love

My father’s favorite story to tell used to be how he came to America with nothing but 8 dollars in his pocket. The same amount of money it costs for my favorite nail salon to paint ONE out of FIVE fingers on my hand. Granted, I have always wondered to what extent my father exaggerates, but because he seems to know my Visa bill to the exact cent each month, I am fairly positive money is the one thing my father does not exaggerate about.

You see, my father is an immigrant. The word ‘immigrant’ sounds foreign to me when describing my father for, after all, his citizenship was permanent by the time I came along. To ‘immigrate’ means to “come to live permanently in a foreign country.” My father came from India to live permanently in America. (Although I’m not quite sure he knew he would live in America permanently until he met my mother. Love has a way of changing your plans).

Most people, upon first meeting me, do not consider that I might hail from a background other than purebred European, an ‘immigration’ we now refer to as “American.” They see my blonde/brown hair and my green eyes, my skin that matches with the elite of this country, as “normal.” They don’t view me as an immigrant. And even if they knew my maternal grandparents bestowed a German ancestry upon me, they don’t consider me a relation of European immigration. For it seems that as long as we share external appearances, where we come from makes us less of an immigrant than the miles that separate our countries.

My father’s country spans a distance of approximately 8,448 miles from America. This distance equates to an approximately12-hour time difference. AKA the difference between a meal of waffles and spaghetti, unless, of course, you dine at Waffle House for dinner or adopt Will Ferrell’s character in Elf who considers sugar-laden spaghetti a suitable breakfast dish (both of which I can vouch for). My father grew up in a country he describes as America’s definition of ‘nosy’—a country where humanity is considered so intricately linked that we don’t mind getting in each other’s business. The ideals that we, as Americans, hold as ‘respectful’ and ‘appropriate’ and ‘proper’ don’t hold weight because in India we are taught to converge toward pain and suffering and hopelessness even though that may mean stepping on toes. We are taught to look after each other, even though ‘each other’ might refer to the ‘bum’ on the street holding a brown paper bag and stumbling and mumbling and spitting profanities. We are taught not to judge because that is not our role. Our role is, quite simply—regardless of religion or background or age or gender or any other affiliation—our role is to love.

For the 27 years I have physically walked on this earth my idea of ‘love’ has been jaded. Love meant flowers and sunsets and promises, it meant hugs and kisses and saying ‘I love you.’ Love meant things I could FEEL or HEAR, TASTE or SEE. I never stopped to consider that love might transcend all that.

It has taken me 27 years (and will probably take me another 27 more years, or another 100) to realize that love does transcend the physical. It transcends what we can understand both physically and emotionally. It transcends what we can reach out and touch, what we can listen to with open ears, what we can see with our eyes. Love isn’t a concrete message. Love is the invisible string that links us together, the ONE thing that makes us forget we are individuals and instead reminds us that we all come from the same Soul.

Love is a feeling-it is that song that reminds you of being 17 and falling in love and sneaking out in the middle of the night, not because you have to, but because it makes you feel free and alive to run barefoot on gravel road to someone you aren’t supposed to ‘get’. Love is the moment you look your sister in the eye and say you’re sorry for the hell you put her through, and knowing that’s all you have to say because she forgives you no matter what, no matter that you may have robbed her of her childhood. Love is the look in your parents’ eyes when you make a mistake they never set you up for, when you make a mistake that could cost you your future and yet you see the forgiveness and the truth that they would do anything to make your pain go away. Love is the memories you run to when you’re near the brink of sleep, those memories that you’re ok with letting go because they define you and shape you and heal you in ways you didn’t realize until now. Love is the sun breaking through the clouds on a long day’s drive to work that you just happened to catch; it is the shooting star that you aren’t quite sure you saw; it is the moment you realize that this all might not be worth it but it sure as hell is what you’ve got. And so you sure as hell are going to fight for it.

Love isn’t something we can define. It is the experience of life. It is the chills, the goose bumps, the catch of breath in our throat. Love is the memory we could never quite hold. Because love—true love—it’s meant for us, each and every one of us. But love, in all its wholeness and glory, and love in all its love—it’s not something we’re going to find here on Earth. It’s only something we’ll get closest to when we look in each other’s eyes—whether those eyes are black or brown or blue or green or blind or gone. Its only when we connect that we can even imagine what love has in store for us.

So don’t spend your life judging what you think is different from you, or what you think is wrong. Because we all have our ‘own’ stories. But we also all come from the same story. We all relate to the road rage and the broken hearts and the way loneliness feels like a suffocating tunnel. But we also all relate to the lyrics of a song we love, and the way our hearts open when we really, truly, brazenly dance, and the way our hearts melt when we get that really good kiss. Because we are held together by this invisible thread called love. It is the thread that holds us together and it is more potent and real and closer to the truth than the millions of pages that threaten to break us apart.