Naya lagta hai

My little sister is off to college in a city far from the one she's grown up in. She's started a blog. She's been visiting family, and she wrote recently of watching another cousin, just turning two, and wondering about herself at that age. Obviously, she doesn't remember much.

I can't say that I do either, since we lived in different cities then, as we have most of our lives. But she visited us when she was that age, and I was twelve or thirteen. Across the street from our house in Delhi were three eucalyptus trees planted against a red brick wall that marked the government-run market. Tall, dusky green and white against the red, I painted and sketched them many times over, the view of them from the littlest bedroom in the front of the house.

In strong winds the trees would bend and swoosh in patterns unlike any of the other trees, unlike the neem and kikar and gulmohur that lined the rest of the street. My then two year old cousin had seen nothing like this in her little life, and she ran wordlessly from the window to the back of the house, as far from the trees as she could get. When I followed her in to ask why, the only thing she would tell me was: "Naya lagta hai" (It feels new). Her mother finally coaxed out of her that she was terrified these strange tall trees would fall on the house. Her words have stayed with me all these years, that strange mixture of childish terror and the unintended depth of her words. These trees were not something to be afraid of, just something new.

I've debated with my mother several times over the last weeks why I'd rather she wasn't going so far from home. I can't articulate these fears I have for her, of her finding strange room mates or semi-psychotic classmates, the ache of long-distance heartbreak and the complications of figuring out what love and friendship and other big, strange things mean. I think she's had enough to deal with, and foolish as it is, I'd rather have her somewhere her roommate is someone sensible, like her mother. (Yes, I realize how terribly old these lines make me sound to someone like her, and how terribly young they must seem to mature mothers.) At the end of these discussions, I realize I don't really want her to not experience these things. But for me too, it feels new, to think of my kid sister grown up.

Given the distances, there is little more I can do than wish her well. And so I wish that she holds this memory of her as I do, the little child who wasn't too afraid to say something felt new. I wish her those words with new depth, to hold close to her heart if/when things seem to be too much to handle on her own. I wish her the strength to retreat into herself when needs to, but still look out the window with child-like wonder. And I wish her the faith that there are always people near when she retreats from the scary new things in the world, even if they are only in spirit.