puja-shah

Definition of an author on Wikipedia:

“An author (sometimes, in reference to a woman author, authoress) is defined both as “the person who originates or gives existence to anything” and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. The second entry goes on to clarify that, when using the term “author,” the “anything” which is created is most usually associated with written work.”

Giving existence to something…

So by creating emotion through words, by sharing my heart on paper, by giving existence to characters and their story, their actions, their thoughts, their feelings…

I am an author…or as Wiki puts it, an authoress.

Cool

Writing about something that emotionally moves you is harder than I had anticipated.

I thought, there would be raw emotion that would be easy for me to put into words, since that’s how I write, from my heart.

But I keep writing and stopping, keep writing something and deleting it, keep trying to put things into words that I feel so much.

I tried getting myself to detach myself, emotionally, from what I was writing.

It felt impossible. I will have to just try and do it the way I know, writing from my heart.

Sometimes you just have to do it. I have been writing, I mean always writing, stories, poetry, random thoughts for so many years and started feeling this itch recently.

My acupuncturist, (who I think can read my mind but that’s another story), a few months ago, asked me, “Have you been feeling like you haven’t achieved something? Do you feel like the need to do something?”

I looked at him, as I often did, and in my mind asked him “Thomas can you hear me?”

I looked for his face to change, was he really reading my mind?

I found no signals as he continued.

“In the month of Scorpio, most signs are affected. You will have a feeling of restlessness, this feeling like you need to achieve something and can’t wait for it.”

Damn, I remember thinking, he has to be reading my mind.

I had been feeling like I needed to spend more time on my writing, to get it out there, to share the importance of the messages in my work, sometimes, fictional stories about world issues that sit within me.

Maybe it really was the moon and stars and astrology of my ancestors that were guiding my energy towards feeling the strength in this impatience to achieve, to finish something.

Or maybe, I finally just realized that I need to do this.

I decided the best way was to challenge myself.

A challenge to put my book of short stories I always wanted to do together and self publish. I have A LOT more stories to write, and I know that without a push, without a self appointed deadline, my carefree Sagitarius nature may overpower that urge from the month of Scorio and it may never happen then.

Recently, it felt like everything fell into my plate. Another part time job, volunteer teaching, planning my wedding for this summer, and of course now this. But if not now, then when? And as many of you know, being busy can sometimes cause the infamous enemy: WRITER’S BLOCK. So I needed to make sure I had a creativitiy stimulator. (Sounds like a device or gadget right? If only they did really make one like “go go gadget creativity!”)

I started going to this writer’s group with my friend Jenny, and things started flowing a little more which got me all fired up about when I thought of doing this on my last trip to NY, which was around my grandfather’s death anniversary. As cliché as that may sound, (many of you who know me well and have heard about him know that this isn’t actually cliché  at all), I started all this introspection. What would he be saying to me if I went to him for advice?

“You must always write tell your stories, and for yourself, do not ever stop writing.” He said to me once after telling me one of the beautiful stories of the Ramayana. He was an amazing story teller.

Well, Dada, you’re right, I should never stop. So here I go.

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.