J's daycare has a Valentine's Day card exchange. Ms L said hand-made cards would work perfect too. Lacking the time, I hit the nearest Dollar General and was not disappointed. Love is very cheap as it turns out.
Almost every relationship is represented in the love-fest except pets. Maybe a pet store would be the place of that. Being the evening before, the store was doing brisk business - clearly the preferred choice of those who have to dole out love by the dollop to the crowds.
Once home, J was assigned the task of picking a card for each friend - we had ten different kinds. Except for her current best buddy she did not care who got what and her interest followed a diminishing curve until at last we came to a certain kid called S that J never talks about. Love is hardly equal or democratic even at four years old.
J will be bringing home ten cards and a ton of sugary treats tomorrow as will all her friends. If only every child was on a healthy diet of love and care instead of this bulimia triggering binge of Valentine's Day.
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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