I called my mother from the fire escape last night. This is where I do my homesickness now. Officially designated. Third-floor walk-up in Astoria, rusted metal, a pigeon named Kabir who I have decided lives there.
It was 9PM here, so 6:30AM in Ahmedabad. She was already up, already had her chai, already asking if I was eating properly. I said yes. I had eaten a nectarine and half a bagel. I did not tell her this.
The thing about calling my mother from the fire escape is that I can hear both worlds at once. Behind her, the pressure cooker whistling, my father's radio, the maid ringing the bell. Behind me, the N train rattling over the tracks on 31st Street and someone's Bollywood song leaking out of an open window down the block. Kabhi Kabhie, of all things. My mother heard it through the phone and started humming.
For about ninety seconds our two cities were the same city.
Then the song ended and she asked when I was coming home and I did the thing I always do, which is get vague and cheerful. "Soon, Mummy. Diwali, maybe." We both know maybe is a soft no wearing a nicer outfit.
Homesickness is strange in the summer. In winter I miss the warmth, the actual temperature of home. But in July, when Astoria is muggy and alive and every family on my block is eating dinner on their stoops, I miss belonging to something loud. I miss being one of many, not one girl on a fire escape.
I think the hardest part of building a life somewhere is that you can never fully explain it to the people who made you. My mother knows my job title. She does not know the 6 train, the nectarine lady, the exact shade of gold the Manhattan skyline goes at 8:45.
And I will never fully know her mornings anymore. The bell, the cooker, the light in the kitchen.
We just hum the same song for ninety seconds and call it enough.
We hung up. Kabir the pigeon judged me. I went inside.
Some love has to survive on a bad connection.
Love,