What's True

A tricky balance must be struck between self-care and self harm; go too far in one direction, either really, and you may end up on the I'll-never-drink-again end of a Sunday morning. There's the dangerous capacity to get it very wrong, and I think that the only way to get it right is to get it wrong enough times that you end up trained like one of those poor mice who veer away from the red button whenever they get too close because the memory of the shock it gives them sends them into apoplectic anxiety.

And then we're there, we're the lab rats, and all our rationalizations for why the testing is unavoidable go out the window. Or maybe the feelings on rats' rights remain the same, but there's a horror in finding that we've treated and trained ourselves with the same maniacal habituation. When did this become a good idea? When did we come this point of self-manipulation? Maybe it's irrelevant; the trick is to find an illusion of semi-stability so that we may continue on in our lives "taking care" of ourselves, loving and hating ourselves alternately and simultaneously, occasionally taking responsibility for the agency we have in our own lives, occasionally throwing our hands up in the air and asking God what the f*#@ he's thinking.

Things that are Good for You:
Soft Light
Playing with Children
Laughing
Tickling
Crying
Doing Scary Things
Dressing Up and Wearing Costumes
Singing
Dancing
Tea
Eggnog (non-dairy version does not apply, sorry vegans)
Cashmere
Wool (especially the soft kind)
Hugs
Kisses (butterfly, bunny, etc.)

******

The end of an era has come upon myself and my immediate family- our second and final cat, born and adopted 17 years ago, was put to sleep in what feels like the death of something soft and safe and constant. Which it was.

There's a moment when an animal is put to sleep- it happens so fast. There's life, and then there's not. And once it's gone, everything looks exactly the same, but totally different. How is that so? And what is it that we lose? Where does it go? And without the answers to these questions, I can't help but think, what do we think we are doing?

And I know- a cat is a cat. He was no more or less than himself, and tempers may flare at the audacity of lamenting the death of so feline a friend. Still though, everything I wrote is true. I think. And in my estimation, to compare one loss to another is unproductive.

And I keep seeing him out of the corner of my eye.


******


Out of the quiet and hollowness comes, from time to time, a billowing cloud of steam and sound which reminds you that you're not alone. You are filled, as if you're under the rainbow parachute, and it's also inside you, and the warm noise of music and conversation wafting over your everything reminds you that it's safe to be.

anywhere but here

Hello? Yes, I'd like to inquire about an application for employment...

Oh, hi. Actually, we're really overstaffed at the moment, but we'll keep your application on file until we're hiring again. Good luck!

Hello. No we're not hiring at the moment. You could try our store on Broadway.

What's your name? Oh, yes, I remember seeing your application. No, we're not hiring, but if we were, you would certainly not be a candidate. No, I can tell just from your voice that you are cut from a cloth of inferior moral and intellectual fibre. No, you're not eligible. Good luck. Oh, no, I wasn't serious, I was being sarcastic. Goodbye.

******

There has never been a place as cold as where I am right now. Never in the history of the universe. I am absolutely certain of this. Any comments to the contrary will be flagged and commentator will be hunted down by the blog-police (a lesser-known branch of the Culturally Hip-ish/Almost Cutely Nerdy Policing branch of the United Colonies of the Internet, also the organization trying to change the structure of the haiku from 5-7-5 to 6-7-8. Something about logical crescendos and whatnot). This is what they will do to you.

I'm so glad to be back in my new home. It's great. I have no more bottom due to the fact that it has been frozen off, but that's not much of a change- just ask anyone. It would be like if my ability to spell correctly was frozen off, i.e. I would not be able to spell. Still. Also, I had a phenomenal dream in which all of my teeth started falling out. One of the two beaver ones up top, and about every other on on the bottom right side. And then they just kept falling out, or breaking off in shards. I kept having to spit out the chalky paste of saliva mixed with tooth bits. It was wretched.*

But I awoke, teeth in tact, and proceeded to go through my list of things to consider:
Employment
Unemployment
Hypothermia self-rescue tactics
Dead babies
New babies
Flu and head colds
Unemployment
Rent
Grey market tactics for making money that wouldn't technically be legal
Morals and where the outer limits of mine might lie
Dead babies
Unemployment

I am so cold. And was so looking forward to being back. And, truthfully, found my trip back to be quite enjoyable. Walking through the San Francisco airport with time to spare, I stopped to look at an art project consisting of seals designed for each of San Francisco's sister cities, projected onto the floor of the airport. Kind of cool, heartening that there still is some money going into the arts in California. Though I suppose it's telling that it is being displayed in the airport, to make sure that visitors know that we support our artists; the rest of us, well, we know better.

I read the description of the project: "Each crest is designed with a background of the topographical map of the city's airport.." and my eyes welled up.

Wait, what? What is happening? Maps? Topography? Cities in Asia with which I have very little connection? Which of these was the element which was causing me to take this unexpected detour into the land of the deeply-unbalanced, leaving me teary-eyed and dangerously close to tear-stained, staring at some artist's representation of Manila and Shanghai? This is inappropriate madness for which I will not stand. Dazed, I walked away from the informational board. Maybe time for a snack or some tastefully designed San Francisco merchandise. Yes, I think so.



*I suppose I'd be in good company though, that of other phenomenally-excellent twenty-somethings endowed somewhat meagerly in the tooth-department.

Unfurling Sounds too Noble

Hello, I love you, won't you tell me your name?

Maybe it's all of the goodbyes I've had to say recently. To people, and to the bits and pieces that have made up my life for the past two years or so. Or the rush of anticipation, the explosion of celebration, and the uncertainty left in its wake.

Or maybe it's all of the thank you letters I've been writing to people I could never really thank enough, so all I can offer are a few flimsy words which I hope they can look beyond to see what I really mean.

Then again, maybe it's because I'm at a juncture in my life where I have the opportunity to take the biggest risks of my life. Or not. Though risks are inherent to living, so to say that we choose to live without risk is something of a contradiction.

Or maybe it's something as simple as the fact that I found a gnarly bug crawling on my face in my sleep last night, which initially worked itself into my dream, and then I woke up. When I turned on the light and saw my bedfellow, an exclamation of immense impropriety rang through the house and I briefly considered cutting off my face. Still not off the table. (Pause for 5th shower of the morning)

Let's change the subject now, shall we? (Kind of like a dentist asking questions to someone whose mouth she's got jacked open. Don't you think?) I'm reading a book, although I'm afraid to pick it up again, because it pulls me towards an unknown that I'm scared of. It's called Travels with Charlie by John Steinbeck. In the very first pages, he writes about the people who come to see him and his truck before he sets off across the country.

I saw in their eyes something I had to see over and over in every part of the nation-a burning desire to go, to move, to get under way, anyplace, away from Here. They spoke quietly of how they wanted to go someday, to move about, free and unanchored, not toward something but away from something...Nearly every American hungers to move.

I wonder if that's an American thing. I certainly feel it- it's the reason that this book scares me. I wonder, though, if it's a human thing. Or maybe not. It might just be a certain-type-of-human thing. If you've got it, I don't think it ever goes away. Steinbeck writes about a young boy who asks to join him on his journey;

He had the dream I've had all my life, and there is no cure.

This "thing" makes us very fragile. Because setting off into the unknown is terrifying. People are meant to be with people, to love and communicate and keep each other warm at night. It's the only way we can live, it literally keeps our brains alive. But it brings us to the point where deep sadness and irrepressible joy meet. It's not an easy place to be, an exquisite place.

It's terrifying, but in a good way. It's a place of possibility, of floating, of joyous desperation and reaching out for something, anything, but not just anything, to hang on to, to attach to, to love and be loved by. A feeling that might be characterized by the desperate need to love someone or something new, with the reciprocation of love being the only prerequisite.

Love in the Time of the Internet Cellular Phone

P: Are you finished with your essay yet?
A: No.
P: How much more do you have to do?
A: 10 pages.
P: You haven't done anything?
(Eyes go wide, eyebrows settle themselves in deep furrows just above, as though settling in before a storm, green and red sparks fly from the corners of eyelids because complimentary colors are always more catchy, majestic curls of smoke creep out of nostrils and diffuse into the air)
A: NO. I've done a lot. I just haven't written anything yet.
(Ninja stars are produced with rapid speed and hurled with breathtaking accuracy leaving the offender pinned to the wall with the knowledge that the students might have ended an all-too-irreverent life with the flick of her wrist. Lesson learned.)

++++++

When it's my turn at the counter, I fumble over words which should be so straight-forward.
Um, here, uh...I checked out these books, and I would just stick them in the slot, but this one is disintegrating, and I'm afraid it would fall apart in the bin...um, but, the other ones are fine. I can just...or maybe it would be easier...oh, you want my ID? OK, um, one...OK, here it is...
She takes my ID, and my disintegrating book. She smiles and says:
It's ironic that the title of this book is "Structuralism".
HA! I laugh in a voice too loud for the library, Yeah! Funny. Haha. Yeah...

I step out of the library into the cool, dark, soft night. Squatting on her haunches, her back is lit from the lights inside, leaving her face in shadow. Phone pressed to her ear, book in her hand, she declaims in a hushed voice:

...the past flashes like lightening over the gloomy abyss of the future and everything around me collapses...

God I'm going to miss this place.

*In Other News*

(strains neck to keep head above a torrent of what appear to be...fish with human heads?!?)
Just wanted to drop you a line, and fill you in on the really big happenings of my life leading up to what I'm promised will be my eventual graduation with a Bachelor's degree in sociology...

Spending so much time at home recently has been enlightening. I'll share some of my new-found wisdom with you:

Graham: Who do you think would win at catching pop fly balls at a baseball game, Luke Skywalker, or Gangsta Gollum?

Dad: Obviously Luke Skywalker. He's got the Force.

Graham: I say Gangsta Gollum. Because when Luke Skywalker gets within ten inches of the ball, Gangsta Gollum jumps up with a gun and says, "Back up, foo! My precious!"

Alex: With a gun?

Graham: He's a GANGSTA!

Furthermore, if you've got a few minutes to spare, take a look at this video. It has made me cry every time I've watched it. Try to look beyond the radiant early-nineties apparel if you can.

(Wait, is that a photo of a bathroom? A bathroom for monsters?!)

A Letter to My Favorite Story Book Characters

Here's a reminder to slip in the back pocket of your mind, to be rediscovered when you think you've got nothing left:

You are the most exquisite you there has ever been- don't deny yourself to the world.

All your foibles will end in beauty. I've read the end. Take respite in that. Enjoy your every sunkissed-or-shreakingly-cold breath knowing that everything will be as it should be.

You will find love. I promise. You will love and be loved, and you will feel it in the pit of your belly. It will make you feel sick sometimes, but sometimes it will be in a good way.

You are lost now. You will be found and lost again many times. Your confused and tear-streaked wanderings will lead you places you never would have sought out, had things gone according to plan.

Unutterably Soft

Moments of clarity often come at times when you don't expect them. Not only that, they come about things which you don't expect to take notice of until a curtain is drawn and you look up and say, "Oh."

In a time when breathing seems a chore and focusing is something that I used to do, Sandeep gave me a flower. It smells so sweet. A rose sent from the editors of this story who, looking down, think, "Hey, this girl might lose it. Let's sweeten the deal. " Over the past few weeks, Sandeep has been one of the main contributing factors to my continued tolerance of the confusion that has reigned supreme. And she gave me this rose. It smelled so good. And it was so soft. I walked around with it for the rest of the day; I couldn't very well just leave it somewhere. Maybe part of the attraction of flowers is that they are so fleeting. If you are overly-amorous with a flower, it's stem breaks or it's petals bruise. And even if you're ever-so-careful, it doesn't last for long. And you can only smell it when you inhale. You're denied that pleasure when exhaling. Or when you forget to breathe.

So there I was, walking around holding this rose, smelling it and better, feeling it. Flowers smell good, this we know. But they feel like velvet and butter and cinnamon and sugar. How do we forget this? Drifting from class to class, petting myself with my rose, I realized why women in those old portraits always hold the flowers right up to their faces; it's because they're so soft. I'll bet that when you're sitting for days on end for a portrait, you need a reminder of life and sweetness and light. And John Berger and I thought all along that these ladies were just positioning themselves in the most alluring and demure position for the male viewer. Shame on us.

++++++

Cracked open, wind-burned, anxiously beating in the hopes of finding some thing some end. That’s not what’s meant to be, but still it beats with ravenous desperation. But under the covers in the darkness, the drum continues, magnified in an amphitheater where you are the giantess, your nose brushing the velvety sky, your eyes the stars. For all your grandness, you quiver. Beating becomes a hum, rousing sleeping birds from their nests to stare blearily at the sky and snuggling down deeper to thwart the cool and loneliness from which you have no shelter. Warm or cold hardly matters, because fear lights the night on fire and all that is seen exists behind eyes, between the hum.

++++++

There are times when I think to myself, 'My heart hurts.' The grownup in my mind looks at the 4-year-old in my mind, right into her eyes, and asks, 'What do you mean?' I can't answer. Not in terms I'm accustomed to using. 'I feel it in my heart, and in my belly. They're all twisted up and sad.' What advice does the grownup give the kid?Hmmm.

'I know how you feel, I feel that way sometimes too.'

'Try breathing really deeply, and letting it all go.'

'Do you want some hot chocolate?'

shiver deep-down

I woke up this morning early (e-gads!) with a shiver in my belly and sad oozing out all sticky from my dreams. I remember waking up feeling this way sometimes when I was younger, and describing it as feeling like I need some hot chocolate, or a friend. The clarity and hit-the-nail-on-the-head accuracy of kids is alarming sometimes, isn't it?

Yesterday, my 5 year old friend Beatrice asked me to write this for her: Anybody I pass, I like. She wanted to write it on a big heart that she had cut out of tissue paper. I think she planned to tape the heart to her shirt so that people passing by her as she walked would see it. What a brilliant idea! Why not give light to as many people as possible? Why not tell everybody you love them? Just now, the shiver in my belly feels a little less lonely, honey-and-milk-Beatrice warming me up from the inside.

After writing this post, I switched over to homework and came across this report. Brian Welch says, "I always felt, as a kid, that I didn't need anybody trying to entice me into believing that the world was interesting." Cosmic.

Today my motto will be that of the curious campers- I promise to be awesome.

...creeeeeak...

This post will include none of the following things: perspective, generosity, benevolence, gratitude, selflessness, discretion, logical development. (Well, maybe a little, but I don't want you to get your hopes up.)

I'm having a hard time connecting the dots- getting from point A to point B. Is my life now anything more or less than it has been for the past six months? It's not simple, is it? Time, emotions, trauma, love, inspiration, they don't move from A to B. They go from Hindi to English to color to black and white to imagination and full circle back to roti which goes to autumn and who knows what next. Maybe uncertainty is what runs through it all, or maybe it's hope. Or moisture or combustion or fairies who creep out after consciousness fades into dusk.

And then there's this song that makes a whole lot of sense to me:
When you run make sure you run to something and not away from...

After the campfire dies down, all that's left are the smouldering remains of the logs collected hastily in the last smokey minutes of twilight. Frantically located, they are arranged in a formation most appealing to the stars, whose gratitude is expressed in the spark that lights the tinder, ensuring instant mashed potatoes and Swiss Miss. The logs are transformed into lumps of charcoal, rounded and grooved into monster's bones, glowing sparkly orange from the inside.

Sometimes it doesn't all fit. Some of those times, you end up sitting in bed, propped up with pillows looking at your room like a princess surveying her very tiny kingdom, slippers peaking out behind the laptop sitting on your lap. It warms your legs, glowing in the semidarkness, light pulsing from bright to almost-gone so that when you squint your eyes, you can almost see a heart beating.

Shivering at the Feet of Letting Go

The notion of "culture shock" has never made sense to me. I'm beginning to think though, that it's just misnamed. It's not the culture that you feel doesn't fit, it's you. And I don't think it only applies to travel. We are always changing, having new experiences that transform us in ways we can't fathom, only we feel the effects of the changes, hear their echoes and see their shadows.

Something tugs on the corner of our shirt, just out of eyesight. When we look down and slightly backwards, and we realize that we are changed. A wet tissue with a drop of dye in the corner, we realize that our color is utterly transformed, flushed with a color we hardly recognize but intuitively understand or identify with. Only the very farthest corner bears any trace of the color that was before.

I'm exhausted. Maybe it's jetlag. If it is, then I'm still the person I've been for the past 5 months. If it isn't, if I'm just tired, then who am I? Just another person, a person with no physical connection to close to half a year in India, with only photos and stories which seem less real with every day. Who is it real for if it's not real for me?

++++++

I remember my mom telling me about Buddhism when I was very young. She told me that one of the main ideas is that you accept everything as it is, without wishing it were something or some way else. It gave me pause- how could that be? And what would be the point, to anything, if we just accepted what is as what is? What if I wanted a toy? Did that mean that I just wouldn't want the toy? That I would give up that wanting? But I didn't want to give up the wanting! I liked it- no, maybe not liked it, but...I didn't want to stop wanting.

But maybe there was something to this acceptance. Wanting wasn't exactly fun, didn't exactly make me happy. But ooh! Look at the two pages in this catalogue where everything is white and pink and has frills and lace on it- I'm going to go show it to my parents!

And it's still hard to process, the thought of not wanting...

Lament

I'm up early, still sewn with some combination of jetlag, anxiety, and exhaustion. I expect that eventually it will fade into other things, or maybe the buzz will be redirected, focused on something else; another task, hurdle, irrelevant issue.

It's raining outside, not inside, for which I'm thankful. I am reminded of a conversation which took place in Mussoorie, one to which I was privy only in the retelling. It took place between my friend and the manager of our temporary home.

There's rain pouring down my wall in my room.
Oh, is it coming down over here?
No, on the other side.
Are you sure?
Yes. Wait...does it sometimes come down on that side?
Um...well, yes. It does. But don't worry. I'll help you move all your things to this side of the room.
...

In my room here in Oakland, the rain stays, for the most part, outside. But the sound comes through, just about the softest thing you can imagine. It's almost like the sound of typing, mixed up with heaps of aloe vera lotion and a mug of steaming peppermint tea with honey. That's kind of what it sounds like.

I've got a doctor's appointment today, one with a doctor who diagnosed me with Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome just before I left for Ecuador, right after my breakup. Extraordinarily bad timing. I remember being heart-broken, feeling lonely and pissed off and utterly isolated in a sea of calm, no land in sight. How could the waves lap so softly, with such deliberate mindfulness and contentedness, while I screamed with everything that was just the opposite?

Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome is very common. It means that you have a higher risk of developing diabetes. It also means that you will have trouble having children. It won't be impossible, you'll just need help when you're ready. Plenty of women with PCOS have children.

I went to get an ultrasound to confirm the diagnosis. I had never gotten an ultrasound before, and it was incredible. I saw myself, on the inside. It was calming, inspiring; I had so much inside that I had never seen, never imagined, didn't even recognize.

That is me.

The ultrasound technician told me everything looked normal, and I left seeing the sun for the first time in a week. I was fine. I got a letter from my doctor a few days later saying that the ultrasound had confirmed her diagnosis of PCOS, and that we should meet again when I returned from India. It was strange though- I didn't feel myself crumble into sand. I didn't feel fazed at all. It was all OK, but I couldn't tell you why, exactly.

I dreamt last night that I went to my doctor's appointment and my PCOS had miraculously disappeared. I was really happy. So was my doctor. Now I'm awake, and I couldn't tell you how I feel about it all.

++++++

Just now, I'm wondering what exactly it is that we lament. Is it change? If so, is it the change itself, or what we've lost? Would we love a flower as much as we do if we knew that it would last forever? It's hard to say; I don't think it's ever happened before. A flower lasting forever, I mean.

I'm a little sick of the whole "I'm back!" business. I am, and every time I say "India was great!" I feel like I'm losing a little piece of what it really was to me, what it still is. I'm somewhat tired of considering loss and gain and moving on and being here. It all sounds so melodramatic, trite. Enough already with the angst! And that's how I feel, about what I say, when these words come out of my mouth and present themselves as what-it-should-be or what-it-was. My experience in India wasn't any what-it-should-be, and I realize that I don't have anybody to convince but myself. Even that is taking some doing...

I guess it's the same as how I feel about calling myself a feminist. On some level, I think I am. I've got a problem with the label though. (Among readers can be heard a sharp and simultaneous intake of breath. If she's not a feminist, then what the *&%# does she think she is?) Speaking of trite, let's lay it out; let's acknowledge that I'm not the first person to consider the meaning of the word "feminist." I, however, have an allegedly new angle. Just listen. When you call someone a "feminist", or say something was "great," it is flattened out into a poorly-taken photograph. The photo displays just enough so that you can draw in the rest with your imagination. You guess at the distance between the trees, the heat of the day, the moisture in the air, the glare of the sun. Or better, you don't consider any of these things. You look at the photo and think, 'Oh, trees.'

Suddenly, the photo is a picture of trees, rather than all those things that the photographer sought to capture that day on the trail, the things that made the photo worth taking. The feeling that there must be magic in these woods, the smell and softness of decaying leaves on the trail, those things are lost in memory. And when memory gets too bleached by the sun of life and living, overwritten by new experiences or the shadow of something bigger, then these things are simply lost.I guess that's how it's supposed to be, though. Experiences, memories, things, never stay with us forever. And if they do, they don't stay the same for us, there's no way they could. We change to much.

And here I didn't want to talk about being here and leaving there.

Once again, I'm inspired by Kate. Inspired to create, express, explore.

Blown out of the water with a SKREEEEEEEEEEEEE!

I turned on my computer with the intention of writing something very different. But these things happen, life get's in the way. My blogger dashboard (oh yes, that is blog-lingo, and yes, I am that cool. You knew it, I knew it, let's not pretend any longer...) opened and Gal had made a post just 19 minutes ago. Guess what? Dahlia is 6 today! I hardly need give any background, as anybody whose talked to me for 5 minutes knows who Dahlia is.

It was so funny, the other day, my friend Dahlia and I went to the park...
You went to the park?
Yeah, with my friend Dahlia.
(look of confusion, searching, reevaluating friendship with conversation partner)
She's 5.
5 years old?
Yeah.
What do you mean, she's your friend.
Uh...well...she's...my friend.

Gal, Dave, and Dahlia recently moved to Ohio. Away. We here on Mather Street have missed them all desperately, and today is no exception. Because look what they're doing! Look what Dahlia's becoming! How did that happen? At what point do the family members and acquaintances you see only sporadically stop saying "Look how tall you are!" and do you start noticing all the little people around you transforming into butterflies? Really tall butterflies...

I'm back home, whatever that means, and having an acute sensation of having wasted time. In India, in Iceland, time that's gone by leaving my hands just a little more weather-worn. Seeing Dahlia, thinking of her as a SIX-YEAR-OLD, gives me pause.

We met when she was 1 1/2, when I was...18? And nobody who knows Dahlia will be surprised to know that, after a few months of babysitting her part time, it occured to me for the first time in my life that I might not want to have kids. A fading violet Dahlia is not. She's a real princess, the kind that says 'No thanks I'd rather go play with my friends, and by the way, 100 years is too long to wait in a magical sleep. Step up your game sir, or you're going to be passing on your crown to your royal hound and her regal puppies. Who are SO cute, by the way. Can I name them?'

So, here's to the regal, splendid, effervescent, and indomitably vivacious Dahlia. Happy birthday Love!

A couple of quick notes while en route to Iceland:

I am the only female in the entire Amsterdam airport who is not wearing super-cute leather boots. Even the little Nordic girls have them. They also seem very self confident, intelligent, and like they have a good handle on career paths, sharing, and the like. Unfortunately for me, In addition to my current bootless state, my fleece jacket is covered in disgusting red fuzz and maverick strands of hair. How unfortunate, think passers-by as they walk past. Storm ji was right about her...

Also, my new favorite thing: packing suitcases! Packing, re-packing, struggling with zippers until I rise triumphant, sweaty, and (as usual) covered in fuzz, re-packing just for the heck of it, and finding out that there was no point, and that I'll have to do it all over again, the way it was before. I love it. LOVE IT.

xoxo

bummer.

I just did my final presentation for my Independent Study Project. A month of working, focusing, worrying, faffing, sudden urges to organize my suitcase, checking to see if my clothes had dried since fifteen minutes ago... I just finished my presentation. I bombed. Kind of. But a bomb is a bomb, generally exploding all over the place, sometimes coating everyone within exploding distance with something unsavory, potentially causing them to catch on fire immediately, see their lives flash before their eyes, and die in excruciating pain, cursing the bomb with their dying breath. So that was me. The bomb I mean. Maybe I'm being dramatic. But I promise you all, anybody who leaves a comment saying anything to the effect of "I'm sure you did fine" or "You're exaggerating, you did great, I know it," anybody who does that will be killed. Not to disregard the sanctity of life or anything... Just don't do it. After my presentation, our teacher got up and reminded us that we should be mindful of the time limit in our presentations (I had gotten through one-tenth of my presentation when I learned that my time was two-thirds gone) because this is an important part of the presentation, and that we should also be sure to contextualize our projects for the class (I didn't technically say the title or subject of my project, let alone lay out my methodology, or really explain any part of it in a way that a normal human being could potentially comprehend. I began by defining fantasy, then defining reality (as fantasy, interestingly enough) , and proceeding to spray vomit all over my classmates, explaining that this was a way in which I was depicting my fantasyrealitydesireexpectation. I suppose it wasn't really so bad. And anyway, it's over now, and I'm over it. Totally over it.

++++++

After school, I went out with my friends Sally and Gwen. We went shopping in a center called Dilli Haat, Delhi Marketplace for those of you non-fluent in Hindi (or without access to multiple fluent Hindi speakers). Beautiful crafts, everything so lovely. My eyes actually welled up upon seeing a particular Ikat sari (type of woven cloth from Orissa- look it up!).

We returned home to the ashram in which our group is currently residing. We were sitting on Gwen's and my bed, reading some Vogue India and and other such intellectually stimulating reading material, and the planets came into line, the stars reflected an energy not seen since the previous day when I was pretending to send instant messages to Gwen from Dheeraj's facebook. God and Shiva and Kali and Juggernaut all came together and and decided that it was a time for the pressure of the past month to spew out like steam from a teapot - pssshhhhhhhhhhheeeeeeeeeeeeee! What it was that incited our amusement it's hard to say. It was technically a dance that Sally did, while positioned horizontally on the bed, in conjunction with the reddening of her face due to lack of oxygen and the thought that it was very nice to watch her participate in such foolery while she may be slowly dying... I know, it doesn't make sense. Two plus two does not equal four. However, this is what happened. The dancing was done, the comments were made, and laughter ensued. And it wasn't just laughing. It was the kind that lasted for ten minutes straight, egged on by the ridiculousness of the other's physical and vocal contortions, reaching epic proportions in length, volume, and general insanity. We laughed and laughed. And we laughed, and then cried while laughing, causing eyeliner to run amuck and saliva to be unceremoniously evacuated due to prolonged oral...openness. We laughed. Our stomachs hurt. And we laughed, and couldn't breathe, and squeaked, and rolled, and curled and twitched and coughed and laughed and laughed.

When our bodies began to run out of the calories with which to fuel our spasmodic convulsions, there was a knock on the door. A stout Indian woman was there, peering in with a mixture of suspicion and surprise and curiosity, and also with an alarming intensity.

W: What's going on?
A: We're laughing.
W: It's too loud. It is not good. Laughing is not good. Every room is full, and it is not good to be loud.
A: OK.
W: No he he ha ha hoo hoo. Not good.
A: Um...OK. Thank you.

P.S. GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR.

Grace eludes and angst sets in. This sucks! I hate everybody. Arrrrrg. Not in the pirate way, more in the why-doesn't-life-seem-to-fit-right-now kind of way. Over-caffinated, under-productive, not to sing the song of the co-ed...

"Set a goal. Focus. Don't go on the internet."

"Come on Alex, you're a big girl."

"200 Rupees" for the rickshaw ride that should've taken 10 minutes but in actuality took an hour.

(Sidelong glance from the woman serving breakfast when I come up for chai for the fourth time.)

F-YOU! (Head explodes and singed confetti scatters over the room, while the sound and flurry fade, the smell of burned toast lingers)

It's easy to spiral here. You know what else I remember? [Insert past or present injustice] My paper feels like it's hopelessly floundering with what turns out to be two water-logged oars I had assumed that I was working with a 50-horsepower engine. Oh crap.

Just a little note to say that I'm not capable of much more than growling at the current moment. Not very bodhicitta of me, I know. But when you share yourself with others, it's not fair to just share the oh-so-serene parts, is it? Not honest, true, not quite grimy enough. And while I have no desire to spread negative energy, because goodness knows that there's enough of that floating around, this is where I'm at. I won't be here forever. But I'm here now. "Necessary spaces," says Kate. Indeed. I am certainly inhabiting this space, and it's not so cozy in here. Hmmm...

before bed...

So it is this to which you have come, perhaps this to which you have been reduced. Though not solely reduced, something more than that, because there is a softness and a cradling in this place you find yourself.

Listen. Eating stale namkeen, unable to throw it away because it was so good when it was fresh. Oreos, water, mango juice, chana for snack, breakfast, dinner, filling in the cracks between planned meals which start off later than intended and become adventures in themselves leading somewhere unexpected, but maybe no lesser for that. Hair pulled back into the all-utility-no-how-do-you-do ponytail, whisps pinned up and twisted round to avoid distraction, though a glance in the mirror reveals their protest in the form of flagrant disregard for gravitational norms. Move books aside to shake out blankets, the crumbs and wrinkles which have made their homes in this place-of-sleep-cum-workspace. Snap blankets up into the air, watch them descend like parachutes, replace and reorder books, computer, tape, camera, namkeen, George, re-situate for continued involvement in whatever it is you're doing, were doing, should be doing. Cough syrup made of honey and little else smoothes dis-ease in mind and spirit, perhaps more-so than in body. Back to work, and it seems like I could do this. I really think I could.

++++++

Classic rock, or at least dated rock, undoubtedly questionable rock, service comes not so far into the stay to the surprise of the lord-creator herhimself, WWF playing on the big screen TV. A semi-sticky marble table that evokes a silent moving picture of an employee approaching a table after the patrons get up and wiping off the table without putting much store by the result of, nor the intention behind his effort. On couple bent over a laptop to my left, another in front of me as close as they can be while seated across the table from each other. Reaching towards each other, eyes grasping hungrily for some tangible piece, connection with the other. Her arms outstretched, his head resting in her palm, conversation brings them briefly back to the reality of their surroundings, the physical awkwardness of their near-embrace, and they resume residence on their respective sides of the table. Soon again they are lost in each other and hands reach out to make physical contact, dampening the electricity of looks and words to a sustainable heat.

All of it recalling a memory from the back of my belly of being completely entranced by someone, seeing nothing but this other person, feeling constant ecstasy that this person reciprocates my enchantment. Ecstasy is not meant to be felt constantly, only is short, quickly passing bursts. I had a stomach ache for two weeks straight. It was worth it though.

Sitting in this oh-so-something Cafe Coffee Day, what more could I honestly need?

++++++

Do you ever feel like you're on the edge of something huge? Or maybe that you're already there. And isn't it scary to think that you might already be there? Already be free-falling?

right...

NOW?

Things I'm (Pretty) Sure About

India's economy (see recent astronomical growth) is based around the manufacturing of faulty waterbottles and thermoses. Try and get tone that doesn't leak. I dare you.

Chai is the cure to lonesomeness.

Friends are the cure to loneliness.

It's better to reach out than to pretend you don't notice; it might catch someone mid-freefall.

Sleep makes the world look brighter. I promise.

You're not the only one. I promise here too.

Having a special stuffed animal is never a bad thing. Not even if you're 22. Or 34. Etcetera.

Drawing with friends is never a bad thing. (For further elaboration, see point above.)

Beards are fun. REAL fun.

Gelabie is like love- addictive, delicious, so sweet, messy, makes you very sick if you don't partake in moderation.

In India, halting attempts at speaking Hindi are met with smiles and chuckling. In France, halting French is received very differently. Mon dieu. Sub thik hai.

Drink more water!

It is without a doubt God who ordained that samosas and gelabies should go together. A burden and a blessing. Kind of like power.

Daytime soap operas are the same in every country. (Based on limited knowledge. Who's surprised? Reader thinks, "About what? Alex shooting her mouth off, or Alex not knowing much about daytime soaps?" Author responds,"Both." "Oh," says reader, "then neither.")

It's very handy to carry around a roll of toilet paper, not least because it's a good conversation starter.

Oh goodness...

“No one laughs at God in a hospital. No one laughs at god in a war.”

There's this song I've been listening too this morning. I woke up at 8:30, read something about I don't know what, and went back to sleep. I woke up at 11:30 in a haze, the kind that you feel when your body doesn't want you to wake up from, and you end up sleeping until the sun begins to go down and when you finally do get up the world drags your heels and your eyes ache from some magic spell which hasn't quite succeeded in making you sleep for 100 years like Cinderella but won't give up quite so easily. I woke up and this song was singing itself in my head; it's so weird when that happens, don't you think?

Anyway, it's a song that I generally skip over because it's so heartbreaking. I think that Regina Spektor might very well be a genius. This song reminds me of Tikva in the hospital, the sad and hurting part of my memory of Tikva. It reminds me of saying goodbye to the Thormars for who knows how long, of breaking up with Stan, of those people who capitalize on the uncertainty and fear of others, and live richly but still unhappily. It reminds me about how much we struggle and about how sometimes it seems like it really isn't worth it because we just end up getting smashed on the rocks after hours of working to stay afloat.

“God can be funny when told he'll give you money if you just pray the right way or when presented like a genie with his magic like Houdini or grants wishes like Jimminey Cricket and Santa Clause. God can be so hilarious.”

++++++

Do you believe in God?
I don't know. It depends on the day.
Only on Wednesdays? Do you check in with him once a week?
No, not like that, not on a schedule.
If you do talk to him, will you pray for me? I could really use it.
I'll do my best.

Chaithoughts

When and where does this real world exist?

A line from a movie that I've been thinking about recently.

Where is the life that we feel we're constantly moving towards, striving for, holding out for, and what are we living in the mean time? Where are we when we struggle through the days wishing constantly to be anywhere, anyone, else? What life is that if it feels so misshapen, badly wrought, makes our skin scream with heat and chafing? Is it less of life than life when things work out how they “should” or how we'd like them to? Which part is real- daily routine or the break from that routine? Finishing homework for class the next day the night before, or staying up late with a sick roommate, homework sitting in your still-closed backpack and at the very bottom of your brain right above your spine, pressing down? Which part of life is the part when you see before you different choices, completely in your control, choices which will completely change your life? Is that the in-between, or is that the stuff itself?

++++++

After an awkward 50 minutes of Hindi class with a teacher who's manner I can't quite figure out, we got up to leave the classroom. He always waits for me to start down the stairs before him, which makes for several awkward intervals. First, me packing up my things, him waiting. I'm reminded of how in 6^th grade, Ms. Porter told my parents that she though I'd have trouble in middle school because it took me so long to pack up my things and in middle school you change classes a lot. Next, walking down stairs clearly built for the giants who once lived in the mountains (before wizards drove them out- see Harry Potter) with a number of things inevitably packed badly or not packed at all in an attempt to hasten the packing-watching-packing experience. Stumble down the stairs, make awkward conversation. Today, it was about my water bottle. It is huge, and gets a lot of attention.

H: Is that a thermos?

A: Well...I guess. It's a water bottle, but I think it could be a thermos. It's just got water in it.

H: Hot water?

A: No, but I think it could have. It's also good because I can use it as a weapon.

H: ...Oh, yes, because it's so long.

A: Er, yes.

H: Did they market it like that? As a water bottle and a weapon?

A: Yes.

H: Really?

A: No...But they might sell more if they did. (bottom of the stairs, scamper away)

After my 2:20 class, coffee (Hindustani coffee, my teacher says, so something between tea and coffee) is served from a tin-looking tea pot with a rag wrapped around its handle. A plastic tub of small ceramic mugs sits beside the tea pot and students and professors come and huddle around in the chill, drinking. I pour a glass and see some acquaintances outside. I consider going to stand with them but decide that navigating my way through the gaggle of Hindi teachers isn't worth the trouble, so I stand alone with my mug.

My mind slips into hibernate, my eyes un-focus and I stare somewhere between the stairs and the bannister. It's not often that I get the opportunity to do this- just enough time to check out without feeling like I should be doing something else. Except maybe socializing. I suppose I've not set much store in socializing for the sake of socializing though. For better or for worse. Backpack on over down jacket and five-trillion under-layers, shoulders hunched, hands grasping warm, smooth porcelain, bandaid around my finger. I swirl my coffee without knowing why, thinking vaguely that I should stop, as I don't actaully want it to be any cooler than it is. I don't stop though. There's something meditative about standing there, swirling my coffee. Truthfully, it doesn't taste like coffee. It leaves a kind of tangy, bitter taste in my mouth. But holding it, swirling it, drinking it, seeing it, milky brown and steaming slightly, encased in an ugly little mug with a handle. It is calm, something that I suppose I've valued highly since coming to India. It is sweet, warm, and calm. I look into the mug and drift away, being in a moment that feels somehow stolen or won by a clever trick.

My glass empties and the bugs in my belly, wherever they came from, return to shake things up, the buzzing in my head resumes. I say “excuse me” to the Hindi teachers, wave to my friends, and walk out of the gate. I carry on with the day, but perhaps retaining a bit of the groundedness, born of chai. I look up and see the Himalayas, the clearest they've been since I arrived here. Gravel scrapes and grumbles beneath my shoes, and I have a thought that a friend could use a hand. I send a text message, and get a call a minute later.

A: Hello?

F: Do you know why you're the best?

A: No.

F:You don't?

A: Well, I mean, I could probably make an educated guess...

F: You're the best because you know me.

Maybe it's just here then; this life that we're seeking.

Just wanted to let you know that OH MY GOSH I'M HERE!

This blog title is an exerpt (actually, the entire thing) from a text message I sent to some of my friends/professors upon arriving in Mussoorie (OMG! Seriously? Yes, Alex, Seriously.). Their responses:

Cool, welcome to your new abode. Good luck for your stay.

Breathe in the fresh air. Go to Char Dukhan and have some noodles at Anil's Tea Shop.

Yay! I was just thinking about you! You're going to have so much fun, call me whenever you're bored and I'll do the same :) Lots of Love!

Honestly, how lucky am I? And, how cool do I look all bundled up?! Don't answer that, I know the answer: very cool.

I got to the guest house and thought, oh no, none of my friends are here... This will most certainly not work. No, I'll have to go back to Oakland right now.

You know what though? I think it's going to be OK. More photos to come. XOXOXO