Now. Now. Now. Forever

“. . . it all comes down to this: In our imperfect world we are meant to repair and stitch together what beauty there is, stitch it.” (~ Stuart Kestenbaum “Holding the Light”)

Summer is here in earnest. At least for now. For today.

I walk, almost skipping, around Fresh Pond, the reservoir in Cambridge, MA, next to my town. I am happy. For now. For today.

I make plans for the upcoming weekend. I hear the words and sentences from Yiyun Li’s singular, ribcage-rattling memoir Things in Nature Merely Grow and the shivering clarity of loss and temporality in my ear through Bluetooth technology. For now, and for today, I am favored.

Lucky that I’m not lurching through the rubble of Gaza.

Lucky that I never had to walk through wilderness, jungles, ford rivers, and oceans to get to the country I am in now. For now. For today.

I find that one of my trash barrels is missing. Did someone steal it? Or did someone take it by mistake after collection morning? Something that belongs to me is taken. Unjustly. I started to feel angry. I must set this right. Where’s the offender? But I know that I can get a replacement from the city. Let this pass. For now. For today.

Years ago, I heard a phrase: “Look for the light” and didn’t really understand the essentiality of it. Today, it’s simple. Just move your sightline slightly. The view changes. The light is ribboning through and suddenly the darkness is a memory. Always look for the light. Especially for now. For today.

I cleaned my email accounts (I have two). Anything I hadn’t looked at in a few weeks, got trashed. A lightness for now. For today.

Thinking of my parents, who I would see with much fanfare when I would visit India after having moved to the US. I saw my father three times and my mother eight times for periods of a few weeks at a time during twenty-nine years. This from the age of twenty-one. Before that it was every three or four months between college semesters. Since seventeen. I thought that was enough then. Not now. Not today.

Self-knowledge and understanding of my own emotional development are not parabolic arcs. There’s no even distribution of reasoning. There’s the trajectory, more serrated and ragged, through the decades. I never stopped seeking. I am grateful for that.

In a few years, I’m hoping to make a final move to an independent living situation with my own small apartment. I’ve moved over fifteen times in my life after having stayed in one house for the first sixteen years of my life. Could anyone have predicted that future? I wouldn’t want my life to be different. It took decades to accept. And now that I’m here, though I feel the jitters for the massive shift after thirty years in the same city, I know it’ll work out. I know that for now. For today.

"After the rain he went out in search of snails. He talked to them, they did not creep away from him. He held them in his hand, observed them, and laid them to the side where no bird could see them. When he died, all the snails from the neighborhood gathered together to form his funeral cortege". (~ Elias Canetti, The Book Against Death, chapter 1991)

Be kind. Be generous. Give more than you receive. Be humble. Apologize. Change your perspective sometimes. Look for the light.

For now. For today.

(Photographs courtesy of author. All Rights Reserved)

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A N N O U N C E M E N T S

NEA, under the present administration, has defunded Grub Street of its $40,000 annual grant.

A number of years ago, I started taking classes at Grub Street and I know that people of many ages and colors are supported by this unique place in Boston. Please support them.

&

Friday, August 15.

I know, I know, it’s India’s Independence Day . . . but this year, it’s also the day that I’m hosting a reading of part of my new collection of essays and inviting all of you to the Q&A.

Moderator: Sarah Wright, journalist, author & illustrator

That’s in Somerville, MA, my hometown.

The venue has a full and delicious menu with libations both alcoholic and non. I hope you’ll eat very little before you come and spend some money at the Rooted Cafe to defray the venue cost.

Time: 6 p.m. - 8 p.m.

I’ll be selling the collection. And, more importantly, will donate 50 percent of the sales to the ACLU (as I’ve been doing periodically).

Please mark your calendars and tell your friends.