I went to an all-girls school. We had little awareness of the budding magic of our young bodies, we did not have boyfriends, a party was a sleepover with amateur manicures and gossip. We did not have any internet, our reputations were built on the quality of our grades and who was in detention more than once that week (me, often). So though my teenage years were crammed with tumultuous loneliness, they slink off in shy deference to my son’s upheaval filled ones. What Sindri has experienced in the last few years is nothing short of Icelandic weather – storm clouds at the ready to hail down and four minutes later the Artic sun smirks through, changeable.

He was born in London. He’s been to five schools so far: two in Reykjavik, one in Mumbai, one in Dubai, the latest in NYC. He’s collected several friends along the way. He has understood something of the world in a framework others his age in one place would not. He’s the product of mixed ethnic heritage and two people who could not be more unalike. Now Sindri straddles the bridge between his own identity and the world as he has experienced it – diverse, packed with human emotion. He has seen first hand his mother – at times reluctantly – adjusting to live in cultures in stark contrast to her own context. He has experienced his father’s metamorphosis from a very grounded personality to one of more fluidity. He has spoken English, Icelandic, French from an early age, gathering Japanese and smatterings of Arabic and German along the way. He plays Chopin and Rachmaninov but listens to Drake and Stormzy. One minute he wants to be a zoologist, the next study political science, the next a journalist. Too much for such young shoulders, perhaps not enough for a boy of his intelligence, curiosity and grit.

Yet, who is this person growing up and away from me? A runaway balloon the receding string of which I grasp at uselessly? How did he get to this place so damn fast? Why did he not come with a warning label “Caution: Secretive when coaxed. Learn to let go with age”? Why do I feel this incessant need to know what he’s going through, to protect him? Is the animalistic mother in me unwilling to accept I am no longer responsible for his journey?

It’s hard to walk the other way in the fork in Life’s road, watching him become a mirage – close enough to feel I know him – this is my son! – yet the more I reach out, the greater the illusion he’s just a few miles gone. And the prayer, dear god, keep him safe! Let him make sensible choices! I am not around to tell him off, I can’t rescue him. Help him learn to rescue himself.

In Finding Nemo, Nemo’s father Marlin and his friend Dory are inside a whale’s mouth when Marlin cries, “I promised him I’d never let anything happen to him…” Dory, the film’s Quixote quotes, “Hmm, that’s a funny thing to promise. You can’t never let anything happen to him. Then nothing would ever happen to him. Not much fun for little Harpo.” (She keeps forgetting Nemo’s name). I have some Doryish friends who remind me it’s all going the way it’s supposed to… I need to focus on my career, my other relationships, my relationship with my spirit. After fourteen years of having a strong sense of one role, I need to switch and learn new skills…

Like how to think of myself first.

Like how when I cook, I only have to consider my own diet.

Like how while choosing a movie to watch, its age rating is no longer relevant.

Like how when I look at the empty bed with a Sindri shaped crater in its mattress, to smooth its sheets, rearrange a pillow and send him a silent plea – be careful, be kind, be calm.

How I don’t need to be home from work every evening to fix him a snack. How I can be where I want, when I want, with whom I want without the umbrella of Sindri’s care to contain those movements. How in a place separated by many seas, Sindri is waking up to his day as I get into bed ending mine, our prayers for each other different in askance, the same in tone – please let the other always know I care. How love is a word needing no other presence except in the heart of those who feel it for each other.

And so Life goes on.

Bedtime – for Sindri at two years old

I say “once upon a time” as I put you to sleep and hope you will dream
of mako sharks and kings with wings
and the elephant god

While I lie eyes wide open near you
recounting each instant each hope of mine
framed around your breath

I tell you of Zeus and Hera, the love for three oranges and a dancing cow
so you cannot see me
clutching at my nervous heart

The daggers are drawn, the duel begins
but before it ends you drift off
padded by white sleep

I am still in my story I can’t complete it
I don’t know the end for I keep changing the beginning
As I stay awake wondering about it near you

31 January 2006, Reykjavik

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Hello! I’m Peri Desai

I’m Peri, welcome to my space. In it you will find stuff that moves me, maddens me, captures my attention, makes me question its truth. You will read what makes me curious, annoyed, energized, joyful, vulnerable.