Autumn consistently gets me into this mood, where I want to jot down a constellation of memories and feelings that gesture toward a theme without ever quite defining it.

It’s Deepavali, as I learned to say it growing up, or Diwali, which is the more popular name in the US. The festival of lights. Growing up I honestly didn’t particularly notice it as special, emotionally. It was yet another occasion for putting on the sometimes-uncomfortable clothes with no pockets, yet another ritual, yet another get-together with other Indian families. There were so many of those, every month, for holidays and baby naming ceremonies and housewarmings and and and. They blur together in my memory.

There are oil lamps at Deepavali, but we lit oil lamps frequently, for pretty much all the pujas. There are prayers and sweets, but that’s common too. There’s a story about Rama and his army defeating Ravana, about ordinary people lighting oil lamps to guide and welcome Sita and Rama back home, but even though I read the Ramayana via the Amar Chitra Katha comic books as a child, it doesn’t get to me the way the Mahabharata does. When I think of people making beacons to guide others home, I think of the Statue of Liberty and of the fans in Galaxy Quest. I wish that I would think of Deepavali, of this readymade reminder to keep lighting the lamps in the midst of darkness. I wish this part of my heritage resonated with me. But I feel like a bell without a clapper.

I live in Queens, in New York City. I’ve been invited to an Indian friend’s Diwali party and I plan to go, but of course since I’ll be masked indoors I won’t be eating. The past few days, I’ve seen posters advertising a Diwali extravaganza – loud music, food, celebrities – which doesn’t appeal to me. As of this year, the public schools close for Diwali, which is a very nice gesture of inclusion for those families that celebrate it.

It is a good thing that the politicians here are showing up to Diwali celebrations and businesses are posting holiday wishes on social media, gesturing inclusion and support. It is a good thing that we have these celebrations and this public support. It is part of our counterculture, our counterpublic, demonstrating that the United States of America is a home for people of all origins and religions. (Kieran Healy became a US citizen this year; I keep rereading what he wrote about the day he took the oath of allegiance.) That I belong here, that there are people here who at least are trying to gesture that they have my back. It is a good thing that reminders of Deepavali enter our perception more than they used to. The alienation and emptiness in my chest is an unpleasant side effect that I accept, that is minor in the scheme of things.

In 2011, travelling toward and then back home from a world Wikimedia conference, I experienced some significant questioning and searching by security personnel. One of the questions they asked me:

Do you belong to any community or congregation? Any communities with which you celebrate holidays like the Sabbath?

I didn’t understand at first, and my first thought was, “the free software community, I guess?” The community that congregates at Wikimania, that I’d come to the conference to celebrate, to meet so we could work better together.

A few days ago, at Wiki Conference USA, a conference participant approached the stage while holding a gun. No one got hurt, because volunteers rushed to restrain him and remove the gun from his hands. I know one of those volunteers and I’ve met another. I wasn’t there, but I know people who were in that room, who could have been hurt. I am so grateful for Richard’s and Andrew’s courage and quick action.

The days are getting shorter here. Early voting for the New York City election starts in four days. Sometimes I wear South Asian traditional clothes but they kind of feel like someone else’s. I know someone who celebrated Diwali with mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani the other day. Mamdani is, among other things, Indian-American and Muslim. He wears traditional South Asian clothes sometimes, demonstrating that this is one of the ways an American can be. One of his talents as a politician is to seem at ease in many settings, wearing a suit or a kurta.

I know that, sometimes, when I was a kid at these events, I got to talk with someone who seemed to understand me. I remember a girl older than me - I was maybe eight, she was a teen or a young adult - wryly describing the endless nonconsensual food servings and comparing them to Abhimanyu’s battle at Kurukshetra. I wonder if it could have been different if I’d grown up a little later, been able to email or text those people when I found them, to have a continuing web of support of South Asian people who could understand me.

I was born here, in the US. My parents wanted me to participate in their culture. Food and clothes and group celebrations are, to so many, the easy fun parts of culture, the welcoming entryways. I wish they had always been easy for me.