To My Father On His Birthday
Posted on October 1, 2015 8 Comments
My dearest Achan,
Eighteen years have passed and more, since Death took you by the hand and led you away. That moment of realisation that you had departed is still so clear, so breath-stealing these many years on. And yet. And yet I can no longer remember the exact quality of your voice, the timbre of your laugh. Memories of you are slideshows, short films that play in my imagination; you are animated, vividly coloured, laughing and larger than life.
Lo! Another birthday cometh.
Posted on September 11, 2015 4 Comments
The imminent approach of September birthdays got me thinking about the woo-woo that happens in life. So here’s some woo-woo from my life.
Our Marriage: The CEO and I got married on April 6th (incidentally the birthday of two of my friends… now three of my friends!). Two days before our wedding, my father-in-law tells us that that’s the day his mother died. So now we’re primed for the presence of ghostly ancestors at our wedding (both of my father-in-law’s parents had died long before).
![By Umberto NURS [CC BY-SA 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], via Wikimedia Commons](https://asharajanwriter.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/carlb-sockpuppet-02-transparent.png?w=75&h=79)
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Night Shift
Posted on September 4, 2015
The sun peeked over the horizon, ensuring everything was as he’d left it. The earth, clearly pleased to see his return, snaked long wispy tendrils of steam upwards, celebratory streamers heralding the return of her luminous lover.
Fred yawned and stretched, reaching his fingers high into the early dawn sky. Night shifts were starting to take their toll on him. He ran a hand over the soft furry down that now covered the bulk of his body. He’d need to shave soon.
No More Streamers
Posted on September 1, 2015 6 Comments
No more streamers littering the floor.
No more shining cachous skittering across counters.
The fairies have packed up their bread and departed.
Saggy, flaccid balloons leer lecherously at disemboweled party poppers, as football and pirate cupcake wrappers tango in mismatched pairs.
Writing Love Letters
Posted on July 17, 2015 3 Comments
There’s a wonderful initiative in Melbourne’s central business district to map the trees. It was started by the city council in an attempt to manage the decline through drought of the urban forest. Each tree in the city was assigned an individual identity code, and along with that code, came an individual email address. The idea was that people could email specific reports about individual trees, reporting when branches had fallen, when power lines were being impinged on, when tree roots were lifting pavement, and so on.
Who’s The Boss: On being a mother in the house when your mother is visiting
Posted on July 13, 2015 14 Comments
It’s summer holidays, and my mother recently flew from Australia to spend two months with us. It’s disconcerting to be the adult child in my house when my parent comes to stay.
Where’s Home?
Posted on July 10, 2015 4 Comments
About 18 months after I move anywhere new, I start getting itchy feet. I magically forget the painful process of packing everything we own, of readying a house for sale, rent, or return to landlord, of organising schools, animals, and our own travel. I put on my rose-tinted glasses and look around for the next place to be. I stare longingly at glossy photoshopped prints of far away places and imagine daily life there. I conveniently forget the drudgery of learning where everything is, learning how to buy things in a new place, learning the local currency (both financial and linguistic), learning how to get around. I forget the loneliness of leaving the familiar, the loved. I forget the tentative toe-dipping terror of entering new friendships, the complicated dance of figuring out who the other person is, and how they work. I have eyes only for the next adventure.
Mother Emanuel
Posted on June 18, 2015 3 Comments
Today, the U.S. woke to the news of a terrorist attack in South Carolina. A single white man was welcomed into a Bible study and prayer circle at the Emanuel A.M.E. Church in Charleston, South Carolina, an historically black church. He sat with the other churchgoers for an hour. Then he deliberately, calculatedly shot those around him because he didn’t like the colour of their skin.
In a place of worship, a place of sanctuary and solace from the everyday battles with racism in large and small ways, nine people were murdered.
A Tale of Familiars
Posted on May 27, 2015 10 Comments
Cheriamma (left), her oldest sister (centre), and the TeenWolf
In January of 2012, my my mother’s younger sister, my small mother, my Cheriamma went kicking and flailing out of this world. The end of her life was as she had always lived it, full of fight, and on her own terms. Cheriamma was a brilliant, beautiful, eccentric woman who encountered academic failure for the first time at university. And with that first failure, she left her degree, enrolled in secretarial school, and set about finding work. If you don’t try, you can’t fail. A funny, generous, loving woman who never married, she was adored by her nieces and nephews. And her many many cats.
In Which I Deal with Death Doubled
Posted on April 5, 2015 16 Comments
This week my essay on grief was published on Modern Loss, an online journal containing resources and personal accounts about death, loss, and grief. It’s a piece I’m proud of, and I’m delighted it was published, but it’s also a piece that causes such turmoil in me.
Asha Rajan 