The past few years, I have unthinkingly racked up the flights. The miles to go home to friends or to family. To commune with my tight circle. I have about 10 close friends, but I can say confidently that I have seen most in the past 3 years at least once, if not multiple times a year despite the distance. I am proud of that. It takes unfailing commitment to people to make that happen. But in that intervening time, I have also started to put down some roots in Portland and create some community. It is almost as though having it elsewhere gives me confidence to indulge in it here.
Places are the people. In the past year, all the flights and trips I have taken are not to places uncharted, but to my homes. I returned 3 times to Florida, and 3 times to Massachusetts, and 3 times to Los Angeles. I made a trip to Seattle to see my cousin-sister, since it had been a while. I haven’t taken a true “new place vacation” all year, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
A new friend was surprised at my family’s surprise trip to New Orleans over the winter holiday. I had to tell them that this was only scratching the surface of the insanity that are the Shankar family road trips. I think the reason I am so game for them is that they are the last vestige of childlike wonder and a space of no expectations. Napping, reading, vegging, maybe some singing. That’s all that is expected of you. And the willingness to eat what is available on the road or in snack formation. My father does not like to give up the Conn to just anyone and not for long periods of time, so with that main responsibility predestined, the rest of us have an obligation to not kill each other and try not to emulate the movie “RV” when the mom and kids all have their own music playing simultaneously. It’s a wayback machine– going back in a minivan to times when we were 5, 10, 15, 20, 25… I’m sure it’s such a mental trip for my parents seeing new places but with children who are increasingly their equals.
The role I play at this point in my life to nurture my friendships and relationships feels significant, but temporary. I go to them. I go to my friends. I go to my family. Few come to me, but not for lack of trying. What drives me to put in the effort is what Aminatou and Ann said in “Big Friendship”. Friendships require tending and attention like real relationships. I feel like my friendships surviving are practice for sustaining a real partnership but on a 10x scale. Maintaining closeness and gratitude for those significant few lies in the mundane. The call on the way to the post office. The errand friend who joins you to CVS. The let’s sit and do crafts for an hour and talk about that random show I started watching. That’s what life is. The littlest things, over and over. Not the engagements and weddings and graduations and births and birthdays. All that is great– but those are not the true tentpoles. The tentpoles are, “I think he’s the one!”, “Look at her little face!”, “When are you coming to town?”, “I had a few minutes on the way to work, what’s up?”
I tried to explain this to one of my friends the other day. I want to be around because I don’t want to be limited to the highlight reel. Yes, the real ones don’t care and you pick up where you left off. But I don’t want to leave off either. I want to volley back and forth because that feels so sustaining in the dreary days of monotony. In my solitude, I seek community. I seek friendship. Maybe it’s a testament to my name, but I can’t help it. So much of life is showing up. Being game. Being present and attentive. If that presence is all I can offer to my near and dear, it’s worth the miles. It’s worth the Biscoff cookies. It’s worth an airport coffee and TSA. At least that’s what I am going to tell myself as I round out the second half of 10 flights in 10 weeks canvassing 4 corners of the US, Europe, and India.
XOXO,
Maithreyi
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