"You're really going to smash me on top of your laptop again and subject my delicate plush to the public humiliation of falling into the aisle in coach to be stepped on by sneakered men in turbans? Sleepless nights in the apartment over the alley where the rick-shaw drivers hawk diesel-black mucous in the night? The mildew, the dust. Really?"
But I project. He's actually a tough bear who came back last year with a permanent dent in his facial stuffing. Tough cookie, face shifted into a perpetual sneer. Myself, I have a scar of some sort from every trip. The place where I had that boil, sun damage, motorbike accident, etc. I watched myself age just a teensy bit faster. In so many ways.
It's me who is thinking- really? Anyone will tell you it's a love hate relationship with India. This is my 9th trip, and I pretty much get the cycles now. First month, feet don't touch the ground. Second month in love with everything and plotting to never return. Third month hungry, bloated, sore, a little bit...dirty. Fourth month, maybe a little bit crazy.
You know I used to be dirty on purpose. That first trip where I couldn't even believe I was an American (how could I know this if I had never left America before?). Staying and eating in the cheapest spots at the risk of certain safeties. Some karma. It's what happened to my gut on that trip which brought me to Ayurveda, which has created a worldview and a professional avenue for me to understand and connect with all these packets of light we call human beings.
That being said, all my friends, I am procrastinating. I posted the blog on FB and thought I better say hello. The next 2 weeks, Im on and off the temple bus on a rollicking tour of the south. Between teaching, wrapping saris, and herding cats, you probably won't hear from me until I settle into the Ayurvedic village of Vaidyagram. I am a student there, and media is minimized. But I will do my best to provide a picture of what is happening there.
Camera pans apt behind me: open boxes, blender, blankets, suitcase, TSA bottles. I've got a lot to do today. Thank you for reading, which encourages me to reflect while I could be packing. As my friend put it, I'm "going groundless". It's been my pattern for a long time to pack it all up and notice attachments of all kinds. My heart-attachments to my Boston community are of the welcome kind. Catch you later. OM.
