"Look Mommy, it's a C moon today" said J pointing skywards. We talked about how the moon goes from being a C to a D to an O.
J was quick to point out "There is a J moon too" I smiled at that. Even celestial objects like the world revolve around J.
"I don't remember having seen a J moon. When is the moon like a J ?" I ask her.
"Every once in a very very long while, the moon looks like a J" she tells me seriously. I tell her to keep an eye on the moon so she can show me the next time it happens.
She asks me why the moon follows her, whether it is hot like fire or cold like ice. I tell her maybe the moon loves her and wants to be her friend. She is happy to know that and asks if the moon swims in the sky. I tell her I don't know.
I love the way J traipses seamlessly between the real and the imaginary. She's put me in a mood where I can imagine walking in a garden frozen in eternal spring
An expat desi friend and I were discussing what it means to return to India when you have cobbled together a life in a foreign country no matter how flawed and imperfect. We have both spent over a decade outside India and have kids who were born abroad and have spent very little time back home. Returning "home" is something a lot of new immigrants like L and myself think about. We want very much for that to be an option because a full assimilation into our country of domicile is likely never going to happen. L has visited India more often than I have and has a much better pulse on what's going on there. For me the strongest drag force working against my desire to return home is my experience of life as a woman in India. I neither want to live that suffocatingly sheltered existence myself nor subject J to it. The freedom, independence and safety I have had in here in suburban America was not even something I knew I could expect to have in India. I never knew what it felt t...
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