Lucky Girl

My feet barely graze the orange tiling from where I am perched on the chair in the frankincense-filled kitchen. The steam from the fresh plate of coconut rice and papurri before me blends with the spicy scents of Sri Lankan cooking. The steam shields my view of the Writing and Grammar book across the table from me.

I don’t know about diagramming sentences. Finding the predicates and subjects in these ridiculous exercises is nearly impossible. I don’t know.

Kneading chapati and humming quietly, Seetha brushes a thin greying piece of hair behind her ear and glances in my direction as I begin to whine. “I just don’t understand why I have to learn to diagram sentences. Who cares what the object of the sentence is?”

I cry, looking up from my homework and glaring across the kitchen.

I don’t know.

Seetha responds to this academic complaint like she does to every other--with a phrase that echoes in my ears to this day, “You’re so lucky, Tian. You’re a lucky girl. You don’t even know it.”

And Seetha cooks. Perched in the kitchen, I eat spicy Sri Lankan food, learn how to roll chapati, and listen as Seetha described the small house she grew up in, her family, and her education—or lack thereof.

I don’t know, but I eat samosa and listen.

Seetha says, “You grow so much when you learn.”

She says, “Keep studying hard.”

She says, with a kind smile, “You are so smart.”

But I don’t know.

She brushes the loose, fine chapati flour from her fingertips and puts the simple flat bread dough up to rise in the warm kitchen. I watch the easy way that she moves through the house. The easy way that she folds clothing as she sits on the cool marble steps where the sea breezes from the Gulf of Oman travel through the house flue and meet the first floor naturally.

She shakes her head. “You are so lucky, Tian. You’re a lucky girl. You don’t even know it.”

Seetha is much like the date palms that line the road to our house. These plants grow big and tall despite their environment. They grow through heat and drought and despite everything around them, they bear delicious fruit. The streets in Oman are lined by date palms because they, unlike most plants, can withstand the high temperatures of the Gulf.

Seetha, like the date palm, is resilient. She spent her entire life growing despite her environment, not unlike Malcolm X in “Learning to Read”. Although Seetha did not spend any time in jail like Malcolm X, she became a woman in an underserved area of the world where factions punctuated her growing up with war and death. So many women like Seetha did not receive an adequate education. Despite this, Seetha never gave up. She embarked on a literary journey of her own much like the journey described in “Learning to Read”. Seetha persevered and was able to not only able to teach herself how to read and write in her native language but gained respectable proficiency in English as well. How did she do it?

I don’t know.

I sit and hate these grammar exercises. Prepositions and verbs blur together before me as my eyes well with tears. The sound of the Islamic call to worship, the daily prayer call, floats in through the window. It is accompanied by the familiar noise of scorpions scurrying around the drain in the kitchen. Seetha holds my small soft hands in her weathered ones.

“I really just can’t do it. If I hear them tell me that I’ll have to write for the rest of my life I’ll just die!”

“You are so lucky, Tian. You’re a lucky girl. You don’t even know it.”

Growing up, much like Cisneros, I experienced parental expectations from a young age. While Cisneros’s parents, “thought college was good for girls—for finding a husband” (102), mine saw college as something that I should strive for to improve my academic and professional future. Because both of my parents are English professors, I was taught that writing is an important skill in which everyone should have basic competency. But I hated writing. I hated grammar. I hated verbs, nouns, and everything in between. Seetha’s comments about my “luck” never made sense. How could I, a child full of resentment for writing but constantly embraced by it, ever, in any sense of the word, be considered lucky?

I don’t know.

But looking back now as a university student, I realize I know. I know the foundation of writing is based in understanding grammar. I know that genuine comprehension comes from the ability to dissect something --- whether that something is a frog or a sentence. I know the difference between a noun and a verb because of the grammar lessons that I hated so much. I know that having parents who want their children to be academically strong is a good thing, even if it is also challenging.

I know now.

When looking back at my literary experiences, I would like to say that my appreciation for my writing and schooling opportunities in general would have manifested naturally over time, but I know that, without Seetha, this manifestation never would have happened.

I know Seetha played a central role in my knowing. It is sometimes surprising how much one person can influence another’s future. Thank goodness for Seetha. She taught me so much more than how to make chapati--she taught me that I really am a lucky girl. And she helped me see that I know.

I know now.

Thank you, Seetha.

Works Cited

Cisneros, Sandra. “Only Daughter.” Writing About Writing: A College Reader, 3rd Edition, edited by Elizabeth Wardle and Doug Downs, Bedford / St. Martin’s, 2017. pp. 101-05.

Malcolm X. “Learning to Read”. Writing About Writing, 3rd ed., edited by Elizabeth Wardle and Doug Downs, Bedford/St. Martins, 2017, pp. 106-115.