Y's summer so far

Y's summer has been busy. She recently completed her "Behind The Wheel" course and has her official driver's license!! She has been lobbying to take the car to school next year (junior year, 11th grade), and I have been holding the line at 'no.' She started her internship with our school district some time ago, and so far it has been going really great. This is the first time the district has inducted high school interns, and they have been giving them some good projects to work on. I think she will learn a lot.

Y recently won the 1st prize at a local poetry contest. She had submitted on a whim, after I informed her the first prize was $100 :) She hasn't been writing consistently, which is a pity, so it takes a contest or an assignment for her to get over her writer's block. She wrote a poem about social media, which I guess resonated with the judging panel. Here is the poem: 

Post Me Into Memory

I share a thought,

a broken shard of something larger,

held just right to catch the light.

A caption that has been trimmed and rehearsed,

but meant to look effortless.

A photo of my breakfast,

but what I meant was: I am still here.

A sunset flick,

but what I meant was: I wish this peace would last forever.

We chase the dopamine in digital echoes,

Likes captured like fireflies in a jar,

briefly bright,

yet always fading.

But there’s something raw

in this endless reaching-

some deep, human emotions,

woven into pixels and code.

See me. Remember I was here.

It somehow seems like the oldest thing of all-

carving stories into the cave walls,

etching names into the bark,

longing to be forever.

Apr-June 2025

Once more, life gets in the way of posting regularly on the blog. It appears that most of the bloggers with whom I started my journey have let their blogs die out. Some have moved on to other platforms. I miss reading their musings. It used to be therapeutic for me to read about someone's life, struggles, challenges, and joys. Even if we had never met, I could relate to that person being in the same stage of life as I was. I could commiserate, comment, and lend a semblance of moral support even from hundreds or thousands of miles away. 

Since March (last time I posted), I  started a new job. We have traveled quite a bit (so what's new!). We spent Spring break in Belize, Central America. The Memorial Day long weekend was in Bethany Beach, Delaware, just a few hours' drive away. In June, and our silver jubilee anniversary and S & I took off for a bucket-list trip to Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks while Ads came back from college to hold fort and babysit his sister :)  Ads has a year-long internship in Madison, which started in May, so he has been on campus for the last few weeks and will not really come back "home". However, we have been seeing him quite often; last weekend we went to Madison and spent a weekend with him, followed by a couple of days touring colleges for Y in Indiana. 

It has now been exactly 7 years since we landed here in the US. I went back and read my post from 2018. So many changes since then! So much growth, joys, setbacks, and challenges. Ads who turned 13 mere weeks after we arrived is almost 20 now. Y will graduate from high school in two years and already has a summer internship, which keeps her very busy. All my friends are in the middle years now (I read somewhere that the middle years are the years between being hip and breaking one!), dealing with teenagers, high school and college schedules, empty nests, and ageing parents. Some divorces and near-separations too :( 

I am rapidly approaching the 50-year mark myself (in my head, I'm still 30!). I keep myself busy with work, giving back, trying to stay fit, and my lovely Carnatic music classes. We have had several group performances this year and are practicing for a few more as the festival season draws near. 

Before we know it, 2025 will also be firmly in the rear-view mirror and I will once again be scratching my head wondering where the time went!

2024 Recap

 I wrote a grand total of 3 posts in 2024. Trying to do better in 2025. 

2024 was another eventful year. I've been looking through the old photos and recapturing the highlights.

January - Took my parents to Sri Lanka for their golden anniversary. Sri Lanka is so gorgeous and it was my second trip. We went to Colombo, Galle, Dambulla, Trincomalee and Kandy. 

Spent a few days in Bangalore as well and met so many old friends including someone I hadn't met since college (Ethiraj)! (more on that later)

February - S was in India and some of our Canadian relatives came over to our neck of the woods

March - Cherry blossom season! We all went to the SF Bay Area for spring break. It was a social whirlwind as we had to catch up with all the friends and family who lived there, many of whom had seen my kids as babies/toddlers. Met another Ethiraj buddy there. 

April - Portugal with 2 of my friends! That travelogue is still sitting in the drafts :( 

May - My cousin graduated from Georgetown Law and we went to her fancy post-graduation party. Memorial day weekend, we started S's early birthday celebration with a biking holiday in Lehigh Gorge State Park, Pennsylvania. On S's birthday, our close friends from NY, J and P landed up to surprise him on his 50th! We had a lovely two days with them. 

June - our anniversary at home. We hosted S's aunt and uncle for a few days. 

June end/early July - 50th birthday celebrations in the Smokies. Kids left for Singapore.

July - my parents arrived for a few months' stay. The first time they came in warm weather :) 

Aug - Beach trip to Norfolk and Virginia Beach. I dropped Ads back at Madison and helped him set up his apartment. 

September - My cousin's wedding in Toronto - famjam! I don't know how we packed it all in but apparently I also took my parents to Swaminarayan temple in NJ, Harper's ferry in WV and Mt.Vernon the same month :) Y's homecoming dance. My cousin visited from the Bay Area.

Met yet another Ethiraj buddy in TO!

October - Navarathri. Big crowd, golu hops, dandiya with my Zumba gang. Yukta started driving lessons. Halloween celebration in our community. 

November - We went to NYC for a few days as an advance celebration for Y's 16th. Watched 2 amazing shows - Six and Hamilton. In Seattle with my brother and his family (and my parents) for Thanksgiving. 

December - India! Our silver jubilee reunion at IIMB and a few days in the Mangalore area after. 

Loved that I could meet FOUR of my friends from college in the same year as I happened to go to each of the cities they lived in - Bay Area, Madison, Bangalore and Toronto. We were meeting for the first time since 1996 (except for the Madison friend whom I had met a few times in between) 

Other highlights were that I started going for a Pilates class once a month in the latter part of the year (and I'm loving it). I also found a good Carnatic music teacher not far away and we have a weekly class. It feels good to restart my music practice.

This is 16

Long cascading hair

You’ve learned new terminology

-heatless curls 

-lymphatic drainage 

-contouring 

New brands 

-Edikted (not “addicted”!)

-Brandy

-Uggs (ugh-ly!)

This is 16

It’s so GenX to use punctuation

Her teachers are so annoying

Sometimes she just hates everybody

and sometimes everybody hates her

Size 7 feet

Hands that can wield a makeup brush like a master

Rolling-eye and sarcasm expert 

Tries to make jokes, that fall flat; 

they crack her up anyway

This is 16

Learning to drive

Doesn't know how to parallel park

Doesn't hear you. Hears every word when you’re talking to your best friend on the phone,

or to your husband (about her) 

Loves to talk about her day

Stops in the middle of a sentence 

when she realizes it's TMI

This is 16

Dramatic. Independent. Opinionated. 

Loves to loll in her bed

in her messy room

clothes and makeup everywhere 

She needs you

except when she doesn’t

and she is “over stimulated” and can’t bear you being close

This is 16

Sometimes she is a social butterfly

and sometimes she has social anxiety

She needs things to be aesthetic 

She can tell at a glance that you made an ugly PowerPoint 

She always smells amazing

Sometimes you shower in her bathroom because she has better products than you do

This is 16

Graceful. Radiantly beautiful. 

She scrolls through her phone on the couch 

For a second you see a glimpse of the little girl she used to be, glasses and all. 

You insist on showing her old baby pictures

and she smiles tolerantly 

This is 16

More dazzling and complicated than you ever imagined it would be 

Those playground squabbles and make-believe games? 

You smile at how simple it seemed then

What you thought they were testing your patience and your resolve, 

that was just some limbering up

for what’s coming 

In 2 years she will spread her wings

You push that thought away

For now

it is enough that she wants to cuddle up with you before you go to sleep

(you always go to bed before her)

That she usually wants to watch a rom-com with you on the weekend 

that you can both groove to Hamilton and Mamma Mia

and you can both cite every dialogue from Notting Hill 

For now, it is enough 

That she likes to shop with you 

and sit alongside on the floor at Barnes and Noble

nose deep in a book 

That you change her sheets every week even though you scold her for not doing it 

That you can still make her favorite vodka pasta 

That she still sends you a text that just says 

mummmmmaaaaa

This is 16

This is magnificent

Holi-day memories

Imagine the time and place - early 1980s, early March, somewhere in UP (Meerut, Lucknow etc). It is Holi. Schools and offices are off. For days, the Subramanian family has existed in a state of dread. Their least favourite festival is looming. Amma grew up in Dehradun and Delhi, yet dislikes Holi, as does Appa who is a Madras boy through and through. My brother is probably too young to register much perhaps, but I have certainly contracted my parent's apprehensiveness about this Helli-day.

We have many friends among our lovely North Indian neighbors and colleagues (South Indians and Tamilians being rather thin on the ground), but we don't enjoy their boisterous and aggressive Holi avatars. Our wallflower-ish Tamilian instincts rebel at all that shouting, dancing, music, throwing color and water. Our biggest fear is being dragged out of the house and forced to be a sport and participate in Holi festivities. 

Our house in Meerut has two front doors. So my dad has the brilliant idea one year to install a big lock on one door, enter the house through the other, and barricade ourselves in. The four of us sit inside, quiet as mice, knowing fully well we would be getting visitors shortly. (It was probably 2-3 people from my dad's office but to my 7 year old self it felt like a mob!)

Sure enough, some people arrive at the door. Knock loudly, ring the doorbell. "Subramanian, we know you are in there. Baahar aao! Hum kuch nahin karenge" someone with a name like Dubey/Goel/Tiwari yells. 

After multiple rounds of shouting "Subramanian", my dad knows the game was up. He bravely opens the door. They are very nice, they put a teeka, throw some color on all of us, maybe we exchange sweets. 

Anticlimax! Much ado about nothing! Rinse and repeat every year :) 

Just in case you were curious, I love playing Holi now :) Yesterday's trauma is often today's funny story!