Why I Love the Rut I'm Stuck In

In Maya Angelou's interview she says that the sign of her accomplishment is that readers come to her and say, "I wrote-I mean, read, your writing Ms. Angelou" (This isn't a direct quote.) That sense of ownership, kinship with someone we've never met. That is one of the wonders of reading - it connects us even when we are alone.

It is why as a young girl, awkward and confused, I buried myself in library books, learning each crease of a well-worn book. I learned these creases in the same way I learned the bodies of later lovers. I learned the art of the caress through the gentle turning of a yellowed page of a forgotten book.

Lately I have only found the drive to read books for youth and books written by young Indian women. It isn't a challenge to read these books. Though they delve deep into emotion and drive into dark corners of my brain, these books are casual reading for the seasoned reader - and yet I cannot stop devouring them .

There are two writers who, it seems, I am straining to read their entire set of work: Jumpa Lahiri and Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni. If I'm being honest, it is mostly the latter.
Compared to Lahiri, Banerjee delves into oneself. Her characters are perfect to themselves while knowing they are flawed to everyone else. They are in stark contrast to the cut, dried, hurting characters of Lahiri. Banerjee's characters are fraught with fantasy - their hurt is a tidal wave that one can't imagine in the real world.

Reading the Poetry of Someone You Love

It starts out innocent enough.

"Share yourself with me."
"Tell me what you've been working on."

Now you've finally let me see it.
My stomach churns as I read through your emotions through the decades.
Was it me that hurt you, or someone else?

Was that me you pined for, or her that you've long forgotten?

It is strange to think that you has such emotions before me,
Because you tell me you've never felt so strongly.

If these are not your strongest emotions,
then what emotions do you have for me?

A list of things to buy

Buy the house and when the house runs out,
buy stock.

Buy the stock and when the stock runs out,
buy bonds.

Buy the bonds and when the bonds run out,
buy land.

Buy the land and when the land runs out,
buy art.

Buy the art and when the art runs out,
run.

Or Why I Learned to Love the Rain

When I was a girl...though I am still a girl
I would wake before the dawn for school.
Eyes bright, I didn't know that tiredness could ache my bones.
I had built muscle as armor, though no one told me.

Or perhaps I didn't want to believe them.

I didn't want to believe that I would ever be weaker than I was then,
Though I am physically weaker now.

It was then, in my unknown body that I set out in the rain and fog.
My ears stung, and I wore the crinkly grey windbreaker that was my shield.
God forbid that anyone know that under all this, I had begun to become a woman.
My friends affectionately called me Piggy after we read Lord of the Flies,
And I knew, even though it wasn't true, it was also because of my excess weight...of which there was none.

But in this morning, in this crisp rain and fog and unyielding weather even in the face of sunrise,
I was just me. The chill froze my collar and my feet squelched in flip flops in the rain.

It cooled me from my anxieties, pin-pricked me into loving my existence.
Even when things began going truly downhill, I knew that there would be dark-then-slowly-light mornings with rain.

The fog of my breath was my evidence of life and I knew I lived on.

When I moved away from that rain and fog, I forgot that feeling. I forgot that I was alive.

Where in this sunny utopia, I should have asked, does one find the pinpricks of existence?

I  tried to find pin-pricks in a desert, but I only wounded myself with other instruments.
I've learned about my existence since then. I think I read about it in a book.

But listen to me New York and LA and even little Providence:
Where are your pinpricks? At the sight of rain you hide, when all I want to do is lay in the soggy grass,

In my coat with my hair, like roots, spread around me,
As the pin-pricks pin me into the grass,

I want to feel the pinch of blades beneath me as the heavens rain down love above me.

They are saying,  "You exist, Sunaina." as they wash away grime.

I will shed you like old skin.

Run off of me like water on a glass in rain.

Let the rain stop.

I am a bee and a butterfly.

I am stung but I can sting and I am beautiful.

This is a life outside of you.

This is a life after you.

I will move on.

Tied down no longer.

Free to be what I am meant to be.

Finally, finally, I am free to be.

Expiration Date

Here are the things that I will miss:

Always having someone close.

Being able to tell you where I am all the time.

Always knowing who I want to call and talk to.

Always having a potential date anywhere I go.

Having someone who is just as enthusiastic as I am about things like eating out and having adventures.

Having an adventure partner.

If I ever slept alone it was alright because I knew the next night wouldn't be that way.

Snippets

And so I walk toward a bus stop but not a bed where I cannot rest my weary head.

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Caterpillar clouds crawl over the grandest of canyons.


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So begins a novel. A calculated arrangement of words made from letters created with the intention of creating something, well, novel. Perhaps through plot, through characters, through careful selection of latter letters, or perhaps not.