Story of a life

 I just finished reading "The Paris Library". It's been some time since I read a book that I wasn't able to put down. Partly because of the engaging factor of the book and partly because of who I have been, who I have reverted to, found, and become over the past week or so. I have been on vacation in the Rocky Mountains for the past four days, leisurely traveling north through the curt Amarillo, TX, idyllic New Mexico, and Colorado Springs Garden of the Gods. I have been to Denver, shopped at Costco, and even had the Costco pizza from Denver. It tastes just like Texas, Nevada, or Maryland Costco. In a way it's disconcerting. Moral from the book: you're not just a mother, you're also a woman. More later.

 Love for country. What is it?  Patriotism? I never would consider myself a patriot in the colloquial sense of the world.  What is a country? Piece of land, defined by borders, arbitrarily drawn lines, sometimes 'natural', sometimes artificial, constantly in flux yet imagined to be permanent. people dying to safeguard them, to honor them, wasting precious time and resources fighting to uphold what these lines mean to them. Everything I believe in stands against borders. Open borders. No passports or visas. Global citizenship. People of the Earth. That's who I want to be considered amongst.  Yet. The pain. Of separation. Cruel parting and forced separation. Our storied become lessons and anecdotes for generations to come. Like my grandmother's story for my friend. What will my story, my life, my lived experience be? Will anyone ever understand it? Will anyone ever be able to access the pain that I live through? The thorns that I walk on every day, as my heart lays res...

 On July 2, 2022, it will be ten years since I left Pakistan. July 4, 2022, will be my 10-year anniversary of living in America.  Exactly 10 years ago today, I was finishing up the finals for the last semester of my first bachelor's degree and preparing for the finals of my second Bachelor's degree.  I can't write anymore. I can't do this anymore. I am going to watch it out. Gilmore girls it is.

My physical therapist gave me strength. Not because she knew how to rotate my sacrum back to its original position or exercise my scaro-illiac joint, but because she recognized the cause of the injury from the injury itself without me having to say a word, having to defend myself, question myself or be questioned. The sessions I had with her were sanctuary. Herself a survivor of domestic abuse, a PhD in physical therapy, and a practitioner for several decades, she knew what she was seeing when she saw it even when I didn't say a word. My 'haunted eyes' enough of a give away for her. All the confirmation she needed.  She began by gently asking me about my child, telling me about her grown boys (both older than me at that point), telling me about the abuse she went through, the difficult process of leaving, and mainly how she rebuilt her life. She'd mostly talk as she worked on my body, lamenting how my body ended up the same way every week and she had to start over every...