I once saw my roommate screenshot her phone when she caught the clock switch to 11:11. Hope is a beautiful thing that we often keep secret. I keep mine tucked under cotton sheets bought at Target on sale while on an edible in Central New Jersey. I feel embarrassed for the things I hope would come true and the things I pray to happen when I am alone in my underwear and see 11:11 strike while microwaving corn dogs eating at the table in silence waiting for midnight.
In November when my dad came back from India he handed me a bag sent from my ammama who, at the time, didn’t know the next time I would see her. Prior to my recent trip, the last time I went to India was in 2012. My ammama used to visit the US every year until the pandemic hit and she began to experience a multitude of health issues. Rarely did I have the funds or the time to make a big trip to India but my parents visited more often always bringing a half empty suitcase with them to come back with sweets, chachkis, and clothing that were two sizes too big for me. In this November trip, before I knew I would be arriving in March to Mumbai, before we got the visa appointment for my ammama to migrate to the US finally, before I could grasp how close I was to what I desired, my dad came straight from JFK to my apartment to unload the gifts from family members and friends. In a small floral case was a brass turtle in a brass dish with instructions from my ammama to fill it with water every few weeks and say what you want. Set your intentions. Speak dreams into existence. Make them tangible. Give them legs. Watch them unfurl and sprout new ones.
I hate that fucking woowoo shit though. Hope is so fucking corny. Believing in other worldly spirits feels too Eat Pray Love to me. But I still do it. I catch myself wishing at 11:11 and I religiously fill the brass turtle dish with water- carefully placing it over lists of desires I scrawled in green gel pen. Silent moments to myself to imagine new realities that quickly fade within seconds to make room for my multiple panic attacks about my future and lack of stability. I curse myself in the mirror and spend hours removing hairs from my neck. I eat Popeyes 3 days in a row while deleting drafts of writing. I cry at work from feeling despair and isolation then throw up when I get home because I was too busy worried about what people think of me that I forgot to take my acne medication with a full meal. My phone fills with screenshots of 11:11 and the water in the turtle dish spills over onto the stack of to-be-read-books on my dresser while I purge the people and the places in my life without any explanation.
The only thing that can pull us towards our dreams, besides hard work (and for a lot of my peers- daddy’s paycheck), is, I suppose, hope. Blind optimism. Delusion. The desire to desire. The ability to be absolutely cringe.
Perhaps it was all the 11:11 wishes and the brass turtle. Perhaps it was working from age 16 at low paying jobs while creating art in secret. Maybe it has been the years in therapy managing my dysmorphia and childhood wounds (yuck!)
But this is all to say: I am busy! ONLY FOR NOW. Which means I will be taking a couple month hiatus on this substack to put my writing/creative energy in the things I am creating that will hopefully see the light of day. I am sure some heartbreak, some public shitting accident, some new ledge of grief will bring me back to write here but for now- a brief break.
Happy spring! Keep hoping and dreaming you fuckin’ freaks!
wow i Love this — have been thinking so much recently about how hoping out loud can feel so painful and embarrassing when things don’t work out. thanks for exploring that so beautifully here, and wishing you beautiful things in the coming months of creative work <3