Mom is severely silent, her face gripped tight; I can see the tiniest bones that make up her face, the bones in her neck, clenched like barbed wire . She looks so much older today than she ever has. She frightens me with her weakness, her moment of surrender. If she surrenders, she who’s always been at the top of the game, what would become of us? She doesn’t break though, only answers curtly that she is too tired to think or to answer. My sister can’t concentrate on her home work. She is angry because she has a full-time job and two classes and can’t be home enough to help out.
“It was all my damn idea to buy this house,” she says, as she’s said many times before.
“No. It wasn’t all you. We ALL decided. We all thought it through and agreed,” I say and mean it.
“Still. It was me.”
Damn the unfairness of life. I told her that I didn’t want to leave her alone for the night, alone in her miserable thoughts and the fact that she had an exam she hadn’t studied for the day after tomorrow.
“It’s not fair,” I say, “to leave you. Alone.”
“Nothing in the world is,” she says in English.
I sigh. I curse. I get angry at the one god I’ve always counted on, though still believe somehow things WILL be okay again. That after all we’ve been through, after all that has happened to my father, to my mother, to them and to us and to the world and to our houses and our homes, everything, will, be, okay. Again. Somehow.
And with this I walk up the stairs, tired again, not only from physical pain, but from the sadness that I see in their faces, the failure that my sister sees in what she thinks she brought upon us, forgetting that the house brought more blessings than curse, that we needed it for rejuvenation if not for other things. I am sad as I try to fix my own life, move on independently, ahead, while I watch them try to rebuild. I watch my sister, who still feels responsible for everything, and my parents who try to make us perfect to cover up their imperfect pasts. And I become them. I am them in so many ways and I don’t know where to go, how to make it okay for everybody.
How do I do that? How do I make life fair?
The lingering silence of their dissatisfaction is something you can’t quite let go of no matter how much you try because in the end you too are dissatisfied.

My father never complains. While my mother, my sister and I always have something to lament about: life, work, the daily routines, the lack of time and what not, my father reads the paper, smiles or falls asleep reading. Yesterday, on our drive back home (I had the car so I went to pick him up from the pharmacy), he was anxious to get home. He was first upset because I was on my way to drop off my friends – I had assumed that like all other days he would take the bus home from work. He was then upset by the fact that I made a U turn to pick him instead of waiting for him to cross over to the Exxon gas station. He then insisted that I change to the left lane, though both lanes seemed to be moving slowly; it was right during rush hour. I, naturally frustrated, hungry and hot, fussed, but eventually gave in and changed lanes (which I hate doing because I’m one of those drivers who likes to stay in one place while driving.) I said nothing else during the ride; neither did he. The long ride of traffic became even longer. I was angry with my father for his paranoia over taking his medicine on time. I was angry that like him, I possess a sense of paranoia over significant and insignificant things like being on time for casual meetings, work, appointments and the like. I was angry that he always corrected me when I drove. I was angry that he was agitated and anxious before completing a task, in this case getting home and drinking his solution for his doctor’s appointment the following day. But what I was really angry with was the fact that my father was aging and I couldn’t accept it. That he was no longer the same man he was nine years ago when I met him, after years of separation, on the American soil. The man who used to drive me around, show me things, take me grocery shopping. He used to drive with care and ease; I used to feel safe next to him. He used to be stronger, more alert and awake. I was angry that day for being angry with my father, who like myself, had come to the same realization.

I like making perfect coffee; of course it never comes out perfect. Today, it was close to perfect, perhaps because my mind was finally at ease, at peace. I’d been thinking too much, hoping to escape my worries by thoughts of driving to a beach, deliberately avoiding possibilities for change and self-betterment. I’d been preoccupied with insignificant imperfections of what life had turned out to be.
But then I thought of my prolonged summer after four months abroad. I thought of how much I did and didn’t do and decided in the end that my summer wasn’t wasted. In fact, I now feel quite sure that it was pretty close to perfect, interesting, fulfilling, easy but challenging, seemingly lazy and yet productive.
I thought of how we all strive for perfection, for life to be just right. We blame ourselves for the mishaps, ignore the laws of nature and logic and reason and take full responsibility for any incoherence. Sometimes things are the way they are because they were meant to be, because some force, something beyond our conscience was involved. Or because we just weren’t lucky.

Every afternoon, we, Maman, Baba, sis and I sit and have tea and think of what would make our lives ideal. What would entice our irresolute states of nature? What would in fact, make us happy, happier than we are, happier than we are meant to be?
Sometimes we don’t need words to fill our empty conversations. Sometimes our conversations are filled with words and yet still empty. We know we are happy, sitting on the porch on a clear August afternoon with just the right amount of sun, the grass green underneath us, the clouds moving about above us in unison. How do we get a more perfect picture? How do we become happier?
I tell Maman that I would give her the world if I could. And she smiles and puts her arms around me and says I am her world. I want to give Baba his dream: to travel the rest of the world, the parts he hasn’t seen, and revisit his favorites. I want to give sis her dream house in the middle of Georgetown.
In this imperfect world, the closest to perfect is what we have, America and our house on Cedar. And with this, we continue to dream. Who would have thought, that after so many years, we’d still be searching for something ideal.

In about a week I’ve turned into a waitress. I still don’t know how it happened, but I take orders, bring water, get soup while the chef makes amazing Sushi, bring the food out, and ask how the food is or if I can get anything else.
Then, I walk out at the end of the day asking myself how I did it.
It goes like this:
You wake up one day and you are an amateur writer, a student on loans, paying out of your parent’s pocket, dreaming the sort of dreams everyone has, where you are published, paid and called after. Then, you realize you have no experience, no proof of existence. You haven’t tried hard enough. You haven’t talked long enough. You don’t really know how to smile to strangers or how to greet them. Heck, you don’t even know how to flirt back to get more tips. So, you do the thing that scares you the most. You become a waitress. You put on a pretty smile and walk like you mean it. You serve. You get tips. You make your boss happy; your costumers make your boss happy; your boss in turns makes you happy, pats you on the shoulder and says, “hey, you are doing okay.”
Throughout the day, or week, you realize that most of your fellow waiters really depend on this job. That they really are doing it all alone. That unlike you, they don’t have too many options as to what pleases them the most: serving coffee or making sandwiches. Some are on student visas and have day jobs, still not making enough to cover their debts.
Suddenly, you see yourself as this tiny ant that has been crawling a safe, lonely road for a long time, not battered, not yet broken by rejection or criticism. And you see how much you have been missing, how much you haven’t yet seen or heard or thought of. This is where you see the lives of ordinary people, in the kitchen where you carefully take your hot plate and overhear the guys speaking in muffled Spanish and you pick up on a few words. This is where you see what they are doing, cleaning and washing, taking out the garbage, peeling fruit, scrubbing. While you are out there in your red tie, they are here taking your orders and no one tips them or says hey I know it’s rough work.
A part of you hates yourself for not having to suffer, for not getting yelled at or beaten by the rough walls that scrape your skin when you are unaware. Another part of you sees that you are trying, that you are becoming another person, which takes effort. You are smart, you say to yourself. You’re quiet, but you’ve got it down. You know what you’re doing. You take responsibility.
The cycle runs, with or without your help. Someone gets fired; another one is hired. Customers are served. The business runs, goes up and down. And you are somehow a part of it…either getting served or serving. The note you should mentally make for yourself is:
You are not seen until you are out where people are. Once you’re seen, you have potential to move up. And if nothing else, maybe you get a few compliments for being beautiful and that’s enough to keep you coming back.

The skies aren’t clear. The air is heavy. The crickets are singing. The road ahead seems far, purposeless, unfurnished, incomprehensible. Cedar Lane is dark and deluded, as if a shadow has casted over the houses and the “For Sale” signs.
I slow down as I get closer to the driveway, though I feel like driving still.
Maman is tired. She doesn’t want to go for a walk. She is too tired to think. She is not Maman. Sometimes I feel that I am losing her too, that we are moving apart, that there are too many spaces between us. Fatigue is keeping her away, keeping her down. As if we no longer are. Not like before. Not like old times. Not like when we needed each other more. Do we not need each other now? I wonder.
The house feels heavy when no one talks, when no one is ready to start another day. When we think of who is missing from us, who is miles away, whose place is still empty.
We’ve done it for years, the missing, the anger over the mistakes we’ve made, the guilt we’ve felt- Maman and Baba for moving, for leaving him. We’ve left and moved on and still hurt and think back. We haven’t changed.
A new house changes the mood, the atmosphere, the sources of pleasure, but it doesn’t change who we are, it doesn’t make us forget, it doesn’t make us guiltless. At the end of the day, Baba is still the man who quietly agrees or shakes his head and Maman is still not forgiving herself for leaving her youngest son.
At the end of the day, I wonder how I fit into their troubles and guilts, how I can be of any help, how I can be better for them and take their pain away. But every night that I go to bed, I feel that I have done nothing. And it’s disappointing, this futile existence.
Maybe I wanted this house to change us. Maybe I hoped it would be a better existence for Maman and Baba. Maybe I wanted to believe that Maman can move on and forgive herself and not have nightmares. Maybe I thought we would all be happier.
And I still believe that. I still believe we can change, when we are ready, when…
Perhaps my disappointed soul can revive too.

A writer is always on the search. Even as everyone else is busy, moving on, moving forward, a writer is thinking back, tracking time, making decisions, clarifying things, critiquing ideas, analyzing questions that everyone else has neglected to answer. A writer is never done with the job, never done with a sentence, never done with a story. Things happen as you watch; you watch as they happen. When you are sitting at a café, people watching, strangers are unfolding their lives before you. The woman who orders a hot chai has a much different story than the young girl who orders an iced vanilla latte. The man who stirs his sugar sees things that the two women waiting for their orders don’t.
Stories are happening as the day unfolds. The man who rings up my groceries at the check out asks how I am. I say I’m fine and ask him the same. He says, “fine for a Monday.” He can mean many things by this. He may be saying that for a dull Monday afternoon where nothing is expected to happen, he is doing well. Or he may mean that he is not doing great, but it’s only the beginning of the week and he is just fine for now. But what is he hoping for? How does he hope to complete his day? What do we all hope for, at the end of the day, to have felt fine, or to have gone further?
I watch as Baba dips his sweet cracker into his hot tea. I watch as the crumples sink under the liquid and reach the bottom of the glass. He brings his glass close to his mouth, takes a sip, puts the glass down, and dips another cracker. Has he had a fine day? I wonder. Will he feel fine tomorrow when he wakes up at dawn to get dressed for work? Or when he returns home, checks the mailbox and walks in to his house?
What is fine? How do you define this simple, yet vague word? How is it that we say it everyday and every time without knowing its many meanings? How is it that we say it no matter how we feel?
This is what a writer does. A writer asks and wonders and tries and attempts. And still finds it close to impossible to really answer or resolve. I still don’t know what fine means, or what I mean when I say I’m fine. I don’t know what makes Baba’s day just fine, or what makes the man at the store say he is doing fine for a Monday. But I am always going to wonder and ask because that’s what a writer does.

Stephanie’s house is one of those dream houses you see in movies with the big pool, the big garden and tennis court, the countless rooms, the various art work, the designed walls, the paintings and statutes, the sunroom, the library of books. I am introduced to Stephanie, whom they call Stess because when Becca was little, she couldn’t pronounce her grandmother’s name.
Stess is a published writer and poet, lying on her bed with beautiful soft features and pedicured, red toenails. Being a writer, she learns my name quickly and says it naturally. She has dazzling beads inside her closet; Becca is wearing one and Stess insists on her keeping them. But Becca says she doesn’t want to keep them because she likes to tell people they are her grandmother’s.
In Scarsdale, outside of this pretty palace, there are lots more dreamy houses. We pass them on our way to the train station. The streets are tiny and green, calm and sweet. The air is fresh and hot, like honey on warm toast. Becca and I take the train to Grand Central, New York and I begin another city adventure.
And like all other adventures, this one also ends. I realize, as I have before, what the city means to me, how it makes my skin jitter, how it makes me smile and laugh at the same time, how it makes me feel like it’s my very first visit, how it makes my heart rate faster, how it makes me want to jump. Every time, I get a new perspective. I get closer to my dream. I get braver and I want it all: the city, the noise, the puddles of water, the river, the boat, the earth.
Every time.

New York was refreshing. Being alone with all the commotion was rejuvenating. I got perspective again. On how I feel about my needs and my goals and my future. It’s like this: you see yourself growing old in all that mess. It’s a beautiful city. It’s always been, it always will be.
I am writing here, in Fairfax, in a room with no air-conditioner. I have had my bitter days, my angry days, my flush of honest, crude writing. But it’s stale. It’s old and hackneyed and I’m seriously running out of synonyms. I am working on a bigger project, a book…a “book”. I am making myself official. I am calling myself a writer. I’m a writer. Damn it.
It’s liquidly and disgusting, the sweat that has gathered in this room. I sit on a fake leather seat, sweating, exhausted from summer and my irrelevant ramblings, but I have a goal this time. I have a plan. I have an idea.
And the idea is that I am going to be a really good writer. But for now, I’m falling, deeper, deeper into an ocean of dreams, a chaos of desires.

The cab driver is a man from Ghana, perhaps in his late 30s. He has a round, gentle face and dark hair. He asks if I am headed to D.C. I tell him that I am actually on my way to New York. He says, like a lot of men have said to me, that I am very pretty. Very descent, he adds. I thank him. We exchange minor information- where we are from, how long we’ve been here, 18 years for him, nine for me. He is on the phone and I hear him talking about his children; he mentions his daughter. And then I get off and he wishes me a safe trip.