true life planet

And ended up coming to some mighty big life decisions because of it!

But, first things first… 

Life back in the States is at it’s most colorful and interesting. Just when you think it’s getting dull and predictable, it changes it’s mind.

I spent all of Holy Week in one religious service after another, a seemingly endless procession of sermons and communions and prayers; some in candlelight; some with Hispanic parishioners on their knees with enormous crosses, some with day-glo pictures of Jesus and their relatives; some with palm fronds and pictures of the Virgin Mary, carried under plastic and surrounded with ruffled red satin and lace.

I’m not complaining. One thing I love about the Catholic church in America is it’s so much like being in Central America somewhere. It’s just beautiful.

Still, by the time Easter Sunday actually rolled around, I was quite tired and wondering if I would make it through the sunrise service that morning.

The sunrise service is a little thing that they do in my small town–kind of a group service, put on by all the churches and they sing and preach and eat donuts out under a white gazebo in the middle of the town’s park. It’s lovely, but it’s at 6:30 am.

I woke up exhausted, as I’d only gotten home the night before at 11 pm, due to the Holy Saturday service ending quite late. I put some clothes on, put on Mahalia Jackson to keep the dog company, and went downtown.

I made it through it, and it was nice. So small town. That’s why I like living here, I guess.

Afterwards went out to breakfast with my friend Shirley, who was, due to it’s being Easter, wearing a very stylish leopard outfit from head to toe. Shirley is the sort of person that you wish you had the guts to be, but since you aren’t, you’re glad someone else is. She is full of stories about her life and she is witty, colorful, and irreverent–but at the same time, she’s wise and practical and spiritual. She is the sort of person who invites a slightly depressed woman (me) out for eggs and bacon on Easter morning.

After breakfast, I get in my car and drive home. I’ve got Mahalia Jackson playing in the car, too. Mahalia is the queen of gospel music. One listen to her take of , “How I Got Over” will either have you on your knees or have you calling of “Thank you Jesus!” because you can’t, you simply can’t, help yourself. Listening to her always has me wish I was black gospel msic singer, could sing, had soul, had soulfulness, and knew how to clap my hands properly. But I don’t and I’m not, so I listen to her and find myself at the very least, extremely cheered up.

I’m listening to her when I pull into the drive.

My neighbors have houseguests, who turn out to be peace activists of some sort and we have a long chat about war and social justice and the time I almost was arrested for protesting the production of missles outside of London.  And how..all of those things tie into my religious commitment. The conversation then turns to my cheerful optimism, which, seemingly to everyone else, is perhaps unjustifed. Where does it comes from?

Who knows. For, in spite of my current circumstances, I’m pretty optimistic about life in general and humanity to boot. I happen to think there are many, many wonderful people out there really committed to living out lives that make a difference to the happiness of all on the planet. I’ve met them on my travels, and what’s more, I think I am one of them. At least, I hope so.

Maybe it’s all of the Mahalia Jackson I’ve been listening to. Mahalia always talks about her trials and tribulations, and does it in such a way you look forward to having those of your own, because it makes you spiritually richer and more defined.

One thing that I’ve noticed, coming home, is that people don’t seem to be all that committed to what they say they believe. I’ve been in that boat myself, altogether too recently, saying I believed one thing but doing something else entirely different. It seems to be easy here, in this culture, to get away with it.

Like people just show up for church on a Sunday, once a year. Or people talk about loving one another, helping one’s fellow man, but they don’t. Or people talk about “justifiable war”, or the death penalty as being grim realities that have to exist, when they don’t.

After I talked to the activists for awhile, I left for the Easter service, the big one at the Catholic church. I thought alot during the service about Easter and what it means. It’s a such a huge thing, and it’s impact seems to fall away from people on all the other days of the year.

It’s a time for renewal. It’s a time for hope and new beginnings. People make it about alot of other things (they really like to do that!)– but that’s really the jist of it. Starting over, starting new, starting fresh, renewed.

I go home and take a nap with the dog.

I fall asleep and dream that I’ve invited Jesus, Oscar Romero, and Mohamed to dinner and am panicking as to whether it’s appropriate to serve them rice and beans (!), and wake up to a buzzing sound. It’s a bee, seemingly trapped in the kitchen.

I rescue it, fall back asleep, and wake up to another bee. I rescue it. Then another, then another, then another, then another…twenty two bees later, I’ve come to realize that I have a situation. A bee situation.

Investigating the building, I discover a swarm of bees has somehow made it’s new home inside the wall of my shower.

I should explain that I live in the country, kind of on the edge of town, in a funky cottage that is, well, funky.

My cottage is exactly the sort of place a swarm of bees would see and collectively agree to make their new home.

After taping up the bathroom door and sealing all points of possible entry to keep bees out of the rest of the house (and… rescuing the few straggler bees hitting themselves, suicide-style, against my kitchen window!)..it occurs to me that I had not seen or heard a bee, an actual, real, live, bee for a long time. Third world countries don’t have bees. Or if they do, the bees are smart enough to stay far, far away from hungry people who will eat them and their honey. Here, in America, the bees are so confident that they don’t see any problem with occupying my shower.

The second thing that occurs to me is that I have no bathroom. No shower, no toilet, until the bee problem is solved.

I take the bee problem to my landlords, who promptly begin making phone calls to find someone to move the bees. But, it would seem all bee handlers are on vacation, due to the fact that Jesus rose from the dead today. Good enough reason. But still, no shower, no toilet.

My landlord hands me a chamber-pot. A real, honest-to-God chamberpot, made of white enamel and slightly chipped with a black-painted handle.

You’d think I would be grossed out at the thought of using  a chamberpot, but actually all I’m thinking is, “Well, that makes sense! Boy, it will be really fun to use that in the middle of the night!”, and I’m wondering if it’s possible to make a packable, portable one for traveling…how may times on the road I wished I had had something so expertly designed as a chamberpot, I cannot begin to count.

Chamberpots are very well designed, by the way. There is no spillage. There is no peeing on one’s clothing, like there is when attempting to use a squat toilet in a village outhouse. It is clean and tidy and surprisingly worry free.

I should know. It’s Tuesday and I still have no toilet or shower. It may take all week to move the bees, and I’ve been finding that chamberpot extremely useful!

One thing I’ve been noticing is how easy going I am about stuff like this now. I’m just happy to have  a roof over my head and running water–so if I don’t have a toilet for a few days, well, that’s ok. At least I know I’ll get one eventually.!

Ok, here’s a big leap from topic to topic, but I’ll do it anyway:

The whole chamberpot thing got me thinking about my own flexibility–not just with physical realities (like toilet/no toilet; or what to eat for dinner) but my own flexibility in terms of my future.

Travel seems to have –kind of–refined my soul. It’s like things are much, much clearer than they were before I left. As a matter of fact, it seems like a long time ago that I left “home”. Maybe that’s because what I came back to was so much different than what I pictured it to be.

I just feel like I’m in a new place of sorts, with some familiar people and some not familiar.

Many of the things I was striving for in the past–and I mean, the past, like five/six years ago–have resurfaced, bubbled to the top, and made themselves known again. Many of the desires I had, the things I wanted to accomplish back then–well, I thought they’d disappeared forever, never to be seen again–but instead, they’re back. All those ideas and ways of being are back.

One of the things that was really important to me five, six years ago was my spiritual life. I wanted to live deeply, live reverently, live differently than other ways of living I saw around me. I don’t mean individuals, I mean the culture in general.

And somehow, I find myself revisiting those wants and desires. Six years ago, I had gone thru a period where I seriously considered being a nun. I changed my mind, mostly due to what other people thought about it and my own fears about it. And thru alot of thinking and life experiences and prayer, I realized that a nun’s life was not for me.

Then somehow I found myself in a relationship and a life. A big life, a full life, a good life–but not exactly the life dedicated to the things that were most important to me in the end.

The trip somehow changed this, altered it, reshaped it, and made my dream of committing my life to prayer, social justice and helping those less fortunate a reality. It made me see that it was possible to do it, to have that life.

I guess I thought I could do it and have other more worldly things–but, what I discovered, is that, for me, that doesn’t work. I really actually do feel sad that the relationship didn’t work; but, on the other hand, I feel freed to devote myself and my life, and all of my energy, to creating as much good as possible in the world and alleviating what suffering I can. It’s like I’m free to do that now.

I remember at first when I was dealing with the breakup, I was thinking, “Will I ever meet a man again who…..” and so forth. Blah blah blah. Now I’m thinking, “Well, now that last experience was interesting, but probably not worth repeating! What makes you feel good? Well, do that then.”

What makes me feel fantastic is helping other people. Just totally being of service is what makes me happy. Really happy. It is the thing I want to spend all of my time doing.

At 40, such freedom is an astonishing thing. 40 is when BIG things happen, everyone keeps telling me. At 40, that’s when you’re life really gets going, they tell me.

So here’s what I’m thinking about. I’ll have to explain it a little to you non-Catholics.:

You’ve heard of nuns, right? Well, nuns are in something called a “second order”. And below them is something called, “third order”. Third orders are made up of people, laypeople, who generally live in the world–in their house, their apartment, whatever–go to work, and have “normal lives”.  They look like normal people, they don’t wear a habit (generally) . With a few grand exceptions:

They commit to the order they decide to belong to. There are all kinds of orders, some who work with AIDS hospice, some who work with disabled people, some who work with immigrants and immigrants rights… So let’s say it’s the Vincentian order, well then they’d  commit to the goals of the Vincentians, which are centered around helping the very poor and needy. Or countless other orders who have other missions: contemplative prayer, social justice, peace, reform, etc.

Part of those missions are also rules for living, such as chastity, charity, prayer and so forth.

People in third orders are in a community–they live outside of the religious order, but they participate fully in religious life. A person who is single can be a third order, but so can a married person, or a person with children. It’s kind of like what religion probably was like hundreds of years ago. This is not a commitment to be taken lightly–it’s not for the only show up on a Sunday person; nor is it for the person that doesn’t have a firm belief in taking action towards social injustices.

Some people get confused about what it is to be third order. While there are third order monks and nuns, there are also third order laypeople.

The people I know who are third order laypeople are Franciscans. They have a commitment to living a prayerful life, a God centered life, but they also (surprise!) have a big commitment to  fair labor practices, human rights, creating  a  healthy environment, ecology, protecting the animals and their habitiat, clothing the needy and housing the homeless, etc…. I have three friends who are all third orders and they are amongst the most amazing and kind people I know, and part of this is that they are simply not concerned with the same things the rest of us are.

Six years ago I was very interested in joining a third order. I thought it fit well with who I was and what I felt was my purpose in life. I always have felt this altruistic streak in me and found it very hard to balance this with the expectations of “real life”. It was not until my trip that I discovered that I could both be me and give everything I had to give.

I find myself heading down this road again. It’s a well-worn path at this point. So many times I have been on it and I was always distracted by my own problems, my own worries, my own sense of inadequacy about this or that. But this time, it’s different.

It’s like coming home.

Who would have thought a swarm of bees and a chamberpot would have led to such a decision! But then, miracles happen in most unusual ways.

So, I’ll be spending the next few months visiting numerous orders in area and deciding which one best suits me. Then the process of discernment begins, and then the actual process of becoming third order takes about three years.

Life is really taking shape. It isn’t always easy, and it doesn’t come the way I expect to, but it does gently move forward. And sometimes it’s not so gentle–like it taking me not having a toilet for three days and alot of gospel music to be ready to be open to what is next for me!

Anyway, for all of you still reading (all of you folks from the Voluntary simplicity movement, etc!) I want to say thank-you.Whoever you are, wherever are, however you are, I hope you know how much I appreciate you all, and know that each and every one of you is perfect.

The other thing I’m thinking about right now is..gasp!..a new blog. It’s time. The travel blog has died off and a new one is in the making. I’ll still be putting up the more adventurous parts of my trip to Bihar (someday!) , but I’m also creating a new blog with a new theme.

I’ll keep you posted. Peace be with you.

gigi

I’ve been back in the States, back at “home” for over a month, now–and I think the exhaustion of both the trip and dealing with being here has finally taken hold of me.

In fact, it’s taken over.

Yesterday, I managed to do  almost nothing at all. Everytime I begin to do something, I’m tired soon afterwards.

Part of this is physical–just having to recognize that I am exhausted from what has been a long, ardous journey and dealing with how that fact impacts how much of day to day life I can deal with.

Part of it’s emotional–it’s a BIG difference to be out in the world, feeling like you can do anything, and then coming home, and realizing the rules are alot different at home. Everyone talks about that “depression” that hits one after returning from travel…I’m not sure I’ve hit that wall (yet!), but I’ve had some glimpses of what over travelers are talking about.

And part of it is cultural–American life is so tiring. There’s so much pressure–to drive here or there, see this person or that one, be on time. In India, things were overwhelming for different reasons: the sheer number of people, for example, made it difficult to get from point A to point B.

There were so many people in India that there was very little privacy or personal space–at least by American standards. So one thing I am enjoying is just being alone, spending time alone, eating alone, reading alone, thinking alone, walking alone. It’s precious and a bit surreal to take a walk by myself or to cook dinner for one–but it’s lovely. I find being with other people all day still a bit too tiring(even though I enjoy it!) and everytime I do plan an all day activity with others, it takes me a day to recover.

Yesterday I was  so tired that I only managed to go to the local food coop and buy some groceries. That’s it. I did nothing else. The trip to the store was so exhausting! So many choices, aisles of food and fruit and vegetables and organic and not organic and 20 brands of milk. It took me two hours to buy a tiny basket of groceries. By the time I got home, I realized I had not bought the things that I had actually needed–but it was too late to go back.

All the choices here–for example: where to get a cup of coffee, what kind of milk to have in that coffee, sugar?, for here or to go? where to sit, who to talk to..it’s just too much sensory overload for me sometimes. It’s just coffee! It’s hard to go from no choice or one choice to unlimitless choice.

So I find that keeping things simple really helps my state of mind. Less choice, less worry.

I’ve got some very big plans for the future. But I think it’s wise to look at this particular period of time as a well deserved rest period. However, I should mention that it’s a real struggle for me to truly “rest”. I always like to be busy!

At any rate, my body and mind are so tired of me pushing them around to do whatever had to be done that they are now ganging up against me and refusing to budge.

I am completely exhausted. If I make it through a day without a significant portion of the day devoted to napping I am very surprised.

So, my goal for the next few weeks is to..nap..daydream..relax..get well/healthy.. read trashy novels….spend lots of time alone…not think too much…

Less choice, less worry. More time for naps with the dog. Simple things make life better.

gigi

” I read and walked for miles at  night along the beach, writing bad blank verse and searching endlessly for someone wonderful who would step out of the darkness and change my life. I never imagined that that person could be me.”

–Anna Quindlin 

You know, over the past two years or so I’ve worn a million different hats, trying to be whoever I needed to be to manage life on the road.

Now, back at home, I fnd myself trying to do the same thing: juggling  a million different versions of myself, depending on what’s going on at the moment and who I need to be to make it work for me.

But, somehow, traveling, the act of travel itself, made me realize that I am the person I was looking for my whole life. And that I can be a lot of different people all at once.

I’ve got lots of different versions of myself: caregiver; earth shaker ; sweet homemaker;  animal lover ; powerful amazon! ; reality breaker ; glamorous do gooder ; mother ; friend ; lover; sister; and so many more.

Lately I’ve been pondering how to make that all work together to accomplish all the things I want to do.

In the past, pre-trip, I would have felt like I couldn’t be me, because I didn’t think I could take all of those different versions or parts of myself and look at them as a whole.

Now, I can. I realize that I can do every single thing I set out to do, and that somewhere in me is the right person for getting it done right. Gone are the identity crisies, the wondering if/when/why/how/and why me?

Everyday, I look back on the trip with complete gratefulness that I did it and with awe at the woman I’ve become because of it… It’s given me alot of stength to..stand up for what I believe in; to see, with clarity and vision, what is to come.

I live in a small town. Sometimes this can feel restricting, like everyone knows your business and everyone has kind of preconcieved notions about who you are.

Interestingly, this used to really hold me back from being myself (whoever that was at the moment), but now it kind of invigorates me. It doesn’t make as much difference to me what people think as it used to. In fact, I find it to be an interesting challenge to be whoever I need to be despite the impression that it makes.

It’s just time to be real.

When I first went on my trip, I remember crying alot. I didn’t think I could do it, I’m not even sure I wanted to do it. All I knew is: I had to do it, or I felt like I would be one of those people  who went through the rest of life, broken and blaming and sad that they didn’t follow their dream.

I was afraid of what I would lose, and apprehensive about what I would gain.

Well, I did lose the man I loved.

Which was, of course, a fear I had. But the good news about it is that I’m moving on, and opening myself up to whatever is next. And so something that was difficult is now turning into something that represents possibility and new people in my life.

Going on the trip also meant that I gained a sense of myself–that, quite frankly, I feel could have only been gained by the severe trials on my journey. The confidence with which I am able to approach life right now–in spite of my emotional life being somewhat confusing at times–the confidence I have: it is real, it’s alive, and it’s presence puts me at ease in every situation: whether good or bad.

I’m going to use that sense of self the coming months alot. I’m relying on it to clear the way for me so that I can do all the things I have decided are important.

Here are a few:

1.)  I’ll be involved again with the indigenous organization in Panama, MEDO, that I was working with before. Not only will I be the active secretary and world wide volunteer coordinator, I’ll be working with them this summerfor two weeks in July to build a women’s center in Western Panama. I’ll also be developing a way to continously give them aid financially and otherwise, to fund various other public projects, particularly those that benefit women and children. More on this later..it’s it’s own entry.

2. ) I’ll be working with developmentally disabled adults for the next two years, with the end goal being to start a sustainable cooperative garden/farm that teaches and works with developmentally disabled adults exclusively. The goals will be to teach basic skills, to provide jobs, to boost confidence, and to encourage conservation, water wise gardening, recycling, and organice methods of green living. This idea came out of my work in India, and the beautiful experiences I had with the kids at the orphanage.

3. ) Hey, why not go ahead and do the impossible? Or, at the ery least, what most people consider impossible: Adopt a child. An older child, with special needs.

For you naysayers (oh, my goodness, so many people in this category that it would be depressing if I didn’t know that you all don’t have the benefit of the motivation I do: Those boys smiling, shining faces back in India–and how I felt when I let go and  loved them. I’m the lucky one, and that’s something that you might not understand unles syou experienced it yourself. ) Anyway, I’ll say this to you all:

” All I ask of you, is to consider the question, ‘Why Not?’, for twenty years from now, you will be more disappointed by the things you did not do than the things that you did. So, throw off the bowlines. Sail away from safe harbors. Catch the trade winds in your sails.”

–Mark Twain

I’ll be working towards my goal of adopting a child, preferably Mitun (whom I’ve mentioned before) from India. The goal is to have him here in about 3-3 1/2 years. To do this will require the patience of a saint; a deep spiritual life (because it’s not to going to happen all on my own!); funding; savvy about the system; and a working knowledge of Hindi and sign language. If he doesn’t end up having enough paperwork to come here, then it’s all about being open to whatever child does. Either way, one thing that’s clear is that a child will be coming, and that that child will proabably be deaf/mute (as these are a group of kids that would clearly benefit from US adoption.)

4. ) Be a person in my community that represents what is possible. So many casual conversations I have had these last few weeks have been ones where someone told me that they couldn’t do something or other. I guess.. I’m treating it all like an adventure. I mean, after you’ve done some of the things I’ve done around the world, why not tackle some of those things you thought you  thought you couldn’t back at home?

Like giving a speech. Planting a garden. Buying a canoe. Going hang gliding. Salsa dancing. Talking to people you never have before. Joining clubs and taking part in community life.

Building an outdoor shower. Taking an auto repair class. Building  a radio. Learning a few more languages. Painting a mural (yes, I’m actually going to be painting  a large mural!).

One thing I’ve been doing alot is hiking, which is something I was always afraid to do by myself before, and now I find that I actually enjoy it. For some reason, those nutty stories about some guy hacking a lone hiking woman into pieces always got in the way of me having a good time before…and now, I go by myself and really enjoy that I can go by myself.

Saying goodbye to my exboyfriend, now that was hard. Wow, I still think it’s hard everyday. But for my own self worth and my own growth, I recognize that goodbye is the right choice for me. Yet, I know I couldn’t have tackled that without having traveled and been in situations that were uncomfortable, but in the end helped me to grow in the direction I needed to at that time.

5. )  Inspire myself, don’t wait for others to inspire me. Live the life I’ve imagined could be lived. I think..before I went on the trip, I was..let’s face it..kind of the victim type. Things happened to me, I didn’t make things happen. Now I’ve got another take, which is, live life powerfully. Own it, it’s yours. Live a life that inspires you. Other people may hear about what I’m doing and think what I’m tackling the impossible, or it may inspire them, who knows? But the important thing is to make the most of it and to inspire myself.

“One of my motivating forces has been to recreate the world  I know into a world I wish I could be in. hence my optimism and happy endings…”

–Kristen Hunter

6. ) Keep travel a part of my life–always and forever. A month or so ago I told myself, “Well, never again! No more trips! I just want to sit on my front porch and relax. No more peeing on the side of the road in front of a bus load of Guatemalans, no more showering with a bucket!”

 But a month later, I find myself already fantasizing about the next trip!  (While sitting on my front porch, of course! The best of both worlds!)

I’ll be heading to Panama this summer..maybe I’ll get a stopover in Nicaragua or El Salvador..

Then I’ll be going back to the orphanage in India in December to meet Mitun and the other boys, and I know I’ll be heading back to Bihar, even if it means a sleepless night on an uncomfortable train again or wearing full purdah. And maybe..just maybe, I’ll get a nice stopover, like Korea or China or the Philippines.

So who am I? Do gooder, community leader (someday!), decorator, designer, entrepreneur, volunteer, adventuress? Writer, artist, silly friend, person to go in times of trouble, Organizer, manager, leader?

I’m all of those things and more. It amazes me to know that I wouldn’t be any of these things, if I hadn’t had the guts to go out and be in the world. I could have just as well kept living my tiny life.

Instead, I’ve had to grow into the woman that fits the life I now have.

Some days, I wake up and I can’t believe I’m me, that this is my life.

It’s strange, but it’s good.

So I can’t exactly say who I am at this moment, who is writing the blog, who is deciding what is next…truthfully, I’m being so many different people at once that no one characteristic stands out. But I know that whoever I am being, I’m making sure that whatever I am doing I am doing it well.

“Whatever you are, be a good one.”

–Abraham Lincoln

gigi

Well, I’ve been living out of a backpack for such a long time now, that it feels a little weird to finally be making the big change of setting up housekeeping.

But that’s exactly what I’ll be doing for the next week or so–I had found only a very temporary solution to my homeless problem, and today a small house up opened up, so it’s time to get down to business and move in.

Part of me has really been jonesing for a place to hang my clothes up, cook up some pasta, invite people over–maybe even have a little get together. At least have a place to stuff the backpack and sleep in a proper bed!

The other part of me is at a loss of where to begin. Stuff doesn’t seem that important anymore. However, I’m sure that it will all come together.

So what this all adds up to is that everything I just stuck in storage I now have to unpack. And everything I left with friends has to be unpacked too. Thats if I can remember who has what.(each box is like recieving brand new stuff–I literally have no idea what I packed in each one!)

I’ll have just made the current digs perfect and comfy when it will be time to pack it all up again in the winter and move yet again–this time into what I hope will be a long term home, a cozy sweet rental I picked out awhile ago.

In the meantime, it’s time to..finally have a home. I’m very happy and content tonight, knowing that tonight me, my dog, and my cat will all pile into bed together and wake up in the morning together. I’m happy I’ll be somewhere where I can leave the lights on. I’m happy that I’ll be somewhere where I can leave the dishes in the sink.

And I’m most happy that I can surround myself with things, photographs, and postcards from my trip.

It’s just so wonderful to finally have a place to call my own. Such a relief. I think all the travel I did made me really appreciate the idea of home so much more than I ever would have otherwise; and coming home and being in a transitory situation has just only added to that appreciation.

Let the nesting begin!

gigi

This is from a journal entry.

I took two trips to the state of Bihar in India–both served as “breaks” from the hustle and bustle of living and working in the city of Calcuta(or Kolkata, depending on who you talk to!).

The first trip was just after Christmas and New Years’, and it was in time for the Muslim celebration of their New Year. The entire week was spent in a dinky village in the middle of nowhere–no tourists had ever been there, nor probably will they ever go there. It was fascinating, a bit rash, and completely different than any other adventure I had been on to date or could have imagined.

To make it a little bit more comfortable, I was accompanied by a male friend of mine, Josef,  who needed some r and r just like me. We hired my friend Kalim to be our guide and it was his village that we went to.

This is a journal entry written on the train, on the way to Bihar for the first time.

Why am I doing this? Why am I on this disgusting train? Maybe I should have just stayed in the city.

Problem is, I can’t breathe there. I’ve lost my voice, I can’t stop coughing at night. No, it’s not TB–it’s the air quality.

So I find myself on this dirty train, going to a place I know nothing about, because I’ve just gotten to the point that I need to get the hell out of the city for awhile and breathe some cleaner air. I’ve made friends with one of the market men–“touts”–is the negative word tourists use–and he’s agreed to take me and my friend Josef to his small village in Bihar.

I don’t know much about the place-in fact, I’ve basically chosen to stay in the dark about it–because otherwise, I’d probably discover it was dangerous and never get up enough nerve to go there. Sometimes it’s just better not to know.

Kalim, Josef, and I met at the market and took at taxi to the Howrah train station. In order to get to the station, you have to cross what is the longest bridge in the world, with the smoke of ghats coming up on either side of the river; swarms of people walking, driving, biking, honking, selling food and vegetables, urinating, smiling, laughing, living.

Howrah station was the most chaotic place I have ever seen in my life. I clutched my bag against my clothes, Josef is holding is backpack tightly, Kalim plows on ahead of us carrying everything else and only glancing back every once in awhile to see if we’re still following him.

Everyone is looking at us–especially me, at 6 ft 3, I’m not blending in. People openly stare and gawk, mouths open, talking, pointing. Oh, God, it’s so tiring.

I’d heard there had been a big “clean up” of homeless people in and around the station, and that certainly rings true–there are almost no beggars and no raggedy childen to speak of.It’s actually cleaner in here than it is out in the street…although I find the word “clean up” offensive to describe kicking people out of the only home they have, it’s the phrase used in India, so I’ll stick to it. Still, I wonder where they all went?

And the noise. The din, the sound of thousands of people eating, talking, laughing, shouting, snoring–it’s unlike any noise I’ve ever heard before.

We get to our platform, and Kalim wanders off in search of oranges for the journey, leaving Josef and I sitting on a scrap of cardboard and and towel I brought along, our feet and legs wrapped around the bags in case someone walks by and decides to take one. We’re so tired, and looking forward to sleep–we’ve paid for a sleeper car.

Kalim wanders back looking morose. The train will be several hours late. Welcome to India. Everything is late. Sometimes stuff doesn’t show up until the next day. People don’t complain, they just bear it. I feel silly being grumpy about it and decide to get more comfortable.

Waiting for a train in a train station is a very uncomfortable experience, but if you go with it and do it Indian-style it’s more of an adventure.

Everyone spreads out a bit of cloth or toweling or maybe some bits of newspapers, and the entire family somehow manages to squish themselves into their alloted space on the platform. Then they bring out snacks–like oranges, like some sweets made with milk, like some chapati and so forth brought from home–and dig in. Chai-wallahs walk by every few minutes offering up chai or “coffee” which probably does have some coffee in it, but it’s not like at home. Babies are brought out and nursed, children play dangerously along the edge of the tracks, pie dogs run around trying to get a scrap of something or other, people chat and stare off into space…

The weirdest thing about waiting..the Indian way of waiting..is that they seem to be the most patient people on Earth, able to wait through anything. They can sleep through anything too–the classic train station platform is filled with people covering their faces with a scrap of sari, a scarf, or a newspaper, sleeping through it all. This in an environment that is not only loud and crowded, but stinks of urine and has tiny mosquitos that bite whatever part of you is uncovered.

I’m not sleeping–the thought of sleeping on the hard, cold cement is enough to keep me awake. Instead, I’m looking around at the station and at the people.

Well, one thing I notice right away is that there are alot of sadhus–these are supposedly holy guys (only guys can do it, supposedly) wearing bright day glo orange robes and head dresses and they are all asking for money. They are very pushy about it, actually.

The only beggar I see is a man with leprosy, his hands and feet stumps, his face rotting off, his nose and lips gone. It occurs to me that what I once looked at with shock and amazement now seems like part of everyday life to me, and the man’s features soften to me as I realize this. He’s got a special can with a lid you put your donation in, so you don’t touch him–Kalim puts some food in it.

The strangest man we see is walking along the train tracks, dressed in a uniform of sorts and acting very oddly. It’s hard to say what he is doing exactly, I can’t put my finger on it. We’re watching him for a few minutes before we realize he’s killing rats. 

He walks along the tracks until he sees a rat( it doesn’t take long, as they are everywhere you look.) and he stops for a brief second, takes out a sling shot, and calmly and precisely aims, killing the rat.

Then he goes and retrieves the pebble he used–and the dead rat–putting the dead rat in ths funky shoulder bag he’s carrying.

The guy is fantastic–he catches six rats while I watch him in utter fascination.

Other people watch him too. I say to an Indian man, “Is he paid to do that?!”

Everyone’s wondering. In India, anything is possible. But even if the man caught one rat every five minutes, he wouldn’t make much of a dent in the rat population.

We finally decide he is insane.

I’ve got to go to the bathroom. Always, always, a bad idea in India. India is the only country I have ever traveled in where apparently women do not pee. Ever. No matter what. They have bladders of steel.

Men, on the other hand pee everywhere. Everywhere. Any direction you look in India, it is very likely that there will be a man peeing there.

Train stations are especially disgusting. Men jump down onto the tracks to pee before the trains arrive. They pee against buildings, in doorways, by posts. And, because they are men, they get to squat and defecate wherever they want, and at the train station, that’s usually right on the tracks too. It’s a stinking mess.

Women have to pay to pee. I make my way to the bathroom, and pay a ridiculous 2 ruppees for the privelege of peeing in what is one of the filthiest bathroms of my life. It is so dirty that you cannot touch anything, nothing. It’s an Indian-style squat toilet and I, in spite of having been here for months, can’t get the squatting thing down. It’s either painful or I feel like I’m going to fall in.

I make it back to the platform and our train is here. It’s old and in a more romantic mood, I would say it has “character”. In my current mood, I’ll just say it’s really, really old and loud and beat up looking.

Kalim says, “Go!”, and we scurry to follow him–he’s already drilled us that we must make sure we stick to him like glue, that we must get on the train and we must fight for our seats, other wise others will take them. I feel like I am at odds with this, but this is not the moment to stop and say politely, “No, really, you go first.” to the man digging his arm into my bag or the woman who just hit me in the face with her suitcase as she shoved past. No, this is first things first, and that needs to be me and my bags.

It’s surprisingly uncomfortable, being that pushy.

We get to out compartment with is the size of a tiny bedroom, or possibly slightly smaller than my bathroom at home. It has 9 beds in it–if you could call them beds. I’d call them hard, uncomfortable platforms hanging from precarious chains or so close to the ceiling that you can’t sit up.

Which gets me to my next point. The three beds we’ve been assigned are:one very top bunk which I can’t even contort my frame to climb up the ladder, let alone try to squeeze into it–(or get out again!); a middle bunk, which apparently can’t be opened until the person under it has decided to go to sleep; and a bottom bunk, which is half the length of the others, and which is impossible to stretch out on because a group of drunk obnoxious men have spread out a smelly meal of some kind and it doesn’t look like they are going to vacate any time soon.

Instead of calling them drunk obnoxious men, I’ll give them names:

Let’s call one “Long Pinky “, because , for whatever reason, he’s got a long pinky nail. It’s like an inch and a half long. Is it to do drugs? Is it a status thing? It’s a mystery.

The second man, let’s call him “Obvious Toupe “. He’s wearing one of the worst wigs I’ve ever seen, and in India you see alot of wigs, falls, toupes..because people don’t like to walk around bald, and it’s the usual solution here. But what’s really weird is he’s dyed his wig with henna, so it’s bright orange, while his real hair he has left is gray. Must be some weird cultural thing, some different idea of beauty, because I’m not getting it. He’s probably looking at me and thinking the same thing.

Long Pinky and Obvious Toupe have spread out a feast on two entire seats, and they stretch their legs lazily across the cabin, not caring that they are taking up the entire space. They refuse to share their seats with anyone else, eaing the rest of us squished together on the remaining bottom bunk or doubled up on the ones by the roof.

The food they are eating smells awful–some kind of curry and it looks like goat meat(not my favorite, by far) and it’s oilyness leaves dribbles on the floor and the seat.

I feel sick. The bathroom was so gross in the train station that I was hoping the one on the train would be better, but it’s not. It’s worse.

My friend Josef crawls up to a top bunk and falls asleep. I decide to stick it out on the bottom bunk.

Kalim, my Indian friend/guide/amazing superhero (he will prove to have superpowers later on) sits near me. He’s exhausted, just like me: we’ve both been working all day. But we’re both equally stubborn, and I’m refusing to sleep tonight. So is he, because he’s worried men will bother me if I am asleep.

I’m worried about that too. Long Pinky and Obvious Toupe are glancing at me alot and seem, well, kind of sleazy.

It’s not just them–there is a constant parade of men coming through our compartment. Well, some are actually coming through our compartment, on their way to the “bathroom” (read:hole in floor); but most are just coming into our compartment, standing in the way, staring open mouthed, at the white woman (me) . I am trying to read a book and daintily cross my legs in the tiny space alloted to me, which is impossible as my legs are almost as long as the tiny Indian people that are sharing the compartment with me. And I am not dainty. I am an Amazon.

I’ve prepared for this journey, by the way, and I’m wearing a shapeless sack of a salwaar kamez in bland black, complete with headscarf..but it’s to no avail, because the black material makes me look even whiter. I am white, white, white. Day glo white, even. I am a breathtaking sight, apparently. I am the center of attention at the moment, but I’m thinking that perhaps when they’ve all looked enough and gotten enough photos of me with their cell phones they will go away.

Kalim insists that I take a nap. He insists he can stay awake. And he may be right: he’s got a secret weapon, a sticky ball of what seems to be tobacco and white powder, which gets rolled up together in his palm before he pushes into his mouth, where it stays for a good fifteen minutes before he needs to spit out what remains of it and make another one. I don’t know what it contains exactly, but whatever is in it, it keeps one awake, suppresses appetite, and is terribly addictive.

Fine. He chews, I nap. Napping proves awkward and he’s perched on the end of my bed, obviously uncomfortable but unmoving in his idea that if he moves, I will be molested.

I finally convince him to move and take the berth above. He somehow falls asleep, and I consider that in spite of my exhaustion, I am in for one of the most uncomfortable and sleepless nights of my entire life.

People talk all the the time about taking the trains in India, about how it’s a experience worth having(and one you won’t forget!) but I definitely, 100%, believe I could live without it.

It’s cramped. Nine people to nine berths? Oh, if only we were so lucky. No, not only do we have  nine people, we also have the mother /daughter who insist on sleeping in the same berth; we also havethe man sleeping on the floor; we also have all of the latecomers who don’t even have proper tickets and just squeeze in wherever. There are, in fact 17 people in a space for 9.

It’s bright. They don’t turn off the lights. Ever. It’s brightly lit, with flourescent bulbs, the kind of lighting that makes people look bad and pallid and bruised. The only way to not see the lights is to cover your head with your scarf.

It’s loud. The train is loud, but the people on it are louder. There is no such thing as whispering nicely to one another on an Indian train, oh no. People holler out as if it’s the middle of the day, they talk long into the night–well, basically all nightlong–even playing cards, arguing and eating. Food is provided by the constant tea wallahs that hop on the trains at every stop, calling out loudly, peering down into your sleeping face ,”Chai, chai, chai”.

It’s really, really uncomfortable. Whoever designed these trains was not thinking of comfort, they were thinking of Hell. Really, this is what I think the seats would be like on the train ride to Hell–hard plastic, only a foot and a half wide, too short for any one but  a midget to stretch out on, windows that don’t open..and it’s freezing cold. Really cold. Kalim did not prepare me for that ahead of time, so I’ve bundled myself in what I’ve got with me, with is nothing. So I’m cold and uncomfortable as hell.

It smells bad. It smells like a cross between a latrine and something–or someone–that has never(or rarely) been washed. Actually, I’m not sure the car I’m in has ever been washed, at least not well. It’s littered with trash and there are those little cockroaches crawling around on the floor.

It’s busy. There’s hustle and bustle all night long–our car is by the bathroom and the end of the train, which means men have to walk through our train all night to spit out red betel nut juice or whatever that stuff is Kalim is chewing. All night long, these guys do it every half an hour.

It’s dangerous. Leave your bag unwatched..and don’t be surprised if it disappears. Or your pockets are emptied. Even leaving your bag by a slightly open window, and watch and child’s hand nimbly reach in during the stop, searching for your wallet.

What’s really bothering me right now, though, is that Long Pinky hasn’t stop staring at me. I’ve tried everything: ignore him; stare back at him; read a book (reading a book by V S Paul on Islam at the moment); cover my entire face; stare out the window at some speck in the darkness with rapt attention; and, now I’m going to try falling asleep. I’ll just lie down and face the wall, that should do the trick and he’ll leave me alone…

Ok, I’m back. That last method failed miserably. Or rather, Long Pinky stopped staring at me, that is true. But them he got up out of his bed and fondled my behind! He did it just quickly enough that I had no time to do a thing (being half asleep and all) and then he got back into his bed and laughed silently with Obvious Toupe.

Well, there’s no choice, I’ve got to wake Kalim. He’s had a rest and so have I, but I don’t want to risk another fondle session with the creepy men on this train, so Kalim can stay awake and stand guard.

Kalim wakes up. I tell him everything. This is not easy as he is Muslim and he is a man and I am a woman and I’m pretty sure behind-fondling is not something he normally discusses with women. Or anyone. He spends the next hour or so glowering angrily at Long Pinky.

The train stops and loads of armed soldiers get on. And I mean, armed. These guys have everything from AK-47’s to grenades. They sit on my bunk. They don’t even ask to sit, they just do.

I sit there for the next few hours, pretending to read my book on Islam and being stared at by the soldiers under florescent lighting, with Long Pinky and Obvious Toupe snoring loudly and being entirely unable to stretch my legs. I can’t move them because (a) they fell asleep long ago; (b) there is a man lying on all of the floor space, sound asleep; and (c) I sense that if I did actually stretch my legs it would cause chaos. Women do not move here. They get into one spot, and they stay there, unmoving, until the following day. They dont get up to use the bathroom, or wiggle their toes, and they certainly don’t stretch their legs.

I feel annoyed. Actually, I am more than annoyed. I am the most uncomfortable I can imagine being, and we’ve hours to go.

On top of all of this, I have to pee. Badly. But if you’ve never peed into a hole that serves as the toilet on a moving train in India, it’s hard to explain why it’s not something I really wanted to do. All I can tell you is, it isn’t fun. It takes all of your concentration to keep your balance(since you’re not going to touch anything) and forget about managing to not pee on yourself. Then there’s the germ factor, which is ..ah..pretty high. We’re talking every microbe known to man is living in that small space, and they’d love, just love, to go home with you.

So I’m going to hold it. Yep. After weighing the risks, I actually figure out that it is healthier to hold it than to use the toilet.

Kalim decides that the only cure to my misery is chai. Cup after cup of it. I try to explain the state of my poor bladder, but perhaps he doesn’t understand my desperation or perhaps sees this as normal. Who knows?  It doesn’t slow him down–if anything, he becomes more intent on his task, which seems to be insuring that I always have a hot cup of chai in hand. He orders one from every single chai guy that comes past, which is about one every 15 or 20 minutes. His theory is that chai gives you energy. My theory is that if it’s not boiled, it can give you something alot worse than energy. It can make you as sick as dog. Besides, my bladder can’t take much more.

But it’s mind over matter.

I carry on, smiling crazily, and drinking chai after chai, agreeably throwing the cup out the window when I’m finished. (Yes, even the plastic cups. Not just the nice pottery ones, but the plastic ones. I threw them out the window. At first I was just handing them to Kalim who apparently was quietly taking them to the window out of my sight and throwing them out onto the moonlit landscape. Then I figured it out and decided to go with the program, much to Kalim’s relief. The let’s litter the Earth program. In my defense, all I can say is, there were no trash cans or trash pick up or recycling, and unless I was going to bring all those chai cups back to the USA for a fun and PC DIY project, I made the best choice in the moment..)

My bladder numb, my legs asleep, my behind sore from sitting on hard plastic, my brain swirling with what disease I might be getting, being stared at by 6 heavily armed men who are fascinated by the size of my feet..I suddenly realize that I’m actually having a very good time. I love adventure, I say to myself. I’m not a boring person and I never will be. It’s moments like these that make travel worthwhile.

The light’s coming up, the sun is rising, and I am getting my first taste of the landscape of Bihar. Hmmm..looks a bit like some parts of Panama with palm trees and green marshy bits ….now looks ashen and dusty, with not a green field in sight…skinny cows and water buffalo dot the landscape, and tiny sheds and shacks line dirt roads.

Kalim’s just pulled out some of his wife’s homecooked chapati, and fills it with some yellowish potato mixture–I don’t know what it’s called, but it’s my favorite, and his wife made it especially for our journey. He hands it to me, smiling, wiping his hand on his shirt, then gesturing grandly at the landscape out the window.

“Well”, he says, smiling broadly, “what do you think?”

I look out the window. I’ve forgotten all of my discomforts, the daydream I was having for the last few hours of a pristine white toilet; the random thought I had for a while about whether or not I could disguise myself as a man so travel could be easier; the guilt over littering plastic chai cups out the window;even the soldier who stares at me unblinkingly as I write this.

I take a bite of warm chapati and potato. I look out the window.

“It’s perfect, Kalim. It’s really, really perfect.”, I say to my friend.

I look out the window, sit back, relax, and allow myself to melt into the landscape.

gigi

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