I called my mother from Priya's rooftop in Astoria on Sunday evening. The sky was doing that pink-orange thing it does over Queens in August, the Manhattan skyline sitting small and shiny in the distance like a diorama.
My mother answered in her nightgown. It was 4am in Ahmedabad. She couldn't sleep, and neither could I, and somehow across twelve thousand kilometers we found each other awake.
She asked if I was eating. She always asks if I'm eating.
I told her about the fresh dhokla I got from the little Gujarati spot in Jackson Heights, and I saw her face soften, that specific relief a mother feels knowing her child hasn't forgotten how to be fed by home.
Here's the thing about homesickness. Nobody tells you it doesn't announce itself. It doesn't arrive at Diwali or on your birthday when you'd expect it. It ambushes you on a random rooftop in Astoria while your mother squints into her phone camera in the dark.
I've lived in New York for three years now. I have a rhythm. I know which bodega guy on my block saves the good samosas, I know the L train's moods, I know where to cry privately in this city (the Q train over the Manhattan Bridge, obviously).
But homesickness doesn't care about your rhythm. It just wants your mother's voice.
We didn't talk about anything important. She told me my cousin got engaged. I told her about a jacket I'm redesigning. She held the phone too close to her face, the way she always does, and I could see every line I've missed watching form.
Before we hung up she said, in Gujarati, that she was proud of me. That I was brave to build a life so far away.
I didn't feel brave. I felt like a kid who wanted to go home and also never wanted to leave this rooftop.
That's the immigrant math nobody solves. You're always missing somewhere. Home when you're here, here when you're home.
The sky went fully dark. Priya brought out chai. My mother finally fell asleep with the phone still in her hand.
Some love just lives in the missing.
Love,