more time with ourselves, we can be conceivably become all too aware of our outward appearance, of the contours of our face, pores, and stray baby hairs, or lack thereof. I find myself looking into the mirror more than ever before. With nowhere to go, and the clothing iron collecting dust as I change into my last pair of clean oversized pajama shirts and pants, I stop and stare at myself in the bathroom mirror as if taking up a seat in the formal living room from my previous situation in the neighboring family room, requires a different dress code.

I tweeze my eyebrows just to shape them so that when I do eventually have them threaded, I will have to endure a shorter period of suffering. I’ll still have to pay the same amount for the job, but at least the pain will be lessened to a degree. In this way, maintenance does well to exemplify how money does not buy happiness, and beauty, or rather vanity, is not necessarily pain, but can be correlated to pain.

Let’s take the example of torture by means of solitary confinement. Spending so much time with one’s self is an ample environment for sensory acuteness to thrive. That is to say, one becomes acutely aware of his/her pulse and one’s own internal bodily fluids circulating. Having become so acutely aware of internal bodily movements, otherwise hidden from sight and sound, dampens mental acumen and agility. Too much time alone isolates one from external compulsions that causes one to adapt, to experience variety, and be constantly stimulated. Social interaction naturally progresses our development and increased knowledge acquisition, formal institutionalize education aside. When left to one’s own, completely cut off from everything aside from the internal voice and surrounding four walls, one becomes self critical, or repulsed by his/her body. I’m not suggesting dysmorphia – a repulsion that is based squarely on perception of the physical appearance because even seeing one’s own reflection can provide an interactive experience – it enables a distancing from one’s internal voice.

And in discussing solitary confinement, I suggest that the body is robust. As with determining a ‘set-point’ weight, a weight that your body classifies as a happy place for optimal functioning and hormonal balance, your hunger, cravings, level of fullness, and desire or lack thereof to move in certain ways, all figures into how much your body should weigh. A major point of set-point weight, individually-based and undefined, is the ability to live without consciously avoiding inevitable situations, or any social interactions that may provide happiness and mental clarity. If one is purposely avoiding an event because of a preoccupation with unknown numbers – the food available, the time conflicting with an exercise regimen – then one is intentionally attempting to alter one’s body into a shape and form that is predicated on formulated desire of what can be rather than what is. Take care to note that I say, “what is,” rather than “what should be.” The body takes up space. Our existence is, not what should be, because, as said before, it already is. It is here. You are here. I am here. We are here.

If there is no formulaic way to ensure that we are at a weight ideal for our mental and physical functioning, throwing in a shelter-in-place mandate does nothing but exacerbate the absence of a formula, the lack of planning, and the plethora of unknowns. In fact, the only assessment we can use is the reflection of one’s self through another’s reel. We compare. There is a meme passing around that takes two consecutive still shots from The Devil Wears Prada. The first, when read from top to bottom, is Emily Blunt alongside Gisele who plays a cameo in the film. The caption reads straight from the script: “Are you wearing the Shh-“ Instead of Andy Sachs, played by Ann Hathaway, committing to her line, “the Chanel Boots?,” she instead replies, ”The Tie-Dye Sweatsuit from Instagram? Yeah, I am.” We see what others have, and we have not what they do. Gratitude lists then run amok, as if to ground one’s self.

There is no question of not possessing humility or character. Instead, spending time alone should not be avoided or even distracted from. Feelings exist to be, as is self-explanatory, felt, because they are fleeting. They, like this entire pandemic culture, are temporary. Feelings cannot perform actions. They don’t have opposable thumbs, but even if they did, they don’t have cognitive ability, and we do. This is empowering. As with all forms of power, it is how one wields it that determines the ensuing scenario. Sitting with feelings, or rather, standing on your head with these feelings if you’re “Working Out From Home,” enables you to not have to ruminate about them later on. There existence no longer has to be questioned. The feelings will no longer sap you of energy.

I had to sit back from writing this for days, weeks, before coming back to it. This is a different mode for me. It tackled my penchant for writing a piece all at once. It tackled my compulsive obsession for crumpling up, trashing, deleting pieces I had begun working on in the past so that I could start fresh. This writing process had become the equivalent to an unsustainable diet: don’t eat as you had opined was rightful one day and vow to start off on a clean slate the next day, only to not fight your body’s desires which may contradict your opinions for what you should and should not be doing.

In the past few days, I cannot say that I have cracked the code or assimilated to a new normalcy – an oxymoronic concept. Instead, I will say that I have made some changes in an attempt to pull me out from the hole of self-deprecation. To each, his/her own, but for me, it begun with changes I wanted to make with regard to my recovery from anorexia. Others influenced me; seeing their seemingly illustrious epiphany about how they can move their body while smiling all the while. I watched on as they panned their phone over foods once considered off limits. So I opted to let go of the miserable anticipation of moving in a way that hurt my body. I opted to try something new as well. I tried to pitch a story in a way I presumed is considered correct. I anticipated my telehealth therapy appointment. Today is the fourth day of novelty.

I have noticed that I look in the mirror less, wash my hair less frequently, and spend less time critically assessing myself. I no longer feel the need to take a shower twice in a day. I also noticed that I took a leave of absence from filming myself for social media videos. In so doing, I have had more time and energy and perhaps this freed up space has helped to free me from the shackles of a routine that exposed how much left of a journey I have to truly heal from a disordered past. Everything can be considered disordered and I am wary of that idea. That said, despite everyone harping on a “new normal,” I must underscore the fact that there is no concept of normal – not really.

Control + Alt + Delete: An Unintended Lesson About How Control Manifests Rebellion

I experienced a period of rebellion, one could say, at a socially respectable age; I hit that milestone of my growth chart just as I had everything else with these notable exceptions: I came out of the womb with a head full of wispy locks and I had a gummy smile for far longer than I should have. I began teething at 18 months instead of the common range between 2 and 6 months. I prefaced speaking to my parents, both as a joint unit and asindividuals, with the word “hate” and I listened to loud music while I studied. These were two hallmarks of me having reached adolescence. Less universally characteristic were my demands to take piano lessons, to attend school an hour earlier and dismiss myself more than an hour later for extra curricular activities. I was a rebel.

Rebellious tendencies that are not correlated to age seem to emerge in moments when one feels he/she is being controlled. Perhaps that explains the allure of Fifty Shades of Gray, a narrative that I have not read, but that has become a pop cultural icon for sexual submission. The protagonist not only accepts but also finds gratification from being controlled. This is so contrary to normative discourse.

During the coronavirus pandemic, legislative officials mandate certain protocol: staying at home, keeping a distance of six feet between you and someone not in your isolation cell- the company with whom you keep at home- and minimizing time spent in crowded spaces at places still open to the public: groceries, pharmacies, and gas stations. Despite quelling the rumor that there is a dearth of essentials like toilet paper, many continue to purchase superfluous quantities of these goods.

I am not suggesting that rebellion automatically creates poor intent. Instead, I am posing the logic statement that should there be control, then there will be rebellion. In this same vein, I am arguing that rebellion is not resistance and that resistance is instead a form of rebellion. Resistance is to intentionally act in opposition. Rebellion, however, is to act without conscious awareness; It is committing to the opposing view without intent. Let’s view this idea with a couple of parallel scenarios.

When playing ‘Simon Says,’ one is either going to do as he or she says - should a female be issuing the commands for the game. Should one not do as he/she requests, he/she therefore, rebels, first touching toes and then shoulders instead of acquiescing to Simon’s request to first touch one’s shoulders and then toes. More likely than not, the rebel had not memorized the order of Simon’s commands and had rebelled without any intention of losing the game.

Another example: Should one ask expecting parents whether they are going to have a boy or a girl, a common quip is that there is a 50-percent chance it is either one or the other. There is no control over the outcome, and the rebellion is simply not coming up with a name just yet, or perhaps coming up with multiple gender-specific names. Rebellion may even be to have an expectation for a gender. This rebellion, however, does not create tangible results, not really anyway, unless expectations of the baby’s sex is met.

For background, I had taken advantage of my ability to walk long distances. My thighs were sturdy, referred to as “tree trunks” by some, that I had inherited from my maternal side. My New Yorker heritage deemed traveling by means other than public transportation, taxi, or foot, a foreign concept. A driver’s permit did not a Sweet 16 birthday make. Instead, as a rite of passage, my parents purchased my first diamonds: clustered stud earrings. Ironically, on my 16th birthday, I attended a charity walk in Battery Park, New York City as part of my duties for the community service society I would later preside over as president. Flash forward to several years later, when I took advantage of not only my ability to walk, but also my urbanite lifestyle when I went on walks solely to clock in steps. I walked long distances even when I had no desire to, even on days that I needed to prioritize other tasks. I walked for hours before my graduate school commencement ceremony on an empty stomach.

Recently, the weather has become conducive to enjoying strolls, in spite of the shelter-in-place. Medically stabilized, after years of stealthy treks, I am now able to walk outside freely and of my own accord. Still, my past haunts me. My mother attempted to reel me in with an invisible kid leash, trying in vain to keep me at home. I felt like I was, in some way, being controlled. I noticed that my desire to walk outside increased exponentially. I felt an adrenaline rush, as if I was acting out of rebellion.

In a blown-up argument a few days ago, my parents decided that I was at fault. I am to blame for the discord. My father in particular likes to tear me a part, bit by bit, into pieces. My education but lack of job, my penchant for collegiate sweats when running errands, my incessant questions asking for opinions and timelines, me still living under their roof, and my sensitivity to discussions revolving around exercise and food. He considers these flawed character traits. My mother’s approach is different. She out rightly name-calls and hurls insults as effortlessly as dandelions dissolve into pollen particles that hang on the slightest of breeze.

I tried to smooth out everything. I took the blame, knowing fully well that I was a scapegoat. I tried to understand their bitterness, while also explaining how and why things are not panning out as we planned. I tried to offer where I could have gone wrong, despite their personality flaws. I begged them to let things pass and to move on without grudges. But all this trying, they concurred, was my way of controlling them. With that feeling of control, they in turn rebelled.

Their chosen method of rebellion: doing what could aggravate the lingering anorexia, like intentionally deciding not to come downstairs, where the kitchen is, and therefore skipping meals. They decided to lengthen their workouts, amplifying the guilt I felt at limiting my movement and choosing to eat anyway. In this respect, I felt without control. Perhaps that explains why I could not rebel against my body like I had in the past. Perhaps that explains my decision to go downstairs, eat my lunch and snack, and not ask if they will eat nor wait around to see if they do. When I was in treatment, I was told to relinquish control. I felt like I did just that. I gave into my body’s desire to eat.

My dad’s favorite insult was, “You cannot help but act the way you do. It’s not in your control,” as if anything I do or say is disordered. And there in resides a perplexing question: If not having something in one’s control is considered bad, shouldn’t one possess control? He believes that my nature is rebellious, and that it is a result of not having control. Rebellion, as I mentioned before, does not necessitate negative intent or effect.

Rebellion is simply a manifestation of control. When a child’s behavior is referred to as out of control, they are discerned to be wild, uninhibited, and not following decorum. In this way, that child is not following rules, and for all intensives purposes, is a leader. A leader, however, is in control. This is a major component of the logic that suggests control correlates to rebellion.

Even when one has control over him or her own self, rebellion manifests, counter intuitively, toward one’s self. Let us take a step back and use Pink’s hauntingly grim lyrics: I’m a hazard to myself. Don’t let me get me. I’m my own worst enemy. Perhaps that is what the treatment providers were suggesting when they advised me to let go of control. Knowing details, numbers, and information, and furthermore, trying to harness all these things to equate to specific outcomes, did nothing but cause me to spin into a whirlwind. I hate to have to reference the eating disorder again, but I think it does well to exemplify what I mean.

My father weighed me at my lowest. I could hardly make it down the steps into the basement. 60: In the traditional numerical percentile, I was just 10 points above failing. Unnervingly I thought, I wonder if I would still be alive if I dipped into the 50s. My intention is not to stir fear. My intention is to inform. My intention is to be transparent. This example shows how having control over yourself, can create a rebellious nature toward yourself. You can will yourself to do something that you would otherwise not force yourself to suffer through.

Suffering is a major part of religious ethos. Asceticism and fasting, paying penance, and denying yourself of desires, as is done for Lent, suggests that this form of rebellion is sanctifying. It is condoned, admired, held on a pedestal, and is God-like. To be in control, is endowed with a higher power. With faith in tow, let us no longer imagine a scenario in the present-day, one which is currently universally ringing true for all: the pandemic.

We can try to control our immunity with masks and gloves. On occasion, we hold our breath while in close proximity to someone else, just as my childhood best friend did whenever we passed by a cemetery. Ironically, she said holding one’s breath out of respect for the dead would also guard against the inhalation of said spirit from inhabiting your soul. This control rebels against entropy, or whatever will be, will be. If we enable God to be in control and profess that we die when it is our time, or that God has written what will eventually happen, then we are rebelling against guidelines. The idea of acting with precaution coexists with accepting that whatever will happen, will happen regardless. Control and rebellion goes both ways. You try and control the forces that be, but also let destiny, God, or what have you, be at the helm and in control. You’re rebelling against the divine, and you are rebelling against the virus.

Is rebelling synonymous to fighting, then? Rebellion is not, as we discussed, always playing the offense. In many respects, rebellion is playing defense. At the end of it all, control and rebellion are always present. They adapt, change, and evolve. We go through a phase of teenage angst. We may try and control our ageing, swapping red wine for retinol to smooth out wrinkles, and maybe even swap Bordeaux for Botox. In the end, rebellion has the purist of intentions: To lengthen our time here on Earth so that we may do and feel more.

Deprivation And Abundance: An Observational Analysis In A Time of Uncertainty.

Another evening passed without sleep, my daily dose of melatonin seemed to be playing me like that child egged on into opening the carton of malted Robin Eggs instead of holding out for two cartons as a reward a few hours later. The growing pains of a shrunken body inflating with regularity, something I can’t say I experience with regard to digestion, keeps me awake at all hours. My stretched skin itches. My belly is full, and takes on the shapeliness of a dome-like yurt – so hipster of me – to house my internal organs and vacant uterus.

After dozing off for about an hour, I wake up with the discomfort of having to vacate my insides, which doesn’t seem to happen. Like I said, regularity is an anomaly. With a high-fiber diet, in all likelihood, I am not hydrated enough to liquefy the impending bulk. Regardless, I climb out of bed, my thighs no longer twigs and my heels no longer seesawing in an attempt to hold up my once deadly weight, or lack thereof.

I forcefully hit my cowhide rug-covered floors, and no longer attempt to silence myself. If I am heard and if those around me are roused from their slumber, then so be it. This isn’t selfish. This is logic: A classic “if…then,” argument. I do not intend to awaken my parents, but I admit that my reply to the age-old icebreaker inquiry, “if you could have one superpower, what would it be?” never included being invisible.

After brushing my teeth, washing my face, moisturizing, spraying body mist, and applying lip balm, I make my way down the winding stairs with a swagger that is partially as a direct result of waddling from constipation and partially my way of telling the world still cloaked in darkness that I have arrived. It’s as if I am behind my retro-latte mente-colored dashboard, a pistachio color, sitting in the driver’s seat, heat on full blast with my windows down on a winter day, blasting Bhangra melodies into Long Island suburbia.  

I consume my regularly scheduled breakfast that combines meal with half of my snack before heading to the gym. At home, on my own and with the auspices of my outpatient team, I would, once upon a time, space out my meals and snacks in a planned approach that I modeled after the dietetic plan prescribed by inpatient treatment providers. Soon, however, I felt consumed by thoughts of when I could have my snack not longer after having my meal, so I just had them together. I did not want to deprive myself. I did not want to deny myself. I did not want to feel like I was that participant in the study who held out for just long enough to reap the rewards of patience. And therein lies the crux of confusion. Patience does not equate to painful, just as beauty is not dependent on having pain. If that were the case, aspirin would be stocked next to blush.

Let’s go back to that scenario of the child, or let’s just say me, sitting in front of a table and offered a carton of malted chocolate balls, speckled in pastel colors as faux-robin eggs for the occasion of Easter. I am told that if I hold out and not touch the carton I am given, I will be given two later on. Some may see this as a bargain. I’m talking about those large warehouses – BJ’s, Costco, Sam’s Club – and those little yellow-tags underneath the product you came for stating that you could get 2 for the price of one, or those devilish red and white tags at Target, not so coincidentally the same color scheme as a STOP sign, that says you could receive a $5 Gift card should you buy 4 body products. Before you know it, you’re walking out of the shop with shampoo, conditioner, blackhead strips, and a bath bomb instead of just the face wash you needed. For me, I would rather pay the extra dollar than purchase more than I need. One purchase already is difficult for me to digest – no pun intended.

Deprivation is a concept I am acutely familiar with. Pain is a construct that I deemed necessary for success. I would make myself jump through hoops: walk over the cracks in the sidewalk, step on only the dried crunchy leaves down the block where my crush lived because if I happened to step on the deadened soft leaves, like wilted pieces of lettuce, the ones that would nary make a crackle under your foot or crunch in between molars, was what I classified as an omen for unrequited love. Hell, I would make myself sashay weighted hula hoops that I doubled up and swung around my waist for hours on end to ensure that I could become a human hourglass and make my body’s internal fluid the equivalent to the immortality nectar found in Tuck Everlasting – the cinched midsection of the timer where morsels of sand could only pass through single-file and with great difficulty at that.

I never cared for abundance. Having too much of anything made me house a deep-seeded dislike for places that sold gigantic-sized tubs of peanut butter better suited for commercial use. What is interesting, is how bifurcated a concept abundance is in our society.  

Abundance denotes greed, or gluttony. The idea of superfluous is that there is overflow- extra. Extra more likely than not, means wastage. When we hear the olden chime, “Extra! Extra!” prefacing the command, “read all about it,” more times than not, one expects to hear about sinful discourse. The idea of possessing more is that one is not satisfied with less. Gluttony is considered dirty, piggish, and the fact that Honey-Boo Boo had a pet pig only underlined that idea.

If you get more sleep, or you have more time left in a competitive atmosphere that you could have filled up with more, well then, you are considered lazy. More goes hand-in-hand with being a sloth, which is another sin. We prize tiring one’s self out. All-nighters were hallmarks of success during college. Some, granted, are dismantling this idea, and these trailblazers include baby boomers who are part of the Today show’s Smuckers-sponsored birthday shout outs; Centennials who swear their long life span is due to having a solid eight hours of sleep, in addition to maintaining faith, enjoying an adult beverage, or more fittingly, an über adult beverage, and eating solid meals that sometimes includes a hefty dose of red meat. That’s correct, many times, these seniors drop knowledge that directly contradicts our bland-chicken breast-hailing ways.

And yet, our society prides itself on more. I was never that Girl Scout who aimed to sell the most boxes of cookies and earn a patch or whatever the prize that came along with it was. Instead, I looked forward to going out into the neighborhood in full uniform, so official, hitting the pavement and knocking on doors with a trifold brochure with glossy images of buttery Trefoils, classic Thin Mints, nostalgic Peanut Butter Do-Si-Dos and Tagalongs, and the newcomer back then, the Samoa.

The Samoa was that exotic caramel, coconut-shave-covered, chocolate drizzled circle that I was incredibly annoyed by. The Samoa sounded far too similar to the Indian triangular fried dough encasing spiced boiled potatoes, with a variation of peas, nuts, and sometimes meat. Also, the Samoa was too much in and of itself. It was abundant. It was fussy. It was indulgent and not straightforward. My tongue was hit with cloying sweetness that my child self likened to immediately, but that also got stuck in the crevices of my teeth.

With the ongoing pandemic of COVID-19, I am suddenly tackling both feelings of deprivation and abundance. I feel abundantly privileged to be financially supported, to have a comfortable shelter, to have access, and to be dependent overall. It is difficult for me to wrap my head around dependence as being a privilege, but it always was one for me, in retrospect. During my formative years, I was fiercely independent, albeit sheltered. I played outside, took public transportation everywhere, spearheaded my own academic and extracurricular careers, developed my own likes and dislikes, and even had the audacity to laminate doorknob hangers I had printed out from a kiddie website that had graphics and saying like, “Loud Music: Do not disturb,” and “Please knock.” I jammed out to beats while studying, writing on the early web platform, Tumblr, and daydreaming finding a prince akin to the Hindi film actors while lovingly creating a montage of Harvard paraphernalia on my closet door.

I am practicing abundance, or rather, implementing as opposed to practicing because purchasing grocery in bulk is unprecedented for me. When I was still able to go to the gym, I began honoring my increasingly higher energy needs, we’re talking athlete proportions, and I felt that I did not have enough to sustain me. My go-to are cashews. Raw cashews, not roasted, nor salted. Having taken some reprieve in scrolling through Instagram, I landed on Nanak Foods’ feed, expecting to see images of my father’s enormous tub of ghee. Instead, I saw an array of traditional North Indian confections, almost all of which were garnished with cashews. When I was attempting to allay my fears of having gone through bags of cashews like water, I ran a web search on the tree nut in order to learn of its benefits. All of the top hits were directly related to the Indian subcontinent, my paternal heritage.

With the idea of stocking up on grocery and domestic products in order to reduce contact with others during a time of viral pandemic contagions spread in unknowingly widespread proportions, people had cleaned out grocery store shelves of all nuts. My beloved go-to that compensated for my energy needs was no longer in stock. I managed to track down a single 16 oz. bag that I, believe it or not, have finished in two days in addition to my three meals and snacks. I purchased it only to find out that the gym had closed until further notice. My activity level dropped considerably, and with it, my appetite. Now this felt like extra. My stocking up on protein bars felt like extra. I found two remaining jumbo bags of raw cashews, and I purchased both, not knowing if and when I may need it. Prior to that, I had picked up a good deal more of my protein bars, a dozen eggs, bread, frozen riced cauliflower, frozen seafood, and two jars of nut butter, one of which I purchased as a substitute for the cashews that I consume as is and not at all modified into a thickener, milk, or cream-replacement; these uses, are what I suspect those other consumers had purchased them for.

This filled pantry is what others may consider completely normal, reducing the frequency of trips to the market, and thereby lending time to other facets of life. I have to remind myself that in order to participate in other facets, I must first have life: to truly practice social distancing by not going to the market multiple times, and to feed my body, yes, but also to continue to nutritionally rehabilitate my body while recovering from anorexia. I do not want to have to feel deprived in the event that I do not have foods I regularly have at my disposal.

Still, I plan on returning the bits and bobs I feel I will not use before their expiration. And to this end, it is abundantly clear that we are collectively deprived of a peace of mind. As a result, the public is doing away with the television series that dives into the niche population of hoarders. We’re creating a dearth, one that is temporary due to regular turnover by suppliers.

 Reality television has truly become the mundane: standing on lines, sitting in traffic, income unsteady or nonexistent. Demand is trumping supply, but for reasons that are arguably not grounded in truth. It’s not like we’re cashing in on stock or investing in anything but mental health – or maybe just a bandage to allay underlying issues we cannot truly deal with. According to The New Yorker economist cited regarding toilet paper supply in the age of the corona virus pandemic, these lightweight products, soft to touch, actually take up a large amount of space, nullifying the incessant need to stock up on a load that will have no place in the household, and due to the regularity of supplier output, will not have any value once this pandemic economy subsides. This is not stock. This is what it means to be going through the motions – pun somewhat intended.

So deprivation and abundance: these are two entities balanced across a fulcrum. These are two entities that sashay gently to the ebbs of gas particles. This is the invisible hand making up for my lack of desire to become invisible. Perhaps I would like to fly, but that would make me just as susceptible to being controlled by the air. I don’t know about you, but I would rather stay grounded. I would rather feel the force of the earth pushing beneath me. I would rather have weight, the force of gravity. Let’s take up space.

What it Means to be "Ghosted" Before, During, and After V-Day-

A few years ago, I was watching the 4th hour of the TODAY show recorded on DVR. Co-anchors, Hoda Kotb and Kathie Lee Gifford, were participating in a segment that enraptured me. Instead of having their chatter weave in and out of earshot, using selective hearing when deciding to finally glance up and see what was in front of me, I made sure to pay attention to this particular segment. During the segment, the producers flashed a combination of acronyms, social media-speak, and Generation Z vernacular on the screen where one would usually find school closings due to inclement weather. One word continues to stick out in my memory until this day. That one word stuck out to me back then, and does so now: Ghosted.

I grew up during the the transition from typewriter-I used my mother’s electronic one for a first grade project that trumped everyone else’s handwritten content – to desktop, and from dial-up to DSL. Instant messaging was a novelty that I was not so quick to catch on to. Sure, it was interesting to communicate in real-time with friends from school, but I much preferred chatting with my fellow Girl Scouts in a Lutheran Church basement, playing on the block with my childhood neighbors, and coming of age during dance lessons where the stage called for dabbling in makeup and the choreography called for conjuring up emotions that were less than innocent. Perhaps this desire for human interaction is what drove my journalistic ambitions.

Which all leads to the word that I still cringe upon hearing: Ghosted. I had no idea what that word was referring to. When people would type “BRB,” I thought they were eating and this was their attempt at transliterating the sound of belching. Ghosting refers to a complete social disconnect – cleansing or a detox of a particular person. I find the act degrading if there is no reason aside from simply not wanting to be in that person’s company. Perhaps the scenario is such that someone has fallen sick, had a difficult day, or just needs some lone time. Hell, I was a serial ghoster in college, always foregoing eminent plans to instead head to the library where I would study, catch a glimpse of a crush, sip on a soy latte, indulge in walks around campus to unwind before dance practice, or stick to my regimented disordered eating patterns that included munching on the free butter and soup oyster crackers all day long.

While in college, I remember learning of a colloquial label for someone who ghosted: a flake. To flake was to opt out of previously agreed upon plans at a moment’s notice. Instead of spontaneity, however, this decision was finalized internally, or intentionally, at the moment that plans were being parlayed. It’s as if you were, for whatever reason, placating the other party when flippantly asserting that you would in fact attend an event that you had no intention of actually showing up to. Flaking was not something I aspired to. Whenever I didn’t have any intention of actually following up with a plan, I let it be known at the outset. I didn’t want to be known as disingenuous. I don’t want to be known as inauthentic.

As I continue to age, I am noticing how finite life is and how despite needing my lone time, and not being a party-goer, I am an extroverted-introvert. I need to be around life. In spite of the most recent findings attesting to the power of succulents and verdant vineyards helping to conjure happiness, I’m not talking about plant life. I need to be around other people. I enjoy working in cafes. I can only seem to focus when there is a buzz around me. I like the morning radio show in my car, and listen to the traffic as if I were en route to a high-demand job over the 59th Street bridge or on a weekend trip to the city for a day of bamboozling with family: brunching, bakery-hopping, and more. The truth is, I don’t drive on the highways just yet, and local driving is slowed down as it is with most routes in the area being one lane in either direction so that if you’re stuck behind a slow car, well, then there’s really no way of circumventing the circumstances. All that said, I have realized the power of intentional socializing. It’s something that entails my blessing-and-a-curse penchant for planning.

I have found myself reaching out to people I have met in every circumstance of my life, using social media and web-interfaced keeping up not as a shield, but instead, as a conduit for engaging in in-person meetings. I have “hit up,” acquaintances of acquaintances, and suggested chilling at some point in time when they would be in my neighborhood, which never was actually in my Long Island haunt but instead in the city of my birth, ironically, the one that they all live in. It is the city that never sleeps even when I do, or at least, when I attempt to. Even so, I am a creature of the daylight hours and once the clock strikes 5 pm, I feel my natural circadian rhythm start to undulate in the direction of wind-down.

Those who I have reached out to are conveniently traveling, but will be back soon. Sometimes, if the person lives internationally and I don’t know them well whatsoever, I could understandably fathom that they would be preoccupied making rare visits to those with whom they are closest. I let that college buddy who lives in Europe slide when she said she would be free to meet on a certain day but never followed through. Her Instagram stories showed her in the place we were to meet.

I had made solid plans with a high school friend who no sooner had made the plan before she cancelled a few hours later. Apparently, a holiday she celebrated that entailed fasting was in the cards and it would make no sense to meet up because what would a social gathering be without food consumption, right? There is my dose of dark humor. But in the same vein, when suffering from an eating disorder, one tends to isolate because meals are so central to the social pursuit.

I made plans to meet with a new relative to join the family who, unbeknownst to me, had invited the link between she and I, my blood relative. Was he a buffer? Did she feel so out of place as to not avoid socializing with me alone? At least she showed up, but with a chaperone or a getaway car.

I always longed to be part of a Friendsgiving and more recently, a Galentine’s Day celebration. While growing up, I always discounted any female friends who had sisters as possible best friends. If I had a sister, I’m positive she would be my best friend and I would have no need for anyone else to place convictions into. It is no wonder then that I was fascinated with that Password Journal I purchased from Toys “R” Us. It was a Barney majestic purple-colored rectangular box that was battery-operated and opened specifically to the sound of my voice and choice of password. Inside, I placed my diary.

As an adult, the phenomenon of making friends is not so much difficult as it is less obvious than when a school-going child, adolescent, and young university-goer is in search of being part of a friend group. Sometimes, the lines are blurred and some may say, crossed, because those who are hired are close in age and become more friends than they are professionals. Sometimes, bosses and superiors at work – something I have not been given the opportunity to experience – are less LinkedIn connections and more Instagram confidantes.

And with that, I know that I do not want to be alone, despite also not wanting to stay out late into the night. I know that I want to host brunches, go on hikes, have a chance at glamping, and cycling around vineyards with a bunch of friends despite not drinking. I know that I want a significant other as well. People tell me to get out there, to not expect that my hand would fall beneath a single guy’s masculine hand when we both reach for the very trendy, seasonal Sumo Orange at Whole Foods Market. And yet how is me getting out there any different? How is it that women who say that once they first met the person that they eventually wed, they had immediately knew that person to be their future spouse? What if that person was in a relationship? How does one know if their own feelings would be reciprocated?

I don’t hate on Valentine’s Day and in fact, I was up to the chapter in Untethered Soul where one is told that being deeply seated in one’s conciseness is to have the heart open to all at all times. And so I kept my heart open. I longed for the long-stem roses my father gifted me, and I derailed the guilt that dwelled in my heart upon its habitual inclination to close when my mother gifted me perfume. I’m a romantic who is deeply afraid of the inexperience of physical romance, the extroverted introvert who cannot fathom not putting her family first but wants to have a person who becomes as close to her as her own parents. 

I’m an adult. I’m an adult and ghosting is juvenile. It has no rhyme or reason. It dwells in an a urban dictionary that is relegated to a web platform. Its pixelated combination of letters doing nothing but hurting true animate beings. Valentine’s Day just passed and even the completely distinct noun used for the supernatural ghost, is a word I don’t care for hearing until Pumpkin Spice season comes around again.

Maybe She’s Born With It. Maybe’s she’s a Kaur: Hardcore.

I, like many, if not all, females who identify with being Sikh, have ‘Kaur’ as part of her name. In my case, it’s in the middle. Kaur’s literal translation is, ‘princess,’ but more accurately, ‘warrior princess.’ I know for many, the latter translation cues in the 90s sitcom that starred a woman with blunt bangs underneath which shone icy blue eyes. She had a long black mane of straight thick hair trailing down her muscular back and sported a champagne-colored coat-of-arms with circular breast plates that did nothing to feminize the brazen broad aside from keeping her in line with societal decorum. A Kaur, less subtly, is regarded as one whose inner beauty precedes her: strength of character and mind. She is agile and yet she has the ability to be aggressive.

Many historical figures are shone on horseback, a European anomaly for femininity. How dare one’s legs be spread? Historically, throughout wartime, civil strife, and religious persecution, Sikh girls and women were known to have taken their life before their honor could be tainted. Movies depicted Kaurs biting off an amulet woven around the neck, the contents of which enclosed poison, or jumping into wells. They sacrificed their life in order to not be raped.

I am an American, a Puerto Rican, Spaniard, Punjabi I, but am also part of the millenial Anglo-Saxon world in which the clever quip regarding a Kaur as “hardcore,” developed. Here begins a story: Someone threw this subtle play on transliteration of Kaur for the English vernacular in my court, and yet, I was without home court advantage. An older woman with short, cropped hair, long legs hidden underneath multicolored leggings, and a slightly curved upper back, caught my attention in the gym. She asked me how I felt about the new instructor who took over Monday’s early morning sculpt and strengthening class. The truth: that instructor was terrible. I have learned not to judge people and to give chances. The instrcutor, a professed personal trainer with colored contacts and a hood over her head that did well to cast a shadow on her face- the moniker of a Wanted sketch from cable news – talked the talk, but she couldn’t, you know, walk the walk.

She really could not walk, instead bopping, knees slightly bent, her shins staggered. This was not due to any physical impairment. Instead, she confessed to constantly dancing. I imagined how she could assess her methods for fitness as being affective. Her moves did not challenge me and her bright idea of counting down while repeatedly saying “two” before moving onto “one” and eventually “stop,” was annoying. She was a broken record and I suddenly withdrew from my old-world grasp, now welcoming Bluetooth technology in cars like mine that no longer have a CD-player that could possibly get scratched and repeatedly play the same stanza over, and over, and over. If her goal was to become efficacious at getting me out from underneath the rock I have been under, she accomplished it.

I told the woman who approached me that I did not care for the new teacher – an opinion that she shared. “There is not enough cardio,” she said. “She’s not working my body.” I agreed with the latter. The former, however, I didn’t agree to because the entire point of the class was to focus on increasing muscle mass and sculpting, not to lose fat and lean out. As someone recovering from anorexia that was the very last thing I could want, but regardless, I felt that I had to rely on my own knowledge when taking this new class. I had to work my muscles and challenge my body so that it could break before building up a stronger and more robust foothold.

Another woman passed by. She too was apprehended by the new instructor’s “bad cop,” who leaned in, and in more ways than one: She hunched over, her already curved spine rounding. She referred to me when she said, “I stopped this young woman here to ask her how she felt about the new instructor. See, I ask her because she’s like you. She is hardcore. She is really hardcore.” I was taken aback. My namesake, unbeknownst to the woman, was stamped in my mind and my memory.

Just think about a baby who begins to react to his/her name being called: the slight swivel of a head, the flicker of eyelids as he/she blinks before changing the direction of his/her gaze toward the voice. Hardcore rung in my ears like a civil service officer who glanced down at my Drivers License and was midsentence; first, describing something as “hard,” before calling me up to the counter – “Kaur!” I swapped out the idea of my abdominal area, my core, and instead thought of my middle name, Kaur.

I went to the gym for myself. I go there under due caution because in the past, I had taken advantage of the privilege of moving my body. It became compulsive.

I go there to detox – yes, perspiring is a part of the package deal, along with a free T-shirt – but I go there to free up my mind and literally remove my body from a toxic environment. Here, my mind is in overdrive because it is multitasking as I strive to become stronger. While assessing the instructor’s directions, I discern my capabilities, limitations, and at what point I can go beyond a threshold. Here is where I discover and also carve out potential, because here, I cannot follow. Here, I have to lead.

Despite not liking the mirror, growing up and thereafter, a self-proclaimed camera-phobe, I relish a spot in the space that enables me to have a clear shot of myself in the wall-to-wall mirror. I zero in on my movements and observe my face and extremities alongside others. Doing so keeps me in check: I cannot lose weight. I am here to gain muscle mass, to gain strength, to carve and to sculpt.

When I venture out to the gym, I tie my hair up into a messy knot that is so nondescript; it doesn’t even qualify as a wound up bun. Despite neither socializing nor hobnobbing with my peers, they have become a kind of inner circle insofar as I imagine feeling protective should they be subject to any digression. Still, I was taken aback that someone at the gym had noticed me. I was judged, complimentary connotation aside.

Interestingly, only a few days after being described as hardcore, I felt I have been too soft on myself. If I were hardcore, wouldn’t I have accomplished tasks? Wouldn’t I have reached milestones - stepping stones that led to a tributary where goals would eventually meet? Wouldn’t I be ok with having my favorite protein bar irrespective of what I would eat later? Wouldn’t I entertain the idea of skipping the gym and eating more that day? Couldn’t I be more spontaneous and less rigid?

Sure, coming off of a completely controlled treatment environment, weight loss is not so unfathomable. Of course, eating and not starving won’t be the cure-all to a disease that manifests in the mind, spilling into behaviors. Spikes in productivity level are a given. But here I was, and here I am, dissatisfied with not being hired- a born and raised American who attained degrees from heralded institutions, who excelled in said places, and yet was not hired since graduating with a Masters degree in hand. Here I am, sitting down in front of this laptop, facing this document, for the third time. Here I am, shooting out of the thicket that has shielded me from my paralysis. I’m enthralled by sitting at this desk, my back to three my three frame diplomas, still consumed by trying to keep myself from falling off the face of this Earth from a ravaging eating disorder, still not hired, after resumes, cover letters, edit exams, and interviews.

Perhaps I am hardcore, and that’s not a feat because falling into a type-A class, or what have you, does not necessarily mean you will produce results. I thought I was hardcore as well, that is, until my uncle by way of parental friendship told me, “Be a Punjabi girl,” before shooting his right arm into the air, index finger pointing at the sky and trilling the famed Punjabi shrill that accompanies our traditional folk song and dance, “Brrrr!” I giggled and smiled – a rarity. He said what my father says and it was like a theatrical representation of “Who Wore it Better?” “Shoot out of this gravity,” he said.

I never understood that. I am still philosophizing it. Gravity is the force of weight, its vector points toward the ground beneath our feet. When I mention gaining weight, I am directed to reframe: I am grounded. I am rooted. I’m not floating. Shoot out of this gravity. Gravity isn’t a pause – it’s not time-sensitive. It’s not a negative. Hell, two negatives make a positive. Maybe I am just being hardcore. But if it means I need to wear breastplates, I’ll take it. I am a Kaur and I am proud to be one.  

Which Is Clearer? This one, or this one.

Ever visit the optometrist and feel as though your eyelashes may become entrapped in the flicking of different prescription lenses that are part of the mounted mask-like contraption placed in front of your face? The difference in vision ranges from a stark blindness to clarity: It is as if all the smart phones buzzed in unison signaling an eminent snowy white-out that lasts a good 5 minutes before mere flurries speckle the sidewalk here and there. Then there are times when the difference is so negligible that you feel as though you are being punked and you or your insurance are paying too much to be taken for a fool. Comparisons: You can’t live with them, and you can’t live without them.

To compare is considered a heinous crime. Comparisons are considered thieves of joy. We’re constantly reminded that we should only use ourselves as the yardstick for success and that we’re all on different chapters: My snapshot of someone’s resolution chapter, after their story’s climatic conflict, conflicts with the current state of my story. Where am I? I am at the cusp of having my confidence crippled before it’s not. I am trying to make light by being an alliterative wordsmith, but this method of strength training is some type of magic. That is to say, you really only need your body to chisel your form – kettle balls, free weights, and cable machines are more obvious tools, but one’s own extremities, core, and mental capacity to not shrug off a standing crunch or a skater slide as having all the qualities of imposter syndrome, can do wonders.

Prior to Christmas Eve, my parents treated me to a mother-daughter mani-pedi date. I zeroed in on a hunter green color with specks of luminosity, foregoing my penchant for matte (not a patent leather, sprinkles on food, or glossy gal type.) When I tilted the small nail lacquer bottle over, my eyes glossed over the enamel’s given name: “Envy.” As in I am green with envy?  Talk about six degrees of separation theory.

Paris on Gilmore Girls referred to Rory as being “green” when it came to facing the post-college professional job hunt. Rory was not as savvy as Paris was: She didn’t take note of looming deadlines, nor did she tailor-make resumes and cover letters, nor did she air on the side of caution and attempt to apply for any opportunity that would damn her and her target discipline of newspaper journalist. But then I flip to one of our Satellite international channels and see black and white music videos of “evergreen” classics. In this case, greenery is considered timeless and connotes quality. Take someone who only thinks about greenery- cue President Trump’s past Prime Time series, The Apprentice, the show’s title of which suddenly causes “Money, money, money…. MO-NEY,” - where the last vowel is pronounced more like it’s counterpart, the letter A, than the letter E – on loop. Here green is harping on gluttony. Greed is a vice. Yet, if President Trump suddenly has a hankering for taking shovel to White House lawn, well, then he would have a green thumb, and would be promoting abundance, vitality, oxygen and possibly sustenance to spread around. It would be money-minded, but in the sense of being economical.

Comparisons, one could say then, is a necessary evil, like stress. We need cortisol. Comparisons enable us to see a calibrated system. My therapist, interestingly and unrelated to the beginnings of this essay’s conception, said that I was obsessive about measuring, about numbers, and comparing. I needed to disengage from that. When we compare, we can assess our own potential. Perhaps? But then again, how does one manifest what potential can be reached? What qualified that person with whom we compare to have tapped into the secret of potential? How does this person provide a standard? What comes first: the chicken or the egg?

Speaking of the animal kingdom, my mother would always say, “Monkey see, monkey do,” which she swears is one of my uncle’s taglines that she hates as much as his other completely idiosyncratic antics that she takes personally. All that said, the phrase is meant to denote outrage in a passive aggressive way. There is nothing worse than fatal attraction, and mimicry is a glorified improvisational skill. Let’s move on from fowl, to poultry, to primate, to puss. That’s right, we’re speaking of the quintessential Copy Cat: That person who sees what you do and carries it off as his or her own.

As an academic, and furthermore, a journalist, there is nothing worst than plagiarism. Think about being assigned a group project, the members of which did no work but were given credit regardless. What then about the concept of their being no greater form of flattery than having one copy your decided moves? I suppose that was part and parcel of the term “mover and shaker,” or a person who zigs when you think they will zag, and shakes things up so that no one sees it coming. No one can determine where the confetti will float once the piñata is hit, just like no one knows, unless one is a Physics major, where the released candy will concentrate. To that same affect, it could be that the person copying has no conscious awareness of having done so. If someone decides that they will go to the gym only because you have decided to, despite not having any intention of going, and may go begrudgingly – just to get through it because he or she would not know what to do with his or herself otherwise, well then, perhaps that is compulsive. And in this respect, everyone should probably have a therapist.

Arguably, a therapist can be in the form of a local acquaintance, a friend, a relative, or member of the clergy. Perhaps it is the child who so innocently consumes a piece of cake with glee, but also pushes away the cookie, without any preconceptions on how that may manifest – its classic intuitive eating. As someone whose subscribes to a discipline that requires citing sources, using direct quotations, having one’s own voice, and also trying to access figures of authority for quote unquote, unbiased content, having a schooled therapist with credentials, is something I believe is akin to a Darwinian principle. Here’s how you can survive.

Comparing prices may make you feel inadequate. Comparing how much mileage you’ll put on your car, gas, gas costs, time, and the price for purchase, can be alluring but also a task requiring unnecessary effort and energy. In attempt at being economical, one is burning off steam and becomes dated. At this point, accessing energy saver mode, pesky lingering droplets on freshly dishwasher-cleaned cutlery, be damned.

Documentation is a thriving conduit for comparative analysis - how much you accomplished one day versus the other. Scales that measure gravity’s pull don’t take into account water intake, activity, temperature, and hormonal balance, and yet comparisons run amok. Our phone flashes how many hours we spend staring, scrolling, and surfing so that we can assess the difference from day to day, and week to week. It becomes tiresome more so when we see how many less steps we clocked in on one day compared to the other. If technology is said to improve our standard of life, well, then it is predicated on comparisons. How then, can comparisons be adverse? Perhaps here is where moderation benefits. But then again, where does moderation come in on the spectrum far right versus far left?

As long as you can see more clearly, whether that be in the mind’s eye or not, and you are not tripped up, but are safely, soundly, erect, living, and breathing, that is the comparison you want in your life. It has yet to be determined where exactly this magic point on the forever plotted points, resides.

To be continued.