We voted

/ Aarati Kasturirangan / Leave a comment

We voted for the Dreamers, and the Same-sex lovers, and the 99%. We voted for the unions, and the aging baby boomers, and the guy on the street who sleeps on vents. We voted for shattered glass, and equal pay. We voted for ourselves.

We voted because they thought we wouldn’t, and because we knew we had to. We voted because our bodies were being debated and our voices were being ignored. We voted so teachers can teach and students can learn. We voted to take care of each other.  We voted to be able to take care of ourselves.

We voted for soldiers to begin the healing. We voted for roads, and bridges, and pipes.

We voted because the lines were long and our patience was running short. We voted in waves of gold, and brown, and  pink until day turned to night.  We voted after polls were closed.

We voted because we know there are more superstorms to come. 

We voted in fear. We voted in hope. 

We voted. We voted. We voted.

 

 

Peace Tree

/ Aarati Kasturirangan / Leave a comment


I spent the morning
in the Peace Room at the Friends Center.
It sits in the light on the 3rd Floor.
Later that day I walked down
to the lower level, no windows.
The Justice Room is down there
I thought, “I wonder… why?”
“Why is the Justice Room below the Peace Room?”
“Is justice the roots sunk deep
from which the peace trees rise?”

Skin deep

/ Aarati Kasturirangan / 6 Comments

I am driving the minivan. My four year old daughter is behind me, strapped into her booster seat. A purple balloon rises up from her wrist, a bottle filled with candy in her lap, her eyes still wet from goodbye tears, her voice twittering with excitement, exhaustion, and complete satisfaction.  We are on our way home from her “best friend”s 5th birthday at Pump it up.

A: “Kensington is my best friend mommy!”

Me:  “I know. You told me!”

I love talking to her when she is like this.  This time in the car becomes more special every day, now that I am working full time – now that she spends long days at her suburban pre-school.

A: “Kensington is 5 mommy! I am 4. But she’s my best friend! She’s in my heart.”

I melt when she says these things. What words will her 4 year old brain spin out next?  I ask a question, waiting to be dazzled or amused, to be impressed with her smarts, or chuckle at her silliness.

Me: “Why is she your best friend sweetness?”

A: “Because she has the same skin color as me. Can I have this candy tomorrow?”

My voice catches in my throat.  My brain goes blank.

Me: “Uh huh.”

Should I say something more?  Is it ok that she is choosing best friends based on skin color?  She has moved on to talking about The Wiggles, and something about flying to Mars with her baby doll.  But I am stuck. Skipping like a record.

Of course, I had noticed at the party. Asha and Kensington were the only non White-skinned kids there who were not members of Kensington’s family.  Both of them a golden brown tone, children of mixed parentage. Kensington’s mother African American, her father Latino.  They both played with the other kids of course. They did not band together, or isolate themselves. They did not self-segregate.

This moment is pregnant.  It has meaning for me.  We are moving to Philadelphia, exploring neighborhoods, trying them on for size, one a weekend,  our little family of four, one White, one Brown, two Golden.

Who do we belong with?  Where  do we fit? On a busy street in one neighborhood, I am the only brown skinned person I see the whole afternoon, except for the Parking attendant.  We are strangers to this town but does that mean we should feel strange?

I feel strange when I am the only brown person in the room. It’s no one’s fault. No one has to be doing something wrong. I just feel strange.  I search the room for another brown skinned person. I have done this for as long as I can remember. Then I know I am safe. I am not so strange.

Now, I know my golden-skinned girl child feels something like this too. I thank goodness for my question and her answer. I thank goodness for these moments in the car – these windows, these mirrors. I am certain now, I must find a someplace where we fit. I must find a place we all can be. Perhaps strangers together, but together, never strange.

I ride the Regional Rail

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I ride the Regional Rail to work and back again, from outside to in, Center City to Marcus Hook, where the oil refinery shoots plumes of orange flame and the ladies at the diner call me hon. I watch the signs – Eddystone, Crum Lyn, “The Gas Light”.  A worn billboard, paint curled, letters faded, stands tall midway. I can just make out the hopeful plug:

“Visit our suburban city, and see what’s new in Glenolden!”

The first time I saw it, I laughed.  But the joke is too old, and too sad to be funny.  The lost luster of the suburban dream reminds me that I am not as young as I used to be.

I ride the Regional Rail from my hometown, seeing it with my 36 years old, consciousness-raised, social-science eyes.  The Chester Transportation Center speaks its truth to me.  Promises broken,  people unmade, climbing too many stairs just to wait for a train to somewhere else. University City still ten stops away.

I ride the Regional Rail to work, from outside to in,  Marcus Hook to Center City, where the fountain at LOVE park shoots plumes of purple water and the lady at the chinese food truck knows I need more hot sauce.  The sky scrapers rise up, the murals sing praise songs, and I am young once again. My pulse quickens with the beating heart of the city until it’s time to ride the Rail again.

 

 

 

I drew two pictures

/ Aarati Kasturirangan / 1 Comment

I drew two pictures, just like the book suggested.  I was home alone, beads of sweat pooling in the crease between my thighs and the swell of my baby-filled belly.   The crayola box was covered in a thin layer of  dust.  I selected brown and red and peach and yellow, blue and gold and pink.  I closed my eyes and breathed in deeply.

Fear: I drew a dark, windowless room. I drew myself lying on a bed. My big, brown bulging form was strapped down by black wires and cords. I drew two women near me and colored their  faces peach and gave them long blond hair.  I drew word bubbles rising from their mouths. “#*?! ”  they shouted.  On my right calf muscle I drew a large red X.

Hope:  I drew myself sitting up in bed and my husband Jon next to me.  I drew a brown-skinned woman smiling nearby.  I drew a river flowing out from between my legs and a small brown baby floating atop.  In the air above the baby, I drew a star.

A few weeks later:  I sat up on a delivery room bed at Prentice Women’s Hospital in Chicago and  pushed.  The room was bright.   I closed my eyes and went inside myself.  I sensed the people in the room: my husband, my blond nurse, and my friend Sandhya.  My right leg spasmed and I shouted incoherent commands to this team of supporters. “You!”  I pointed frantically towards no one with my eyes closed. “Rub my leg! Up! No, down!  Left. More left.  No. Outside!!”  I felt hands on my leg, easing the cramp into a dull ache.

The nurse’s voice warned me of the next coming wave.  “Focus on your bottom!” Words you only hear in a delivery room or at the gym.  I breathed in deeply, standing somewhere inside myself in the dark, wondering who this child would be. “Do you want to feel the head?”  I reached down between my legs and felt a patch of hard skull covered by soft hair no bigger than a quarter. I wondered why my baby’s head was so very tiny.  I imagined I was pushing out a small doll. It seemed very doable.

The doctor appeared between my legs.  “Hi Aarati, I am Dr. Starr. Your baby is almost here.  Let’s get another good push.” I pushed my soul against hers, willing her into the world. I felt a sudden gush, a rush, and thrust myself against myself. “Wow! That’s a lot of water! Here she comes!”

Asha. Hope.  Kimberly. From the meadow of the royal forest.  The hope from the meadow of the royal forest was born.  All hail brown-skinned, all hail pink-skinned.  Born on water and under a star.  She is here, she is here, she is here!

 

 

S.A.H.M.

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I never thought I’d be one.   I didn’t exactly plan it, or want it. It just made the most sense. Three months after earning my Ph.D. and becoming Dr. Aarati Kasturirangan, I left the world of the career-focused and became an S.A.H.M. – stay at home mom.

Now, I stand at the edge of my time as a S.A.H.M. I  I have sang silly songs, kissed boo boos, run races, and wiped bottoms day in and day out for 4 years.  I cannot say for sure whether or not being a S.A.H.M has been better for my kids than if I had been a full time Ph.D.

What I can say  for sure is this: I am not the same person that I was before I became a S.A.H.M.  For four years I subverted my own intellectual needs in order to be the primary care-giver, for better or worse, or just for different. I have woven my children into the fabric of my being.  This new me, now steps into a new role. No longer S.A.H.M, but firmly grounded, career building M.O.M.

What will this look like?  I hope it will go something like this.  In the midst of an important  meeting, when I am feeling frustrated, tired, and at my wits end,   I will hear a small voice in my head,

“Knock, knock.  Who’s there?  Pee!  Pee who?  Pee ewe, you farted.”

May the wisdom of the S.A.H.M. stay with me always. There is no problem so big that can’t be solved by a good knock knock and or fart joke.

On your marks. Get set. Go!

 

 

Helicoptors, Rainbows, and Quakers, oh my!

/ Aarati Kasturirangan / 2 Comments

I am a helicoptor hovering, at once in motion and still.  I slowly push forward. The landscape beneath me is shifting slightly, but I am still here, waiting. I have plotted the course. The maps have been drawn. The gas tanks are fueled.  I can see the destination in my minds eye. Change is afoot.

Like all the changes that have come before, I felt the signs first.  My heart wandered away from the present into the future.  My brain churned through the possibilities.  My body grew heavy with the burdensome weight of the now.  Something new was calling to me.  “Begin the next chapter. This part of the story is coming to a close.”

The signs shifted from internal to external: tarot cards, dreams, spirit animals, unexpected books, songs I hear in passing, the unsolicited wisdom of an acquaintance.  The collective unconscious made manifest  is my guide.  This is part of who I am, how I navigate.

My six months ago tarot cards were clear. The cards said, “You want to reengage with your career.  Tough economic times will make for stiff competition.  You will struggle. You will need to be patient.” The last card, the final outcome in the reading was TEMPERANCE; a picture of the Greek goddess Demeter pouring a rainbow from out of a cup.  Demeter, goddess of seasons. Rainbows, the rare moment when rain and sun combine and show you the pathway to a new world unseen. 

I have not seen a rainbow in years.  I can remember most of the raibows I have seen. This summer there have been three. The first came in June, on a road trip to a the wedding of a close friend.  Driving from D.C. to Connecticut, we begin the passage through Baltimore and the air is a misty soup. Suddenly we see it to the east. A double rainbow spanning to entire sky.  Vibrant, unbroken, it stayed with us for over an hour.  My children’t first rainbow, the first augury of the summer.  Change is afoot.

The second  and third rainbows came a month later in the land of rainbows: Hawaii. It was a family reunion in paradise,  a memorial for a my husband’s grandmother, a once in a lifetime trip. Another double rainbow welcomed us as we drove off the lot of the rental car company onto the mountain highways.  The next one hung lazily in the sky the evening that my husband and I were out celebrating our anniversary.

After months of waiting, wishing, struggling, and stoking the flames,  the fires have been lit. Though I sit in my condo in D.C,  still at home, caring for my two children, my mind wanders into the now near future.  A job  in Philadelphia. A new job for my husband.  A period of transition living with my parents in Delaware. Then a new home in Philadelphia, a new life for my whole family.  Signs pour in more quickly now. I will be working for a Quaker organization. The words of an old friend, raised in a Quaker family, spring to mind, now full of meaning. “The way opens.” The new chapter has begun. 

From above

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DCA to SJC

Below me

rippling lands push north

and beyond to the west

the sun hangs above

the unseen sea, covered

with its cotton robe

 

I am in love with  the sun.

Land is the myth.

Sky and sun

are all that is known.

 

SJC to DCA

In this flying box

I can close the window

and live in the mundane.

Beige walls, scratchy seats.

My eyelids close heavily

and the hours fly by.

 

Open lids, open shades.

We move homeward.

A brief rainbow  hangs

in midair and I can only

imagine what it looks like

from the ground.

 

 

 

Worm Catcher

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I wake up early.  My parents are snoring in their bedroom. I peep in. Daddy curled over on his side, shirtless.  Deep belly breathing.  Mommy sleeps with one eye open. Doctors on call always do. She lies flat on her back. Her hands are clasped together as if holding a phone. She is ready to spring up, but doesn’t.  No calls came tonight.

Early morning light paints the hallway yellow-orange.  I pee with the door open because I am alone but don’t want to be.  I crawl back into my bed and close my eyes.  I wish I could still be asleep, but I am not.  My stuffed bunny and I talk about breakfast and what’s on tv.  We get up and stand at the top of the stairs.

I am scared of those stairs.  I am not sure what I am scared of.  Downstairs is tv, and food.  Upstairs the comfort of warm, breathing parents nearby. The stairs creak.  The stairs are steep.  The stairs are dark and the wood is smooth, almost slippery.  Peril. Danger. The front door to the house sits at the foot of the stairs.  Warm light pours in through the small square windows. But I cannot see the couch, the carpet, the living room from here.

What if it’s not there? What if this is a dream?  What if they hear me and wake up?  I want their company, but it’s 5am, they need their sleep, and I want this time.  To watch The Great Space Coaster, to eat cinnamon and sugar toast, to sing my own silly songs.

I clutch my bunny to me and take a breath. I sit on the top step. Today I will slide down even though I am six and can walk down the stairs like a big girl. This way I can be safe. I can be quiet. I can watch the light change. I can peer through the slats of the rail into the silence of the living room.  I can watch for the signs.  It’s what I do every morning. I am the early bird.  I am the worm catcher.

 

Naturalized.

/ Aarati Kasturirangan / 2 Comments

Born in New Delhi, capital city

of the largest democracy

in the world.

Raised in Delaware, first state

to ratify the constitution

of the USA.

Chose to become, U. S citizen

on my 21st birthday.

Relinquished allegiance

Pledged allegiance

Listened to the speaker

U.S. war veteran

telling us all

to speak English only

from now on.

Wondered why

I had chosen

a land of one language

over the land of 100 tongues.

Posed for pictures.

Voted for change.

Watched towers burn.

Mourned with my countrymen

but feared persecution

by the Real Americans.

All the while

lyrics swim in my head

from the dozen fireworks displays

of my youth.

“I am proud to be an American,

where at least I know I am free…

and I’ll gladly stand up, next to you.”

But sometimes I still wonder,

will you stand up next to me?