I miss my mom so I try to recreate her presence with things I attribute to her: oil of Olay beauty fluid, Romance perfume, bright lipstick even if it’s the only makeup being worn, a sense of gratitude and readiness, a generous laughter, uncountable **** jokes, an appreciation of innovation and novelty, a hearty appetite for everything: life, food, knowledge, growth, and being firmly grounded in faith.

I have not found this composition of authenticity anywhere else, the perfect molecular formulation that gave shine to her eyes and confidence to her smile. And she was my mom, so I could boast and brag about any and all my achievements and she would multiply them, own them, honour them and wear them on her heart like a badge.

“Be all things that you loved about the people you’ve lost”, goes the saying. How? It’s impossible! Yet I try.

I have resorted to cutting onions freehand in circles for my salan like her, rather than the fancy crescents requiring a chopping board, (that I adopted as a statement that I was more refined and evolved than her). I used to make fun of her for tearing open her teabags as tea tasted better to her when freely floating in water. Now I’ve switched to loose tea. I readily bought amla, haritha and sikakai when I saw them in a local Indian store, though I had vehemently opposed all her attempts while growing up, to incorporate these to my hair care routine. (She had black hair at age 69 when she died. I started having grey at 27. In south Asian cultures this is a big thing). During her life, I was always rebellious to her methods. Now, I have submitted to their wisdom and simplicity.

The organic nature of life is to recycle things as they complete their turn. I cling on to my mom’s quintessence in the spirit of recycling them through me. I try to say the durood every morning as I wake up like she did, and count three good things of the day before I sleep like she did. I do everything I can as she would have liked. And I still miss her. I have even grown to love missing her, in a subterranean way , as this way she stays with me.

Today the missing has surfaced, like the supermoon of last night, causing super waves, tsunami perhaps. It will wane. With time. But love shall remain.

Arshia
31.8.23

My love, create beauty
even when everything pains
for, lo, the hardship passes
but 'your' mark on it, remains!

For my son as I tried to draw his portrait. ( Originally written in 2021. Rewritten 29.4.24)

I know each curve, each follicle
Each eyelash, every smile
I know your boastful playfulness
And your resplendent guile
I know your hiding sorrows
And the demons that you fight
I know your composition
Each sound, each smell, each sight
I understand your duty, I comprehend your woes
I know quite well your matrix,
the friends, the bends, the foes
I keepsake all your stories, I’m a bank for your dreams
I notice each infliction, rebellion, all the schemes
I Am the primal witness to the glory of your being
Perpetually enchanted, entranced with what I’m seeing
Not a flicker, not a twinkle, a spark that goes amiss
For me you are perfection, so let me tell you this
Each atom, every molecule, with my mothers heart I trace
And yet my love-rimmed fingers, just can not draw your face.

Bombs go off in Gaza,
and here on the east coast,
the friendships I have nurtured for several years
are blown away in the air like ashes…

The earth is nebulated in a nightmare
flames of despair and anger,
consume the oxygen of hope…
And now, depleted,
my heart sunk in mourning,
I am thinking of words that I will say to my son
so that he can continue to believe
in the good of people.

Arshia.
12.10.23
#middleeastconflict #war #israelpalestineconflict

—————————————
I thought I was unduly bent
with the burden on my head
No heart had ears that understood
the tales my face had said

I thought the path had sifted me
away from smoother stones
Where everything is forsaken
and no one truly owns

I thought and thought and thought some more
till I no longer; saw
For eyes, that I knew not I had
widened to stirring awe

In tumblements, I had arrived
to the hall of cynosures
where souls lit up in endurance
and patience opened doors

Accepted for defectiveness
revered for differences
Collected, all, in being dispersed,
closer for distances

Had fate and path not made me, me
and storms made waves I ride
and then I took all I held in
and looked around, outside

It brings you. where you need to be
it gives, what you require;
To then, become what you were, always
waiting, beyond desire.

©️Arshia
13.7.2020
Tokyo

For unexpected realizations, I am #thankful