In my early twenties, I had a Franco-American boyfriend who, despite what his background might suggest, knew very little about the world. Once, he found a childhood picture of me sitting on a black Santa’s lap and almost gave himself an aneurism. I watched him convulse, all thirty two of his little brown teeth exposed, the vein on his temple threatening to pop over a man in a bad wig. A black Santa, the hilarity! I, of course, didn’t think it was weird at all. But then again, no one had a weirder Santa than my family. Our Weird Santa came year round, and he took cramped commercial flights instead of the usual herd of reindeer.

Every child grows up and slowly acquires the knowledge of social norms within the particular society in which they are being raised. The immigrant child, however, faces the specific problem of trying to merge two conceptions of normalcy: that of their parents, and that of their peers. With these dichotomous views one can’t help but feel a little different. Much of this otherness stems from a variance in religion and the cultural rituals that sprout from it. And when it came to “otherness,” even at an early age I was well on my way to cornering the market. My personal exposure to basic Christian beliefs was so limited during my childhood that there was a time when I just thought “Christ” was a surname. I imagined the village mixers in Nazareth during his infancy…

I first encountered the new barre studio in my neighborhood as I was walking home after meeting my coworkers for drinks. The light streaming through the floor-to-ceiling windows and illuminating the crisp white walls and hardwood floors caught my attention right away. Suddenly I had flashbacks of my high school days as a pink leotard-clad ballet dancer, standing gracefully at the barre as I plied and pirouetted to my heart’s content.

Learning German is hard. For an English speaker, it’s nearly impossible to figure out why pizza is feminine unless it is an object. “Die Pizza—feminine subject—schemeckt fine,” but, “Kann ich ein Stuck von der Pizza—masculine object—haben?” I would like to think this happens because Germans are progressive, but I know that’s not true. Part of me knows it would be easier to remember if it were the other way around—masculine things become feminine when they are objects—but I hate that part of myself.

Usually, I can escape unwanted situations with some degree of finesse. Other times, I am as graceful and articulate as a toddler, particularly when my mother is involved.

When my mom asked if I’d like a ten-session yoga pass for my birthday, I responded with a garbled, “Uhhh, not really, but thanks.” She interpreted this to mean “Yes, of course. I would be delighted to partake in mind-numbing torture at your fine training establishment.”