to my selfish women

a post-post-can-it-count-anymore-mother's day installment but really just an excuse to talk about my mom‧₊˚❀༉‧₊˚.

The women in my life have recently become mothers again.

51, 70, and 89, motherhood’s hand lies on them as they become proprietors of their becoming. A caretaker and nurturer to their once dormant desires, the gestation of their whimsy harbors new territory. How arduous.

It’s been difficult to find the markers of their transition, but below are some of the best evidences of their selfishness (it’s about time).

the perennial to annual transition

My mom used to solely buy perennial plants when she first came to the States, and we finally had some disposable income. We’d peruse the Kroger flower section only to pick up the already planted rose stems in a color a week. Paper chits stuck out of the soil, indicating their expiration: annual for half the year and perennial for a year-round.

We’d never pick up a annual even though they were often prettier, springier, and lovelier to her.

“It’s stupid, they’ll just die,” she said, dropping another pink rose in our cart.

We would keep them in large pots to protect their roots and cloistered them indoors during the winter, where they would wither only to revitalize in the months after.

Time went on and 1000 square foot shared amongst 5 was now 4000 shared amongst 6. We lived near a Home Depot now so we could peruse aisles without feeling our time escaping us.

It was weird when it happened but really, and I can’t say I know exactly when but slowly she started to go to the Petunias.

She planted them in pots at first, then the ground digging holes where moss roses used to live to replace them with the Red and Fuschia.

It isn’t a coincidence to me at all that she started doing this after returning to work, buying more than 2 plain shirts for the office and a shrug. She wore colors that she already had now.

We replant our Petunias now, in planters stacked upon each other to form a flower structure and in the dirt where the perennials live, side by side. Perhaps there is something to be said about the fact that she doesn’t look at the chits anymore that stick up on the side, just removes them and adds eggshells and fertilizer to all the plants just the same.

the nail salon

My inheritance is hardly complete without my mother’s habit of biting her nails into slivers of flesh. We’d paint them horizontally if at all because there was no room to go around without loads of cotton swabs and remover.

Nails were a hindrance to her - things that could fall in the soup and bob in people’s mouths only to be accidentally eaten or worse, to be notified that they existed there in the first place. We ate with our hands often, too. Some days she would only paint her left.

SandFest 2025 changed much about her nail paradigm for good reason.

and she does like pina coladas

It was her and my father’s 25th anniversary - a silver jubilee according to everyone who wished them and the cake I procured from a girl Downtown who sold them out of her house. She had always wanted to go to see the sculptures at the port, and this seemed like the perfect chance (it fell right on the day). Within a day the Staybridge was booked, and they were off the next month.

One day I saw her at her desk, attached to the living room as a result of an excessively work from home house, as she flipped her hands back and forth, aligning her fingers and misaligning them over and over.

“I think I want to grow out my nails,” she said, “I don’t like how they look.”

I truly don’t know how she did it (it felt like she was fighting a circadian rhythm trying to wean off her nubs) but two days before her trip she came to me to ask me to take her to the salon.

We sat side by side, choosing colors, her peering at me through the partition to ask if they were doing okay (the tools scared her, but she trusted I knew what I was doing).

Slowly, as the lady behind the counter laid coats on her nails, I saw my own shed the coats she had worn for years. She was giddy. Choosy. Nervous and loved.

“Look!,” she said from behind the partition showing me the bright red. She was the sun.

Outside she asked to take a picture to commemorate our hangout. She put her nails on my chest.

“Jayashree’s treat,” she said.

She couldn’t be more right.

the youtube channel

My grandmother has always been someone that’s prided herself on watching over others. Whether it be through Parimaral (serving others when they are seated to eat) or watching over those who come in and out of the house - sometimes too inconspicuously — her duty comes from her piety to her home.

Rarely do I see her engage in something for herself, but it is a testament to everything that is beautiful and ours that one of the only things she holds completely to herself is art.

Last year, after a stout of boredom and a liminal space gaping open after her house emptied into the US, she began to publish stories and bhajans on Youtube. A prayer-woman, she was devout to the temple and its healing properties for children especially. The hymns in the temple had stories interwoven that she wanted people to know, so she started to say them and recount their devices.

What started as something that gave her peace and outletted her love for her religion was a haven for her consciousness and a light that shone brightly upon the woman who remained true to herself. She picked her music, recorded take after take to make her ‘um’s disappear, and went as far as to outsource her editing to my uncle and I.

She comes into my room to make sure I’ve edited her videos and checks the Tamil section so it’s exactly what she wants to say. It is specific and so is she still.

Maybe, my future is bright if art and an ardent demand for the meticulous is what remains.

We recently started a section for her kolams (line and dot drawings) so she can share how to make them. Check it out below if you’re real.

closing thoughts

After a lifetime of giving birth, somehow these women have managed to manifest a renaissance like no other for themselves. Their sense of self, curation, and expression live in the lights of their eyes and the very being they hone in to protect.

Once a tradeoff for families and other redeeming energy drainers, I see them shed coats they have worn for years. Perhaps it makes me think the future isn’t bleak for me if I want what they want — that there’s an unkempt tenacity in us we don’t know even exists yet til tensile-tested.

What a sight to see.

What a blessing to experience.