A little late, though with all this time-change business, it's hard to say...

Happy Birthday Shanah! I hope your birthday was filled with sparkles and wonder. You deserve it more than I can say. Love is coming to you from India (how many people can say that?)- I am constantly amazed by all that you are!
xoxoxo
Alex

Magical Mystery Tour / Jadu Life

I feel a little bit like I'm living a charmed life. Not that it's a little bit charmed, because it is certainly a LOT charmed, if it is at all. It just feels a little bit unreal. But it's not unreal in the cinderella-pumpkin-prince-charming kind of way. More in the I-just-ate-five-hundred-gelabies-and-went-to-a-halloween-party-in-new-delhi-plus-did-i-mention-i'm-in-india-and-i-have-a-bit-of-a-headache-from-the-swig-of-whiskey-i-had-in-the-bathroom kind of way. (Note 1: Happy Halloween! Note 2: No, I'm not drinking alone in the bathroom. Just being a proper 22 year old with other 22 year olds for once. Plus I only had one swig. Or three. Really though, just three. I promise.)

I'm sitting on the back porch with my laptop, my water bottle, my headache, five liters of bug spray, and the moon. My face is painted in what I hoped might be a butterfly-esque kind of way, but may have just come off as borderline juvinile, and in any case is, by now, just smudges of black and blue. Children chattering, yelling across the park- shouldn't they be asleep? Their response- shouldn't you? Firecrackers go off spontaneously in the background, purportedly for some holiday or other, but interestingly enough there seems to be no end to the holidays for which firecrackers are required here in New Delhi. Stray men and dogs circumambulate the park, maybe looking for something, maybe having found it or each other.

Once, I met a friend at a party who was there out of obligation rather than free will.

A: I'm sorry you had to come tonight.
F: It's OK, I was excited to see you.

We don't always find what we want where we look for it, but often we find something better, something we couldn't have imagined. Maybe that's what makes it so much more special. We couldn't have dreamt it, it could only exist life. Is it possible that in the space between dreams and the life we expect lies the life we live, equal parts imagination, pain, and kaleidoscopic color?

One of our homework assignments here in India was to interview someone in Hindi. The interviews consisted mostly of information about how the interviewee was feeling, what time they got up in the morning, and what time they expected to get up tomorrow. One of my classmates however had a slightly larger scope for her interview, which she conducted with the maid who works for her homestay family. She asked Vidya what she would like to be reborn as if she could pick anything at all. Vidya's response was, herself.

How much time do I spend wishing I was somewhere else, in some other situation, some other person or some other me? Did something differently or better or more deftly and less haltingly? What if I just loved being here, me, a little awkward, but also funny and kind. Sometimes not so kind, but there you have it. I see the moon and it's beautiful, and I'm OK that my companions are mostly mosquitos and dust.



Addendum: Take a stroll down to the Halifax if you've got the time. Kate writes life at its most grubby and magical.

Breaking Day

“I wish you were a stranger I could disengage.”

“This moment is part of a continuum.”

“That is how I will arise.”

What a trip. I'm listening to a song that I listened to, over and over and over, LOUD, when I was first falling in love with Stan. A part of me feels good about no longer being with him, and a part of me can't understand that first part. I'm in India, but I'm still me, living the same life and behind the same eyes, which is a constant source of amazement. One of the students in my group started at Bard the same semester I did, must have been within throwing distance of me for the majority of those three months when I tried on that life which didn't quite fit. She is the most vapidly pretentious person I've met. I feel vindicated. I find myself in a situation where a friend is in an intolerable situation that I can't mitigate in the least. How is that possible? How could I not be able to fix it even a little?

I feel strangely detached from my school work in a way that I don't think I've ever felt before- unattached, un-invested, only vaguely attentive to the voice which usually dominates the conversation in my brain telling me that my GPA must be maintained for grad school. Floating along, seeing so many things drift by, trying to grab on to something but not finding anything that will stay put long enough for me to catch.

I remember when I was younger, seeing clouds from the windows of airplanes. I knew that if I could just touch one, it would be the most amazing thing. It would be perfect...It's a little sad that I can't now fully remember just what I knew clouds would be if I could only get at them. I can think of words, but writing them down flattens whatever pieces of that magic that I still recognize.

I have been exhausted. Last night, I could've gone to sleep at 8:30. Tonight I fell asleep at 7:45, woke up at 8:20 for dinner. It's 10:58 now. The fan is going, the light's still on even though my roommate is asleep, the mosquito repellent is plugged into the wall and slathered onto my body, and my left wristhandarm hurts from typing.

In between? Is that what this is? Bright turquoise curtain hanging in the doorway which has a door, but one that never closes. Anna's towel, orange yellow fuscia gold mirroring the curtain, both of them shivering slightly from the fan.

Pajamas with parrots on them that I cut with scissors somehow and my Cafe Blues t-shirt, George the monkey and my new Indian cell phone bearing witness to my typingimagining.

“Everyone I knew was waiting on a cue to turn and run”

Maybe it's just that I am feeling acutely how utterly fearful, cowering, delicate, imperfect, just terrified we people are. All of us. Not always sad, just raw, technicolor, chafing and alarming, shivering in the train of a heart-shattering sunrise after two hours of sleep.

Now what? Go back home, go to sleep, talk about how beautiful it was with friends later on? Stop. Just let it be and become a part of you.

Packing List for Workshop to Orissa

- Med kit up to date
- Bring passport and tickets <-- !!!!!

- Meet @ domestic terminal @ 6:00AM :(

- Bring snack

- Keep sched. w/ you

- Fun + frolic!

- Bring honor

- Bum-enhancing pants--> NO

more to follow...

OK, so I'm all for openmindedness regarding other cultures and stuff, but seriously, [insert explative here]!

Once again, I find myself crawling across the finish line of this oh-so-long week. There were extenuating circumstances of course: I got a bad cold, needed lots of sleep and had some confusion about exactly what the implications of taking Dayquill before bed might be. We had a couple of big assignments due this week, in addition to an exam earlier today. This all was compounded by the fact that tomorrow is Diwali, India's Christmas. That means lots of special gatherings, changed routines, sweets, whiskey. All of these seem to detract from time spent studying and sleeping, both of which I needed in copious amounts this week in particular.

This morning, however, was the icing on a hilariously discombobulated and hectic (though not all bad) week. Our alarm set early so we could get up and finish the homework we hadn't completed despite staying up late the night before, my roommate and I were awakened, much to our chagrin, before that odious beeping. Its replacement seemed to be a group of people, presumably engaging in what they considered to be song, with a microphone, just outside our house.

I checked the clock: 5:30 AM. Really?!?

Now, Anna and I have become accustomed to the occasional renegade paggel siti walla, as we loveingly call them. These whistle men come and play their flutes until some poor soul from the neighborhood just can't take it any more and so gives the siti walla a donation. The venerable walla then continues on his way to serenade another neighborhood of Delhiites whom, upon going to sleep, had hoped in vain to be able to sleep in the next morning.

This morning however, was different. It turned out that these "singers" were not in fact moving through, but had parked themselves on the lawn in the park onto which our window looks. A group of maybe 20 women were sitting on a large quilt, all facing the leading singer and microphone wielder, singing singing singing.

Needless to say, the morning did not go exactly as we had planned. Both Anna and I agree however, that it is a marker of our familiarity with Delhi that neither of us were particularly upset by this unexpected event, nor were we surprised in the least.

P.S.

I went to the Taj Mahal.

Lost In Transfiguration

On Sunday, I wanted to meet up with my classmate Erika. Fabulous idea. We made the plan, and she told me to send her a text message if I needed to contact her.

A: Um...I don't have a cell phone.
E: Just use someone else's.
A: Uh...

So, I called her host family's house the night before the planned meeting, but Erika was off traipsing around Delhi. I called the next morning, the morning of our planned date, and nobody answered the phone. Feeling mild panic setting in, I asked my host father to borrow his cell phone and sent her a text message, hoping for an immediate response. The message was sent, but none came in response, and thus we all went on about our business, I with the assumption that Erika was otherwise engaged for the day. After my host father had left for work, we got a call from him, saying that Erika had written back. (Uh oh) Thus, my host father, through the telephone to my host sister Payal, recounted the text messages, from their original English, in Hindi. Payal proceeded to relay the messages to me, in English.

P: Your friend sent you three text messages.
A: Oh no. What did they say?
P: The first one says "Don't worry, I'm leaving at 9:35. I'll see you there." The second one says, "I'll talk to you tomorrow. I just talked to my host mother, and I can't leave until five. I'll see you there." The third one says "I'm here, where is the monument."
A: What?
P: (repeats messages)
A: So, is she going to meet me there at 5, or will she talk to me tomorrow?
P: ...

Clearly, something was not right. By the time I got the third message, I realized that the situation had gotten out of control, and I had better high-tail it to the nearest international phone-calling booth and figure out WHAT was going on.

E: Hello?
A: Hi, it's Alex.
E: Oh, hey! Where are you?
A: I'm still in Lagpat. Is it OK if I hop in a rickshaw and meet you now?
E: No, don't, everything's closed here. I'll come and meet you at the CCD (Cafe Coffee Day) in Central Market.
A: OK. See you there.

Upon our eventual connection, the truth was revealed- we had experienced a...I don't know, something which, whatever it was, didn't work properly. Or maybe it did work properly, and its function, whatever it was, was to confuse the bajeezus out of us all. The real text messages read as follows.

Text 1: Don't worry, I'm coming! I've no idea how long it will take, but I'll leave the house at 9:35. See you there!

Text 2: Had to talk to my host mom, I'll leave at 5 to. I'll be there!

Text 3: Where are you? I am here where we saw the puppies at the monument.*

Hahahahahahahahahaha.

* We had in fact planned on meeting at the monument in Haus Kaus Village, where we had previously seen puppies. FYI.