Love is a bubbling thing
Today, I’m grateful to have been raised by little plants of people who taught me the beauty of my culture, of life, and of inner softness.
~
As a kid, I often found myself trying to make sense of the same “oughts” as so many young immigrant kids like me in Toronto: oughts around getting good grades, not distracting ourselves with the wrong friends or boys, and generally aiming for a life of traditionally-accepted stability.
I have compassion for these “oughts”, knowing that my parents were doing the best they could in the moment, to try to protect us from their images of pain. What parent doesn’t fear for the child they love?
And yet!
As much as I internalized and reckoned with some of my immigrant parents’ fear-driven oughts, I remember even more strongly that my parents couldn’t help doing a few things despite all their fears. The moments etched most deeply in my mind are those little moments sprinkled through my life’s timeline of my parents listening to me, seeing me as I was, and encouraging me to come alive. This is maybe their biggest gift to me. While their fear-driven oughts seemed so universal and generic to the world of scared immigrant parents, their love-driven actions spoke so much more strongly to me. This is largely because these loving actions were so tied to the essence of who my big bro and I were.
I would also witness the same magic done on so many young folks in our community, who flocked to my parents as second parents of sorts, and came alive with their encouragement and attention.
Some examples of my parents’ love-driven ways:
Listening to my outbursts and trying to meaningfully respond both to my words and to the feelings lying under them, even if it took hours, weeks or even years of reflecting;
Allowing conflict and disagreement to be a way to repair and learn how to forgive and be kinder to each other, rather than a road to permanent rupture;
Encouraging the light in us, whether through our laughs, dancing, music, etc.;
Carving out ways to laugh and create as a family;
Never ever comparing us to each other or to other kids (what a waste of time!)…
Perhaps the most beautiful gift was witnessing my parents come alive, when they offered themselves the gift of the same individuated love they gave us. Just some ways that I saw my little family come alive in their own ways:
Witnessing my brother play some of the most beautiful music I’ve ever heard. Imagine my luck to be able to lull myself sleep as a kid hearing beautiful chord progressions on the piano downstairs at night, through the floorboards. Later on in life — hearing his beautiful Tamil music compositions, sometimes playing them hundreds of times in a row, on repeat. He has such immense talent, my wise songbird brother.
Witnessing my mother run a music band for South Asian youth out of our basement, nearly every weekend for two decades straight, just because… on top of her day job. Folks who haven’t met her find it hard to imagine the following, but my mother has 10x as much energy as I do, and is 10x as loud as I am. And mom’s a magnificent listener all the while - she can immediately see right through people’s fears and bluster, to the core of who they are and what they seek in life. Her automatic tendency to see other folks in our community as they are has been a compass for me, as I think about how to build a self-sustaining life that distracts me the least from the beauty of the present moment.
Witnessing my father create poetry in his spare time. Dad doesn’t mention this much, but he was a renowned Tamil storyteller and poet in his early 20’s, known around his home country for his writing. When I think back on how I would get impatient with Dad’s accent as a young kid, I cringe - I know that’s a universal regret of us immigrant adults. (Though let’s be real— regardless of the language, he’s always been one of the funniest people I know, right along with mom and bro.) I look back with fondness at the times that dad would spend hours-long car rides translating his favourite Tamil song lyrics, line for line. At the time, I’d get impatient hearing dad pause songs every 5 seconds to explain their meaning. Now, when translating some of my father’s works for friends (he writes all my brother’s Tamil song lyrics!), I find myself doing the exact same thing.
I understand well my parents’ fear for our well-being, and their need to use “oughts” to protect us from the world’s harm. As immigrants, my parents had to repress so much of their light in order to survive in this world - by leaving family and friends to start anew in foreign lands, sticking to not-so-alive-making jobs when younger to raise us, etc. There is so much sacrifice there to honour and respect. I also understand that my parents weren’t perfect - they were simply human, doing the best they could with what they knew at the time. But, looking back, I know without doubt: their bubbling love was enough.
What we really need in this life is not to avoid harm, or to protect our loved ones from it. What we all really need is to give and be given the individuated love and sense of self-worth to believe that, through all of life’s tribulations, we remain equally worthy.
With real self worth - we waste less time seeking worth in external eyes, and instead focus on pouring our unique love equal parts into the world, and into ourselves.
And the bubbling of love continues.
For those who did and didn’t experience such love with their family, a quote below. May we all parent ourselves with the love we deserve, and pay it forward a million times over.
May you locate the ten thousand mothers that brought you into being and keep you going, no matter who and where you are. May you be the mother of uncounted possibilities and loves. - RS
A question for you: Think of a parental figure in your life. What’s one way you can encourage them to come alive in their unique light, or simply celebrate it?
Much <3,
Raha
PS: Another request that I guarantee will make your day. If you have three minutes to spare, have a listen to one of Ralph’s older songs below. (You will want to play the song from your Spotify app to hear the whole thing- you can also search Naalai Varum directly in Spotify.) then, come back here to read its English translation underneath. ♥️ Dad wrote all of Ralph’s Tamil song lyrics. I choke up at the end of this song every damn time.
Cheesy pic with momma at the very bottom because I miss my family a lot. I’m glad for the seeds they knowingly and unknowingly planted in me.
Naalai Varum: Tomorrow will come (x4)
What will come will come
What will leave will leave
It’s written in your destiny
Tomorrow will come (x2)
Sadness arrives in the form of a mountain
But wait - like snow, it will soon melt when tomorrow comes
Tomorrow will come (x2)
VERSE 1:
Even it is cut, the water doesn’t get separated;
Even if you burn it, gold doesn’t get destroyed;
But for it to shine – tomorrow will come.
Only when chipped does a stone becomes a statue;
Bear it. Tomorrow will come.
CHORUS:
Even if the world hates you,
Even if you are made homeless,
Even if your relatives cut you off,
When life tramples you under its feet,
When seeds are buried, they don’t die -
For them to come up, tomorrow will come.
(INTERLUDE)
VERSE 2:Even when they fall, clouds give rain;
The same clouds will rise up again and touch the sky;
Sadness will strengthen your mind;
Only after fasting comes the feast;
Even when the trees dry and turn into crippled branches -
Wait. Spring will come tomorrow
Sadness will come, tribulations will come;
But for the blessings seeking your doorstep, tomorrow will come.
VERSE 1, repeat
CHORUS, repeat