puja-shah

My sister called me today and was upset about her life spiraling out of control, with school, work, the things that can take over, even her, the hippie at heart that she is…

I understood that sometimes that’s all you need. Your sister to lean on, talk to, make you laugh.

I just wrote a part of my story where this happens…Amla is the sister that when she feel this way, leans on Asya for support, for guidance, for love. And when Asya does it, Amla realizes that this is their bond.

And in my real life, I can see how real that bond is.

For sisters out there:

Siblings, sisters and brothers, will tell me stories of when they had to tell on their sibling, when it was a matter of getting in severe trouble. Friends will tell me, My sister ratted me out or I told on my brother because I had to…

There is something about sisters that defies all that. I know sisters fight all the time, my sister and I did. Over clothes or music albums, over makeup and halloween candy, even over attention from our parents.

But we protected each other, because we could feel one another in our actions, smile, walk, body. We don’t rat each other out, we get in trouble for each other, we feel everything the other one feels. There is a connection that no one can ever describe, that the world can’t always understand that happens with sisters. There isn’t the testosterone and ego’s that brothers can possess and never admit to, not that disconnect of a gender gap between brother and sister, not the generation gap between child and parent, there’s the root of the being the same but so different, the root of something indescribable that’s present that even with the best of girlfriends, doesn’t exist. This is the bond I am trying to put into words in my story, what I am trying to capture if it can be…the true bond of sisters.

Smoke scents whisper,

from your sleeping sounds.

Eyes flutter,

toes meet toes,

heart beats sync to

Dreams…

of you.

The holidays came, and they flew to New York and filled their hearts with her father’s hugs, her mother’s voice, his mother’s dosas and coconut chutney, his nieces’ laughter. They stayed up drinking and talking to his sister and brother in law, they watched movies with her sister and brother and she loved the way he joked with her grandmother in Gujarati. It was the best Christmas she said she had in a long time.

When they got back, she was thrilled to feel warmth, to have sun and sand at her toes again. She thought of the cold, dark skies of winter which in no way felt like home to her anymore.

“Should we move to New York, like maybe in the city, for a few months before the wedding?”

They were lying down, talking, and as she let the sound of the ocean in and closed her eyes. She thought of the busy streets, the subway steam through sidewalk vents and taxi cabs honking at corners, the smell of pizzerias and pretzel stands, things that made New York City what it was to her for so many years.

“Why?”

She asked. She thought of the way her heart ached when she missed her sister, the way only sisters can feel; she thought of the distance that grew with her brother as they led their own lives miles and miles apart. The way her parents sounded so happy when she said she would be visiting. The friends she missed chatting in person with.

“I don’t know…”

She looked at him as he missed the things she missed too, and started to think of leaving the life they had built in California; Their own place, own life, own start.

“I miss New York sometimes, too.”

They didn’t speak for some time and she wondered if they were thinking the same things, which often happened between them. She thought of her mother, leaving India, to a new place, a new world almost, for a life with her father, her career, their future children.

“Where are we happiest?”

She let it sit with him, the question they had to answer about what it was that mattered to them most. What it was that made them feel alive, every single day.

Mostly, when they took trips back to New York, they visited their families, spent time with friends and when the busy days became calm, more quiet, she always saw a sadness sit with him.

I don’t like New Jersey… I hate the cold.…I want my kids to have sun and the ocean…

His thoughts resounded against what she already started to feel, to know about what felt right.

Someone needs to do it; someone needs to break that cycle. We don’t have to be somewhere we aren’t happy because our parents had to be there. We can make it work, we already see our families every other month…and we are okay. Her sister and her had a bond that was always strong. Her brother was growing up; she had to let him go. His nieces always loved their visits. Their parents…in the end always wanted them to start their own life-it’s what parents did- let their children be. They had friends all over the country, it always worked. All that matters is when we have each other. All we need is to be happy within ourselves. Doing what we love, being where we feel good, all the time. And for now, it was here, she thought. Who knew what the future held. She didn’t want to live in the future, she wanted to live in the present.

She let her thoughts race and as they filled her mind, she let her new sense of grounding settle in. She would be okay anywhere.

“When our lease is up here, maybe, we could live in that house we saw, you know near bird rock, right by the ocean.”

She listened to him, to his own realization that felt in sync with hers.

“Should I call the real estate agent?”

Sima didn’t say anything as he awaited her reply. She kept her eyes closed and simply kissed him.

It was you,

My first love,

who taught me what its like,

to feel comfort being in my own skin.

You taught me about culture,

with mommy’s Jewish boss and our Chinese neighbor,

with the Puerto Rican bodega on the corner,

and the Italian ice cream parlor where pops would give

me free ice cream floats.

You, my first love,

who taught me about my own roots,

with masala scents filling the air at dinner,

with nana telling us of historic epic poems from tapestries hanging in our home.

You, my love,

who showed me how to love dance,

with Navrati,

and love to find rhythm in praying to my goddesses,

With burgundy silk blouses,

and saffron and blue colored scarves,

I danced.

You showed me tranquility,

with my temple,

jasmine scented incense and red carpeting and coconut water juice I’d sip with my hands.

It was you who built my childhood memories,

watching Yankees games on my father’s shoulders,

dinosaurs at the Museum of Natural History,

the scent of chestnuts at Rockefeller Center,

and lighting candles in St. Patrick’s Cathedral.

You,

who let me ride the subways alone for the first time,

took the 1-9,

12 yrs. old with ripped Levis and a Drew Barrymore haircut,

cuttin’ school and sneaking to meet a boy at Manhattan Mall.

You who let me get my ear cartilage pierced when my parents said no.

My first love,

you,

opened doors for me,

in my teenage years,

with Broadway shows and trips to Tower Records for the newest Fugees album,

with Knicks games and Janet concerts at the Garden,

with summers of free Shakespeare in Central Park,

and 25-cent coquitos at my apartment corner.

Sitting on the stoop eating Rays Pizza or Mamou’s,

and sweet  summer nights at outdoor clubs.

You, who taught me about lust,

with meeting Hector in Herald Square or dancing salsa at Carbon with Omar,

versus best friend real love,

with Amish,

who let me find myself,

and didn’t care if we were eating on Columbus Ave. or rummaging for books at Strand or walking through street fairs in Battery Park.

I found my own style with you,

Looking for sneakers in Brooklyn,

To hitting up the village for new belly button rings,

and African scarves,

To trying on expensive dresses and shoes at Saks Fifth Avenue.

You led me to foreign films at Lincoln Center,

to art galleries near the piers,

to waiting in line to hear Salman Rushdie or Maya Angelou speak at bookstores in Union Square.

You, my love

Who taught me about reality,

With visits to soup kitchens in Harlem.

Reality,

kids crying from no food and babies restless from addiction,

I saw hurt.

In Harlem where you taught me of a history,

of her-story,

of Zora Neal Hurston and opened my heart to writing.

You,

who inspired me to romance my pen,

My first love,

You gave me courage to share,

in Alphabet City, you showed me the Nuyorican poetry slams,

And blew my mind away,

You blew my mind away.

In college, you, my love, taught me to love a new vision behind the lens,

with photos of lights tangled in trees in Times Square,

snaps of fathers holding daughters’ hands walking up the stairs of The Met,

eyes of tourists from far away lands at Ellis Island.

Click,

I captured hope.

My first love,

you empowered me,

Me,

with my student visitor pass to the UN,

feeling small in a big building and big in my own world for being there,

as I listened to changes being made for the world’s women, I felt it inside,

I felt it inside.

My love,

It was then for the first time I felt you sting my heart,

you taught me to console my friends who lost their parents and godmothers,

who couldn’t find their sister, or cousin or gay lover.

And you let it happen.

You let my world crumble for a moment,

with ignorance,

with hate slogans and fear,

you made me cry showing me post 9-11 memorials everywhere,

and a heavy feeling,

that won’t pass.

But you showed me strength and I grew to love you more,

and more.

It’s hard now being away from you,

my love,

things are different now.

I don’t see you that often and when I say I love it here,

 my new home,

I feel guilty,

sometimes,

like I’ve left you behind,

like I’ve forgotten where I’ve come from,

who knows me so well.

But I haven’t forgotten,

 and when I see you again,

it rushes back,

Scents and sounds and all of it,

fills me, takes over me.

My first love,

You make my knees weak,

you are my heart,

you give me soul,

and nothing can replace you.

It’s always been just you.

My first love,

New York, NY.

It’s you.

They fell into a routine quicker than Sima thought would happen.  He was intuitive to her feelings, her needs and it made it easier for Sima to find a fluid return of the constant love she wanted to create here, in her new home with him.