I took the N to Astoria yesterday just to sit by the water. Astoria Park is the closest thing this city has to peace on a Sunday evening, the Hell Gate Bridge arching overhead, kids screaming in the pool, someone always grilling something that smells incredible.
I called my mother from a bench in Astoria Park. It was already Monday morning in Ahmedabad. She answered on the second ring, the way she always does, like she was holding the phone waiting.
We did the usual. Have you eaten. Are you sleeping. Why do you sound tired. And I lied, the way I always do, and said I was fine.
But calling my mother from a bench in Astoria Park does something to me. Maybe it is the water. Maybe it is being far enough from my apartment that I can't hide behind my usual busyness.
I told her I was tired. Not sleepy tired. The other kind. The kind where the city feels like it takes more than it gives.
She didn't panic. She didn't tell me to come home. She just said, in Gujarati, that even the strongest thread frays if you pull it every day, and that resting is not the same as giving up.
My mother has never seen Astoria. Never seen the Hell Gate Bridge or the way the light goes pink over the river at 8PM in July. But she knew exactly what I needed to hear from twelve thousand kilometers away.
We stayed on the phone until it got dark. She told me the neighbor's daughter is getting married. I told her about the saris I sorted. Two women on two benches on two sides of the earth.
Calling my mother from a bench in Astoria Park is my new ritual, I think.
Some distances only close over the phone.
Love,