Ramanpreet Johal
Recurring Memories
Memories didn’t seem very important to me. I don’t remember a lot of my childhood so I didn't think they would matter enough to be impactful. However, on the day my brother went to school for the first time, I remembered that particular part of childhood as I waited for his arrival back home.
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As I sat on the steps watching my brother, I recalled my young school experience. I had gotten lost the first day of school and had to wait for them to find my grade level. As the years went, I lost more emotionally than physically. I didn't want him to relate to what I experienced. I went to school on the first day and it was scary. I remember the watchful eyes of people that already knew each other, looking at me without recognition. It went well at first. However, a week in, students began to become judgmental. When I went to lunch I took out my steel lunch box filled with snacks and a dessert. The desert was called son papari and had a similar texture to hay mixed with cotton. At least that's what I thought at the time. The girls sitting next to me commented on its smell. Saying it was a bad scent; they called it animal food. I wanted to fit in so I stopped bringing the food they didn’t like the smell of. I lost a lot of my culture because I resented my food to fit in with girls that liked Disney Channel and pizza rather than flavorful daal and dramatic Hindi movies such as Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham. I guess it shouldn’t be as bad for him because he doesn’t eat much food like that.
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His autism caused him to still be on the bottle because he had a fear of trying new foods. All he ate: pizza and popcorn, and the occasional bottle of Gatorade. Although the nutrition was different, it was a food intake that kids in his grade didn’t have. I hoped he wouldn’t be laughed at. We don’t live in an area with many Indians. My brother doesn’t know much of our language because he watches cartoons like Coco Melon and doesn’t get to leave the house enough to visit cultural sights. I would've loved to teach him, but I barely know myself because I grew up the same way due to my parents' work schedule. I hoped he wouldn’t lose his culture and identity because he wasn’t around it--like I did.
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When my brother stood at the door waiting for the bus, I think I was more nervous for his first day of school than he was. The fear that he may be bullied or be hurt when he entered the building made me anticipate the consequences of our choice to let him go to school. The day after his first day, his teacher let us know that he made many friends and was dancing the entire day. The sudden green tint that I gave the world with my fear began to fade. Last week, I looked out as he waited for his bus just like he had on his first day. The green trees reminded me of the way I had seen the world before.
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He wore his favorite outfit, the Looney Tunes cartoons covered by the blue tint. He stood out to me. Even though his experience at school has been going well so far, bad days are never expected, but seeing him excited to go gave me hope that he would be ok. I still felt the green feeling deep down, but hope overpowered it.
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The morning was still tinted with the night and the silence overtook due to the lack of humanity in the area. The sound of the leaves resembled the episode of Sahib's favorite Motu Patlu movie called Mission Moon. In the movie, the streets are filled with silence as everyone deals with the aftermath of the earthquake. The animations often create the same noise when the town is empty and the leftover sticks and garbage pile together as they move through the country with the wind. In the episode, the people hide in their homes because they were afraid to deal with the mess that was caused. Weirdly, I felt like I was there. I wanted to just go inside, not deal with the situation and go back to bed, but I couldn't.
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As I watched him get on the bus, I saw him do his small dance. The feelings faded and allowed the yellow and blue to rise in the sky as the sun came up. And I felt less green as I realized he would have an aid with him to make sure he was ok.
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As I sat down on the small black glass table, I hit my knee. The table was too low. I sat with my brother's plate waiting for him, remembering the height of the previous table we had. I never truly realized the value of it till it was gone. It seemed small and unnecessary. A dining table. Golden brown with enough height to make little me get on her top toes to see the food on the table. It was a tradition. Every Saturday, I built a fort under the table by using bed sheets fallen down its sides as the thickness of the table gave me a strong roof to feel safe under. I never really cared much for it. It was a table. The fort wasn’t the biggest and as I grew, it became harder to be comfortable in the warmth of the fort. I sat on the floor again rather than the creaking chair and reminisced about the tall table that covered the now blank wall.
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When I began 10th grade, we threw the table away because it became too small for our growing family, especially with the constant visits of my cousin and her family. The new table we had was shorter. Although I didn't love the space in the previous table, this new table was worse and I found myself making forts once every two months rather than every week. I began to sit at the couch rather than the table because the table was glass and my mom didn’t want to damage it. This table didn’t feel like mine. I wasn’t excited to use it and it lacked what gave me joy previously. I didn’t realize how much an object that provided me a few minutes of comfort to eat could provide in my life until it was replaced. I understood that “Sometimes you don’t realize how good the good ole days were until they're gone.”
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He has a great talent for sensory. He feels the weather way more than I do. The small winds and heat or rain make him excited because he feels its impact in a way I wish I could. They are more detailed, more clear, he doesn’t care if he’s getting wet or covered in a form of dirt, he just likes the motion created by weather. I want to be like that. Life seems to be filled with joy when you care less about image.
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I picked him up when we walked home because he got tired from the hours of running and jumping. I didn’t mind. I got to play a superhero and showed a different perspective of the world. A higher one.
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As we came back and walked into the mix and match tile floor-covered bathroom to wash our hands, I noticed toilet paper that fell on the floor. It was a space piece, but I decided to pick it up after sending Sahib back downstairs. As I picked up the thin white strand of paper, I recalled my previous week at school. It was the day of the AP English exam and the day of the senior prank farewell. I didn’t even know it was happening. I walked up the stairs and was confused, as the hallways were not covered by their usual fluorescent lighting. My friend and I walked through the halls looking at all the items placed around the halls by the seniors. We heard a scream in the distance that was followed by laughter. We presumed friends were goofing off and went into the class for our tests. Other girls walked in covered in silly string, telling us the seniors were spraying juniors. I was laughing because they were so annoyed by it. I thought it was harmless, considering many other forms of pranking they could have used. As I sat there with my friend in the classroom and laughed before our 5 hours of writing and reading, I became happy. I had made friends that accepted my culture. I had become social and a good person. I think little me would be proud.
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Maybe every memory doesn’t matter, but the ones that have an impact on us always find a way to sneak back and remind us of who we were; about our journey of who we have become. Every experience may not be about me, but I feel the impact is more important than the memory itself.
