Places
THE thing about places is that they make you believe in lies. Out of context truths can be lies. That's why I never trusted how a place made me feel. That might work to my disadvantage you might say. And to clear that up I should say I am not talking about planned vacations or weekend trips to parents, I am talking about those planned non-vacations, the migrations and di-migrations, the ones you impose on yourself to encourage progression of some kind, wealth, health, spirituality…all bull.
So that's why I don't believe my daughter when she says she is happy. Happy! Huh! She really thinks she can be happy in that godforsaken land of ours by wrapping a cotton shari and hanging out with the jhola parties in art college, sipping on tea made with sewage water! She says finally she feels like she belongs. Of course she feels like she belongs with all that just-landed-bohemian-beauty attention she is getting.
The truth is she has always been lost. She would read those nonsense books by second generation Bengali-Americans about displacement issues, rants and retardation. These kids don't know what they are writing about, if she asked me once I could tell her that displacement is something we are born with as soon as we exit our mothers' wombs, we are displaced from our roots. So deal with it! Don't go trying to recognize, realize and reflect.
She thinks I am delusional. She thinks I am more lost than her. She told me after my third marriage that I look for stability through intense emotions to keep me occupied and that I, her mother, was the root of her issues. Apparently I could never make her feel like there was ground beneath her feet. So what about the ivy league education, trips to Europe and years of shopping sprees damaging my credit cards? I asked her would she feel more grounded if we lived out of a cardboard-box and ate at soup kitchens? She said yes, apparently that way at least we would have each other.
So I am getting on the plane today. When I land I will go straight to Charukola, I met her father there…that was 30 years ago. I will find her and tell her what she is feeling is a lie. What she felt when she was with me living in the USA was a lie. I will tell her it's all a lie, all the places we have been to together and separately and what they made us feel… lies… I will tell her for the first time to come back to me, where she belongs, where she was before she felt displaced, my womb, to her mother…where it all began before the end started.
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