Pure, Little Me

    I excitedly pressed the red button on my mom's phone to start the video recording on the camera app, then rushed over to the Alexa on the other side of our black marble kitchen counter. I requested the Bollywood radio station that I had memorized due to my dad playing it every time we cooked, danced, and just lived ever since we moved into this house. As a Hindi song started playing that I had a memory of listening to before, I skipped to the center of the kitchen and stood on the tan, plain wood floor as I double-checked to see if the camera was recording my every move. When I was sure it was, I started wiggling my fingers and legs in every which way possible to recreate some of the Bollywood dances I had seen in movies. With each word sung on the radio station, I would pause in the most dramatic ways, like I was a famous actress performing live for millions. I spun, twirled, and whirled, swayed all ways, and added my version of ballet to the mix. It was a true collection of what my current self would call someone being a weirdo.

    As the song, came to an end and the radio station's advertisements started, I ran up to the camera and whispered all about how my performance would continue after the short break. I ensured that I would be back and that I wasn't going anywhere. After a few minutes of being bored of whispering, I peeked through the glass of the doors connected to our kitchen leading to the backyard. The glass of the french doors I peeked through, was covered in stained water, but that wasn't where my attention was at, no, no. I watched as my mom and dad reorganized our backyard, cutting grass, fixing trees, and moving the one outdoor table we had all over to see where it would fit just right. I stayed there for a few minutes, just to make sure they weren't coming in, for the little bit of embarrassment I had that they would see me recording when it was meant to be a surprise for them to watch later. 

    When the next song on Alexa started, I skipped back to my position and started my second performance. My bob-cut hair whooshed and flew as I spun for a full 3 minutes hoping I would get dizzy enough to fake a faint to make the drama of the performance more interesting. I soon came to a stop and just continued dancing, ignoring my dramatic theory since it didn't happen. I secretly wondered to myself what the song's lyrics were describing because I didn't understand Hindi and thought it must be meaningful due to the theatrical dance moves popping up in my head. Here and there, I would sing mumbled gibberish to give the effect that I knew exactly what I was doing, that it was all planned. 

    I closed my tiny, 8-year-old eyes and moved to the music that echoed through my ears. I awoke from my little world when I heard my dad open the doors to the backyard. He reached out for my attention and said, "Gujli, can you give me the scissors?" I ran to stop the video and continued to hand him the black scissors on the counter as I complained to him that I was in the middle of a performance. He grabbed them from my hand as I pushed him out the door, leaving me to peacefully resume my performance. I hit the record button once again, did my little whispering script, and continued my dance. 

    As I danced, I thought. I thought a lot. I thought about how my dad has called me "Gujli" my entire life. Of course, I knew it was a special nickname he came up with out of love for his only child, but I wondered why it couldn't have been something cool like "Angel" or "Mil" or at least something that had to do with my name. As the next song on the station played, I quickly gathered myself up to perform the next dance. I still thought through this dance too. I thought about a whole jumble of things and how none of them made sense. I thought about how some words in the English language sounded so weird, like "office" or even "let." After getting a bit too carried away, I told myself that I was finished thinking and that I had to focus on my dance. I moved and grooved with more passion than ever, repeating every move at least a total of four times which was the point I started to get tired of it. 

    By this time, I had completely forgotten I was in the kitchen, I felt like I was there, on the stage, millions of people looking at me like I was some graceful swan, lightly drifting through the water. I was transported back to reality when my mom knocked on the door and asked for damp paper towels so she could wipe some dirt off her shoes. I turned off the video, opened the door, and handed her the damp paper towels. She explained how they had just finished working on the backyard for today and were planning on making brunch. Through all of her talking the only thing I could focus on was that meant I was gonna get pancakes. I expressed my excitement as leaped over to turn the Alexa off and closed the tab of the camera app on her phone. I hoped that she or my dad wouldn't see the videos so it could remain a surprise. 

    I'm sitting here now, on our living room couch, at the age of fourteen watching those two videos over and over again with my mom and dad sitting on either side of me. I laugh and cringe at each move I see myself do. As we watched in silence, all of the thinking came back to me. All of the thinking of me. Fragile. Vestal. Innocent. Pure, little me.