Without belittling the steadfast and solid people in my life who have consistently proven to be infallible friends and sources of support, I can honestly say that I am going through a very solitary phase in my life where the majority of my thoughts, feelings, and experiences go unshared. Strangely, it’s taken me this long to really grasp that this phase essentially began when I left Los Angeles and went to India by myself in the summer of 2006.
Prior to that, my life had been painfully stable, routine, safe, and entwined with the amazing people with whom I was lucky enough to be friends. Save the 9 months leading up to my departure (which were filled with non-stop partying and social indulgences), I had been in a 2 year relationship with the only partner with whom I’ve truly ever felt equally vulnerable and safe. My life with him was completely shared, for better or worse, and it was a beautiful time.
But by the time our relationship had (peacefully) ended and I was feeling the pangs of wanderlust and the lightness of no emotional attachments, my life was coming to a steady plateau, and I felt the desperate need for change, adventure, and new challenges. I needed to push myself in ways I had never been pushed before, and to seek out – among other things – my own limitations.
For reasons I doubt I’ll ever be able to explain or understand fully, I was called to go to India. So…I did. Without having any idea what to expect (and relishing in that fact), I put a couple of shirts, a pair of cotton pants, and 10 pounds of medical supplies in a backpack and hopped a plane to Delhi….
(see my posts from 2006 for intricate details)
…India was honestly one of the most challenging times in my life, and very little of it had anything to do with "India." Granted, traveling alone in a third-world country where "comfort" is a laughable fantasy, definitely had its qualms:
You are always dirty. Depending on where you are you are always either hot or cold. During the monsoon season, I was constantly wet, whether from sweat or rain that poured from the sky in a way I’ve never seen in my life. As a Westerner (and a woman), you are treated like a celebrity, but in all the worst ways. Men stare blatantly at you, and children chase you down the street in your rickshaw just to attempt to touch your hand. There are bugs unlike anything you've ever seen, save on the Discovery channel, and all of them bite. All of them. I was consistently covered from head to toe with mosquito bites. I got lice during a 10 day meditation course where I was not allowed to talk or interact with any other human beings. I was stung by a giant scorpion while at the orphanage (which the kids laughed off as if I had stubbed my toe). I got scabies and had to boil all of my clothes in pots (luckily there were 2 lovely women working at the guest house where I was staying who helped me and whom I befriended). I gained 20 pounds from lack of exercise and constant ingestion of foods cooked with ghee and whole-milk, and I felt slightly ill for most of the time I was there. But you know what...just like anything else in life....you adjust.
Aside from the menial day-to-day struggles, there was so much unbelievable and overwhelming beauty to be found on that trip. I met some amazing people along the way, many of whom have stayed in my life, and a few of which I remain closely entangled with (for better or worse). I lived with, cared for, and taught 120 Indian and Nepalese orphans who -to this day- are some of the strongest, most radiant and resilient humans I've ever met. They taught me so much, and left me feeling humbled like I never had before. In fact, the people of India in general are some of the most humbling to encounter. Even in the face of poverty beyond our comprehension, sickness and filth, and the reality that there is nothing else for them, they are some of the happiest, most contented peoples I’ve ever met. I collected some of the most dumbfounding sunsets. I watched the sunset every day for several weeks from atop a mountain in Dharamkot, at the base of the Himalayas. For 10 of those days, I watched it set in silence along side a family of monkeys who seemed to find that moment of every day just as necessary to witness as I did. I stood atop an ancient fort in the middle of the desert and watched the sun set over a sprawling Eastern metropolis. I laid down in the sand dunes and watched the sun set into the vast nothingness of the Rajasthan desert, and then caught an equally radiant "Purnima" (full-moon-rise) that same night while riding a camel through the moonlit desert. I awoke the next morning to see the sun rising from our camp in the desert, and watched it rise while sipping hot chai, beside my camel transport. I climbed a mountain in Pushkar with 4 Israeli friends to watch the sun set over the holy city, alongside a sadhu whose silence was contagious and whose presence made the experience even more profound. I watched the sun sink slowly into a deep red Indian Ocean from the 25th floor of an ashram in the middle of the Keralan backwaters, surrounded by nothing by palm trees and devotees.
But along with all the burdens and all the beauty that spiced my external experiences, the most profound and difficult part of the trip was that I was experiencing it all alone. Granted, I was fortunate to meet and travel with some truly astounding and colorful people, but they, too, were on their own journeys, and we were merely a presence of illusory safety and temporary companionship for one another along the way. Even though we were watching the same scenes unfold around us, we were all affected by them independently. Kind of like regular life…only amplified.
I brought with me the obligatory journal to write down whatever thoughts and experiences my mind could catch as they sped by. I also wrote epic emails home to friends and family to try to paint a picture of my encounters (a very small number of whom probably actually READ them), but these outlets were merely a filter to catch those thoughts and experiences that were actually capable of being put into words. Far more, however, sifted through the cracks and have been mulling about in my mind and my memory ever since. These…are mine alone.
In coming back from India in late winter of ’06, I felt like a child lost in a crowd who caught a glimpse of their parent through the abyss and ran, full-fledged, into their arms. I don’t even remember my flight home. All I remember was walking through customs with my backpack and seeing my dad waiting for me by the baggage claim.
There were no words.
I felt like I had been asleep for months, and was still blind and blurred by the sleep in my mind and my eyes. I remember walking into the kitchen at home and my mom asking (as she notoriously does) “can I get you something to eat?” I glanced around at all of the food…ALL of the food just sitting there in the pantry and cupboards and shelves and fridge…and all I could do was shake my head. I didn’t leave my house for 2 weeks, and I don’t think I unpacked my backpack for at least one. The idea of being responsible for more than what I could carry was a bit overwhelming, despite my usual tendency to not only HAVE a lot of shit, but to have it strewn about carelessly. I did all the things one would expect a person to do after returning from such a trip…I took baths, I ate all my favorite foods, I watched television, I did laundry after wearing a pair of jeans once just because I could. I played my guitar and I blasted all my favorite music on my stereo until I drove my brothers crazy.
But my mind was indisposed. My brothers and my parents loitered around waiting for stories. I gave them tidbits as they arose and if they were relevant, but I still don’t think to this day that I’ve ever sat down and told anyone about my trip in its entirety. There’s just no way. I eventually saw a couple friends as I felt ready to, and they would greet me with the anticipated “So…how was it?”
“It was…a lot of things.”
……………………….
It’s been about 15 months since I returned to Los Angeles. I have yet to say that I’ve fully settled back into any kind of stability or direction. To be completely honest, I have no idea if the reason for that has anything to do with India, as the trip itself was short in the grand scheme of things. At the same time, though, I can honestly say that I experienced more, and at a much more rapid pace, on that trip than I ever have during any substantial chunk of my life. The challenge and the exhilaration in traveling like that is that you are in a constant state of flux. You move from one city to the next, meet new people at every turn, leave others behind, and you never settle. You don’t attach. You keep going. And then you leave.
In a way, I feel like that’s how I have been living my life since I’ve returned. I’ve gone through several jobs, several lovers, and several groups of friends. Only here there is this undercurrent of constancy that is both stabilizing and mind-numbing.
It’s a lonely journey. While I feel I have seen some of the most amazing places, felt the weight of love along the way, and the lightness of sheer freedom, I have experienced all of these things as a traveler does…completely alone.
I’ve met people along the way, some of whom I’ve shared precious moments with, and others with whom I’ve shared a meal and light conversation and perhaps a bed for the night. But those shared moments are fleeting, impermanent.
I do have some shining lights, some solid pillars with whom I can unload my burdens and share my thoughts. But, in a way, it’s a lot like writing home. You can give as many details as your mind can muster. You can use descriptive language and even attach a photo or two if the internet is working. But it’s not the same as being there.
…………………..
The one profound “realization” that I returned with and feel able to articulate is this experiential understanding of…let’s call it “nonduality.” Perhaps it’s a residual affect of my 10 day Vipassana course in India, but I can honestly say that I know it to be true that there is no distinction between good and bad, pain and pleasure, sorrow and joy. They, along with every other experience humans are capable of, are all part of the same, ever-changing experience of human life. They are all equally valid, and equally necessary. It is our human attachment to the pleasure and joy (which we categorize as being “good”) and our aversion to the pain and sorrow (which we categorize as being “bad”) that causes us to suffer. Don’t get me wrong. I still suffer. But at least when I do, I now understand what that suffering really is.
Nothing ever stays the same. And it is only in allowing ourselves to accept this, and align our thoughts and actions with this simple (yet painfully elusive) reality, that we can truly be at peace with any and every experience.
I’m still working on it.
But what has perhaps been the most difficult adjustment for me to make in my re-emersion into Western (and in particular, Los Angeles) culture is that everyone seems to have this inclination to want to create distinctions. People put themselves and others into these categories, as if humans are only capable of embodying one set of standards. In LA, these categories are referred to as scenes, and to be a part of any of them you have to exist within a certain duality where you ARE this, and therefore are NOT that.
It is so counter-intuitive to the way things really are, and yet I struggle with it every day. I find myself thinking “if I do THIS or I wear THIS, then people will think I’m THIS way, but does that mean that I’m not THAT way also?” It drains me beyond belief.
Why can’t people be this AND that at the same time? Why would anyone want to limit themselves to only being one way, when in reality, there are no such things as “this” or “that?” THERE ARE NO DISTINCTIONS! We are all just humans, and as lame as cliché as that sounds, it is the harsh reality of the world. For some reason, it’s one of the most difficult things for people to do…to accept that –while we are, indeed, individuals, each on our own path – we are all going to the same place…whether you want to call it Heaven, Hell, or dirt, we’re all going there, and when you strip away these superficial skins that make us all look so fucking different and special….we’re all the same.
There is no “or.”
I get it though. It's so much easier to put things in safe little boxes where we can believe we understand them and therefore have control over them, and over ourselves. That's what humans are known for, really....what do you think Religion is? Or government? Or art?
………………….
To quote Kurt Vonnegut's reiteration of the self-created Fifty-third Calypso in the Book of Bokononism:
Oh, a sleeping drunkard
Up in Central Park,
And a lion-hunter
In the jungle dark,
And a Chinese dentist,
And a British queen--
All fit together
In the same machine.
Nice, nice, very nice;
Nice, nice, very nice;
Nice, nice, very nice--
So many different people
In the same device.
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