MY BROTHER RETURNS to New York, my sister leaves to visit Papa in Bangkok, and Momma and Dad embark on a one-month road trip. I remain with the family’s two dogs, one cat, two bearded dragons, four lovebirds, and assortment of fish. The evidence of life when we’re able to stand still. I’m with a zoo, but also, alone.
It finds me.
My anger. My mangy, lumbering, frothing rage—against the world, against characters, against my own choices. Howling with sorrow pent from stacked years, it attaches to my hand, feeding on what I supply. It takes up the entire bed. I sleep, head on its heaving belly. You sit nearby. There is always a window.
Grief has five stages. Shock and denial is the first. I’ve already experienced that stage my own way; for long years, I was unaware of how heavy the toll of life had become. Anger is the second stage. This month of silent solitude acts as my decompression chamber. Walking the dogs, changing the litter box, watering the garden, feeding lettuce to the dragons, the routine of humble chores is purifying, soothing, lovely. But memories that hid with the finesse of a fox eluding a hound now emerge. They horrify. They unmake. Momma and Dad return home and find me wild-eyed. I look like the Crypt Keeper’s wife who has escaped from her cage and is wondering now where to go, only to find there is no “where.” There is only here.
That’s the thing about the past: wherever you go, it exists still, on some plane.
Anger then morphs into depression. Depression is usually followed by bargaining. I pass that stage and step into the final: acceptance. I weep. Great, huge sobs, a sudden monsoon on an otherwise tranquil summer day.
Momma and I sit in her garden.
“What is it, jaan?” she asks. She holds my hand.
“I . . . I am . . .”
“You didn’t fail. I know you loved acting but this is simply your life, continuing. You’ll find something. Or is it him? Do you miss him? Or is it your Papa?”
“No, Momma. I’m . . . I’m grieving my life.” I sob, naming one after another, the torrent of men who have entered and left my story. I list the trials I’ve kept from her. I recite the two dozen addresses I’ve lived in, from childhood on, forever moving.
“And Momma,” the effort and emotion are making me dizzy. “I’ve missed you. For a long time.”
“Oh, Reemani,” she sighs a sigh pulled from the earth. “You’re here now.” She rubs her eyes. “There is so much, jaan. What do we—?”
“I need to write.”
“What? No.” Her pace quickens. “You need help. You can’t cry like this. You need a clinic or therapy. But you also need something to do. A job. A plan. A master’s program, maybe. You need to think about your future.”
“I am, Momma. I’m conscious of all of those things. I know it sounds strange, but—”
“You need stability. We’re happy as long as you’re happy, but you also need to be safe.”
“Momma, ‘safe’ doesn’t make sense to me.”
She smiles, hands me a tissue. “I know. But you need something solid.”
“Yes, I want that too. So, all I need to do is write. I have to write this one, specific book. You know how I always say ‘I have the voice inside me’? Well—”
“Yes, jaan, and we always play along, but seriously, that’s . . .” she trails off.
“Momma. This voice. This book. I can hear it. It’ll work. It’ll be for me and anyone else who needs . . .” I taper off. It sounds so far-fetched and far-reaching.
“What?”
“Love. It’ll be love, in a book.”
Momma looks at me, worry knotting her forehead. “And your future?”
“Everything will come from the pages.”
“Oh, Reema. That’s,” she shakes her head. “That’s crazy. That is such a gamble.”
“No, Momma. Everything else has been.”
Word spreads through the family: Reema isn’t getting a job, she hasn’t “a plan,” and is instead zealously playing out her past in the pages of a book. Most believe this is my thinly veiled emotional breakdown. I certainly look the part.
“Who are you to write a book?” asks my sister.
“You’d be a great administrative assistant,” offers my brother.
Dear one, their words hold veracity, their concern is from love, and their doubts are sensible. I was raised, fed, bathed, given an education, sent out into the world, and at age 30, I have moved in with my parents. We are a sitcom. Furthermore, as you know, I’ve never taken a writing class. I got as far as IB English, in high school. Those periods were spent worrying about my parents, flirting with boys, and staving off sleepiness from my pesky habit of starving myself. I’ve yet to publish a single essay, much less a memoir. I don’t have a life of fame, glory, or inspiring achievements to write about. I am, despite all efforts to be otherwise, completely mortal. I am entirely ordinary and untrained. Am I enough to fill a book?
Another concern plaguing my family is that my writing so openly about my life, and our family, will destroy us.
My love, how can I explain that our book may prove to be not our apocalypse but our rebirth?
One page. Then another. To prove and pave the path, I can only write. Neither fear nor questions can be removed—they can only be walked through and through.
I have few things. But they are sizable. I have you. I have myself. And I have my fierce, resolute conviction fueling our hopeful tale. I have realized you, myself, and the mysterious book live in a trinity. The words that will fill it are the words you and I have shared for decades. Its pages will be our love, physicalized. It is how we will vanquish the outer and inner shadows. It is where we will lay our heart to rest. It will be a love letter written to honor what it is we have been, and have been through.
Darling friend, if you are my madness, then I am happily crazed. There is a fine line between insanity and creativity. The truth about art and imaginary best friends is they fill us with fortitude, faith, and comfort so powerful that to observing eyes they hint at insanity. But for the artist and the friend, the words, images, and bond feel like the most rational, constant, solid forces. You, my art, my potential, my conviction, my voice are all as real as I allow.
We may just work.
I look at the reams of pages I’ve gathered, notes I’ve collected for these past few years. I look at my stack of journals, a lifetime high. I don’t refer to any of the material. Eight days after I turn 30, I open a fresh, white document on my laptop. I title it, I Am Yours.
“Who are you to write a book?”
“I am a person,” I reply.
I am 30. I begin.