Indian Playmate

“White fingers, brown fingers
Touch timidly together
Ages ago, tracing the Indian dust.
In a far country
Timidly our eyes touch,
Gravely we smile.

You trace curved patterns,
Scattering the fallen cork flowers,
The bursting marigold.
I draw straight lines,
Center the bruised hibiscus
In scarlet splendor.

Your straight life is over -
Jewelled child, already then betrothed;
Since married, mother, widow, grandmother.
Your narrow, famine bones are dust.
My life curves onward,
Circling always into new surprises,
Scattered with flowers;

This verse hibiscus for your distant grave.”

~By my Grandmother, Eve Stedman

Like The Spiders

I don’t kill spiders. At least, not intentionally. That’s something you should know about me.

When they are discovered indoors, people shriek at the very sight of them, raising the weapon of their feet in self-defense. But I hear the shrieks and come running. If I make it in time, I can save a life. I understand that they are only little creatures who have lost their way. To fear them is to misinterpret their purpose. They are not here for us.

I put them in cups and take them back outside. “Go on, little buddy” I’ll sometimes say. I watch them go home.

Surely it is compassion that inspires this, a certain empathy for all living things, who wish for no more and no less than longevity. To continue is the universal ambition. To help others achieve this is kindness.

But what keeps me from harming these little spiders is more than the recognition that they are living things. It is admiration for the lives they are living. It is the way their intricate webs of lace are nothing more than a means of survival. They do not strive to create beauty, and yet, their soft weavings adorn the world.

I’ve never had to work as hard as a spider for any meal. They are patient. They are planners. They devise elegant traps. So perhaps it is only the balance of the world that they should so often be trapped themselves – within buildings, under shoes, inside their own tiny bodies, unable to be anything else.

Yet, it is empathy that keeps me from accepting that balance. It is experience that gives my heart to both the trappers and the trapped. It is wisdom that reminds me they are often one in the same. I have been both. I have spun webs of words to snare a thought. I have felt trapped inside my own life. I have gone about the busy work of surviving only to later discover its beauty. I have been, all my life, like the spiders.

Once, in India, I found myself among a group of trees adorned with prayer flags. There was no order to them, no logical design. They criss-crossed and overlapped and twisted over each other. Some had lost the vibrancy of their color in the elements. Others shined in their freshness. They blew gently in the breeze.

I thought of this web, of this weaving of prayers, of the people who created it. I thought of the way these beautiful offerings adorn the world. And although I’ve never really understood what prayer is, I thought, maybe it is this.

Maybe it is simply going about the busy, important work of surviving. Maybe it is compassion, and empathy, and kindness. Maybe it is about trapping and feeling trapped. Maybe it is patience and planning. Maybe it is understanding balance and learning how to accept it. Maybe it is about saving what we can save.

Maybe it is as easy as following the example of the spiders, their beauty a by-product of their purpose. When their webs get torn down, they build new ones. They never stop creating. Their very lives depend on it. This is something close to prayer.

Tonight I found a spider in my kitchen. I scooped him up in a cup and walked him out into the yard. “Go on, little buddy” I told him, shaking him out onto the grass. Above me the sky was spun with elegant cobwebs of constellations. The intricate webs of this world are enough to catch my heart.

Hum For A Blustery Day

Somehow the warmest day of the year so far was also the windiest. It was also, somehow, one of the happiest. There was no reason for my joy, other than the weather, or the fact that the day before had been terrible and I was in need of change. Happiness doesn’t require more reasons than that. Happiness doesn’t require reason at all. It simply arrives when it’s time, over and over, like spring.

On my lunch break, I walked out across the back field. I stood behind the shed, filled with bikes and buckets and shovels – the tools of childhood – where the groundhogs had burrowed a home for themselves beneath. I watched the tree branches wave. I watched the clouds move. I watched airplanes glide through the blue silk of the sky like flying fish, leaving parallel white streams behind them. I reveled in the movement.

The wind wrapped me in its arms. It pushed and it pulled and it demanded my attention. I took off my shoes and planted my feet firmly on the ground, mimicking the trees. I bent. I waved. I moved, but I did not fall.

This is what the trees know. They know how to be flexible in the wind. They know that to stand rigid and unmovable against forces more powerful than themselves is a kind of death. They know that what doesn’t bend, breaks. They know how to gracefully let go of their leaves, to watch them float away as quickly and purposefully as the clouds. They know how to change. This is how they remain.

And so for a while I stood there, barefoot and happy, following their example. I took deep breaths and let go of things. I pictured the wind scooping them up and carrying them further and further away. Meanwhile I stayed, tied to my life by an unbreakable string, rooted in the joy that remained.

So this is happiness, I thought. This is life. It’s as easy as breathing. It’s as easy as bending with the wind. It’s as easy as turning the instability of the world into an example of our own powerful resilience. This is why I am here.

I require no more reasons than that. I am here to grow, and to change, and to make of my life a palace of beautiful leaves to cast out into the wind and to come back to me each spring. I am here to be both constant and moving. I am here to stretch my limbs.

Later that day, I remembered that it was Holi, the Hindu celebration of the arrival of spring. It is my favorite holiday, full of color and life and joy, like spring itself. Six years ago I stood on a rooftop in India and danced beside the trees among a group of strangers I would quickly grow to love. We threw colored powder and painted each other into masterpieces. We threw our arms into the air and laughed. We threw away all of the pieces of ourselves we were trying to leave behind. We watched them float away on the wind.

We welcomed spring, and happiness, and our upcoming adventures. We welcomed the uncertainty. We welcomed change.

On the warmest day of the year so far, I opened the door and walked out across the back field. I stood behind the shed. I pushed and pulled and bent in the wild, insatiable wind. I kicked off my shoes. I watched the trees. I breathed in and out, and let go.

And I swear I could taste it – the Indian air, the sweet constant happiness of spring.

Smiley Face

For my 21^st birthday, my mother gave me a “report card” written by my preschool teacher when I was one and a half. It continues to be one of the best gifts I’ve ever been given, mostly because it acts as a reminder that no matter how much I change over the years, there is a part of me that remains permanent. The description is still exactly who I am.

The report reads, “Frankie has been such a great part of our class. She socializes well, despite the fact that she is often the only girl! She has a laugh that will get her anything. In the next month, Frankie’s language is sure to blossom. She has a very delicate manner and enjoys a lot of activities. This openness will take her far. I’ve really enjoyed her smiley face!”

Smiley face. That’s me. I feel as though no matter what happens in my life, no matter how many downs accompany my ups, I’ll always have that smiley face. I’ll always know that I entered this world and will leave this world with that same genuine smile. I’ll always know that’s me.

I spent one afternoon in India picnicking with a group of local high school students. It was a lovely day. They asked me questions about myself and my life in America. They asked my friends and I to sing them some popular American songs. We ate and laughed and danced in our secluded nook of the park. They gave us nicknames. Mine, they decided, would be “Muskan,” which is Hindi for “smile.” Out of all of the many nicknames I’ve acquired over the years, this continues to be my favorite.

A few weeks later, I attended a nightly prayer ceremony beside the Ganges with a group of my friends. There were hundreds, if not thousands of people sitting by the side of the river, watching the prayer leaders, speaking along in hushed tones. We stood out as the only white people in the entire crowd. The group of young guys in front of us turned around and engaged in what little conversation they could with their limited English. One of my friends made some joke that went over their heads and the leader of their pack looked at me, pointed to my friend, and said “crazy, crazy boy.” I laughed my famous Frankie-laugh, the one that erupts suddenly and loudly and full of joy, and then watched as hundreds of Indian heads turned to stare at me. It was awkward.

But then, after the ceremony, people kept coming up to me to smile and shake my hand and take photos with me. It is an odd feeling to become a celebrity simply for being a goofy, white American. India can do wonders for the ego.

I look back on that moment of laughter and think about the words my preschool teacher wrote. I do have a laugh that will get me anything. I have a laugh that will get me everything. That’s what laughter does. It heals. It creates. It brings us together. It sings the song of the heart.

I spend so much time trying to define myself, trying to figure out how each change in my life alters who I am, but all of the moments that have become the most important to me are times in which I’ve realized that deep down I have always been, and will always be, the girl from that report card. I am grateful for such a timeless definition. I am grateful to know who I am. My heart will always be searching for that love that makes it sing. I will always have that laugh. I am Muskan. I am smiley face. That’s me.