I was born when winter was still in its youth. However, I was quite regretful about being a winter baby but never being able to build a snowman since I was born in a temperate south Asian country. But I learned how to smile without self-realization while scrolling through the pictures of the first day of snow that my father used to send every year from more than 13000 kilometers away, from the USA to Bangladesh. Since then, winter was my favorite season. Not just because of the snow, it was the season when I got to see my dad because he couldn’t do his construction works during snowfalls. Dad never stayed more than a month each year with us. I spent fifteen springs all alone with my mom and grandma in our large house in Bangladesh which always had that winter vibe: calm and frigid. Green hills surrounded the city I used to live in. I could watch some of them from my window. During my childhood, I never thought about them as hills or mountains; I felt them as concrete walls protecting us from something giants in the opposite side. I wanted to be a real woman when I grow up to defend my mom since she felt lonely all the time; I could understand.
When I was four, all of my cousins started their Pre-K, and I was still busy talking with my teddy bear. Mom was always there on my teddy’s wedding party with Barbie as a guest arguing with my grandma when she called it ‘Waste Of Time.’ “Since she (me) has no sibling, why shouldn’t she express her thoughts and feelings with something she wants to?”, I got a supportive best friend since then. Two years ago, my dad finally moved mom and me to Brooklyn, NY. For the first time, I made about a seventeen hours of plane journey. I saw the clouds floating that I could never touch or feel just like the country I left behind that day. I started my new school as a sophomore within seventeen days of my arrival here. I realized, I no longer came to this country to build a snowman. More likely I came here as a warrior to battle. My first battle was with English. I never knew I hated the English language that much until I started speaking in it. I hated forgetting words to finish my sentence during class participation. I hated when people used to give me a weird look listening to my accents. At school, for the first couple of months, I found myself like a wildflower people don’t notice for having no smell. Mom and dad used to ask me how is school going? I never gave them an accurate answer. For me, that truth was something that appears like a sweet piece of candy. When it’s outer, rapping is peeled off. Just like the skin is needed to protect the blood and flesh underneath, a lie was necessary to protect my parents hope on me. My bedroom here in the basement has no window to stare outside, and my teddy is no longer with me to share my rough days. I wanted to engage with something to get relief from this monotonous life.
That’s when I start volunteering in PS 130, playing with pre-k kids and listening about their rough days because that helped a lot to bring back my forgotten smile on my tired face thinking they are now me and I’m their teddy bear to share feelings. A few months later, I realized I couldn’t lose my battle here as a student since my smile has come back to me. For once, I thought to let my feet sink into every classroom I attend to learn; let me erase the criticism around me with success. Because I want to be right about everything, I want to believe in myself one last time because if that works, this belief will stay with me forever. There is a tomb of words sculpting itself right where my voice would sneak, to meet my tongue that couldn’t speak them. So, I forgave myself for my accent. I spent time in Brooklyn Public Library to learn new words, not to learn how to pronounce them. Invisible me in the classroom became a luminous participator for each question she has been asked. At the end of the year, everyone seemed to notice me during the annual award ceremony since my name was called six times. The girls who smiled in my back came to me for trig or chemistry mentoring. I felt myself a budding star. I’m no longer a hope shaped scare. At the end of the day, when I get into the bus with my messy hijab to go volunteer kids or share my stories with the grannies in NY care, I put a blissful smile on my face. I put the earphone on to play the first song in my playlist, “I’m the one I should love in this world. The shining me, the precious soul in me I finally realized, So I love me. It’s not perfect, but it’s beautiful.” My eyes remain close but I can feel the sun kissing me, and now I love sunny days more than winter.
