Two weeks in India

           I had a moment on the plane. One of those moments where you stop for a minute, just one minute to bask in the beauty of life.  I can’t accurately put into words what overcame me. I looked out the plane window somewhere over the Middle East and thought, “Wow…so this is where it all leads”. 

The past year has been a whirlwind to say the least. It’s been chalk full of failure, uncertainty, love, loss, grief and frustration.  But for some reason, all I feel is overwhelming gratitude. The things my former self might have considered failures have turned out to be the most incredible gifts I’ve ever received. That moment on the plane, I felt the gravity of that gratitude. For however brief my soul was overcome with thankfulness, I felt unadulterated joy, happiness; in it’s purest sense, and I cried.

I wish I could tell you every day since my arrival in India has been laced with the same sentiment.  My first week was overwhelming to say the least. My first “oh shit” moment came when the hot water in my shower (which by the way is a generous term for the spicket that comes out of my bathroom wall) didn’t work. It took a good 10 minutes of talking myself into the ice cold water. You’d be surprised how many excuses you can come up with for NOT showering.

India IS overwhelming. It’s overwhelming and confusing on every level. It’s brimming with life, and life is both overwhelming and confusing.  It’s real, it’s dirty, it’s smelly, it’s heartbreaking, it’s loud and yet at the same time it’s vivid, it’s vulnerable, it’s vibrant, and it’s incredibly beautiful.

Walking to work I literally run the gamut of human emotions. I pass a woman colorfully covered in a pink sari bending over a campfire to cook breakfast for her family, and I smile.  Almost simultaneously I turn the corner and step over the saddest dog I’ve ever seen. The balding patches on his fur reveal a bony skeleton and his eye is sealed shut by a thick layer of blood and grime. He doesn’t move out of the way because he doesn’t have the energy to. My hand instinctively covers my heart and my belly, anything to appease the sinking feeling I can’t escape. I feel helpless.

On the same road full grown men stop me to ask “Excuse me mam, from where are you from?” Their curiosity amuses me. I stop to buy oranges, 24 for $1.50 from the man with a limp and a lazy eye. Lately he’s been lighting incense in the middle of the piles, I guess it’s good for advertising?  His excitement to sell me a bundle of oranges dismays me.

A few meters further I pass a family of 4 living on the sidewalk under a heap of newspapers, cardboard boxes and dirty tarps.  This time I can’t keep walking. I give them my lunch of PB&J and a handful of oranges. Their gratitude for my meager offering humbles me.

Boys on bikes with bushels of dead chickens hanging off the sides and men with long poles carrying massive baskets of eggs pass me by.  Smells of roti and dhal start to fill the air as the street vendors begin their cooking for the day.  Everyone stares at me. I guess I stand out. They have no qualms about staring at the strange white girl as they sip their morning chai.

So this is India. This is my new home. It’s a crazy place. I’m sure I’ll have a few breakdowns. I’m sure I’ll laugh until my stomach hurts as I take in all the strange sights and inconsistencies. I know I’ll cry, but most of all I’ll be truly ALIVE.  I’ll experience life in its confusing, overwhelming and raw beauty.  As they say here “Let’s wait and see”. 

Surrender

Surrender

Waiting. Patience, a virtue I have yet to master. Why in life do we find it most difficult when we have ZERO control?

Today my mom came home crying. Today my visa was postponed. Today, I feel helpless. Today, I wait. I wait for some higher power, surrendering to divine intervention, a sign to justify my waiting. Hair twirling, feet tapping,  clothes folded, unfolded…I wait.

I have such an ingrained need to FIX. Some things just need time to heal. A wound, no matter how well you dress it, how great the salve you slather, still needs time. I need to learn the art of waiting, surrendering to time. The art of letting life, BE life, too fast, too slow, never just right, always just a little uncomfortable, always a bit out of the expected.  Life.

My mom came home crying. She is exhausted by her passion, by her love, and her desire to be her best. We always fail. Does this need for perfection ever end? Are we always living with the assumption that we are great con artists?  "Someday they will realize I have NO idea what I’m doing”.  When do we stop believing we are fraudulently impersonating OUR OWN lives? When do we believe someone else will love us as fully as we love our beloved? 

As a child, whenever I had a hard day my mom would tell me my grandmother, Genevieve Riesterer always told HER, “this too will pass”.  She’s right, all things pass, this waiting, this feeling of helplessness. All will pass.

For now, I choose beauty, I choose truth, I choose vulnerability…I choose LOVE. I held my mom tonight, the woman who so bravely brought me into this world, the woman who spent countless sleepless nights rocking me to sleep, watching over me until my eyes closed. Tonight, for a few minutes, I was able to hold HER while she cried. I tucked HER into bed. I finally had the chance to tell HER, “This too will pass”.

Life…you tricky bastard.  Thank you for uncertainty, thank you for vulnerability, and thank you for teaching me the beauty of waiting. Thank you for postponed visas, thank you for uncertainty. Thank you for making me wait. 

I see now. I SURRENDER. 

Very little grows on jagged rock.

Be ground.  Be crumbled.

So wild flowers will come up

Where you are.

You have been stony for too many years.

Try something different.  Surrender.

-Rumi