It was 9PM here and 6:30AM there when I climbed out onto my fire escape in Harlem to call my mother.
This is our new ritual. I catch her right as she's making chai, the first cup, the one she drinks standing up at the kitchen counter before anyone else is awake.
I could hear the pressure cooker in the background. Three whistles. I know that sound better than any song.
Homesickness doesn't hit me the way I expect. It's not big moments. It's not Diwali or my sister's birthday. It's a Tuesday, and I'm on a fire escape on 129th Street, and my mother tilts her phone so I can see the marigolds on the balcony, and something in my chest just folds.
"Khana khaya?" she asked. Did you eat. She always asks this first, before anything real. It is her entire love language compressed into two words.
I told her I had leftover dal I made on Sunday. She asked if I put enough ghee. I lied and said yes. She knew I lied.
The hard part of homesickness is that it's not homesickness for a place, exactly. It's for a version of myself that only exists in that kitchen. The me who is somebody's daughter, not a woman managing her own rent and a fashion job and a MetroCard balance.
Here I am so competent. So capable. I can navigate the L train at rush hour with my eyes closed. But nobody here has ever asked me if I ate before asking me anything else.
We stayed on the line even after we stopped talking. She made her chai. I watched the sun come up in Ahmedabad through a phone screen while it went dark over Harlem.
Two skies. One family. A twelve-hour ocean between the sunrise and the sunset.
I don't cry on these calls anymore. I used to. Now I just hold both places at once and let it ache a little.
Before we hung up she made me promise to eat properly this week. I promised. I'll probably lie again.
If your mother is a phone call away, go make it long.
Love,