WashingTina

This week, the Democratic Party of the United States of America nominated a Black, Indian-American, woman as the Vice Presidential candidate. Kamala Harris, in that moment, stepped into a space unoccupied ever before by a woman like herself. The child of two immigrants, Kamala Harris leaned into the dreams of so many Americans in the moment that she accepted the nomination. For herself. For her parents. For Black people. For Indians. For Jamaicans. For immigrants. For women. For America.  And still, as the American Dream has come to signify for any but the most privileged, the experience was a little broken. A little damaged. It wasn’t what any Vice Presidential nominee before her had had. Geraldine Ferraro and Sarah Palin spoke to filled auditoriums. Screaming crowds. Exalting allies. They had the benefit of functioning systems standing behind them. Instead, Kamala, like so many Black women, stepped into an imperfect situation. A broken experience. A situation she was expected to ...

Escapism is important. I consider it a critical act of self care. Whether it’s through reading, surfing social media, or binge-watching something on Netflix, I think it’s necessary to get out of your head and into something else for a little while. For me, one of my favorite forms of escapism is the Dark Crime Drama. Most of the DCDs that I indulge in are usually British or European, and thanks to Netflix, I have more of these at my fingertips than I ever could have hoped for. There’s something about how these non-American dramas do mystery and suspense that I cannot get enough of. And, since I’ve been immersing myself in this genre for the past decade or so, I have made some observations that are never fail. If I may . . . The crime drama usually takes place in some picturesque small town. It could be in Wales or Poland or Finland or Sweden . . . it doesn’t really matter. But the skies are mostly grey, the fields are vibrant green, the gardens are lush, and the people are eccentric (t...

My nephew recently learned how to ride a bike. It took him all of eight minutes until he was riding like whatever the cycling equivalent of Tony Hawk is. It’s clear that he is a child prodigy and will be participating in the Tour de France by the age of ten. Which means he does not take after his mother or me.  I think I was 26 when I finally learned to ride  a bike (I’m exaggerating, but only a little). It never really interested me, even though everyone else could do it. I was happy enough to swing on the swingset or read a book instead. Apparently, my ability to procrastinate also extended to childhood milestones. My sister also seemed equally disinterested. But one Christmas we both got bikes and it became clear that we could no longer avoid it and were going to have to figure this out. I was probably 10. Which is old for a kid in the 80s to learn to ride a bike. I mean, Elliott had already flown around his town with ET in his bike basket by that age. I would never have b...

Shenanigans. That’s the best word I can think of to describe the category of activity in which I most like to participate. Most of the time, I can’t help it. It just comes naturally, and I’m powerless against it. I would dare say, at least half the time, shenanigans happen to me instead of my making them happen. I’m fortunate to have married someone who is also pretty much always up for shenanigans. What’s more, over the course of my lifetime, I’ve managed to cultivate a circle of friends who can best be described as shenanigan-inclined. If you asked me how it came to be this way, I couldn’t begin to tell you. All I know is, when presented with a situation that could go down the straight and narrow or turn into something completely ridiculous, my friends almost always take the latter path. And there I am, sprinting along beside them. Take for instance a particular visit to the beach with our friends Elizabeth and Chris (Chreeyas, affectionately). Most of the drive, my husband and I had...

Middle age is a trip. In your head, you’re still a kid. But your body has decided to utterly betray you. (Well, mine has, anyway.) It’s a tale as old as time . . . you ache when you’ve done nothing but sneeze or roll over in bed the wrong way. (I know someone who actually cracked a rib coughing.) Skin sags or wrinkles or has a weird brown spot that wasn’t there yesterday, but is definitely there today, taunting you with the smugness of a liver spot. But the real betrayal, or at least the one that I am the most furious about, is the hair. Every hair on my body has decided to revolt against me, as if I haven’t conditioned and cared for it lovingly for years. The hair on my head started taunting me years ago, as if some great foreshadow of what to expect at 40, when it would simply give up altogether. Grey hairs began to spring from my scalp when I was 19 years old. I callously plucked them (despite my mother’s promise that 10 new ones would grow in its place-- well, Mom, you were right a...

In these days of mask use as a method of public safety and self preservation*, I’ve been thinking about how sometimes personality is lost when you can’t show your face. Sure, you can “smize” and try to convey your emotions, but it’s definitely more challenging than in “the before times” when we walked around unfettered and freely smiling at each other. Still, despite its minor inconveniences (and because of its promise of preventing pestilence and disease), I’m fully, 100 percent in favor of mask use. But that’s not the point of this story. It’s just that masks and facial recognition got me thinking about the challenges of recognizing people under masks and sunglasses and other facial accoutrements. And that reminded me of a few of our early Palm Springs adventures at Halloween parties, and the slightly more fun kinds of masks. Do you know how hard it is when you meet someone for the first time at a Halloween party? Then, you run into them later and they know you and you have nothing b...

Three years. A moment. An eternity. That’s how long I’ve been gone. It’s how long I’ve been here. It’s when my life ended. It’s when it began. It was the saddest day I have ever lived through.  I knew, we knew, that leaving was the best and only way forward. But it was so hard. To leave everyone and everything behind.  The unknown is always a little scary. A new place. A new home. A new life.  When I was in high school, I used to daydream about moving away. Going to a school where nobody knew me. Where I could reinvent myself as someone different. Someone smarter, cooler, more fun than the same kids I had known all my life knew me to be. I’d fantasize about how the kids at my new school would see me as the mysterious new girl and I’d suddenly become popular and interesting. And then I’d stop daydreaming and head off to field hockey practice with the friends I’d had since middle school.  It’s an entirely different experience to run away from home when you’re an adult....