Today was a walk through time for me.

I visited the New-York Historical Society to see the exhibit The New York Sari, and it felt as though I had stepped into a room filled with ghosts from my past. A video showed a woman wrapping herself in saris, each style shifting with region, identity, and purpose. And just like that, I was transported upstairs in my mother’s room, watching her prepare for another elegant dinner party.

The sari, one of the world’s oldest continuously worn garments is at once profoundly feminine and steeped in cultural nuance. I always longed to wear one, but somehow, once I was of age to wear one, it never quite suited me. The traditional way: over a blouse and underskirt (petticoat), wrapped and pleated, then tucked into the waistband, six yards of woven, decorative, lush cloth. I went to the exhibit, half expecting to see a photo of my mother. She had been such a prominent figure in the South Asian community in New York, a founding member of several organizations, floating with grace down many South Asian parades.

Instead, I saw a sari belonging to her best friend, Sudha Acharya, founder of SACSS (the South Asian Council for Social Services). And then again, the memories flooded in.

My mother, Sushila Gidwani, was a refugee from Sindh during the Partition. During this traumatic time the family’s business collapsed, she became the breadwinner, which granted her a rare kind of autonomy. She chose to leave India and came to the United States alone to study, first to Minnesota, and then to New York, where she built a life full of energy, friendships, and intellectual ferment. Gurus, doctors, professors all came to our home and many times stayed. It was a bohemian salon. I remember the saris, the shimmer of ornament and color, the warmth of gatherings as I hid beneath the sofa, watching the parties unfold. Conversations, arguments, laughter. Always ideas in motion.

In the exhibit, two inspiring artists: Suchitra Mattai’s She Arose (from a pool of tears) and Chitra Ganesh’s Sultana’s Dream prints. One panel of hers in particular struck me, a depiction of sandaled feet (chappals), posed in a way that mirrored an early painting I made of my own foot, years ago, at the start of my artistic journey. I remember how much I came to love my feet through that painting, those feet strong, powerful and grounded are my mother’s feet, I realized later. I referenced that painting in her eulogy, seeing clearly how her strength lives on in me.

Tears welled up, but they weren’t just from sorrow, they came with a heart full of blessings.

I emailed Sudha this afternoon. I’ll be visiting her and the beautiful work at SACSS very soon.

This might be uncomfortable to read. It’s uncomfortable to write. But I’ve been thinking a lot about disruption, not just in art or healing, but in the world. And I keep coming back to this truth: sometimes, we must disrupt to heal.

My own healing didn’t begin in earnest until I understood this. I had to experience something deeply disruptive to realize that something had already been broken in me. Only by facing it head-on, honestly, could I begin to process it, transform it, and eventually use it for my own growth. Disruption, I’ve learned, is often the first step toward meaningful change.

This insight mirrors what’s happening in the broader world. Disruption, especially at the scale we’re witnessing globally, acts like a mirror. It reflects everything we’ve ignored, suppressed, or justified. And to truly transform, for society to become something more just, equitable, and sustainable, we must walk through discomfort. There is no real change without it.

This brings me to something controversial, but I’ll say it anyway: as much as I despise the current regime in America and the orange criminal at its center, and all the damage he and his enablers have done and continue to do, I sometimes wonder, was this level of disruption needed? Was this the jolt required to reveal just how broken the system has always been? It was this very system that created him and those like him.

In my view, he is the embodiment of the seven deadly sins. A grotesque caricature of greed, pride, wrath, and corruption. But perhaps that’s the point. He doesn’t just represent a man; he represents a mirror. One we all have to face. He reveals the shadow in ourselves, in this country, and in the world.

This is a lesson. Will we pass? I believe we can. But only if we stop pretending there’s some “normal” we can return to. That illusion was never real. “Normal” was a myth built on exclusion, inequality, and denial.

To move forward, we must reimagine everything, from how government serves the people to how we collaborate across borders to ensure human survival. The planet doesn’t need us. It will regenerate with or without us. The question is...will we evolve quickly enough to still be here?

This is where I land today: disruption is not the enemy, it is the invitation. The more we resist it, the more painful it becomes. But if we face it with honesty and courage, healing, real healing, becomes possible.

In Hindu philosophy, this truth has always existed. The goddess Kali is not a figure of comfort; she is a force of reckoning. A wild and always fierce embodiment of death, rebirth, and truth. She destroys illusions so that something honest can rise. Growing up, I was afraid of her. I clung to Laxmi and Saraswati, goddesses of beauty, abundance, and wisdom. They felt safe.

But now, I understand: Kali is not here to be feared; she is here to be honored. She is the disruption we need to face what’s broken and to allow new growth to occur. She is the blade that cuts through the lie of “normal.” She is the mother who says: WAKE UP!

Perhaps the world is finally listening.

I’ve always been drawn to old gates. Ornate window grilles. Corset boning. Bird cages. The repeating grid lines in my older work. The way a fence or a net lets you see through but not enter. It creates a relationship of distance, of longing.

Lately, I’ve been making lace, learning needle lace properly for the first time. And of course, it’s a net too, a delicate one. A web of labor, repetition, and time, and it feels familiar, like something my hands have always wanted to do, and my eyes are always drawn to.

Why do I keep returning to these structures? Why this impulse to look through?

Maybe it's a kind of witnessing. A need to observe, to understand, without stepping too close. Or maybe it’s about protection, having the choice to stay behind the veil. But these forms also offer beauty, order, and connection. I wonder if this is also about feeling separate from something ancestral, emotional, or cultural. 

This is the space I’m working in right now. Not the thing, but the space between the thing and the viewer. The through.