I walked the Brooklyn Bridge at dusk on Sunday, and somewhere in the middle of it, I called my mother.
It was morning for her. She was in the kitchen in Ahmedabad, I could hear the pressure cooker, that specific whistle that lives in my bones. She answered on the second ring like she always does, like she's just waiting.
I hadn't planned to cry. But calling my mother from the Brooklyn Bridge, with the whole skyline lighting up gold and the tourists taking photos around me and the wooden planks warm under my feet, something cracked open.
Beta, why is your voice like that, she said. She always knows. She could be on another planet and she'd know from one syllable.
I told her I was fine. I told her the city was beautiful. Both were true and both were incomplete.
Homesickness is a strange animal. It doesn't come when you're sad. It comes when you're happy in a place your family has never seen. When something is so beautiful you turn to point it out and there's no one there who shares your whole language.
I wanted her to see the bridge. I wanted her to see the river doing that thing where it catches the last light. I described it and she said, take a photo, and I said I will, and we both knew a photo isn't the thing.
We stayed on the phone while I finished the walk into DUMBO. She told me about a wedding I'm missing, a cousin, the food they'll serve. I told her about Frank's coat. She laughed and said only I would buy a dead man's coat and love it.
Calling my mother from the Brooklyn Bridge became the whole reason the day mattered.
By the time I hit the Brooklyn side, the Manhattan skyline was fully lit behind me. Two cities I love. One inside the phone. One under my feet.
We don't choose where the ache lives.
Call your mother. She's just waiting.
Love,