Written March 11th in the Hospet Train Station Waiting Room

-I am a formerly estranged daughter
-I am all she has left - and the pressure and love that go into this always breaks and mends my heart

-I am on one end of a guaranteed hug when I get off the plane and the giver of many while I am here.

-I am the best friend - the title unflinching come hell or high water
-I am the blessed one- receiving a cd and the comforting words "you are like family" before a long journey

-I am a partner, lover, teacher, but most of all friend, to someone I think the world of.
-I am the priviledged only grand daughter of two earthly saints I don't call enough. Along with walking down steep stairs - their deaths make my lips tighten and my eyes wince.

-I exist as a foreigner in a mobile American bubble. With wide tearful eyes some renounce Coke while others count their blessings - and I, I take part in it all. Our outrage fueled by the shame and confusion surrounding where we come from.
-So, yes, I am a citizen of a war waging, imperialist, greedy monstrosity along with other citizens whose hearts bleed. My memories filled with folklore, 4th of July fireworks, and a new pair of white Keds every Fall.

-I am one of the informed who feel hopeless and theorize futiley out loud - trying to find an outlet.
-I am one of the people to whom gender makes no sense, but can still not sensibly work it into their lives.

-Oh, I am a consumer of food, drink, and products which seem useless ten minutes after purchasing.
-I am a woman who fell for the mantra - the smaller the better- at the age of ten and I am the woman who cried on her 20th birthday because she always thought it'd be over by then and it wasn't.

- I make up 1/11 of a group of random kids in India who still don't know eachother - some days looking past one another like strangers, and other days crying about how they are all family -- as we sit in a dark room with granite walls with resounding echoes in Hampi.. the middle of nowhere and the beginning of everywhere
- I am 1/8 of the girls at Fireflies who're different in 8 unique ways. Some generouly pepper their conversation with "babe"s and "love"s, giving their conversation a maternal feel I cannot master. Others are quiet and never give any reason for rebuke. Some I don't understand, but I listen, and some will never understand me, but I appreciate their listening.

-I am a listener to Aravind who tells the same stories, but I've learned it's the pearls of wisdom in between that are worth waiting for.
- I must symbolize something to the kitchen ladies, but to assume is a practice of self-importance. Even if I am nothing to them, they treat me with graciousness whenever I sit with them in the kitchen, reading words out of my book on Kannada and teaching them words in English.

-I am a knitter of scarves and rider of one bike in particular: both bringing peace and a sense of accomplishment which is vital to my well being. I imagine that the first day I am home I will walk my bike down the hill my house stands on and fill the tires up with air, and I will fly.
-I am a reader for the sole purpose of escaping and a writer only when I am most desperate for communication - I would prefer an understanding ear and intelligent mind to a piece of paper on most days.

-I am a disappointment, a heroine, given to bouts of unfathomable ridiculousness, unwavering in my desire to be grounded -eventually- and a forgiver and embracer to myself.