Splash No. 120 - Back Home

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The last six or so months have dissolved the very meaning of time itself. March could be days or years away, but not months, that seems too recent and too far at the same time. In this half-year, I feel like I’ve lived many seasons of a poorly written TV show. Season One involved a lot of confusion, with the newness of quarantining and an upbeat attitude that we could enjoy the experience since it would soon be over (or so we thought). Next, we started to settle into the quarantine, as the nature of the country revealed itself. In my life, my job changed and my roommates stopped hanging out with each other as much, as we started to yearn for our own space and try to figure out what to do with ourselves. Season Three was stressful, as my roommates looked for new places to live and finally moved to a new neighborhood. We spent more time outside until smoke filled the air and forced us back inside. Season Four started about a month ago when my brother and I donned our gloves, masks, and face shields and flew across the country from San Francisco back to our parents’ place in Georgia. 

The world continues to rage on in its own chaotic fashion, yet there’s an unbreachable calm that I feel whenever I’m home. The same 24 hours feel less constrained. I wake up around 9 or 10 AM and don’t start working until around noon when my coworkers on the West Coast start to wake up. My mornings are spent drinking chai, reading, watching TV, and spending time with the family, just chatting and existing around each other. Once my meetings finish for the day, we all congregate in the living room, with something on TV. We have a wide range of preferences, from British murder mysteries to cooking shows and game shows. Sometimes we pay attention, and sometimes we don’t— we usually have some relevant (and often irrelevant) commentary all the same.

On Saturdays, we hang out with the extended family, my aunt and uncle, my grandma, my cousins, and their angelic Goldendoodle Cooper. We feast on incredible food, play board games, sing religious songs, and enjoy the few weeks of perfect Georgia weather where it’s not too hot and not too cold. These days feel remarkably normal like it’s another weekend where I’m visiting from college, or home for the summer.

One of the best shows I ever watched was Mad Men. It was well-written and well-acted, beautifully constructed and just a joy to watch. It’s been years since I watched it, but I just remember that it was fairly consistent in how things would turn out. Despite many twists and turns, Don was always the charismatic character that you loved while acknowledging his faults. The most common issue that people had with the show was that they considered it boring. The most important moments in the show weren’t acts of violence or grandeur but instead were small pieces of dialogue that subtly hinted at changes in individual characters. And just like real life, it was clear that just because nothing flashy was happening didn’t mean that nothing interesting was happening. When you look back, you remember the flashy moments, but you also remember glimpses of the mundane that most of our lives consist of. The ones that sometimes hold the most emotion.

Even before the pandemic, I felt weird about living so far away from my family. Like most residents of San Francisco, I never thought that I’d spend very much time there, thinking about when I’d be able to move back to the East Coast or even back to Atlanta. As the novel coronavirus has reminded us about the fragility of everything, those feelings only grow stronger.

I’ve been fortunate to be able to spend a lot of time with my family and I hope that I’ll get to for many years. Because I know that I’ll never regret the time that I spend with the people in my life who matter the most to me.

The fight against systemic racism continues. With each day, we move closer to a more equitable world. Reminders:
 

Ways you can help Find your Local SURJ Chapter  

Anti-racism resources

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Lovingly,
Nikhil