first world problems

Yesterday, I overheard the following conversation:

"Hey, was your Instagram working yesterday?"

 "No, yours wasn't either? I thought I was alone."

"No, dude, like, no one's Instagram was working. Instagram was, like, bugging out yesterday."

Life is hard.

meditation

I was blinded last week.

Well, my right contact lens popped out at work. I had been violently rubbing my face with despair and frustration from having spent over twelve hours in the office, and when I looked back at my monitor, saw only a soft blur.  A dried, shriveled lens was on my dress. No one in the office had contacts solution, and after five minutes of frantic searching, dabbing with water, and rusty praying (it's been awhile), my lens cracked like plastic.

Now, the problem was not just I was half-blind (or half-seeing), it was that I had to go to a hot yoga class. In May, I bought yoga classes in bulk for a discount (#indians #gujaratis #ruchacreatesproblemsforherself). They were to expire in November, but given that I had been on a yoga binge in the spring, and went to the studio three or four times a week, I assumed this would not be an issue.

Of course, my yoga binge conceded to an ice cream binge in the summer, a pecan pie binge in the fall, and I suddenly found myself at two weeks before the expiration date with 20 classes left. I sobbed my way into an extension, and then after Hurricane Sandy hit, I was given a second extension.

So, the day I was blinded, it was imperative I go to my yoga class. It was not for my body. It was to justify my large purchase in May.

(I know, most of my problems are self-induced. If I took a second to think before I did anything, I probably wouldn't even need a blog.)

I became dizzy seeing only half the world, so I took out my left contact lens, as well. I walked to hot yoga by counting the avenues and streets, relying on math I had not studied in over five years. As soon as I reached my studio, I hesitantly inched towards a body I hoped was my instructor. I was too tired to preface the situation, so just showed her my card and said, "Hi. If I fall over in class today, it is not because I'm too hot or unwell, but it's because I cannot see anything right now." She looked back at me, though I'm not sure what her face may have been expressing, and I said, "Um, so I'll be in the front. Thank you."

Even in the front of the room, I could not see myself in the mirror. I knew the colors in front of me were of my own body, but I could determine the existence of nothing else. The room was silent, blurry, and I was completely alone. My instructor's voice was sharper than it had ever been; it seemed to cut through the solitude that engulfed me. For the first time in my life, I was fully immersed in the practice, not distracted by my own body, by my face, by my flaws. I was not comparing myself to the other yogis, or the teacher, or nervous that my short shorts were too short (they definitely were). My blindness forced me to commit my thoughts to the present. My mind did not waver, and I could feel slimy beads of sweat rolling down my temples, into my mouth, down my chest. I could hear the person next to me pant and grunt, and could feel my own hot breath hanging by my face.

I sat in the studio for several minutes after the class, trying to retain the fresh experience of being present, of being in my own body.

When I walked outside, I was immediately whipped by a cold, November wind. I parted my lips slightly as I walked, to taste the coolness in my mouth. I could still hear my heart beating by my ribs, and could feel heat emanating from within my wool coat.

And then I tripped on a homeless man lying in the middle of the street. In my defense, he should have been leaning against a building, or wearing a neon vest.

I counted the avenues and streets back to my apartment, and as soon as I came home I wore my glasses. I could finally see, and my mind was immediately clouded by my thoughts, by my vision.

Damn homeless.

Chin up, darling

I walk past the same street vendor every morning on my way to Oren's. I never stop; I get my coffee,  I sip, I walk back to work, head down, lipstick smearing on the white plastic lid.


Thursday, I stopped. I was parched, exhausted, and saw the cooler filled with slightly muddied Poland Spring bottles as an oasis.


I picked one out. "How much?"


The vendor, an older balding Indian man with a dark maroon shirt, had been in deep conversation with the guy who hands out flyers for Cafe Basil. He started, and looked down at me. "One and one quarter."


With coffee in hand, I tried to balance my open wallet and water bottle, and after some fishing around handed him the money.


I smiled weakly, and turned to walk away, and he called out: "So, where you from?"


I expected the question. It's a standard greeting, the response to which can make or break your inclusion into the diaspora. I still hadn't yet had a sip of my coffee. I looked down at the brown cup, looked back up at his brown face, and then resigned. "India."


(I usually respond, "New Jersey," just to be a brat, but my brain had not yet thawed [it was 89 degrees out].)


"Oh!" And then he stopped speaking English and told me he saw me walking every day, back and forth, to and fro.


I was a bit lost, and almost dizzy. "Yes, well, um, I understand Hindi perfectly, I just cannot speak it very well."


He stopped. "I was speaking in Gujarati," which is the language my mother speaks. I blanched, took a few sips of my coffee, and could finally understand what he was saying.


He told me where he was from, where he grew up, asked me where I was from, what my father did for a living, what I did for a living. When I explained my job, he asked to confirm: "So, you can help people?"


I took another sip. "Yes."


His eyes widened. "Do you have card?"


"Yes," and I proceeded to balance once again my water, open wallet, and with coffee in one hand, handed him a business card.


"You know," he said in Gujarati, "I see you everyday. Every day you walk by fast, and you never see anyone."


I nodded politely.


"Too many thoughts," he said in English, "sometimes, too many thoughts so you cannot see around you."


I stopped nodding. 


"Sometimes, try to look up. Nothing to see on ground." He smiled. "See the world."

therapy at Secaucus Junction

Secaucus Junction is the station at which all NJ Transit trains converge. Every morning, I join thousands of other commuters in the mezzanine, people teeming from all corners and spilling out of platform exits, all desperately trying (and failing) to beat the bottleneck that forms amid the finite number of automated turnstiles protecting access to the Manhattan bound trains.

This morning, right after a woman with a cane shoved me toward Sbarro, I briskly walked past the station attendant talking to a very petite woman wearing Louboutins. I was about to scan my ticket when I heard, "I know, I know, let it out sweetheart. You're fine. I'm here."

I turned back to see the station attendant stroking the woman's back, and the woman's face streaked with tears and mascara. Time stopped for them, and the two women were in an elusive nimbus, untouched by frenzied commuters.

The woman smiled bleakly back at the station attendant, nodded, regained what little strength she had left, and then walked towards the turnstile.

The station attendant yelled to her as she walked away: "Remember, honey, you're beautiful."

A mother with an infant child (most likely a Cabbage Patch Kid wrapped in a snuggie) elbowed me in the ribs and I lost sight of the woman in Louboutins and the station attendant, both of whom seemed to have vanished.

the Higgs boson: Man is Matter, and now we know why

On July 4, 2012, while my friends and I joined the rest of the country in toasting to America, to summer, to veggie chips, physicists across the ocean at CERN uncovered the final clue that could potentially solve the mystery of the universe. The Higgs boson, a fundamental particle whose existence was posited by Peter Higgs and his team to explain the diversity of existence, was (most likely) discovered by two teams of persistent physicists this past Wednesday. The New York Times' piece on the breakthrough provides more detail.


The powerful implications of the (almost) confirmed existence of the Higgs boson are a bit difficult to understand without a keen understanding of physics, of outer space, and of the Higgs' position in both fields (or without a very gifted and patient college science professor, as I was fortunate to have).


Essentially, this specific particle explains the fundamental question of why the universe is as it is, not solely how or what. Third grade science has taught us that we are surrounded by, and are part of, "matter," which is simply, "things." But we were never taught why these "things" came into being. Why is that that an atom can be of various weights, that oxygen is in vapor form, that humans have opposable thumbs? The immediate responses to those questions are much like responses our parents would provide to us as children, when we asked the fundamental questions of our childhood.

Daddy, why is my hair brown?

Because your mother and I have brown hair.

But why do I have to have the same hair color as you and Mommy?

 Just because.

In the same way, atoms of different isotopes can be different weights because they are composed of different numbers of neutrons, oxygen is in vapor form because at standard pressure its molecules bind as a gas, and humans have opposable thumbs because we evolved from primates. And why does all of that happen? Just because (well, and some more profound scientific rational, but for the sake of example, work with me).


However, there is an underlying structure, a gorgeous rhythm that pervades the seeming arbitrary nature of the universe.


It's cooler than Jesus.


In 1964, Peter Higgs theorized a mechanism (later dubbed the Higgs Mechanism) by which particles, everything in the universe is given mass. Essentially, there is an invisible force, a field that permeates the universe. It is the "quantum excitation," or breaks in the symmetry of this field that give rise to the seeming arbitrary distribution of mass in matter all around us, within us. It's a flaw. It's a screw up. The entire universe is a series of flaws, snowballing screw ups, exponentially expanding, creating, evolving. 


The Higgs boson explains why there was even a Big Bang in the first place. There was no man on the moon beating pots and pans, no looming head in the sky grinding his teeth. It was an arbitrary excitation of a point in this field that propelled into creation our unique universe. Though random, arbitrary, it was a flaw fundamental to the existence of the universe.


I'm not conventionally religious. I can't sit cross legged because of my bad knee and houses of worship make me queasy. However, the grand implications of this flaw are awe-inspiring. This singular "error," the quantum break in an otherwise beautiful symmetry, could have easily occurred on another point in the field, could have easily created a completely different universe, or potentially no universe, an existence of which we would not be a part. The specific excitation in the particular point on the field put in motion the creation of the universe as we know it, the creation of Earth, the creation of humanity.


I'm not sure what is God, and I don't think I'll ever be sure what people mean when they refer to God. The only certitude is that humanity, life, the entire universe is bound by a single, fundamental flaw, an essential asymmetry that shapes, creates, and renders mass to "things" and meaning to life.


I guess this just means we're all just a bunch of screw ups, but we're in it together, and for the long haul. Amen.

Parents Got Swag

I like walks on the beach and chocolate behind glass counters and used leather diaries with frayed yellow edges. I also like texting words like, "quintessence."

I know, I'm a bit outdated. I like to think of it as classic or "old school," but I think the harsh truth of the matter is that I'm still living like a kid from 1995.

My parents, on the other hand, have unintentionally functioned as the foil to my [lack of] youth and modernity. They have subverted the notion of age, of generational gap, and have created with vigor a new sense of the word, "cool." They're hip.

Most people find it amusing when their parents discover the Google. Sometimes, amusement concedes to frustration when their parents text their children blank messages, with false hope that the apparatus will convey messages in the same capacity as telepathy. Most people, however, do not have parents who can build and program computers, who look thirty years younger than their age, and who use "lol" the way it was intended--not when they're actually laughing, but when they don't have time to humor me.



The Young & the Restless (25 years ago, "lol")

 Last week, I had my usual mid-May, half-birthday break down, and I reached out to my parents for emotional support. Our basement is currently undergoing renovation, so our home phone has been acting a bit shoddy, and my sister's phone got rained on, so I was left with my parents' cell phones. I first texted my mother.

Rucha: Hi. Miss you!
Mother: mu
Rucha: What's mu?
Mother: miss you

I then tried my father.

Rucha: Hi. Love you!
Father: luv u2
Rucha: [insert blank text of exasperation]
Father: u try2 send pic?

I subsequently ate a $15 salad topped with veggie burger strips and watched Parks & Rec on my iPad (extent to my connection with Gen Y). I then got ready for bed. When I'm home, right before I go to bed my mother smiles at me, strokes my hair, and with a sincerity unparalleled, one that can only be produced by my parents (Gen Y's guests of honor), will say, "Jai Sri Krishna." It's a blessing, something that my parents sort of automatically chant without much heed, or at least, one that I usually receive without much heed. It never mattered much to me, but it's the entire practice around it--the smiling, the warmth, the genuineness--that touches me, that subverts the indifference of the world.

After I burped up some veggie burger meat, I texted my mother again.

Rucha: Love you! Good night.
Mother: lu gn beta
Rucha: gn?
Mother: good night
Rucha: how fitting
Mother: lol jsk

It took me about 12 seconds to realized "jsk" refers to the aforementioned blessing. I audibly sighed (to no one in particular.)

Rucha: Quintessence.
[no response]

six months in, and still can't microwave a cookie.

I almost burned down the office today.

(My bad.)

Today officially marks the six-month countdown till Death of Youth Day. (Yes, every year I seem to go through the same gastrointestinal acrobats about my increasingly apparent senescence. However, this year it's significantly worse. No, really, it just is. Humor an old lady.)

In six months, I will be the age my mother was when she gave birth to me.

In six months, I will be the age Nat Turner was when he sold Invite Media to Google for $70 million.

In six months, I will be the age Lawrence Braggs was one year before he won the Nobel Prize for Physics.

In six months, it will be the 24th Veterans' Day since 1988.

There was some sort of rager on the third floor of the building last night, so I slept with my ear plugs, the ones I bought on overstock.com with my LivingSocial offer. I woke up about 45 minutes before the alarm clock to take out the ear plugs, so that I would then hear the alarm clock when I woke up.

Evidently, I had thought much about this morning when I was tossing in conscious, exhausted misery all night.

And what I realized when I awoke (for the second time, after my alarm did go off) was not just that my most pronounced gray was leering at me, or that I may need to switch to Sensodyne, or that my perfume no longer masks the scent of Ben-Gay, but that the more I fall prey to the vagaries of a cold, indifferent world, the more I desperately hold onto the comfort of a past in which heartache was raw, friendship was pure, and hips did not retain pizza, which was inevitably voraciously consumed.

So it's not youth I miss. It's the fact that my screw ups were just that--mistakes in their most honest, benign capacity. No implications of cataclysmic proportions. No calculations, no derivations.

When my family first moved to this country, we were not as fortunate as we are today. Still, my mother, my father, and I (we were not blessed with my little sister till two years after our migration), lived gorgeously. In the first year in which we lived in America, we had not yet come to associate the notion of choice restrictions and authentic living as characteristics of wealth; rather, we were enamored of the mass producing capabilities of the American food & beverage industry, and so without heed to our effectively clogging 56% of our cardiovascular system, we engorged upon Entenmann's and fruit colas and Ellio's pizza.

My favorite snack was those large Pepperidge Farm cookies, the ones in the paper bag with tops folded over. I liked the white chocolate chip macadamia ones. I never knew till I took a bite if the piece in question was a nut or chip. It was a surprise every time. To emulate the just-baked sensation without just baking anything, my family would pop these already processed cookies into the microwave for ten seconds. (Yes, in addition to our cardiovascular health, we may have risked cancer. I personally think little gustatory pleasure is worth genetic mutations.) The microwaved cookies would be gooey and warm and exude a sense of American spirit so wonderfully pervasive on WB11 (CW11's predecessor, a station of the 90's).

I wanted to feel warm and gooey (and genetically mutated) today. We had Pepperidge Farm cookies in the office, and so after I bought my Oren's, I grabbed a cookie from the paper bag. I brought it to the kitchen on a Chipotle napkin, and put it in the microwave.

I stood around, looking up at the dusty ceiling, thinking about chocolate and young people and new Americans, when I smelled smoke.

I had put the cookie in the microwave for over a minute.

I ran to the microwave and opened the door. Dark grey smoke billowed from the apparatus, and the entire kitchen was engulfed in a thick stench. My cookie was steaming, the napkin was burned through, and the chocolate chips went beyond melty and gooey to blackened and hardened.

23 and a half years later, and I still manage to transform a bout of culinary genius into a case of pyromania. No, I may not be able to cook a precooked, thoroughly processed cookie, but I can definitely set things on fire and get ash on recently dry cleaned dress, all before 8:30 AM.

The office manager came running to the kitchen, smelling the smoke. I looked up, abashed, still holding my elfish cookie.

"Good morning. Did I tell you today was my half birthday?"