My cousin started crying when she saw us outside of her AirBnb. She was in town for a few days with her family. We hadn’t seen each other for more than a decade. I was reminded that we had a bigger family, and I realized how caught up we were in our own lives that we had forgotten to keep in touch. Ate Kat is so light and precious. I felt like the coldness I carried with me thawed out in her embrace.
My other cousin, from my dad’s side, has been video-calling me frequently. He’s in my hometown because of a project he’s working on. Sometimes he’d catch me while I’m running on the track, another time while I was sleeping over at a friend’s place. Today, at one in the morning, he called me while he was having halo-halo with my mom.”It was her idea, not mine,” he said. The restaurant they were at was owned by my friend, who also happened to be his ex. “I have nothing to do with this,” I laugh. Of course, there’s no bad blood between anyone at all. It’s been too many years, and everyone’s happy where they are. But I still wanted to err on the side of caution because I was friends with everyone including their spouses. Andre and I hadn’t been talking for years. I realized how social media, while it helps us connect more easily, can also create distance. We become passive audiences to people’s lives, merely offering a like, a heart, a reaction.
I have formed an unusual ‘friendship’? with this older Punjabi man who walks on the track. When we see each other we smile and exchange how are you’s. He always walks counterflow, so when we meet again on the track, we go on as if we don’t know each other. But every time we’re on the track at the same time, we always greet each other at the first crossing.
I jumped into the deep end of the pool last night and I was reminded that I do indeed, know how to swim. My feet couldn’t reach the bottom of the pool, and no matter how far down I descended, my body would naturally know what to do and I’d find myself floating back up. Is this a metaphor for life?
