The Loss of a Generation

My grandfather passed away about ten days ago. He was 93, and as Desis say, he lived a "full life." I spent last week on vacation with my family, and we all had the opportunity to mourn and remember him together.

Dadaji, as we all call him, moved from India to Kenya in his teens, taken along by an uncle who thought he could establish a good life and have more opportunities there. He was a businessman for most of his life. In his twenties, he went to India and brought back a wife, and together they raised five children, one of whom is my mother. His wife died before I was born, and eventually, he moved to London to live with his son.

My grandfather would come over to the U.S. for a few months every year and stay with each of his daughters and their families. In those brief months, we learned the meaning of the word "discipline." He was a deeply spiritual man. I remember him meditating for hours on end in my room. He would always be reading Krishnamurti, Rajneesh, Sai Baba. He had a lot of words of wisdom for all of us. He always emphasized how important it was to be content without always wanting more. He would meditate for hours each day, sitting in the lotus position in my room, not flinching as I top-toed in and out. He took long walks, ate healthy food (although he did love sweets and fried foods), and loved to laugh. He had the best sense of humor. I remember him laughing for hours one day at the "weird" English words Americans used: elevator instead of lift, bathroom instead of water closet.

I don’t have any larger theme or tie-in for this post. I just want to take a moment to remember him, and to mourn the loss of that generation in my life – he was my only remaining grandparent. My daughter never met him, and I will always be sorry about that. I am going to try to make a scrapbook of photos and memories of his life, contributed to by his family members. That way, maybe she’ll know just a bit of her great-grandfather. It won't be enough, but it will do.

Baby, You've Got Mail

Barack Obama's election got me thinking about how we will all likely try, one day, to explain to our kids what a big deal this all is. My kids don't understand potty-training yet, let alone presidential politics. Will I be able to remember, by the time they are learning about the electoral college and race in America, exactly how I felt last Tuesday? The answer is patently obvious: No way man.

Watching my 10 month old these days, I am often stunned by the fact that, as he sits up for the first time and starts to crawl, I have very few memories of my older son--who is almost 3--doing the exact same things. I remember them happening, of course--it's not like I am surprised that my eldest now can walk so I obviously know that he took his first steps. But my memories are of the fuzzy, global variety. Like the way I remember that I went to elementary school. The nuance, the singularity that made these MY memories--that's what's missing. Moments I was sure were etched into my consciousness forever are--well--nowhere to be found.

I was not happy about any of this. Forget Obama, I want to remember the way my son says "good morning beautiful day!" every morning. And I want him to remember it too. Which is why I decided to turn to the place I often rely on for help in a crisis: Google. A few months ago I set up gmail accounts for my kids. Whenever I have that itch in my brain that says "will I remember this one day?" I write my kids a quick note. The results are pretty scattered--and equally amusing. I just looked at my eldest's account and there are messages about everything from how he calls going to school his "job", to how he likes to watch horrible tv (why oh why oh WHY did any sane person create the whiny horror that is Caillou??), to how I have never been so proud in my life as when he, unprompted and for no apparent reason, was sweet and kind to an old, lonely stranger at a party.

Email is far less daunting than the beautiful raw silk baby book you have yet to fill a page of. (At least mine is raw silk. And man is it gorgeous. Even with the 3 inches of dust it has collected thus far. Maybe one day I will donate it to a museum.) Just as quickly as your child can say or do something hilarious, you can forever enshrine it in an inbox! Nothing about recording your memory has to be "perfect" (and I know I don't have to introduce you to the Devi-perfectionist-complex do I?) and you don't have to do a dog and pony show with it--email is almost quaint in its simplicity and privacy. Moreover, something about this method makes it easier to capture all of the unique, silly, anachronistic, anomalously amazing things about our kids. When you don't have a set number of pages to fill, or somebody dictating to you that you should "place first birthday party here," the milestones arrive organically, and can include moments such as the first time your son was in a photobooth (which is a big rite of passage in my family).

Of course, in encapsulating memories for your kids, you end up encapsulating yourself too--providing glimpses of your thoughts and heart at certain moments. (I think with wonder about how cool it would be if I could have snippets of my parents' prose from when they were 31, 36, 42. ) Whether you are writing on election day or on Parent Teacher Conference day or on a random Tuesday--by writing you are giving yourself. My pro/con list to my son about whether I want him to grow up is--let's face it--a telling artifact about his mother. Writing this stuff in real time enables you to capture the wisdom, clarity of though, and foolishness that accompany everything we as mothers do everyday. And, rest assured: If, for some reason, you go back and read something too embarrassing one day--well that is what the "delete" function is for!

The last week has reaffirmed to me how rich our lives are. Not only for the big things, but for all the little ones too. Writing these seemingly silly messages to my kids gives me--and one day my kids--a way to remember some of these little things that make our lives ours.

Ode to Dada and Dadi

This weekend, we left our daughter with her grandparents for the night. It’s a treat all around: she loves being with them, they love being with her, and we love an occasional guilt-free night of freedom. While she was with them, she went to the park, read books, did puzzles, watched Micky Mouse, sang along to an Indian game show called “Sa Re Ga Ma Pa,” ate home-cooked food, and received copious amounts of hugs and kisses, marked on her cheek by her Dadi’s bright red lipstick.

Since my daughter was born, I’ve been eternally grateful that we live close to my husband’s parents. They don’t just provide us with those guilt-free nights of freedom. They provide a level of attention and love that she doesn’t get anywhere else. They’re retired, so when she is around, all other activity basically stops. Of course they spoil her. They never let her cry more than a minute if they can help it. They give her too many snacks. They indulge her every whim, from staying up late to listening to whatever she wants on the stereo.

They are also very silly with her. My father-in-law becomes a child himself, talking in funny voices, making clown faces, causing her to her laugh so hard that my husband and I come from the other room just to watch.

I didn’t have that sort of grandparental love growing up. My grandparents lived far away, and when they visited, they were more of an austere presence in my life. Loving, yes, but people to be respected rather than to laugh with.

My own parents live far away as well, but they visit for long periods of time every year. My dad, who does yoga daily, teaches her how to stand on her head. He sings Indian children’s songs to her. My mom tells her long stories about animals and makes her all sorts of delicious food; she always gains a couple of pounds during one of their visits.

There is so much my daughter will gain from having her grandparents be an active part of her life. She will have role models who have always lived their lives in a decent, honorable way. She will understand how to respect and value the elderly. She will have a larger perspective on life than that of just young people. She already knows Indian fables and myths that I don’t even know, thanks to them.

I sometimes worry about what will happen to her when it’s time for them to go. Morbid, I know, but I can’t help it. They are elderly, and she is so close to them. What will I tell her? How will I explain that these people, who would drop everything and give her more undivided attention than her own parents could, are gone forever? How will we attempt to fill the hole in her life? She expects nothing of them except to love her. They expect nothing of her except that she allow them to love her. Not once will they ask her for a thing, yet they will love her without end. That kind of love is irreplaceable.

Sometimes I think she has a sense of their mortality. Once, while we were waiting for her grandparents to come over for dinner, my daughter started getting impatient. “Where is Dada Dadi?” she demanded.

“They’re driving over in their car,” I told her. “You’ll see them soon.”

She was quiet for a minute. Then she said, “Mommy, tell them not to leave me, okay?”

I looked at her, and all I could do was nod.

Michele Obama on Family Life

What's home life like when you're Barack Obama's wife? Michele Obama dishes on CBS. Things that we can relate to: She worries about her kids' Halloween costumes and future careers, and she says "I wish Barack wasn't so busy all the time." Guess we can't really complain about our husbands!

Reinvention

I was thinking about "transitions" today on the Bart on the way to work. Something about transportation--being on a plane or a train in particular--often takes my mind to thematic places...! Transitioning. Segueing from one period to the next. How our world and our memories get divided up into before and after. The friends we knew "before we were married"; the things we do on the weekends "after we had kids." I just started back at work and on Sunday we attended my son's preschool's "Family Fun Day", both of which may explain why transitions were on my mind (stay tuned for more on Family Fun Day) --but really, I was thinking more in general about why so many people--myself included-- have so much difficulty with them.

More and more, as I think about these liminal periods, I see that they can be points of reinvention. I remember the summer before college, when the orientation packet arrived in the mail and I signed up for the Outdoor Orientation Program--7 days of hiking in the Catskills. I had never been hiking before and I bought my "hiking boots" at Thom McCann, the store in the mall that sold generic Keds and fake Converse. I knew I wasn't a hiker...but I was starting a new chapter! It's my transition I can be a hiker if I want to (be a hiker if I want to, be a hiker if I want to...you would be a hiker too if it happened to youuuuuu....). I was, by far, the most ill-prepared hiker on the whole trip. Thinking "hiking" really was "just walking," I had rated myself a Level 9 hiker. Out of 10. I found myself rappelling down mountains in my cheap fashion hiking boots, and 40 pounds of gear on my back that--when I first saw it, in the big lawn, on the eve of the trip--I truly, truly thought was a prop to make the whole thing feel like more of an "experience." I ended the trip exhausted, dirty, humbled...and changed. If I didn't have the transition in front of me--the beginning of college--I never would have gone camping for 7 days (or 1). But something about the forced demarcation of time--the threshold quality of entering a new chapter in life--made it seem possible, attainable, desirable and beneficial.

Motherhood, at least at this point--early in the game--magnifies and amplifies this opportunity for reinvention. Every day is a transition. Every day is a new chance to be the exact person, and the exact mother you want to be.

Think about it. Say you start reading to your kid every day, even though you never did before; or say you start cooking dinner every night even though you have never been a "cooking person". Say you start becoming more active in politics. Do you think your child is going to be all, "Mom, what's gotten into you, you've never been like this before?" Judge you for not reading, cooking, politicking before? Act personally offended that you have "changed"? Of course not. To our kids, we just are. Everything we do--it just is.

I think about this all the time. Who do I want to be to my children? How can I reinvent or better myself? For reasons not entirely known to me, I often come back to the word "soulful." I don't know exactly how to define the word or even exactly what I mean when I use it. It's the feeling I get when I hear "Patti Smith," absolutely anything by "The National", that new "Pearl Jam" cover of the old Wayne Cochran song "Last Kiss." Or the bone-deep sensation of truly forgiving somebody. This intrinsic sense of understanding, of perspective. A widening of the eyes in face of a light that makes you want to squint. More than reinventing myself as The Perfect Preschool Mom, or the Woman Who Juggles It All, I would like to work towards embodying this feeling and surrounding my children in it. Being an example of humor, steadfastness, rootedness and levity, no matter what the circumstances. Yes those terms are vague and yes they may contradict each other. Yes, embodying such fuzzy characteristics is harder than it sounds and it involves doing things without built-in reward or acknowledgment. But it's empowering and it's worth it and it changes who we are. And we are lucky to have the opportunity to do it! We get the chance on a daily basis to don the cape of reinvention. And we can be whatever we decide to be--in the eyes of our kids.

Monday Musings--No Matter What Happens

There was a lot of talk about "comfort" in the media this weekend. In at least 3 different publications, I saw printed recipes for "comfort food"--macaroni and cheese, soups, starchy carb-y goodness--accompanying articles about simple ways we can get through this moment in our nation's history, and still smile. In the Bay Area on Saturday, the period of rain began--this is how we mark the seasons out here--and people took the opportunity to bunker down, stay home, unplug. The economy has people down, the highly-anticipated VP debate has passed, we are in a little bit of a respite before the Diwali, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Holiday parties. Time for rejuvenation, relaxation--time to comfort ourselves.

Comforting my kids thus far has been easy. They are 2 1/2 and 8 months, and even the most body-shaking tears can be soothed by hugs, diversion, and, yes, candy. They are blissfully, heart-breakingly oblivious. They don't even need macaroni and cheese to feel safe yet--they have no idea what "feeling safe" means and even if they did, they would never be able to understand the connection between that box of pasta and powder and the feeling of comfort (and in that way they are more intelligent than we give them credit for!) There must be some part of them, on some subconscious level, that knows or feels or reacts to being taken care of. How else to explain the empty, soul-crushing eyes of neglected children? But that part of them--the part that is appreciating us even when they have no capacity to appreciate us--that part is happily below the surface, so much so that it is barely there at all.

Yesterday, my kids and I cocooned. We made hot chocolate, ate cereal for lunch and dinner, forewent baths and makeup, tackled each other on my bed, let the phone ring, didn't wash the dishes. During the dress-up portion of the festivities, in which my eldest son teetered around in my heels and my youngest bounced himself in his bouncer with a light-up necklace around his neck, a purse I hadn't used in about 9 months fell off a shelf in my closet. It was the bag I carried to and from the hospital every day, for 24 days, when my youngest son was re-admitted to the hospital at 10 days old. Just as seeing my prom dress takes me back to 1995 and puts "Night Swimming" on in my head, seeing this bag transported me back to February. For a few days in February that, at this point, play in my head like a movie as opposed to my life, the fate of my son was unclear. He was tiny and he wouldn't eat and I barely knew him and every doctor and nurse was doing everything they could for him, but I felt completely helpless, completely unable to comfort him and make his world better. I made the proverbial deals with a God I'm not even sure I believe in, only to mock myself for doing the same; I chanted "you will be okay you will be okay" over and over in my head, just so my mind wouldn't wander to any other alternative. I wrote letters to my 10 day old son.

Inside the bag were some of the letters. I couldn't get myself to read all of them, but I did read the first one on the pile. It is more of a snapshot of my heart than it is prose. It's written in dark Sharpie ink--from a marker I borrowed from a nurse--and it's on the back of a brochure about breastfeeding. "No matter what happens," it begins. We didn't know, when I wrote this letter, whether my son would live. We didn't know what kind of life he could have if he did. We didn't know if he would ever smile, or talk, or walk, or laugh. We didn't know anything. "No matter what happens," the note says, "you will know love."

Hoorah for the slow-food movement!

My family is big on cooking. Whenever we get together we basically sit around, cook, eat, talk, sleep, repeat. My mother makes the best Gujarati food you’ve ever tasted – we’re talking paper-thin rotlis, and patra and khandvi made from scratch. My brother’s specialty is hot and spicy – Chinese, Italian, you name it, he’ll find a way to put a habanero in it. My sister-in-love also specializes in spicy -- her South Indian dishes are to die for. My sister and brother-in-law, who live in the South, do everything from pork chops and korma to day-long pig roasts. And we here take advantage of all the fresh California produce, often just throwing it into the pot along with some spices and seeing what comes out. Even my father, a septuagenarian, has begun cooking. This is huge, since, having lived in India until his 40s, he never really stepped foot in the kitchen before that except to ask for more salt!

Cooking can seem like a chore, but I just read an article in the New York Times about how people are embracing it again. People – to me, demi-gods – like Alice Waters and Michael Pollan speak and write lovingly about a "new trend" called the slow-food movement: gathering fresh ingredients, taking time to enjoy chopping and cooking them, and then sharing them with family or friends. But for me, that concept started way back in the 70s during my childhood Saturday mornings. The house would be filled with some delicious smell emanating from my mom’s cooking. The whole family would be in the kitchen chatting, watching the Indian show (back then it was one show on once a week, not a selection of 24-hour cable channels), reading the paper, drinking chai and waiting for the food. And then on our plates would arrive uttapam, upma, or some other yummy thing. Today, as we try to do the same thing in our kitchen (albeit with french toast, omelettes or pancakes instead) I see the same joy in my daughter as she waits for and eats my food. It’s the simplest act of love: fresh ingredients, lovingly prepared, from my hand to her mouth. Seen from that angle, it no longer seems like a chore.