true life planet

The last few weeks have been messy.

I went thru an unexpected breakup and I haven’t written much about it on the blog. I mean, this is a travel blog, right?

On the other hand, coming home and finding it hasn’t worked out is part of that “coming home” experience as well. That is–whether I like it or not– the breakup is now a part of my round the world trip. Not talking about it seems weird.

Yet, I don’t feel like writing much about it because it’s hard to know where to start, and I’m trying to keep things moving on in my life.

Yesterday, the other person involved told me to change what I had written, or even to erase it, because people he knew were looking at it and it apparently my words didn’t seem kind and so forth.

I didn’t erase it–but I made a few changes to it.

But it does call into question, Whose blog is this anyway?

I mean, the thing I love about blogging is that I can write what I want. It’s like a journal, and it’s real and in the moment. That doesn’t mean I want to get petty and small minded and say something inappropriate either, but who decides what can be on it is me. And only me. oh, and Bootsnall!

I’ve thought about it overnight and what ‘Ive come up with is that one thing I’ve noticed about my blog is that when I can’t be frank and open and honest, I don’t like writing it. When I feel like I have limits about what I can say, I don’t say much.

Case in point: working at the “Buddhist” monestary in England. I was working there for some time before I realized that it wasn’t exactly what it seemed to be. When I finally discovered this, I felt trapped by the blog itself, because to speak freely about what was going on would make some people unhappy, and might even cause me problems in my life.

So I stopped writing the blog for awhile. I couldn’t deal with the inconsistency of what I was writing and trying to say without saying it and with what was actually my experience.

When I was finally able to write what happened, ah…it was like a breath of fresh air. Such a relief. Because for me, I’ve always been open and honest about where I’m at, and to finally do that was just more of who I was….and in doing so, the blog did gain some naysayers, but also got stronger and more real.

I have been real about my personal inward journey since coming home. Everything I’ve said has been right on.

My personal growth since the trip–and during it–is a source of constant amazement and delight to me, and it is the center from which I am seeing everything now. It’s really wonderful to write about those changes in myself and share them with you on the blog.

But I haven’t been real about what it was like to think you have something/someone/a certain situation back at home, and you’re traveling and that situation you have at home is part of your travels. So there’s this piece missing, and the blog feels unfinished because of that.

I was actually worrying more about his friends and him reading it, than I was about trying to be real to myself and others about how it really has been. And that’s coming from a place of..not exactly caution..I would call it coming from a place of fear. And That’s not me. I’m a powerful person now, and I need to be real and be frank about how it really has been. I don’t need to protect anyone.Maybe I’ll get some naysayers, but then so be it.

You know..when you travel, and you’ve got someone who is commited back at home…

You keep their photo by your bed. You day dream of seeing them again. You talk about them them with everyone you meet on the road. You spend hours emailing them from around the world. You set up your schedule–and sometimes even change your plans–to see them or talk with them. And you’re not doing ths in the comfort of your own home with your laptop..you’re doing this in places that are difficult to live n already. Sometimes walking miles and miles to send one email, or trying to get across town during a strike or a blackout. It’s not easy keeping in touch on the road–especially for the person on the road itself.

All of my travel friends knew I had this relationship at home–it was something I talked about alot and that I took great comfort in. For them, this was a storybook romance of sorts, with me having met a person that loved me so much and vice versa that I was able to fulfill my dream. It inspired others. It inspired me.

To come home and have it not actually be true, was astonishingly heartbreaking. It took my breath away. I cried alot and went through the motions of trying to get my stuff together and make choices about what to do next–all of this in a cloud of disbelief that this was my life, and this was actually happening.

What really affected me most was the physical part of it–I was so tired and feeling unwell to start with, and I had to..put that off..put my concerns for my physical well being aside long enough to deal with what was in front of me and get it done.

It was, I think, one of the worst experiences of my life. It was so shocking to discover the truth. It was exhausting and I was so tired from doing the work I had been doing that I didnt have the skills to process it. I still don’t, but I’m chipping away at it, bit by bit.

Instead of coming home to see friends, I called friends I hadn’t spoken to in a year in tears.

Instead of calling my parents to say hello, I called them and cried on the phone.

Instead of coming back to my small town, thinking I’dhave a nice welcome home party, I had t pack and hold my head up high and change the subject when they asked how I was.

Instead of resting and taking care of my tired body, I stopped sleeping for a week.

That’s all changed now. Things ave taken on their own rountine, their own shape, and life is becoming good again–but mostly because of my confidence in the woman I’ve become on my travels and what she has become. 

I’m keeping the focus on myself these days–for awhile anyway. Yes, I do feel sad that it’s over, yes, I do feel sad if writing about it hurts someones feelings or causes discomfort–but hey, he wasn’t thinking of my feelings or discomfort when he made his choices awhile ago.

The question of , “Whose blog is it anyway?” is easy to answer. It’s mine. I’m back.

I don’t think this topic of the breakup will come up again. I’ve said what I needed to say, in this short entry, and I can’t think of anything else that I need to say. All I wanted to do here in this moment was to say how it really was and how it’s been.

Now I can move on completely–both in the blog and in my life.

I’ve got a  few adventures planned this year, and I’ll be writing about those this week, as well as beginning the long process of transferring copious ournal entries from my trips to Bihar.

Keep reading!

gigi

Hey everyone. I keep meaning to write about my Indian adventures, but instead wind up writing about my everyday experiences right here in small-town America.

I think this is because for me, it’s a pretty fascinating experience, being here in my small town, being back in the States, being around alot values and beliefs that are so varied and  altogether dfferent than what I was in just recently.

When I came back here just a few weeks ago, I really didn’t think that it would be all interesting, especially after the places I’ve been and the things that I had seen.

But it’s turned out to be somewhat of a wild ride.

I mean, part of that is definitely emotional, but part of it is that it seems like everyone is speaking a foriegn language and has these strange customs which I’m not familiar with.

Like how people:

Greet each other and say goodbye(or not)

How people save face (or not)

How people talk about wealth alot (or not)

What is considered of value (and what is not)

How people approach politics, religion, and other important topics

What consists of appropriate small talk(or not)

How complicated peple’s lives seem to be (or not)

How people express opinions (or not)

How people present theselves (or not)

The way people deal with things here is so much different, and qualities people strive to have are also alot different. It’s not wrong what people want, it’s just very different than in India.

I find it interesting to take note of how much of Indian culture and customs really have affected the way I view things, almost acting as a filter for what is going on around me.

I have a closed and final way of looking at some things, which is very Indian–but also I have a new expansiveness that I ever really had before and this combination of perspective makes me more adaptable than I could have ever imagined myself to be. It’s so Indian to have both of these perspectives at the same time! It sometimes frustrated me alot in India to deal with this trait in others, so it’s surprising that I took some of it on and brought it home with me.

This adaptable quality is new to my way of looking at things and it makes everything somewhat of an adventure. It makes everyone very interesting–and sometimes strange– to me.

I’m always thinking to myself, ” What is that person trying to express by their dress, mode of speech, way they sit, car they drive, opinions expressed(or not) ?”

It’s almost as if I feel like everyone is in some weird tribe , which has it’s own rituals and so forth.

It’s hard for me to judge accurately what is wrong or right or in between, and in fact, the process of even doing that seems outdated and futile.

It’s like I’m an anthropologist living in a small town with groups of people defining themselves by alot of mysterious rites and kinship groups.

Which is exactly what it is.

I just never saw it that way before.

The really strange part abut it is that I find myself trying to..not necessarily fit in, but….align myself with the group or tribe that suits my perspectives, opinions, and so forth the best. And I’m doing this consciously for the first time in my life. I look back and wonder sometimes if I was actually ever this concious before now. My guess is that I wasn’t. How strange.

It means I’m thinking alot more about everything I am, and everything everyone else is, and how those two fit together.

And the strangest part about it all is that I’ve changed so much on my trip that… I don’t find myself particularly drawn to the groups or tribes that I was in before. I don’t know why, but I find myself spending more time alone than I probably ever have my entire life.

It’s partially because I am, actually, in spite of my frankness, a very private person, and I don’t feel like explaining myself too much at the moment (it’s been a wacky rollercoaster ride emotionally since I got back and how does one even begin to explain that? What a mess, for goodness’ sake!  They say time heals all wounds, so let’s hope so!)…and it’s partially because my ethics, morality, interests, my reason for living, I suppose is so drastically altered from what it was a mere two years ago that  it’s pretty difficult sometimes for me to relate to other people.

I still like and enjoy all the people that I knew before–such wonderful friends I have, who have helped me truly “come home” these last few weeks–but I find myself drawn to new people and experiences that I would have not been drawn to even a year ago.

For example, I went to a big party the other night with my friends from Mexico. They are all farm workers, very poor….but with great spirit and intellect. Such a smart, vital group of people and so loving and inclusive.

The party was for a girl’s seventh birthday, and there was a huge mess of tacos made with calf brains and all other sorts of strange foods; there was dancing and I salsa danced the night away; there was laughter and fervent declarations of love; and it went on long into the night.

I felt so at home with these friends of mine–not only because now I speak fluent Spanish–but because it was, I think… more relaxed to me… and more like the people I’ve spent the last years of my life with.

When I hear people talk about certain things like real estate or something, it feels like they are in some strange tribe speaking a different language! So being with people who were living in present moment–dancing, eating, talking, laughing–without the worry for tomorrow–well, that is something I’m a little more comfortable with!

And I’m just so different than who I was before that even my interests have changed so much that that also has redefined who I am and who I am drawn to.

For example, one of my main interests when I lived here before was art–and making it. I had art and art making pretty high up there, on pedestal of sorts, as though that particular form of self expression was better than anything else. And while I still see art and art making vital to both myself and the betterment of mankind, I see the process of who gets to make art as rather accidental. It’s a new, rather curious way of looking at something that was, before, so very important.

What has changed is that now I don’t hold that particular thing or process any higher than anything else. A person who paints for a living is no different than a person who fixes cars. It’s actually all just culture and luck and will, and those things are really just circumstances and nothing more. 

Plenty of poor, destitute people in the world would make great “fine artists” if they had the opportunity, but they don’t, so they make bowls out of tin cans or arrange the items in their hut beautifully…. or maybe they slave away all day at some grueling job and they don’t have the energy to  do anything else. So one isn’t higher than the other. And I used to think differently.

Spiritually, things have changed pretty drastically for me, too. I used to have what I would call a convenient spirituality–I used it when I needed it, and I forgot about it the rest of the time. Now I feel so connected spiritually to the planet, to God, to others, even, that I find I have this incredible sense of peacefulness and calmness that I never had before. I’m taken care of and I know it; and even though I do worry sometimes, it’s fleeting. I know that the path is pretty clear and I’m not alone on it, so that helps me to let go alot more than I would have been able to do before.

I’m not shy, either, about my beliefs or where I think I need to be with them. Taking spiritual inventory right now is not just an every once in awhile activity, but a daily activity–and sometimes even, hourly!– and something to approach with alot of joy and knowledge that I will only benefit. Thank goodness  I have faith, or what has happened to me recently (if you are behind on the blog, well…basically, I came home to a messy, complicated breakup that I wasn’t expecting.)..anyway, I could not have faced it. But taking spirtual inventory of myself really has helped me not only face it, it’s  helping me move on to what is the rest of my life.

Maybe this came from working with people who were really suffering and struggling and somehow that experience refined my soul. Whatever it was that made this overall change happen, I am grateful for it. It can be hard to face yourself and your situation sometimes, but believing in something greater than yourself–whatever that is for you–really puts it all into perspective.

The biggest change I think is that my goals are totally different, to the extent that I find my present and future almost unrecognizable to myself.

This, in particular, is what makes me feel a bit isolated –and it’s also extremely hard to explain to other people, who haven’t had the experiences I have had and have been living in what amounts to a different reality.

My goals are so large, vast and..I would say.. extreme(for this culture, anyhow!) …that most people I talk to get overwhelmed. “How will you do it all?”, they ask.

I can’t explain how, exactly…I just know, that’s all. And that’s enough for me. I just have totally different priorities for the rest of my life, and that changes how much I think I can do with the rest of my life. It’s that simple.

I’m happy, so happy, to be home, to have  place to be where I can be comfortable and just be myself.

But I’m just also realizing–somewhat simultaneously–that “just being myself” is a bit more complicated than I thought it would be, because what I’m learning is that I’ve changed so very much from my trip that some parts of  me I’m just discovering.

It’s an amazing journey, going around the world. It’s an amazing process, experience, and so forth..but what’s most astonishing is coming home and realizing that you’re a totally different human being with these new qualities that you never realized you had before.

It gives you tremendous perspective and a whole new chance to recreate your life as you want it to be, not as others expect to be.

It’s a little like waking up from a coma two years later and having particial amnesia, but having had the most fantastic dreams of your entire life for two years. It’s so freeing.

The main question I find myself asking everyday (to myself) is ,”Well, why not?” , because the first thing that comes to my mind everyday is that it is all a little scary and overwhelming( so much change, so many choices!) and how will I do it, anyway? But then, I just ask myself, well, what’s the alternative? And that leads to the question of, “Why not?”

So I feel like every door is open, all my options are option, I can go anywhere, do anything. It’s the most freedom I’ve ever felt in my life.

I think this liberating feeling of freedom  comes from having accomplished something that was only a dream to me in the past, and not only did I do it, it turned out better and more than I ever imagined that it would have. And there were so many people who didn’t think it could be done, or didn’t think it was wise, or important, or that it was too risky.

Well, I’m really glad that I didn’t listen and that I did it. I think any woman who travels alone comes back and says, ” I can see that I don’t have the limitations on me that I thought I had, and what’s next?”

So my thinking at the moment is that pretty much everything else can be treated exactly in the same manner–there are no impossibilites for me. I just have to feel free enough to do it.

And I do. I never thought I would be someone who would say this, but I’m free.

gigi

Everyone is asking me, “What’s it like to be back in America, to be home?”

All I can say is that I am falling in love with being here. I just appreciate everything so much more–the clean air, the clean streets, hot water, showers, flushing toilets…it’s like everyhting is wonderful and new.

I have a lovely place to stay, on the edge of an orchard, and everyday I take my dog for a long walk along a local creek.

It’s just pure bliss, to be able to see family and friends and drive a car and use a phone and make decisions about what I get to eat(there’s more than rice and curry here!) and how to spend my day.

I feel so lucky.

This general feeling overrides the tough days, the days when I feel sad about some things that are gone and lost from my life.

One day I decided to “just have a bad day” as I’ve had alot to process in such a short time and it’s been a little–well–overwhelming.

But it was so beautiful where I live–so green, so lush, so epaceful, so quiet, that it quieted even my mind and I felt so positive about everything.

How can I not? I just came from what is one of the dirtiest, most poverty stricken places on Earth.

I literally feel like I’m falling in love with everything.

How lucky we are, how blessed we are, that we have this amazing part of the planet to live on and so many good things happening for us.

For me, so much good has happened since I returned that it has completely eclipsed the bad and ugly moments and taken it all and tunred into something new, beautiful, and exciting.

So many wonderful people have helped me settle in to life here and have made getting up in the morning a real joy.

I feel grateful, gracious, and happy.

Life is moving along and even though there are tough moments, I’ll be fine. Better than fine. Life goes on and it’s apparent to me that the adventure I’ve been on the last 18 months isn’t over.

It probably never will be.

Going on this trip has given me alot more confidence to set limits and expand those limits at the same time, so the kinds of things that I am considering doing with my life at this moment are all things that require a willingness to take on adventure and to be risk-taker.

I find myself more willing..if not even drawn to..thinking outside of the box and thinking about my life in a completely new and creative way.

And I’m content with that.

Contentment. That’s not something I would have thought I would be experiencing right now, if you’d asked me 3 days ago.

But the truth is, if you’re happy with yourself, know yourself, and know where you’re going, the rest of life falls into place and you can just relax and live in the present.

I feel like one of the luckiest women on Earth. If I hadn’t taken this trip, I might have never discovered who I was or what I wanted.

Be content.

gigi

I don’t even remember writing that last entry-I was very fatigued and confused and kind of in a state of shock, both culture shock and shock of trying to make alot of decisions very quickly about a situation that had happened in my absence.

I do remember that I was in a state of anger and frustration. I was also overwhelmed the first day as a dear friend died the day after I got back–he was a dog, but still a friend. I didn’t have the emotional energy to process that or anything else, really, as I had given alot of that away in Calcutta.

And that’s all changed as the days have gone by and I have had time to reflect on where I just was two weeks ago and what I was doing, and how those experiences have permanently altered my both my view of the world and my view of myself. Two weeks ago I was in Bihar, staying with some Muslim friends for about 6 days, trying to take a “vacation” from my Calcutta experiences, wearing full purdah in a tiny village and teaching kids at the Muslim school “Old Macdonald Had A Farm” in Urdu. And three weeks ago, I was living in the Daya Dan orphanage and running the boy’s floor, taking care of everything to taking kids to the hospital to comforting them in the middle of the night when they had nightmares.

The reality here is much, much, different!

It’s interesting how world travel changes you and gives added value to everything you do afterwards. Well, not just added value but also a sweeter perspective. At least for me, anyway.

I’ve met people who traveled and became cynical and ugly, always seeing the negative in humanity and somewhat hopeless about human nature and the problems we create both for ourselves and our planet by our drive to be important. And I’ve met people who walked out of the worst scenes imaginable–a ghetto in Guatemala City, a flooded village in indigenous lands in Panama, or the streets of a city like Calcutta, India, where everywhere one looks there are unspeakable tragedies and suffering– and some people walk out of those horrors saying to themselves, ” there is still goodness in the world and being here has helped me to discover what is most important in life and I am thankful for that.”

I fall into that last category.

In fact, for all of my pain and “suffering” I felt this past week and a half, part of me knew all along that it was not actually real pain, real suffering, but instead, just a wounded heart and hurt pride. And both of those are so small and insignificant in the larger scope of things, in comparasion to  what is real suffering: watching your child die of malnutrition; having your home and all your possessions washed away; being forced to beg or live on the streets and sleep outside; dying a painful death of an unknown disease when you are just a child.

These things I have seen, many times, and that is what motivates me now to step outside outside of myself and realize that it is not the situation that I find myself in that is important, but only how I react to it that is important. It’s very important to me that I keep the energy that I have at this point in my life to stay on track with one of my major goals that has come out of this around the world trip, and that is:

To keep myself in alignment with the REALITIES of the world that are happening right now, to keep myself in place where I don’t forget what is really most important in life–which for me, is continuing to devote my life to the service of others.

And frankly, you can’t do that if you are sitting around feeling sorry for yourself!

So I’m looking at the whole experience of returning to somewhat of a messy and chaotic situation as an opportunity to gain further clarity on who I need to be so that when I leave this tiny planet some day and go where ever I go, I can leave with the confidence of knowing that the world was hopefully a better place because I was here. It’s a good lesson in humility and an excellent opportunity to take inventory and revisit what are my core values and  make good choices on what is going to be next for me.

One thing people like about this blog is that it has always been written from an extremely personal point of view–almost like you are having a conversation with me, and I’m writing in my voice. That’s still the case, but in the current situation I find myself in, I don’t think much more about can be said, as talking about one’s personal life like that would compromise other people involved and that would be unethical.

So we’ll leave it at what I’ve said, and I’d now like to talk about the general impressions of coming home that I have at the moment .

My general impression of people and the environment and the country when I came home was that a terrible cynicism has crept into the culture–maybe it was always there, I don’t know. I guess I always saw it as isolated to individuals and not pervading the culture. But read any newspaper, or watch the news, and there it is, staring you in the face. I mean, people seem to have sort of a”controlled hopefulness”–in other words, you can be hopeful about this, because it’s pretty reasonable to assume it will go the way you want it to go; but you shouldn’t get your hopes up about this, that, or the other because it’s impossible.

Really?

I’ve noticed this especially in regards to things I’ve written about on my blog, things I have plans to do in the future–like adopting  a child, or starting a charity or foundation for the indigenous tribe in Panama I worked with.

It’s as though people actually think things can’t be done.

Which is really, really weird for me, because I feel like I just came back from a place where it seemed like all was impossible and yet every single day, I saw things to prove otherwise. That combined with the fact that I have managed to accomplish my dream of going around the entire world, alone, as a woman, on basically the most shoe string of budgets, and working for good….well, obviously I’m coming from the point of view that everything is possible!

The thing that most shocked me about “coming home” was that people complain alot about everything. I noticed this first in the airport, then on the plane, then driving home, then in the grocery store, and so on. It’s like people here have so much that they just can’t seem to be happy with what they have.

I don’t just mean material things, I mean other things: like complaining about the economy; complaining about other people; complaining about the service one receives; complaining about politics. It’s like nothing ever seems good enough.

I don’t know, maybe this feeling of general contentment of mine will wear off at some point and I’ll start complaining about things too, but, it all seems so temporary to me. Don’t people realize how lucky they are, to have all these choices, to be in this country? I guess they don’t. Even the small things-like disagreements between people–just bring to mind, for me, how short life is, and how people waste alot of time not figuring that out until the very end. On my trip I saw alot of people wasting away due to poverty or illnesses, and they all had so much regret. Here, we have so much and yet we still aren’t content. It’s kind of surreal.

People talk alot about the economy, and how terrible it is, and how hard it is to get a job, and for a few days I let that creep in and influence me, and even today was on the fence about taking  ajob someone offered me that was really not the right job, just due to some sort of weird panic. It’s contagious.

But then I reminded myself that I came from a country where the economy (what exists of it) is really just on paper, and life is actually very, very hard for almost everyone, and that what Americans are facing right now, well, it’s actually probably as it should be, as we were all living beyond our means. But that worry that comes along with it, that is not for me. I’ve been in much more difficult situations than this and managed just fine, and I’m sure I will here, too.

Which gets me to the next lesson I learned in India, which was to literally live in the moment. This is something I had attempted in the past before my trip but never really excelled at, and it’s wasn’t until literally forced to do so in India that I pulled it off at all. Even then it was a struggle against my Western upbringing and culture.

Being in the present moment is something that I have been able to do these past few days. It’s amazing to be able to look at situations and at everything going on around you from this perspective. It mean your conversations are more intense; and that for the first time you actually are truly listening to the people you are talking with; that you are enjoying the beautiful weather (such bright blue skies) ; that you enjoy everything, really, from the walk with the dog to the chat with the homeless guy on the sidewalk.

It’s all wonderful and interesting and it it all teaches you something.

Which gets me to the next thing that I’ve noticed about coming home.

I live in a tiny, tiny town, full of characters of all sorts. Everytime I see someone again, it’s as though I am seeing them for the very first time, listening to them for the very first time, experiencing them in a whole new way. And what’s most interesting about this is that I’ve reached the conclusion that I so socially limited myself in my community before that I literally think my friends and aquaintances numbered less than 100 people. And now, everyday I meet all the people I knew before, plus many, many more new people I never knew, and they are all amazing and interesting people, from every walk of life, and I want to be friends with every single one of them!

In India, the majority of my Indian friends were poor. Actually, most of the people I met along the way during this journey were poor people who happened to live wherever I was working at the time. And what that has taught me is that circumstances do not make the man. In other words, even in this country, people have opportunities or they don’t-and that doesn’t take away from their intelligence, creativity, or ability to contribute positively to the planet.

Maybe you are nodding your head in agreement, and saying to yourself, “well of course not!”

But the truth of the matter is, that even though I thought I had a open mind, and was open to all people–from those with a bunch of degrees to those just scraping by on a single welfare check–I really wasn’t.

I don’t really think we really are as open as we say we are in this country. We draw alot of lines between race and class, and just like India, we too have our own “Untouchable caste”. It doesn’t feel good to say that, but the truth rarely feels good.

It seems like we surround ourselves with people just like us, with our small group of interests, and we leave it at that. And we don’t reach out and get to know people that at first glance we think we have little in common with. But, one thing I’ve come to understand is that the outside of a person is just packaging, and its got little to do with who they are.

I think what really caused this change in me was working with severely disabled children, sometimes who couldn’t even speak; and working with extremely destitute dying people, both of whom are groups I did not have much–if any– contact with back at home.

These people gave me so many gifts and taught me so much about brotherly love that I feel like each of their faces is imprinted on my mind forever.

Everyday, my mind is filled with thoughts of them and thankfulness that I got to be with them; and this in turn makes me think of each person I meet in a completely new way.

So, one of the main things I have learned is that I am just a common person, who had the opportunity to do something extraordinary. But that doesn’t make me  extraordinary, it make the world an extraordinary world for allowing me to participate in it in such an intense and wonderful way.

I think the last thing that has significantly changed for me is my spiritual life and how I relate that to all that I am experiencing. Before I left on my trip, I did try to have a spiritual life but I lacked the deepness of experience and I lacked, I think the ability to see myself for what I am, what I ought to be, and a belief in grace.

Coming home, after having crossed scary border crossings(what was I thinking!), gotten sick a hundred times with nasty things, been lonely, struggled against myself and governments and belief systems I did not understand, watched people die, watched people suffer….I can completely say, with no hesitation whatsoever,

That I do see myself for who I was, for who I’ve become, and that I have  a sense of who I will be next.

That I know myself spiritually and that I am in a state of grace.

That there are many ways to know oneself, and many paths to take, and that it is my humble wish that everyone I know have the joy of knowing themselves deeply and spiritually someday.

I think living in India was an especially spiritual lesson for me–you’ve got thousands, millions of people all living together with hardly any breathing room, all believing different things and all trying to get along. I took note of this and I hope the rest of the world stops for a moment  and takes note of it too.

There have been other small things to get used to–using a phone; getting used to privacy, hot water, real flushing toilets ; driving a car; talking daily to friends and family. It’s alot of interaction for someone who just came from working all the time, and I’m trying to take it slowly. Everyday, I try to go and do one social thing, and that seems just about right for me. But most of the time, I’m just trying to spend as much time with myself, trying to think things thru and decide what to do tomorrow. It’s kind of a one day at a time kind of pace right now.

The thing I am enjoying most about being back is spending as much time as possible with my dog and cat. They are extremely entertaining and their antics are endless. It’s such a pleasure to spoil them after being away for so long and after seeing all the starving animals around the world. We just take alot of dog walks and alot of cat naps together, I feel so blessed and grateful to have them.

In spite of how things went on my arrival home, I’m still glad I’m here. That was just a bump in the road and what is that saying people say? “This, too, shall pass.” I’m really keeping that in mind as I think about everything I have to be grateful for, and I’ve got so much, really,–so much more than most people–that I am content with that.

Where I live, Winters, California, I think..is..one of the most beautiful places on the planet. I love all of it. I love being there, and I love knowing, simply knowing, that I’ve come home.

gigi

So I have been back for about a week.

So much happened to me in Calcutta in the last month or two I was there that writing about it seemed an impossible task so the blog..temporarily..died.

Well. I’m attempting to revive it now, in spite of the fact that I am in the midst of unplanned unchartered territory here  at home.

I returned from my journey, tired, jet lagged (What was that flight, anyway? What in the world was I thinking? Yes, it  was cheap, but wasn’t it like three airports in three days?!)..at any rate, out of wack and running on caffeine and airplane snacks.

I arrived back in my sweet little town of Winters, happy to finally be here, happy to finally be at home, in one place, not traveling, not moving..and prepared myself to enjoy a month or so of rest, a month or so to just process and think about all that I have seen and done on this journey.

Unfortunately, this was not to be as I soon discovered that the man I had been with for many years had made choices of his own which have made it too painful for me to be with him. Which I was not quite prepared for.

And so I find myself in the middle of packing and trying to figure out where to live and what to do with myself, and my emotions and being running the gamut of total depression to feeling like I can adapt to this new set of circumstances and being excited about what will be next for me.

Life. Just when you think you have a handle on it, it throws you a loop.

At any rate, I guess my journey hasn’t ended quite yet. Or maybe there is a new one beginning.

gigi