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Decal on a Wall

There's lots going on. Work is in full momentun (and I am enjoying it, even though it has crept a little into my weekends and weeknights). Most days I feel fierce, occasionally I find myself a little tired and today I found myself amused and appalled -- so your regular work life. I have realized that along with the things I do well, I also have to remember that I tend to bluntness and directness that can seem abrasive. I also ask a lot of questions and push hard when I don't get clear answers. This is good to get work done but isn't always a great interpersonal trait. It is what I tend to naturally though and so I have to be conscious about it.

Summer in Chicago is full of hope and sunshine and it is good for my soul. Although without coffee I am nothing. I've been changing the room decor in spurts and now have two walls that are bright and cheerful - one of them has a lovely wall decal sourced via Etsy and the other has cheerful and positive posters from TJ Maxx and Etsy. I really struggled with mood recently and I have decided I can use all the good cheer in my life. 

Flying

The days have been flying. If paperwork and bureaucracy had allowed, I would have been in India right now. But I am not. I am here and the days have been full to the point of bursting. I've transitioned into a new role, which I am enjoying tremendously and which also needs me to handle several moving parts and constantly be on my toes. I am learning to redefine for myself what prepared for the day means as well as to remove some of the everyday decision fatigue.

Summertime

Summertime in Chicago is beautiful. It is sunny and warm and gorgeous. Both the lakefront and riverfront are delightful. The weather is perfect right now -- the winter has gone and the harsh summer is not here yet. The weekend was easy, full of activities and laughter. As always, when a lot is going on, there is not much to put in words here.

Centennial Wheel

In Other Words by Jhumpa Lahiri

I am very ambitious in my borrowings from the public library. I am fascinated by the extent of its collections, the ability to check out an e-book and read it on my Kindle, the neat stacks of books. But of course, I don't always manage to complete or even start the large number of books I check out. I realized a few days ago that I had Jhumpa Lahiri's latest book 'In Other Words' and it was due soon. Books as new as that are rarely available to re-issue. I opened it last evening only to realize that it was in Italian and English. It is the story of her love and learning of Italian, learning to speak, read and write in Italian. 

How to break a brown girl

I wrote this at https://quntfront.com/2016/05/10/how-to-break-a-brown-girl/
(Go read. With humor)

"Well for starters, you take her out of her (brown) country and put her in a white one. This way you make her realize she is brown, a lower-ranked pawn in the chessboard of colors. This is just the beginning. Repeatedly and loudly compliment her on her command of the English language, so that she does not forget that she is foreign, that language too is a colonial legacy, over which she has flimsy claim. Ask her if she learned how to speak so fluently from the movies or her parents (because they belong together on the spectrum of parenting)."

Pause

I paused the other day and realized I was living the life I had seen other people live but somehow thought I would avoid - a messy, complex life, full of joy and grief at the same time, with no easy answers or resolutions. I was living in the gray, my black and white filter being rendered useless at the first hint of adult life. I am learning that compassion and compromise are not negotiable. What a messy, messy life. Who knew it would be like this. I find and lose things, I find and lose friends, I find and lose myself. I am not the constant I imagined growing up into.I try and live in the occasional kind moments. I remind myself goodenough, goodenough, goodenough. Live in the goodenough, stay, be kind, be here.

Taming the Chaos

I was born disorganized. At the end of my undergraduate degree, my mom did a massive clean-up in which she found hundreds of to-so lists that I had developed. I had lists to track other lists. I had lists on small chits of paper, on giant pages, on everything possible.