Are You Afraid of the Dark?

Well I am. Apparently I’m terrified.

Two nights ago, with the mercury hitting a not so cool 25 degrees, I made my annual migration down to the basement to sleep. Every year when the temperature gets warmer and me and my mother have our annual “Why can’t we put the AC on?” argument discussion, the result of which is usually an explanation that is a hybrid of environmental, economic and body temperature issues, I gather up my duvet and my pillow (in a huff no less) and head downstairs to sleep on our fold up couch in the basement.

This usually works out well for me. It’s cold enough in my basement for me to bury myself under the covers and still feel comfortable. But two nights ago everything changed (dramatic enough?). I had just dozed off when I started hearing loud beeping noises. I woke up with a start, my heart racing wandering what it could be. And then I felt it. I was actually afraid of what I might find…a carbon monoxide leak? A fire? A stow-away living in my basement while he’s running away from the law?! So I sat still…paralyzed, absolutely sure that the axe murderer living in my basement would jump out of a closet and attack. When I finally did get up to investigate, I couldn’t track down where the noise was coming from. Eventually, the beeping stopped and I calmed down and told myself that I’m an idiot. But just as I began rearranging myself it started again, this time louder, with each beep getting longer. So I did it. I yelled for my mom.

Half asleep she came down the stairs telling me how horrible it is to be awoken by beeps (she was preaching to the already jittery choir). She walked around the basement and calmly pulled the couch back from the wall.

“It’s the carbon monoxide detector…the couch was pressing the test button.”

“Oh.”

I would try to justify my fear of loud noises when it’s dark…but there isn’t enough relativism in the world to make this sound normal. Have I ever felt more like a six year old in my life?

June 14

Somehow this morning lapsed into this idyllic Chennai morning (at least the Chennai of my childhood)–the smell of camphor, woodfire and rasam all at the same time. It was a morning that started so early that by 9am, we all felt like it was time for lunch and a midday nap. By the time we were done cleaning and eating prasad all of us curled up with various reading materials and tried desperately to stay awake. For the most part we succeeded.

Every now and then I’m struck by events that are so mundane and significant at the same time. Today’s events will repeat themselves every year for as long as I live, yet it will always make me think about what life would be like if I didn’t have to mark it’s passing. And even though I know better than to ask this question, it always leaves me wondering why things are the way they are.

So Long, Farewell, Auf Wiedersehen, Goodbye

I woke up at 7.56 today–four minutes before I was supposed to be at the studio. This is never a good start to a day. I skipped my shower and my breakfast and ran out the door to make it to the studio in a record breaking 14 minutes. In short, I was starved, tired and parched armed with nothing but a banana for sustenance for my five hour day. This coincided with my last day of teaching in Toronto. I teach 5 classes on Saturdays. For two of these classes, I have taught them from the beginning. It’s hard for me to look at them without having to swallow this feeling that I created them, or at least I created the dancers that they are.  Those kids have never given me a reason to yell at them, or be bored with their classes. Their speed and intelligence never ceases to amaze me and somehow just when I think I’ve pushed them to their 11 year old limits, they surprise me.

I told the girls that they were special to me. My very first class. The class in which I made mistakes, the one that I grew in. Well, I didn’t tell them that, but I sure was thinking it. I remember how afraid I was when I took their first class thinking that whatever they were as dancers would be a reflection of me as their teacher. But I shouldn’t have been so afraid. I got the best possible group of kids to help me through my first few years of teaching.

But it wasn’t until this year that they started to open up to me…in that they no longer look shell shocked around me and feel free to speak even when they’re not spoken to. This makes it especially difficult to leave. Starting September I won’t be teaching them. I’ll miss them when I’m gone.

Despite all of this, I wasn’t expecting much of a reaction from them on this front but at the end of each of my classes my kids said the best thing I’ve ever heard: We’ll miss you. And as cheesy as it sounds, it totally made my morning worth it.

Raw Hide

Blog? Qué?

I’ve dedicated this summer to everything that I can’t categorize or indulge in when I have more important things to do. I’ve been off a little more than a month now and I’m pretty sorry to say I haven’t gotten around to the fun stuff just yet…or for that matter the useful stuff. All I’ve done is clean. It’s the year end purge to end all year end purges. For some reason I’ve always attached feelings to things (it’s a whole new level of sentimentality)–regrets to papers, memories to books,  and nostalgia to gifts (maybe not in that exact order). Funny, I don’t know how to finish the thought. Maybe it’s because the end is so predictable, or angsty or embarassingly juvenile.

Anyway, here’s (an excerpt of) my grand list for the summer:

1. Cook. I need to cook edible things that I can live on. This is key. ESSENTIAL. I need food that doesn’t taste like feet.

2. Bake. I’ve always wanted to bake cakes that don’t taste like bread.

3. Learn languages. It is despicable that I don’t know more than one language properly.

4. Ride a two wheeler. I have never in my life ridden a bicycle. No wait I lie, I did once, I fell and that resulted in what is now the worst scar I have on my body. The tumble has led me to be a little over cautious which now makes me use my backside as a strategic balance instrument which is reaaallly not so pretty for those standing behind me. For a dancer, and someone who’s not so bad at staying upright while skating AND rollerblading, my lack of balance is mind boggling. Am I just destined not to ride a bike? It makes it so horribly tempting to throw sticks at kids on two-wheelers.

5. Knit. I haven’t knitted in ages. At last count I was knitting the cutest most pastel coloured baby blanket I’ve ever seen in my life. No, no one’s having babies (I wish!) and it’s a little too creepy to say that I’m waiting till I can give it to someone…or someone’s progeny,  so I’ll give you a very truthful albeit far less interesting reason for it…I can only knit in rectangles and squares.

And now I’m going to go eat food that thankfully doesn’t taste like feet (mostly because I didn’t make it).

Ding Dong the Rambling’s Gone

I’ve started to have the utmost sympathy for the Wicked Witch of the West. I spent the last three weeks of my undergraduate career holed up at home enslaving flying monkeys and little girls from Kansas. In those last weeks I wrote essay after essay. If not to hand in then to be memorized for exams. So here I am, on the other side of the undergrad bandwagon, ready to graduate (but oh so unprepared for the convocation) and what am I feeling? Nothing.

If it were up to me, I would put the last *cough* *shuffle* five years of my life behind me, roll up the diploma I’m going to get in the mail and call it a day. But I’m told that there are people in my life who want to hear my name recited (alongside a thousand others) by a total stranger. Personally, I think they just want to see me look naked wearing a gown over a dress…or maybe they want to see me master the shake with the right, diploma in the left trick. I’ve done it three times already, (grade 6, 9 and 12) so I think I’ve mastered it. Le sigh, what is the North American fascination with graduations?

Anyway, I would feel like I accomplished something if 85% of my high school class didn’t go to university, or if U of T didn’t accept 65% of its first year applicants. But here I am, alongside another 5000 undergrads that have completed their degrees just as I have. So do I feel special? No. I’m no more qualified at doing anything than I was when I first applied to university.

This is not to say that I haven’t grown. I’m clearly less of a complete nincompoop now than I was then (I don’t know how much that actually says about me). In fact, I’m twenty-five thousand dollars less of a nincompoop and apparently I need to be called on a stage to affirm this.

I’m Just So Awesome (Part ?)

(As we stood holding hands in the wings before her very first performance)

One of my five year old dance students:
Pari didi, is it scary on stage?

Me: No! It’s going to be so much fun!

Five year old: But it’s still a little scary right?

Me: Maybe a little bit, but I promise once you’re done, you’ll wish you could do it all over again because everyone’s going to clap for you and say wow, she danced so well!

Five year old: But then that means we can’t make any mistakes right?

Me: Well, we have to try our best not to, but if we make a mistake by accident it’s okay!

Five year old: But did you practise? Because last time we did it you made some mistakes…

Me: (mortified) I promise I’ll try my best.

So much for setting a good example.

Kismet, Fate and Other Such Improbabilities

Finding books at the library always makes me think. Can you imagine, with 22, 999 other undergraduates and only 1 holding for the book, not one other person wants to read what I’m reading?

Le sigh.

P.S: Why do I feel this post will curse me to an afternoon of looking for books that have been stolen or misplaced?

Irony?…Maybe Just Lack of Sleep

My mom’s financial advisor came over last night to discuss investing with me. So far I’ve heard the “This is what a mutual fund is” speech 3 times. Yes, I know it’s highly diversified, yes I know it’s good to buy when the market is down, yes I know that market fluctuations are a good thing…blah blah blah. Anyway, while trying not be a know it all my eyes began to wander and I noticed that on the guy’s shirt pocket there was a little label that said: CRAPS. It was over. After that I couldn’t even look at the guy in the face, I kept staring at CRAPS thinking, he’s telling me how to manage my money, but he has the name of a popular gambling game on his shirt…

Of course I could’ve just read it wrong and it could’ve actually said CHAPS….which would make a lot more sense and at that point would have been just as funny to me.

One Year Older, None the Wiser

I’ve finally finished the last of my grad school applications and have decided that if even one more person asks me what I want to do in life I can’t be held liable for my actions on account of the dreaded STATEMENT OF INTEREST CRAZIES. My answer to that golden question? No. I do not know what I want to do in life, but if you’d like I can make up an answer that you might find acceptable. Now I just have to work on saying that with a large smile on my face. If you didn’t know me so well I would say that it’s exhausting to talk about myself that much but really I’m telling you this on a blog…we all know if I wasn’t a little bit self-centred you wouldn’t hear from me as much as you do.

Speaking of self-centred, it was my birthday a little while ago. Somehow this year my near and dear found a way to make me feel like the biggest self-indulgent princess ever. Presents make me feel guilty! Give me a paperback from a used bookstore and I’m happy. Give me something that costs more that $15 and I become intensely uncomfortable and WILL try to return said present to you. Not because I don’t love it, just because I can’t wrap my head around why you would do such a thing for me!

This year I’ve had five separate birthday celebrations starting with one in a brunch place I’ve decided I don’t love with Hijabman (the latent Canadian) and RunLikeTheWind (whose alter ego Problematic Girl can leap tall generalizations with a single argument!). It was nice to finally meet RunLikeTheWind–who I’ve been trying to hang out with for the last few months. She somehow makes me feel less crazy for thinking about “identity” and other such obnoxious terms! More on that later.

Celebration number 2 happened while I was on tour in Fredericton in a hotel room that we almost got kicked out of for excessive noise (although we were playing what was supposed to be  really quiet game). It was midnight when I cut the cake and none of us had eaten in 10 hours. So the 8 of us inhaled a cake intended for 16. We were so hungry in fact that more than one of us were driven to extreme anger when we realized we couldn’t eat the plastic leaves on top of the cake. Why would they put it there if they didn’t want you to it?!

When I got back to Toronto I got to see the Owl and the Sparrow and eat at Pizza Libretto (where I realized my distaste for family style seating…no I don’t want to foster a sense of community with strangers) for my official birthday party.

This brings us to celebration number four. I’ve always loved the Sound of Music. It’s one of my all-time favourite movies. So you can imagine how excited I was to see it on stage with the family! It was strangely reminiscent of a similar trip my family took down toe the Skydome for my ninth birthday to watch Aladdin on Ice. I dunno…Aladdin on Ice looks like it has some stiff competition!

And last but certainly not least I hung out with the Banana and the Bean…also known as the Budding Solicitor and his Life Boss in the cave. Why am I being so secretive you ask? I have no good reason. We were hanging out (as we often do) in their basement office talking about nothing (as we always do) after a prolonged absence from one another. It was good to be home.

Anywho, this year they’ve outdone themselves and guilted me right outta the water. Now to return the favours.

PS: Sadly, this isn’t the update post in its entirety.

Ye Olde Fest

(Upon coming across a package of paneer in our fridge)

Mom: I’ve been putting off making anything with this because I know if I open it I have to use it all, otherwise it’ll go bad. So today, it’s going to be a paneer fest.

Me: A paneer fest? (laughing)

Mom: What’s so funny about that?

Me: Who uses the word fest?

Mom: I’ve seen it advertised everywhere…you know…like street fests!

10 hours later and I still can’t stop laughing at this conversation…but somehow I get the feeling that the only other person who finds this as amusing as I do has already had his share of laughs about this and doesn’t read my blog.