Babyllie (13 July 2006 - 11 May 2016)

Dear Babyllie,

It’s your tenth finding day today.

Ten years ago I came home to the news that all morning some small animal had been crying in the parking lot of our apartment, and my mum, who was trying to get work done, finally couldn’t take it anymore, and so went downstairs to see what it was. It was you. Tiny, scared out of your wits, lost, alone. She brought you upstairs—I still don’t know why—but our lives were never the same again.

You stayed in the kitchen that first night, terrified, cowering behind the rice and flour. Surprisingly, you figured out what the litter box was for almost instantly. You were a smart little one, that’s for sure. You also got over your fear pretty quickly. I think by the next week I was coming home to you sitting on R’s shoulder while she cooked. I remember you were tiny enough to sleep, all curled up, in my palm. You fell asleep everywhere—people’s laps, chairs, beds, pillows, the sofa, even on the floor mat outside the bathroom once, if my memory is correct—but never ever in the box we’d actually prepped to be your bed. It wasn’t good enough, I suppose. Besides, you always believed you were part, if not entirely, human, and so you stayed where the humans were.

You were a pain when you grew up a little. You’d do this thing every morning, while we were getting ready for school and work, where you’d sneak up and hide behind the curtains, and then attack our feet as we walked past, all claws and teeth and tangled limbs and tail. I laugh at it now, I hated it then. You also loved to bounce on the mosquito net, and it drove mum crazy :D she’d put it up at night before bed, and then go to the bathroom to brush and change. By the time she returned, you’d either have pulled the net down, or would be proudly marching across the top, threatening to bring it down with every step. Lord, you were silly.

The first time I almost lost you was when you climbed through the balcony railings onto the window ledge to catch a pigeon, and then fell down two stories. We were in school; luckily mum was home. We came back to the sight of you all wrapped up in an old t-shirt, barely moving. I carried you for hours, and cried all evening.

The second time I almost lost you was when you were neutered. The first doctor botched the job, and you lived with those scars all your life. We had to take you to Blue Cross, who tried to save you, but then when day I was told that you probably weren’t going to make it. We all took the next morning off, and came to say goodbye, and I prayed with what little faith I had back then, that there would be a miracle and you would live. You were wasting away, I could count your ribs and your breathing was labored and hoarse. I went back to school that afternoon, and my physics sir met me on the way to class and asked why id missed the morning. I told him, and he said you’d live. I didn’t believe him. He was right. You were home by the end of the next week—scrawny, scarred, but home.

Oh Babes, my sweet love, you were such a joy. We all made fun of you—you were fussy, proud, moody, and fat—but you brought us so much comfort and joy. You curled up in our laps when we were upset, ate your disgusting meat and bones on the rugs to show us affection, got mad when we wouldn’t let you sit on the table while we were eating, and took naps on our books and homework to make sure we knew you were more important. You were our baby, but you were also our mother—licking us when we hadn’t showered after getting home; not leaving our beds when we were ill; waking us up in the mornings by sitting near our heads and meowing until we got up.

I wasn’t there for the end. The moment mum told me you were ill, I knew this was it. But I’d hoped you would pull through until August, when I’d be home. You didn’t. You did wait, however, until I was done with finals, and then that night (for me, morning for you), you left.

It’ll be different when I go home next month. Your food and water and milk bowls won’t be lying around outside the kitchen ( or wherever you’d kick them to if you weren’t happy with the quality and/or quantity of the food); your litter box won’t be out, and we won’t have to run through the house, checking closets and locking rooms once we’ve made sure you weren’t stuck anywhere before we go out for the evening. We can start wearing dark clothes again, and not worry about your fur showing up. Though I’d give anything to wear fur-covered black clothes, if it meant you were alive again.

There’s a Babyllie-shaped hole in my heart that will remain empty forever. You were my baby. I loved you like I loved no other.

N.

The Pilgrims Should Not Have Survived

If I got one thing from Mayflower by Nathaniel Philbrick, it is that the Pilgrims should have died shortly after arriving in America. They almost actively made efforts to ensure their starvation and failure in this new land they were hoping to live in. (Why would you not carry fishing supplies with you when you're going to be living on a ship and then by the coast for the next few months? Why would you trust just any smooth-talking merchant-type person with all your money and resources? ) Sheer luck and determination, as well as the resourcefulness of the Native Americans is what allowed them to survive. On their own, they’d never have made it.

Philbrick’s narration of the events leading up to King Philip’s War and his careful report of the war itself were both informative and interesting. For someone who doesn’t particularly like reading nonfiction, even if it is historical, I’ve come to realise that this style of writing, almost creative nonfiction, I think, is something I really enjoy. Reading Mayflower was like reading a novel—except all of this actually happened.

I think one of the aspects I found difficult to work with was the sheer amount of information in the form of names of persons and places. Since I know nothing about this period of time, I wasn’t sure who was important and who wasn’t and so I had to keep flipping back and forth to reread sections in order to refresh my memory about why so-and-so’s death had caused such an outrage, or how this one was related to that one and why it was that one who was important in relation to this one, or how this settlement and that settlement were now allies against that one section of that larger tribe. It got confusing at times, and it didn’t help that I took my time with this book, and so sometimes I wasn’t even confused, I just couldn’t remember what was happening or who someone was. Strangely enough, once the actual war began, it became a lot easier for me to associate people and places and alliances. It would have helped if I kept a notepad and pencil to write down names, but I managed well enough without.

If I actually had knowledge of this time, maybe I would have found mistakes or missing pieces of information or a million criticisms with proof and arguments to back each one. But I came to this with a blank slate. And so I found it helpful, informative, and horrifyingly fascinating, because mass genocide can only be horrifyingly fascinating. 

I wait

I wait

And wait

And check even though there’s

Nothing

But I hope

And hope

Because I want it so bad

Because you were nice

Because we were nice

Because this was supposed to work

And if it doesn’t then

I don’t know where that leaves me

I don’t know what I’ll be left with

I don’t know what that means

I don’t know what I mean

The American Experiment

I feel like Scout and Jem at the beginning of To Kill a Mockingbird, arguing over how and when everything really began. I suppose the argument could be made that this began early in high school, when all of a sudden going to America was a huge deal and everyone wanted to be American, and just…it was the craze. I, of course, saw the madness and decided I wanted nothing to do with it, and it must have been around the time I fell in love with Orlando Bloom, and so it wasn’t long before I became an Anglophile (see here). As I grew older, I also firmly decided that if everyone was going to exalt America so much, I would do the opposite and so I became a snob and scorned everything American—including the literature and history. I couldn’t care less. In my opinion, it was not worth reading about. (I'm cringing as I type this.)

So I spent all my years disdaining America, and then my father married an American and suddenly I had American family and it seemed more plausible that I would study there than in London. Which is what happened. And I was fine and loved it. Still firmly believed American literature and history was tosh, mind you. I took a few American lit classes because they were required, but mostly studied British literature and history.

Then in Fall 2015 I had to take an Intro to Literary Studies class, taught by one of my favourite professors, where our main text was Moby Dick. I barely made it through that book, though I absolutely loved the plot.

Way back in January, I began a book called In the Heart of the Sea, which was about the whaleship Essex that Herman Melville had based his novel on. It took me almost all month to get through the first couple of chapters. I was ready to give up and just return the book to my friend, when the ship left Nantucket and the action picked up. And it only got better. I finished the book in less than a week. It also left me desperate to learn more about whaling and the Essex and Nantucket, and since I couldn’t possibly afford to actually go to Nantucket, I did the next best thing—found a book about the history of the island. By the time I finished that, I’d realised that my education had a rather large number of gaping holes in it. I needed to read American Literature.

Around the time I was feverishly reading ItHotS, the Grammy Awards happened. The winner of one of the awards was the Broadway musical Hamilton by Lin-Manuel Miranda. The Grammys also streamed the live performance of the opening number, “Alexander Hamilton”, and it was exceptional. I enjoyed every moment of it, and then never really thought about it again. After I finished the book on Nantucket, I fell ill and missed a week of college. Over this week, once I’d gotten over my “dying” phase, I spent a fair amount of time thinking about how much I’d liked the opening number of Hamilton and how everyone had told me the entire soundtrack was absolutely phenomenal and I should listen to it. So once I was better, I downloaded and listened to it.

That was maybe two and a half weeks ago. I haven’t been able to listen to anything else ever since. If you haven't heard it, please do. It is life-giving and life-changing.

Aside from being truly and absolutely phenomenal, the Hamilton soundtrack also filled me with this unquenchable thirst for knowledge of American history. I barely knew anything. An elementary-school child would probably definitely know more than me. To be fair, we never studied much American history in school, but I never sought it out on my own either. Listening to this musical has made me realise that this period is actually super-fascinating, and I want to know more.

So, the combined effect of In the Heart of the Sea and Hamilton was that I now cursed myself for not taking more AmLit and American History classes while I could. I graduate in May, and even though I’m doing grad school, it’s for Publishing—there won’t be any more lit or history classes. But thirst needs to be quenched, and so I came up with my own solution: independent self-study. I asked a friend who knew a fair bit about the Revolution for book recommendations to get me started, and I set up a meeting with my AmLit professor to ask her about literature. I basically want to read it all.

However, I draw the line at the turn of the century. The Pilgrims, Settlers, Colonies, Revolution, Slavery, Civil War—that’s where I stop. After the Civil War, I lose interest. Everything starts moving towards modern times, and I really don’t want to read about that. I end with the 19th century. That's quite a lot to get through anyway.

So now, in addition to my regular class readings, I also have my self-assigned readings on American history and from AmLit. It’s going to take me a while to get through these books, because I have school to contend with on the side. But it’s going to happen. And to make sure it does, I’m going to chronicle it here. As I finish a book, I will write a post reviewing what I read. This way I read and write! Oh, joy!

High-school me would be horrified at this change of heart, but oh! I have so much I want to tell that me. I missed out on so much learning, thanks to my stubbornness. I have no one else to blame here, but myself. Nathaniel Philbrick, Lin-Manuel Miranda—thank you.

This is my American Experiment.

(Oh, the irony that this is the post after my declaration of love for England...)

"England, my England...England, my own"

I tend to forget. A lot of things, if I’m being honest, but I'm referring to something specific here. I’m pretty sure there’s a post somewhere about how much I love Britain and why. *searches* Yep, it exits, but only as a draft. I’m just going to merge it with this post.

Fernweh (n.): German; Crave for travel; “farsickness”; being homesick for a place you've never been

Sehnsucht (n.): German; “The inconsolable longing in the human heart for we know not what”; a yearning for a far, familiar, non-earthly land one can identify as one’s home

(Link--in case you want to see the rest of these beautiful words, and I suggest you do, because suddenly you find there are actual words for what you are feeling.)

I'm not British. Or American. Or European. I’m not even white. Or black. I’m Indian. And I love everything British. My father calls it “the British hangover”, from when the British ruled India. My mother’s side of the family jokes that when the British left in 1947, they forgot a key patriot: me. (Though that doesn't make sense because my parents weren't even born then, let alone me. But whatevs.)

If I remember correctly, my love for all things British began, as I suppose all interests of an adolescent girl do, with a man. Orlando Bloom a.k.a. Legolas from The Lord of the Rings (and now, The Hobbit). My first celebrity crush. Also the first time I ever felt that strongly about someone of the opposite sex. I blatantly ignored the fact that the man was eighteen years older than me. He was captivating, he was beautiful, he was British.

At the time, I was interested in anything British, only because it made me feel, in some way that I can’t possibly fathom, closer to him. Today I no longer go crazy over Mr. Bloom the way I used to, but British culture still has a strong hold over me. What started off as a silly hobby has now become something I admire, cherish, and long to be a part of. I don’t know what it is about Britain that has this magical hold over me, but it’s never wavered, not until recently.

When I moved to New York, Britain sort of moved to the back-burner. It was my first time away from home, from my family, in a new country, and all the way on the other side of the world. I was like a sponge, absorbing EVERYTHING. I loved it. To the point where I decided that maybe New York was my place now. Because I had people here now. I had my step-siblings, whom I loved incessantly, I had a few close friends, who were almost like family, and I fitted into the system fairly easily. There was reason for me to stay. And yet, Britain was always pulling me.

Every few months or so, something reminds me of how much I love that place, and I’m overcome with fernweh and sehnsucht and spend some time reading/watching something inherently British to reaffirm my forgotten love.

It is that time again. Of all the things to remind of my love, this time, it is *cringes in embarrassment* Tessa Dare. For those of you who don’t know, she is the author of a bunch of romance novels that my friend got me hooked on. They’re basically erotica, just with more plot and character development. To be fair, some of them are actually pretty good. (For example, one of them had this absolutely brilliant line: “I am a single woman in possession of a good fortune. Why should I be in want of a husband?”)

Anyway, all these novels are loosely based in Regency England, one of my most favourite time periods ever. So I’m reading about all these lords and ladies getting it on in various locations in England, and combined with my Pinterest being flooded with pictures of rural Britain, it is a sure step to my remembering. And oh, how it hurts.

I don’t know what I’m doing with my life. I haven’t a clue. But I know this much: I will go across the pond. I have to. I can’t stay away forever. Every cell in my being is begging to go there and who am I to deny my poor body that? I don’t know how long it will take, but one day I am going to walk every path that Shakespeare and Wordsworth and Keats and Austen and Hardy and the Brontës and Tolkien and Lewis and all of them walked.

Who knows, I may even meet Orlando Bloom. (Or Tom Hiddleston. He’d be more than willing to accompany me down all those paths. Life would be unimaginably blissful.)

(Note--The title of this post is from a poem, which you may read here)

Cravings

Some people crave food. (I do too.) But I also crave other things. (Books, mostly.)

A Curse Dark as Gold. The Chalet School series. Neverwhere. Harry Potter. Ophelia. Lady Macbeth's Daughter. Macbeth. To Kill a Mockingbird. Gone With the Wind (merciful heavens, who thought I'd ever say I crave that book). Lord of the Rings. Pride and Prejudice. The Dark Crusader. The Guns of Navarone. Force 10 from Navarone. Every Alistair MacLean book, really. Journey to the River Sea. Star of Kazan. Anne of Green Gables. The Battle for No. 19. Double Click. Confessions of a Listmaniac. City of Beasts. The Bartimaeus Trilogy. Indian in the Cupboard. The Septimus Heap books. City of Ghosts. The Emperor of the Moghul series. When Amma Went Away. Growing Up, by the same author. A Series of Unfortunate Events. Moby Dick (now I'm really losing it). The Graveyard Book. Coraline. The Little House series. Gone-Away Lake. Return to Gone-Away Lake. The Dark is Rising series. Chronicles of Prydain. The Inkheart trilogy. Eragon. That entire series, I suppose. Anything and everything by Jill Mansell. The Casson Family series.Homecoming and the entire Tillerman Cycle. The Chronicles of Narnia. Cry of the Icemark. Every Enid Blyton ever written, the Famous Five books in particular (Julian, my love). A number of ghost stories--that one about the ghost in the mad scientist's old house, the one with the doll, the one where there's a girl being drawn to a house with the floor that's falling apart--basically ghost stories written for slightly older children, all set in summer in the countryside. The Fudge books. I could go on and on.

I crave the feeling of lying on the floor in my room, curtains blowing in the breeze from the ceiling fan (dear god, how I miss ceiling fans), and reading for hours on end until the sun went down and my room was too dark to read in anymore unless I got up and switched on the light. Sneaking to the kitchen looking for a snack when I got hungry. I crave sitting quietly in the corner of the library at school and devouring books. Sitting on the stairs near the football field or by the swings and reading late in the afternoon while waiting to be picked up or during a free period. Reading in the bus on the way to school and on the way back. Listening to music on my old tape-recorder while I read. I crave reading late into the night with the fan on full because I'm too stubborn to go to the cooler rooms. Reading by the dim light of my night-lamp because it was a school-night and I was supposed to be asleep. Being woken up half an hour or more early on Saturdays, just so I could read.

I crave so much more than food.

To: My Feelings

Dear Feelings,

You suck. If there were a way to get rid of you, I would, post-haste. I’d make a trade with Rumpelstiltskin and pay whatever price he asked, just for a vial of that potion he gave Snow to get rid of her love. Because this pain and confusion is not worth it. Not when you decide to play against each other and have happiness and love squaring off against doubt and hopelessness. What makes it even worse is that you collaborate with Memory, and then the two of you wreak havoc in my mind. And it’s not a one-time thing, you do this quite frequently.

Do you know how much trouble you cause? Do you know how utterly lost you leave me at the end? Of course you don’t, or you wouldn’t be doing this in the first place. Then again, maybe you do know, and just do it anyway, because you’re a sadistic little brat. I wouldn’t put it past you. 

But you know why I really, really hate you? Because you have managed to convince me, beyond and above everything that I hold to and believe in, that somehow it all comes down to me. That I am not enough. That I will never be enough. And that’s not fair. To me or to anyone I hope to ever even be friends with, let alone date. It’s just. Not. Fair.

So you know what, Feelings? You can go screw yourself. Because while you make me feel like shit, while you are very real, you also lie. Because I am enough. For someone. And even if you trick me into doubting my very existence, I will still come out on top because I have people who aren’t affected by you. They probably have their own shitty Feelings, but that don’t have mine. And so even when you leave me broken, they can put me back together. Even when I forget that I ever wrote this letter, they will remind me and help me to hope.

And you’re not /all/ bad. You do give me good times. You do make me smile and blush and laugh till my tummy hurts and tears leak out. You do let me see good and love and hope. You do help. So I guess, what I’m trying to say is, I won’t take Rumpel’s deal. You can be a bitch, but hey, we’re stuck with each other. May as well try to work together on the good days, and be separate entities on the bad. Let’s just try and keep the bad to a minimum, huh? Don’t work with Memory on the bad days, and tone down the doubt and paranoia and hurt and the guilt, just a tad. Please.

Sincerely,
Me.