Familiarity

It wasn’t the sound of a child’s scream that sent me running from my bathroom to the balcony, that’s as common as the Indian mourning retching, it was the yells of a man.  The intensity, the ferociousness and the magnitude of his words were pierced intermittently with the cries of a child, mind you, but his voice overtook the sounds that filled the morning air.  I didn’t hear the morning caws of the crows, I didn’t hear the ocean, all I heard was his yelling.  Looking to my left, I peered over to see my next-door neighbor come out her cottage, a similar place where we had just shared, just moments before, a brief “good morning,” our first ever since she and her boyfriend arrived days ago.  This is the first morning I’ve seen in days as I emerge from a bout of the typical India induced food poisoning.  Now, instead of a friendly gesture we look at each other in disbelief and worry, giving each other the “I don’t know what the fuck is going on” shoulder shrug w/ a furrow between our brows and a mutual silent fear to add any more noise to the ruckus in the place below us.  The door to the room is wide open and I see the lower calves and feet of a man but no more.  I glace to the stairwell approaching the entryways and the guest house cleaning boy is waiting, hidden behind the corner, afraid to continue his morning duties because he has to pass through the air of their commotion.  A few people gather on the balconies of the adjacent building to see what is happening.  A concerned looking aged woman cranes her neck in attempts to steal my perspective and then walks to the opposite end to see if there is anything she can see from the balcony that belongs to the bellows.  She returns, glances at me as if there is nothing to report and I return the same.

Soon after a little girl scuttles out of the room with that familiar little leg shuffle with her mother behind, clasping her had, who is remaining very quiet.  She speaks a few words to the daughter but not many as she rinses out dirty dish containers over the railing into the communal garbage dump.  The mother goes back inside and the little girl, who can’t be more than 6 or 7 years old still cries.  I check on my neighbor and her eyes are fixed on the scene, standing with her hands clasped against the railing like she’s waiting for something, maybe waiting to see the same thing I am, waiting to see what the hell a grown man that yells at such decibels looks like.  The mini crowd of a few still gathers on the neighboring balconies, not with a voyeuristic eye but one of helpless interruption.  What can you do when you don’t understand the language penetrating every bit of air around you but can feel down to your marrow the intention?  A few moments later I see the same masculine feet and legs but only for a moment as the mother emerges from the door with the fixings to go to the beach.  As she gathers her daughter and slips on her shoes I look at my neighbor again, her eyes transfixed, and I look back as the door closes behind the two ladies and hear the “clunk” of the door lock behind them. 

 

My blood courses with a long forgotten sensation as I stare at the closed door and the faceless man behind it.  My neighbor made her way to the corner of the balcony and sits in the lounge chair, eyes fixated at the door, half in focus, half in a daze, her face painted with sorrow, anguish, remembrance and a sense of pained familiarity.  I sit down and wait to see if this man is like my dad, who I haven’t talked to in over 2 years or seen in 14, not due to my lack of trying, to see if he’ll sit and simmer in his own festering darkness or if he’ll emerge and show his face.  Time passes and the door doesn’t open, much like the look on the face of my neighbor doesn’t change.  She and I may be strangers but in this moment, we have a familiarity that goes back deeper than we’d care to remember and all we’ve ever said to each other is, “good morning.”

Moments later, she leaves.  We never even exchanged names.

Childlike

I’m reading Tenzin Palmo’s book Reflections on a Mountain Lake, which I HIGHLY recommend for everyone.  You don’t have to be Buddhist to appreciate this stuff… I certainly enjoy the teachings and I don’t prescribe to any religion.  She spoke in one chapter about having a “childlike mind” and not in the sense of being naïve or weak and fragile but in experiencing the wonder that is life, in each moment, like a small child does and that we seem to do less of as we age.  Someone asked her in the Q&A, “is that why life gets shorter as we get older?”  Her response:

“Yes, because we become more and more robotic.  When we are small children, everything is so fascinating that life seems to go on forever.  Every day is huge, because there are so many fascinating things happening and we are so interested.  So childhood seems like a very long period.  But as we become dulled, as our minds get less and less curious, as we go onto automatic pilot more and more in our relationships, in our social life, in our work, even in our intimate relationships, we become increasingly somnambulant.  Therefore life loses its vivacity and seems shorter… When I became a Buddhist at the age of 18, my life turned around.  My whole way of thinking was being reevaluated.  It was an intense period.  When I look back, it was an enormous period.  I think, oh yes, the time when I was a Theravadin, it lasted years and years and then eventually I came to Mahayana.  In fact, it was just a few months.  But because it was such an intense time and so many things were happening inwardly, the time stretched out.  But when nothing much is happening, it’s the same job, the same relationships, the same this, the same that, we become more and more conditioned in our responses, and time seems to get shorter and shorter.  That is very sad, isn’t it?  Because actually, it is the same time.  It seems to speed up.  This is an indication of how we are becoming more and more robotic in our responses.  In a way it is a warning sign for us to wake up and reestablish that original childlike curiosity and fresh quality of mind.”

There is something really wonderful about Instagram, well many wonderful somethings.  It provides an ability to share your artistic vision with like minded people, it’s a place to build community, it’s a place to find or create inspiration, it’s a place that allows you to see the world through the eyes of others, immediately.  What Instagram has really done for me though is allowed me to see my own world differently, to strip away my habits and reveal my “childlike mind.”  The reason I started using it was so I could have a way to do a quick photo journal, do something immediate, real time, for those of my friends, who cared to see, and for myself.  I wanted to be able to look a back and scroll through a reel that was my own life timeline in a bunch of pictures.  It’s done an incredible job of doing just that.

Since I started using it I’ve felt more compelled to make sure I take at least a few interesting pictures a day so I have something to post and in March/April when Instagram launched for Android, I was already 3 months deep into my time in Arambol.  I thought I had seen everything I wanted to see, done everything I wanted to do, talked to everyone I wanted to talk to but now, I had this new toy to play with and I wanted to use it but what the fuck was I going to do, take pictures of the things I’ve already taken pictures of just so I could post them?  I could’ve done that, but I didn’t.  What it jump started was a desire to walk the streets, back dirt roads and sketchy looking paths with fresh eyes, like I had never seen them.  I kept my ears open for all the sounds I heard, my eyes for all the sights, my nose for all the smells, sometimes comparing them to my past experiences but really trying to just be with whatever was there right then.  I wanted to find beauty where I had already found beauty but also where I hadn’t.  Instead of zooming down the street to get to the Rice Bowl for dinner, I walked slowly, stopped to look up, to the left, to the right, over ridges.  I smiled as I saw a rooster hoppin around checking out a garbage fire and then darting off between scooters and taxis, something I may have typically missed because I “just wanted to GET THERE!”

I have found that I’m completely fascinated with faces, daily life and the landscapes of India and while I was in Australia and Amsterdam, I loved the architecture (more so Amsterdam), the cars, the smaller details like door handles, entry doors (well actually, that’s my fascination EVERYWHERE except the US… hey carbon copy home depot mass produced BLAH!), train tracks, places I was standing, mail boxes and bicycles.  

The easiest place it’s been for me to take pictures like a crazy beast was in Kashmir because I was there for such a short time and EVERYTHING was new!  I was like a little kid who had just stepped in sand and rubbed the sun out of my eyes to see this vast ocean for the first time.  It was incredible!  I loved it!  Everytime I turned my head I just whispered quietly to myself “wooaaaah” and my senses seemed overwhelmed and I couldn’t ingest enough of my surroundings.   It was the same type of experience I had hiking to Triund for the first time.  Mark, my next door buddy, said, “oooh, that’s only like a 2-3hour hike, you’ll be back by early afternoon.”  Bullshit!! My mouth was on the ground the entire time looking around in awe, wondering when the fairies were going to fly from the trees and float around with me up the mountain… it was THAT beautiful!  I stopped for chai and talked to the owner of the shop for about half an hour.  I stopped to sit on big flat rocks on the cliff to nibble on the PBJ’s Lama had made for me before I left and I watched the fog roll in and out of the steep, massive boulder, tree filled mountain side.  I stopped when I saw a new kind of vegetation, just to observe it.  It took me 4 ½ hours to get to the top and I sat on a rock at the top for an hour and a half watching the fog roll around some more, trying to catch a glimpse of what lay beyond it.  I was all *SNAP SNAP SNAP* the entire time!  When I was done for the day, I practically ran down the hill, I couldn’t get home fast enough.  I didn’t see anything, I didn’t stop, I just WANTED TO GET THERE, I had seen all this just hours before.

I’ve taken a portion of that path a few times since and it’s always taken me half the time to get up, because “oh I’ve seen this… I just wanna GET THERE!”  It’s the same thing that happened with the walking path from Dharamkot to McLeod… instead of enjoying the walk I found myself timing how fast I could reach the bottom.  Why?  For what?  Is something no longer beautiful and worth slowing down to take in once we’ve already seen it?  It’s the “same ole same ole” so why enjoy it as much all subsequent times as I did the first? 

Once I get into a habit of doing something, or being somewhere, once I think all has been absorbed, I just go through the routine, the motions and the process is no longer as enjoyable, the destination is all that matters.  It’s not like that all the time but sometimes, to often times, it is.  Having this camera with me all the time, and the intention to capture what my life looks like, has forced me to slow down, stop and look around and I’m absolutely amazed at all the things I see, either for the first time or I see differently than I have in the past.  It used to take me only 11 minutes to get from my door to McLeod Ganj… now, I have no idea how long it takes but I usually have to send Mark a message that says, “got distracted, going to be a few minutes late.”  You know what, I’m not 30 minutes late, I’m maybe 5 or 10 minutes late but the joy I had walking down the hill, on the same path I’ve walked countless times, was really enjoyable.  I could actually feel the mist of the thick fog on my face, smell the fresh water coming from one of the leaking water pipes (not a poo pipe, THANK GOD), glimpse a monkey quietly chillin on a branch, munching on a banana and I don’t slip on any of the slippery parts!  I’m totally aware of everything going on around me, I’m immersed in it, not trying to shoot my body through it as quickly as possible.  It wasn’t just something I HAD to do to get to where I was going, it’s something I wanted to do and enjoyed it while I was doing it.  Using my camera as a catalyst for walking everywhere, doing everything, almost like I’ve never done it before, has been such a beautiful experience. 

Life isn’t about always picking a new destination, often times, we can’t, nor is it about always picking a different path, because those can be limited, it’s about experiencing the same path, the same destination, as if you’ve never experienced it before.  I want to go up to Triund again, when the rains have simmered a bit, and I don’t want to improve my time getting to the top, I want to take my sweet ass time and enjoy every step on that path I take!   Is all this easier said than done?  Probably, well, actually, yes… but that doesn’t mean I won’t keep trying…

Stop to smell the roses... again… ;)

Xxxox

Dirty

p.s. Instagram and a camera did it for me but I’m sure there are countless way anyone can think of help look at, what they think is their mundane life, with a new surge of curiosity… but if you want, you can steal my method J

Love

As I write this, it’s 9:30pm on Day 10 of Vipassana and after closing out “The Bar,” as Mel, Anna and I called the cafeteria during our tea chat session, we and 15 other women, who just finished Vipassana with us, had our dance/singing party shut down.  Mel is an Afgan woman whose family escaped from the country when she was 8 and parked their butts in the US for 20 years and 8 years ago, she decided to take her western education and start a corporate law practice in her home country.  Anna is a woman from Finland who decided to spend her 1 year sabbatical, from her management consulting profession, in the country she spent so many years working and is finally getting to see the country for what it really is. During our dance/sing party shut down, Mel and I were in the midst of a very climatic part of Rain Drops on Roses while the lot of us were being told “no dancing or singing is allowed on the Vipassana grounds!”  from the course manager.  We of course didn’t hear the announcement and kept singing louder and louder as the rain fell on our faces and thunder clapped overhead.   Oops!  I guess that the solo dance parties Franzi and I had in our Lamphun rooms were super illegal so I’m glad no one heard me blaring the new Santigold album as I was shakin my tush in the shower on 10 day of my 2^nd Vipassana. J  The fact about 20 women are outside right now and some were singing Bollywood songs while an adorable girl, Puja, was doing traditional village dance just goes to show how incredible this Vipassana and this group of people were.  These bloody things seem to keep getting better and better!  No expectations for any subsequent ones though, of course. ;)

As I sit in my little prison cell sized room, literally, with no windows except for a small skylight overhead, I can’t help but reflect on the incredible life affirming changes that have taken place over the last 10 days of silent SUPER intense meditation.  I was hit with a profound revelation on day 2, in the middle of just doing Anapana, which is observing the breath, which transformed my life from that moment forward.   For some reason, unbeknownst to me, while “observing” my breath, it dawned on me, this magical thought - “Wait, why would the manufactures of the Indian squaters, Hindustan in most cases, put their name on the side of the squatter where your butt faces? Wait a second… OMG!! I’VE BEEN USING THE SQUATTER BACKWARDS THE ENTIRE TIME I’VE LIVED IN ASIA!  No wonder there has always been the threat of a tickle sprinkle on my foot!!!!  Holy shit!! HOW EMBARRASSING!”  It’s like I’ve been straddling the toilet bowl for a whole year, elbows propped up on the back, just chilling, waiting for a dook to plop, which completely explains why one of my dad’s out of town work visitors from some Asian country was doing just that in our guest bathroom in my parents’ house when I was younger.  So note to all – in the west, face the door, in the east, face the wall!  The amazing things that come out of Vipassana… I tell ya! 

I also got very intimate with part of my body on this course as well, so intimate in fact that it was a little too intimate and I had to stop myself after only making it an 8^th of the way through.  NO, you dirty sluts, I didn’t blue clit myself… bitch please, never, but I now know why I’ve always had problems with ingrown hairs when shaving or waxing my legs.  That shit has NO orderly growth pattern!  Yes, I will blame Franzi for this, I took tweezers to my legs and as much as my friend Aimee hates the term “plucked,” I feel it most appropriate to use because pulling each leg hair, one at a time, maybe two if I was lucky, I really feel I became one with the plucked chickens of the world.  I made it almost ½ way through my lower right leg and decided I liked my morning and afternoon naps WAY better than this!  Not only that but once you get to the outside part, you have to crane your legs in all sorts of ways and I am not only out of yoga shape, but I was already in immense amounts of pain from my 10 ½ hours of sitting still, meditating, and it was just making matters much worse.  AND, if matters couldn’t get any worse, I started to PMS and men, I know you can’t relate but ladies know what I’m talking about.  HELLOOOOO sensitivity and exaggerated states of pain!  I couldn’t take it anymore, I had to stop!  I looked down though and between my shin high, scull socks and my fisherman’s trousers, there was this little bit of exposed skin… think of the really awkward leg tan soccer players get… it was ½ hair and ½ bare!  Aye, so I sucked it up and finished off the part just under my knee and so NOW, I have a totally “wax ready” left leg and a freakishly patch worked right leg.  I think this makes my year of celibacy easier to attain. ;)  Guess what I’ll be doing tomorrow though, as soon as I drop my bag off at my guest house??  Praise the one “beauty salon” in Bhagsu!

I’ve hesitated writing much about my actual REAL experiences in Vipassana for a number of reasons.  For one, in the event ANY of you actually want to try it yourself, I don’t want to rob you of an expectation-less experience, which is what every meditation session should be, well, what EVERY moment in life should be.  Second, I don’t want to preach or sound cray cray about the practice and I figured, if anyone was truly interested in it, they’d ask.  So, here is an open invitation, if you want to know anything, ANYTHING (except my own personal experiences) I’ll be more than happy to share.   Thirdly, it’s SUCH an intense experience there really are no appropriate words to capture what it is or more importantly, what it does TO you.  The ONLY way you can know is to experience, which is part of the core of the practice anyway… to know the true nature of your reality, as it is, on the experiential level, within the frame work of the body.  As an old student though, I get to sit closer to the front and since Dharamsala brings TONS of newbs to the scene, closer to the front means seat 3, dead square in front of the assistant teacher.  During some of the sessions she has little meetings with small groups of people, asking them about their progress and this particular teacher was so wonderfully engaged with the students, she would call certain women up, one at a time, who had been coming to her with questions throughout the course.  I usually left and went to my room to meditate because I’m not exactly seasoned and it’s hard to focus when there are quiet whispers a meter in front of me but on day 8, I stayed.  I may not have been able to put what the root of Vipassana is to me into words but what I overhead Nina, the Assistant Teacher, say to one of the other old students, who was sitting before her, sent me running back to my room to capture it on paper, it was so perfect and so beautiful and soooo… it.

When you have equanimity and accept all the sensations that arise, or when your mind wanders to thoughts of aversion or craving and you just accept that it has wandered, without frustration, you are developing love, compassion and peace within yourself.  Until you can feel true love, compassion and peace for everything that you are, inside, you will never be able to feel it for anyone else.  When you observe yourself with equanimity, you are learning to love yourself.

I felt like I got smacked across the face when I heard this.  I let it simmer for awhile and went to lunch but as I walked back to my room, for no apparent reason, tears started to well in my eyes but then faded back into my eyeballs.  I got to my room, grabbed my tweezers and thought about plucking away again but all of a sudden I burst into body convulsing, air gasping, snot and tear flowin (or I guess snot lurches more than flows), sobs.  This continued for a wee bit and after a few dry heaves in my bathroom, a few more gasps while in the fetal position on my bed, I passed out.  Nice timing too because really did come to enjoy my afternoon naps on my right side… I hear it’s good for digestion and lord knows anything helps with THAT whilst in Vipassana.  Vipassana is like a cork for your rectum, no joke!

Especially in recent years, I’ve always thought I was a person who loved herself.  I thought I was an awesome person with a few minor flaws but generally, pretty bad ass and not in a conceited way, just in a “comfortable in who I am” way. I’ve always known something “wasn’t quite right” inside me though and I’ve thought it was issues with anxiety, attachment, depression, etc but as soon as I heard the teacher speak those words and they rang out to me so clearly like they were placed directly in my scull for me to absorb, I asked myself, “do you love yourself, jess?”  You know what… no, I don’t… not completely, not unconditionally, not fully and totally and truly.  It’s taken removing me from all the distractions, that are SO EASY to fall into because they are so fun, removing me from my comforts, removing me from the outside world, 3 times, mind you, for me to finally get it.  THIS is why I am here!  This is why I have left a world I love so much, the people I love, the city I love, the life I love.  This is what I have spent 1 full month of the last 11 months trying to figure out, intensely anyway.  I feel like THIS is the reason I’m in India.  It’s not to travel, it’s not to turn into a pretzel, it’s to find the unconditional love within myself I’ve never had.  I don’t truly love myself!  I’m pretty sure it’s safe to say I can attribute the sobbing to this realization but it wasn’t tears of sadness or depression, it was so SO intense I needed a release and it was exactly what my body needed to do to accomplish that.  After those 5 minutes of being a drippy mess of face fluids, I felt like they sky opened up, like I weighed a fraction of what I did just moments prior and something surged through my body like lightning.  It’s not anxiety I’m tackling, it’s not attachment, it’s THIS and with THIS comes everything else.  Admitting to myself, finally, once and for all, I don’t completely love myself is the most liberating thing I’ve ever felt and I accept exactly where I am with it right now, without judgment or frustration and knowing full well that *I* am the only one who can accomplish this.  No one else can put the love I don’t have for myself in my being, only I can but that’s the complete beauty of it… *I* have control over making this happen.. no one else.  Just knowing, deep down, to the core of my tiniest bodily sensations, this, I think is a fucking monster step in the right direction.  If that’s not the best birthday present I can give myself, I don’t know what is.

Bhavatu Sabba Mangalam, bitches! ;)

Xxxox

Hairy, Love Bubble of Dirty!

p.s. I totally love the monkeys now! LOVE THEM!  They are probably the most fun animals to watch live their lives… srsly… ya’ll should try it and in the wild, not in a fucking zoo.

p.p.s. Ringing in my 32nd year of life in Vipassana was one of the most beautiful things ever... *hops on my rainbow shitting unicorn to go sprinkle fairy dust around Dharamsala*

p.p.p.s. Nina, the Assistant Teacher, used the phrase "Oh, pain is a WONDERFUL sensation" like running coaches say "hills are your friends." ZOMG!!!  I died.

Needs

I spent my morning recovering from an odd hangover from one of the rare nights I over indulge in some craptastic alcoholic beves whilst abroad.  Once I pulled myself together I dove into an old, but familiar and lovely routine.  I noshed on some fresh fruit, muesli and curd, drank some chai, cleaned my balcony, which overlooks lower Dharamkot, from the storm that swept through last night, put on some Zoe Keating, cracked a new book and occasionally glanced in the direction of the drifting clouds rolling in and out of this lovely Himalayan hillside, where I spent so much time last year.  Dharamkot and McLeod Ganj – I love you!  There is something about this place, it’s indescribable but the power of it can blindside you without warning.  Today, is no exception when I felt my heart chakra open up like a crazy beast and I was hit with a massive realization that I just couldn’t help but document.  Here goes…. I now know what I want in life!  Pretty big statement coming from anyone, right?  How often are people able to tell you exactly what they want, like REALLY want?  These are how my wants used to look:  I wanted a house - I got it.  I wanted my dream car - I got it.  I wanted beautiful girlfriends - I got them.  I wanted clinkage from regatta weekends - I got it. I wanted lots of money - I got it.  I wanted the awesome corporate ladder climbing job – I got it.  I wanted cheese cake - I got it. Those wants are easy to identify, they are tangible, something to touch, something to hold, something that’s easy to identify and explain, something you measure the success of by opening your eyes and looking at what’s in front of you and things you can write a project plan for how to obtain.  I wanted lots of that stuff and usually, I always got it and I knew how to get it and what the result would be.  As soon as I got one thing, I rarely enjoyed it and looked immediately to my next goal.  What I had was never enough and I always wanted more, bigger and better… whatever that meant.  Look what it got me... it got me to the place where all I wanted to do was empty my entire bowl of "accomplishments" and start over and for every moment to be a start over.   Holy shit have things shifted, changed and in this perpetual transitory state that is being, my “wants” have gotten… simple, or maybe more complicated, however you want to look at it.  So here goes…

My New List of Wants:

• I want to find joy in every moment
• I want to experience everything through my senses without discrimination, without a pretense of assumptions and expectations and without projection
• I want to experience the world, not simply see it, but experience it
• I want to inspire myself and others 
• I want to be healthy, patient, understanding and compassionate
• I want to continue to “feel [my] feelings with feeling” but with action and then let go
• I want to be present and nothing but present in each moment
• I want pure happiness and pure awareness
• I want to truly and unconditionally love myself and everyone else in my world and everything that takes one to get to that point (ie. establish and keep healthy boundaries, total honesty, non judgement, acceptance, etc.)
• I want to just be

That’s it.  That's not too much to ask, right? ;)  I truly believe that everything else will fall into place, all the people who will help nourish me, security, safety and logistical pieces... it will all just happen when it’s supposed to if all the “work” I do in my life is to fulfill these wants, or I'm more included to call them NEEDS.   Does that mean I sit still and wait for shit to happen?  Absolutely not but there is a fluidity to what revolves in the world when you're at ease and peace and it's not a constant struggle or a constant striving to fulfill desires.  Well, at least, I don't think there is. What does all this look like?  Fuck if I know but it’s what I want/need and I just realized when I chose to make a major life change, these were the only things I truly wanted but I didn’t understand, until now.

Travel summary from the past 2 ½ months coming soon! ;)

Mad Crazy Love n Shit!

Xxxox

Dirty

Shit Talkin Pee Foot & 10 Self Likes/Opportunities

I would like to start this blog entry by calling attention to the fucking incredibly amazing, supportive and ridiculously sweet people in my life.  Whether we’ve seen each other recently or not and some of you, we haven’t even talked in years, the out pouring of kind words, encouragement, compliments that have brought tears to my eyes, anecdotes, questions, pieces of validation and just everything else awesome that has flooded my way has been so fantastic.  These are things I’ve learned I don’t need, I don’t crave and I don’t expect but getting all of this just helps my happiness shine brighter and my smile get that much bigger, and I have a small mouth so it gets streeeeetched!  .  I’m so thankful to know each and every one of you and to be able to call you a friend.  Fuck!  My peeps are awesome!!  Thank you all, sincerely and honestly from the fullness of my open(ing) heart.  You all make me feel like exploding into bits of rainbow glitter goo.

On that note, let’s talk about shit talking, shall we?  Have you ever noticed that when you make a declaration to stop doing something, you become REALLY cognizant to just how much you do it.  I’m not talking about the obvious action ceasing like me making a declaration to stop eating sugar because I’m well aware of my absolute addiction to all things deliciously sweet.  I’m talking about saying you want to stop doing something just because you feel it’s something that you should affirm but you don’t think you do it all that often.  Like… “I’m going to stop making grunting noises when I’m struggling w/ a deuce.”  You don’t think you do it, but you know that you shouldn’t just because if you’re one of those who brave the task in a public facility, discreteness may prove beneficial.  Once you actually say you’re not going to do it though, every time you visit the porcelain seat or squatter, as the case may be for those of you in the east, you feel like your brain is going to burst because ALL you want to do is let out a little vocal assistance?  So I made one of these declarations in my own head about a month ago and it was spurred by my experiences with Vijay and all the random people who would ask me about my experiences.  I would speak as candidly as I felt and usually that was vocal diarrhea out of the mouth kind of candor.  One of the four agreements, actually the first, in the book Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz, is “be impeccable with your word” so I decided to adopt this little ditty and stop talking shit!  I wanted people to make up their own mind about him and while I felt like I was originally doing a service by being a walking Yelp review, I also realized some people really liked this guy, even though I couldn’t think of a worse teacher.  This new declaration didn’t go just for Vijay but for anyone, because you know, I didn’t consider myself much of shit talker in the first place but it was just something I knew was good to not do.  OH MY BLOODY GOD!  You know what I realized? I’m a HUGE shit talker!  HUGE!  Ok, maybe not that big but I’ve had a few instances where I’ve met a couple of new people who drive me absolutely up the fucking wall and all I want to do is share my thoughts about these people with others and sometimes I feel like I’m about to convulse into a hysterical tizzy holding back.  Jesus!  I’ve managed to hold to my word but I’m finding out it’s not as easy as I thought.  There is also a very fine line between shit talking and experience sharing, I find, or maybe there isn’t and I have just justified things I’ve said in the past because it’s “story telling” and not exactly shit talk, or at least I don’t think it is. Then you add gossip in there and it’s just a whole different area to figure out.  What’s the difference between “shit talking,” “gossip” and “experiences”?  Claudio and I were trying to figure this out at dinner last night but we didn’t come to any definitive answers or understanding what’s ok and what’s not.  As you can tell, I haven’t quite sorted this out but it’s new.  If anyone has any insight, it’d be much appreciated. =) 

Maybe I’m just struggling with this now since I meet so many new people and usually I click with them but for those who I don’t, I can’t seem to escape them because I live in such a small place!  I guess that solves the question I never asked myself though - would I ever want to live long term in a small town?  I can now, definitively, say, HELL NO! City living gives you some sense of anonymity, which, after living in Arambol for just a few weeks, is nonexistent and as social as I am, sometimes I just want to tuck into a dark corner of a restaurant by myself, sip my chai, read and pretend no one else is in the room with me.  I find complete serenity in being by myself surrounded by the hustle and bustle of strangers much more than I do spending time at home alone.  When Mr. LA walks into the chai shop though and yells, “HEEEEY! I go somewhere different for breakfast but here you are for lunch!  Let’s talk about how I know the difference between men and women and how I know everything about gay women,” that bubble of solitude bursts into an explosion of dread as I look up at him, look down sadly at my loving Kindle and close it so I can begrudgingly engage.  Dammit!  There goes a wee bit of shit talking.  I’ll mess up along the way. =)  I’m quite transparent though and as one of my loving friends in the Pi Beta Phi house said to me one night over a decade ago, “Jess, it’s like you have a laxative in your head, your face hides NOTHING,” I’m pretty confident my displeasure for the company of certain people is far from hidden, for better or worse.  So much of me wants to talk about these interactions with someone else but why?  It won’t change anything and I’ll just get my feelings off my chest but why do I need it off my chest?  It’s better to just let people be and then go about my own business without paying any mind to them, right?  I think one of my friend’s 2 1/2 year old daughters said it best, “just worry about yourself mom!”  Regardless, it’s been a bit more challenging than expected.  Now, if I meet someone amazing, I’ll grab a damn megaphone, climb to the nearest rooftop and proclaim their awesomeness for all those willing to hear, which I find much pleasure in doing.  I quite enjoy those moments and I’ve had quite a few of them over the last year, with those new and those not new. 

I peed on my foot last night at Double Dutch.  I wonder if that is one of those “life events” I should log on Facebook on my fancy “Timeline”?  I’ve mentioned how Goa is well, not really India.  I’m not a well seasoned India traveler, nor do I think I want to be but I can say, of all the other places I’ve been there is one kind of toilet and almost one kind of toilet only, Squatters!  Along with those squatters are restaurants were there are no chairs but big, lumpy, uneven, well worn cushions on the ground to rest your tush and a low height table to maneuver your legs around to get to your food, laptop, book, chai or joint.  All of this allows for one to open the hips, sink a little bit lower, meaning your ass, and after a few days time, manage to properly use the toilet without any mishaps. I came to love the squatter when I was living in Dharamsala and I was so pro by the time I left I wanted to add to my “wish list,” for the house I will never purchase again, “squatter.” It will fit lovingly into my eastern style restroom where you can brush your teeth, shower and poo all at the same time thanks to no separation of any of the aforementioned amenities.  So this leads to me to Goa, where it’s so western, down to the toilet and the toilet paper that is actually provided by every establishment, I feel like I’m in a dirtier version of Hawaii.  I felt this, until I actually had to use the bathroom at Double Dutch last night, which is a lovely dinning establishment with probably the best deserts in town, all over western style, but their bathroom is a SQUATTER!  I was tickled pink with excitement as I made sure anything that could drop itself into the hole in the porcelain was zipped up and contained and I started doing what you do after drinking about 5L of water.  Even with as much yoga as I’ve been doing, apparently, nothing replaces the action needed to successfully use a squatter like squatting.  I don’t mean “hovering” like women in the west do, getting pee all over the seats, I mean deep, calf stretching, shin flexing squatting.  All of a sudden I felt a splash and looked down and bloody hell, my ass wasn’t low enough to channel all this appropriately and I had pee on my damn heals.  GROOOOSSS!  I didn’t have many options so I just finished and washed up everything as best I could, used the soap that smells like the stuff we used in Lesotho (god that brings back memories), and joined my partner in crime for the evening for dessert.  I made sure I didn’t tuck my feet onto my chair, which everyone often does here, and as soon as I got home and washed the hell out of them some more.  I do have to say, this last act is actually part of my routine every time I come into my room because my feet are perpetually dirty, walking on all of these dirt paths covered in only god knows what.  I may not mind being filthy while I’m out an about during the day, like when I’m noshing on my fruit, muesli and curd, drinking my apple, carrot, beet, ginger juice, covered head to toe in dirt after a morning of Aerial but my room, and me in it are always immaculate! Each day, along with my Moolabandha exercises, aka: keggels, I’m going to work on my squat so this never happens again!  So if any of you are planning a trip to India or anywhere in Asia, EVER, do yourself a favor, do yourself some squats and you’re welcome!

Another potentially gross fact – a razor hasn’t touched my legs since I left Seattle.  I know I know, some of you lovely hippy friends of mine don’t shave and I don’t think you’re gross, only your legs but I hate body hair, anywhere, except on the head, and even then, only where appropriate. Like these Indian guys with hair on their ears AS LONG AS my hair before I shaved it… what is UP with that?!  And I feel like the time I’ve saved on scull hair maintenance is directly proportional to the time I’ve added making sure my eyebrows are always lovely and I’ll be damned if they EVER look like Iyengar’s.  Omg, man, you’re a yoga legend, I’m sure SOMEONE wouldn’t mind taking some scissors to those beasts atop both of your eye sockets.  Anyway, the reason I haven’t been shaving is because I just got back from my full leg and bikini waxing that cost me a whopping 390 rupees, which is less than $8 USD!  I find it hard to justify wasting the one pack of decent Gillett disposables on my leg hair when I can get waxed for less than it cost me to buy those bloody razors.  Divya has a little air-conditioned shop just across the road from where I stay and I’ve been to her a few times and she’s quite a lovely lady as is her assistant.  Aside from the ridiculously cheap cost of getting my legs done, it’s a little too efficient.  See, I’m used to paying my $130 (ish and I think that included tip) at the good ole Gene Juarez in Bellevue with Basila (GO SEE HER!!  She’s so lovely and wonderful and tell her I say hi!), and spending a nice hourish chatting it up, having some wax put on and than having some wax and hair ripped off.  There was always this nice recovery time when Basila was smoothing the luxuriously warm and soothing wax onto my legs where I could try to enjoy my time with her before the torture ensued seconds later. The moments were short but they were such a nice reprieve.  Divya and her assistant DOUBLE UP!!  While one is not to gently using the hard spatula to wax me up with her homemade raw honey wax, the other one is ripping the shit somewhere else on one of my legs.  God forbid the wax application is so efficient that they both rip at the same time or one right after the other.  *riptearyankpullripripripRIIIIP* one right after the other.  In those awful moments, it feels like the reflexes of pain coursing throughout my body are going to make me go into a seizure on the table.  That’s about when I start to sweat profusely from every single sweat gland on my body and she has to reach for the remote control to crank up the air conditioning, sometimes even double whammy it with the ceiling fan.  I’m a fiery slippery mother fucker, to say the least and based on her reaction, I’m apparently a drenched anomaly in her world.  Maybe I should try this sattvic diet for my damn pitta body (it’s auryvedic shit, look it up).  That all said, I’m in and out of that place of torture in 30 minutes and only $8 poorer so I’ve made a vow that while I’m in India, I’ll be waxing exclusively, as long as I can find a beauty salon with air-conditioning. =)

Peace out bitches!

Xxxx
Dirty

P.S. Time for the 10 self likes and opportunities! Wheee fun!

March 10 Self Likes/Opportunities

10 Self Likes

• I allow myself ample “me” time and understand it’s invaluable importance and necessity
• When I don’t succeed immediately, I keep trying, as long as it’s something I love and really, what’s the point for something I don’t?
• Away of body limitations and not so subtle messages
• Give myself appropriate rest when needed
• Healthy attachment/detachment with new relationships in my life that I’d like to translate into ALL  relationships, in all its forms
• Enjoy a healthy routine that’s flexible enough for spontaneity
• I’m proud of all I’ve done, good and not so good and the lessons I’ve learned from all of it
• I’m patient with myself when learning new things, like AERIAL!!
• If I want to do something, I do it!  If I don’t want to do something, I don’t do it!  If I NEED to do something I don’t want to do, I change my attitude about it and do it.
• I’ve showed immense restraint with accumulating any new material possessions

10 Self Opportunities

• Be more aware when on the verge of reacting and take the time to mindfully act
• Bloody get your sugar fiendishness under control, woman!
• Be nicer when in the presence of someone whom I rather were not around
• Empathize with other’s issues but don’t take them on myself, in anyway
• Find ways to help from regressing to old habit patterns whilst pmsing
• Be more diligent in focusing on the now when I catch my mind where it shouldn’t be
• Listen more and actively and talk less
• Spend more time reading, studying and meditating and less on my phone
• Have more patience for others
• Set up and keep a budget

Day in the Himalayan Life - Pt2

I’ve been feeling the itch to write lately and capture what the experience of coming home for a visit, post my India experiences, has been like.  Btw, I came home.  After Vipassana all I wanted to do was see my best friends and my family so days after I exited that hellacious piece of heaven/hell on earth in my enlightened state, I booked a visit home, this time the ticket was round trip.  I realized I had a part 2 of what was supposed to a many part series about my incredible daily life in McLeod but well, it ended with part two, which I have yet to post, until now.  Instead of completing this series, which the concept will be resurrected upon my return to SE Asia, I will just capture the things I’ve missed terribly since I’ve left.

I  miss all the amazing people I met, whom I know many of us will reconnect in the future, I miss listening to screaming eagles while hovering in Chatturanga, the sun penetrating the wall of windows in Yogi Shivadas’ studio or the torrential rains pounding on the ceiling.  I miss Shivadas calling me out on things and pegging my issues to a tee, I miss the random and sketchy looking routes to get to ANY yoga studio in McLeod or Dharamkot, which means I kind of even miss Jonathan the crazy Israeli tantric yoga teacher who told me to drink my own menstrual blood and that of my now no longer lady friends.  I miss my post yoga dates with Brittney and sitting on an open area, usually tarp covered roof watching the screaming eagles and eating our eggs and Tibetan brown bread or our fruit, muslei and curd.  Sometimes I miss Marina and her pounding on my door moments after I set foot in my room after a long day out.  I miss Mohan screaming, “MAAADAAAAAMMM“ and finally in the last few weeks I was there “JEEESSSSIIIIIIII” whenever he needed to talk to me and I miss the giggle and shy smile of his wife Beetu and her lil round preggers belly.  I miss the boys at Sanji’s always flipping me shit, the brothers Raan, Sanjay and their friends Ravi and Dinesh.  I miss my talks with Mohan’s brother Rinku and their helper during the busy season, Lama, about life in India.  I miss random adventures with Brittney and anyone else we met along the way, lounging days away “reading” in any one of our favorite cafes.  I miss my solo days where I’d park my ass on my balcony and stare out at the hillside while eating, reading, writing or doing yoga.  I miss my daily yoga lessons with DK from Lhamo’s and hearing about his stories of the life of Tibetans or the movie night they had EVERY night at 7pm in their café.  I miss the random guest house owner, Vikram, who would greet me each morning on my way down the hill to my yoga class as he’d tell me if I was early or late that given morning.  I miss passing the man and woman right by the steps playing Marabaraba (no idea what they call it in India) for hours on end.  I miss dodging cows, motor rickshaws and weaving in and out of the traffic mayhem that is India.  I miss living in the storms!  Oh MY GOD do I miss the storms!  I miss watching them roll in, roll through, the pounding on the roof, dodging the puddles of ick they created on the streets, the thunder that would shake my entire guest house ALL night, the lightening that would wake me in the middle of the night by igniting my room in incessant flashes.  I miss going to Tushita for Buddhist movie days, chai, chatting w/ Renchin the monk from Hawaii, morning meditations and workshops.  I miss going to Vipassana and then planning out a day w/ Marina afterwards.  I MISS THE FOOD! I miss the “shanti shanti” life style and attitude, which also means, India Time.  I miss the real true street food.  I miss hearing any one of the dozens of Shiva temple bells getting rung at any time of the day or waking to the sound of Buddhist chanting echoing across the hills.  I miss the sights, sounds (even the fucking ridiculous horn honking), smells and energy of the entire place.  I miss looking at the swirly trees that were sporadically located between all the gigantic evergreen trees.  I miss my Big Gay Umbrella and actually getting to use it without getting glared at because of its size.  I miss the Dalai Lama and you know what else I miss… the fucking MONKEYS! (FORESHADOWING)

Anyway, without any further ado, here is part 2 of what ended up only being 2 parts of Day in the Himalayan Life.

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Taking in one last breath of sun I bounce out of my balcony chair, throw on some yoga clothes, toss my mat into my backpack, make sure I have my antibacterial soap and cream for my fully exposed, fresh ¼ sleeve tattoo, slip into my flip flops, grab my 3^rd arm, which I have lovingly named “My Big Gay Umbrella,” which doubles as a walking stick during the non-torrential parts of the day, and head out for my walk/hike down to McLeod Ganj.  The path from my guesthouse to the main corner that houses the Himalayan Tea Shop, Tushita and Vipassana is relatively flat and mixed with paved parts, small pebbles and sand and big rock chunks, not unlike most other streets in the area.  Two routes will take you to McLeod Ganj, one driven by taxis, motorbikes and rickshaws; although, not at this early hour of 7:30am and the other path is known as the “shortcut” that passes along the backside of Tushita and is more of a hike than a walk.  Its descent is quick, steep and predominately nothing but rock.  A majority of the path looks like someone spent a month going up and down the mountain with a jackhammer, destroying the shit out of the road, and left all the remnants as a perpetual obstacle for the journey between McLeod and Dharamkot.  This is when I learned I’m amazing in a pair of flip flops and decided my Reefs are going everywhere in the world with me.  They handle this crazy bit of terrain like the champs they were born to be.  They’ve taken me through 4 continents, endured showers with leeches, vineyard strolls, mountain hikes, spa days, yoga outings and trudged through flooded roads of cow shit and sludge.  I feel like I should write a song about them but that would just be silly.  Understandably, this road is not taken by anything motorized, or anything not on foot, to be more specific.  It’s a beautiful path, lined with massive evergreen trees on both sides, it smells fresh, until you get closer to McLeod or pass a freshly dumped cow pie, and due to the surroundings, the incline and the condition of the path, I’d classify this more in the category of “hike” versus a “walk.” 

McLeod Ganj is like Seattle on a sunny day, especially after months of absolutely ridiculous torrential downpour from the skies.  The rain here is like nothing I’ve ever seen, in quantity, ferociousness and frequency.  It’s no wonder the poorly engineered roads look like they are going to slip out from under you with just the weight of your foot step, or a massive rock will dislodge from above and tumble your direction as you cross its path.  When the skies part and the sun shines, people are all smiles and friendly.  I have taken to hauling ass down the mountain in the mornings, since I’ve already spent considerable time strolling, gazing at my surroundings and absorbing everything around me.  Now, haul balls is the name of the game, unless I have a chance encounter with a lovely stranger, which, because I apparently can’t stop socializing, is often.  One morning a wonderful Tibetan man, whose name I still don’t know, who works at a guest house at the bottom of the hill, was on his way back from his early morning walk with his dog up to the top of the hill, showed me a marvelous short cut that allowed me to bypass the massive garbage can around the bend and down the hill. You know who likes garbage cans?  MONKEYS!  You know who doesn’t like me?  MONKEYS!  I will say, since my encounter with that beast in Rishikesh (see Mission, Monkeys and Motorbikes – OH MY!), and after a few weeks of automatically chanting the Saturn mantra Sanjay’s guru gave me as I approached a pack, I’ve eased a bit in their presence and I don’t think I’m giving off the stench of utter terror and fear.  I think it also helped that during Vipassana, I would take it upon myself to lead all the women to either the Dhamma Hall or cafeteria, because those are the only places we went, putting myself in harm’s way first of any monkey shenanigans, because I am up to date on my shots, thanks to Rishikesh.  The Vipassana retreat center in Dharamsala is like a playground for those things and one day a girl from San Francisco and I were essentially locked into the outdoor bathroom area because an entire family, or more of monkeys, were surrounding us.  As they came closer, we’d both run into whatever was nearest that had a door we could slam and lock.  I chose the bathroom, with the toilet EVERYONE tinkled on (so annoying!) and she, one of the showers, which probably had a disgusting leech on the darkened concrete, lifting its grotesque head sniffing for flesh to suckle.  Fifteen minutes we stood there, waiting for our chance to escape and keep in mind, we can’t talk and technically we’re supposed to have “Noble Silence,” which means also no gestures or eye contact but this was a different kind of situation and silent communication was a must for our survival.  I may be exaggerating, slightly.  Finally, Dimple, a woman from Bangalore, frantically waved her umbrella in the air as a signal we were in the clear and we managed to scurry off to our rooms, unscathed.  I feel like I could write a book about my monkey experiences in India.

Back to my lovely jaunt down the hill. I round the bend that passes the lower entrance to Tushita, by one of the Buddhist temples they walk circles around chanting mantras and playing with their prayer beads, and I hear a noise from the trees, I think.  I’m alone, which is not uncommon, and there is always some weird noise in this area that I haven’t been able to identify so I just keep walking, with heightened alertness  and a firmer grip around my Big Gay Umbrella that has a metal point.  I’ve determined that in time of need the Big Gay will be my life saver and allow me to stab a bitch in the gut through the heart or in the eye.  I told this plan to my mom on the phone once after she told me, “be safe girl,” and she suggested, “I think you should go for the eye.  Then you don’t have to contend with a rib cage.”  Thank you mom for the wonderful advice.  With a firm grip I look ahead and down to see if there are any newer obstacles in my path this day.  This is the point where the road is somewhat paved but the retaining wall of filled old metal containers is ahead and effective they are not, so the road is crumbling to bits around that piece of engineering genius.  As I peer up I catch the glimpse of an adolescent monkey running and jumping through the brush, swinging from a low hanging branch, landing on the ground and all of a sudden, I see a few more join it on the right side of the path.  I’m calm, cool, collected, not even chanting my mantra at this point and I’m feeling pretty a-okay.  All of a sudden, from the left, I hear similar noises and while looking down but carefully lifting my gaze I spot about 15-20 more monkeys of all ages.  At this point, the lil guy on the left, who I thought was alone, had crossed the path but left behind him another 20 monkeys.  I’m fucking SURROUNDED!  

Usually when I come to a group of monkeys they are all chilling by the garbage can, noshing on only god knows what and pay no mind to me, as long as I’m not oozing nervousness and anxiety.  I thought maybe they’d stop as I was walking, listening to Ratatat from my phone that’s shoved into the water bottle compartment of my backpack, but no, they are going the same direction as I.  I have baby monkeys walking within a foot of me on either side, almost in an accompanying fashion, older monkeys are frolicking (do monkeys frolic?) in and out of the trees to my right and on the left they are just running along the side of the cliff, some are crossing right in my path, making me weave a little from side to side like a hopeless drunk at this early hour.  I keep my pace even, as to not disturb the flow we’ve all created because I honestly don’t think I’d survive a monkey attack of 50+ strong, and there is not a person in sight.  The brief detachment from civilization in the woods is coming to an end and I see the patch of homes and guest houses on the left.  Water spews from some of the exposed piping that’s stacked in mass, soaking the left side of the road and this is India, you have NO idea where this stuff comes from or more importantly, what’s in it.  I try as I may to avoid getting “India” on me because who knows what will grow from the tainted spot once “India” has touched my skin, or what will fall off my body due to infection.  On the right the road becomes unmanageable in flip flops, or at least very difficult but there is a nice clear, yet small patch of pavement running down the middle of the path.  Even with the spots I like to avoid, there is maybe only 2-3 feet of each unpleasant situation on either side of the nice patch of pavement. Under normal circumstances, this is not problem but today it’s proving not only difficult, but impossible as I carefully keep my head down but gaze up and see the patch of hairy chest on a really big fucking beastly monkey plopped right in the middle of the road, parked on my landing strip of pavement.  “Fuck fuck fuck!” I silently utter to myself.  So that lack of fear I felt on this rather surreal trip down the mountain came to a jilted halt.  I’m all of a sudden, very cognizant of my breath and more importantly, controlling it. Breathing slowly to regulate my heart beat I, even more, carefully look at the monkey’s face, making sure to not make eye contact, to size up the situation I’ve encountered.  He’s just staring at me, not moving, I’m not moving, none of the monkeys around us are moving anymore, and life freezes, for how long, I have no idea.  Five feet from what seems to be the leader of this pack I stand as nonchalantly as possible, even go so far to place a hand on my hip, look up at the sky and pretend I don’t see this creature and that I’m totally unmoved by his power play, because, that’s what he’s doing that monster bastard of a mammal!  I fight the urge to whistle a little tune of nothingness, which I’m sure would send all 82,384,732 monkeys in my direction, teeth bared, arms flailing and screeches capable of draining my ear drums of blood.  I carefully, and briefly, look at his face again and he’s still just staring at me, not showing teeth or hissing like the one who attacked me in Rishikesh, but instead, smiles mockingly at me.  Maybe I dreamt it, or maybe I’m just being a dramatic Leo, but I swear he was flipping me shit with his eyes and a smirk.  I wait, patiently, maybe for 30 seconds, maybe for a few minutes and all of a sudden I hear small movements in surround.  A few of the little monkeys latch onto their moms and as I’ve been deemed nonthreatening, the big bastard saunters into the brush on the right side, allowing me to pass.  At this juncture, the monkeys stay put and carry on about whatever business it is monkeys carry on with?  I’d say they are on a mission to terrorize humans but that would be inaccurate in McLeod, thank god.  The red monkeys here are actually a bit more docile and just want to eat the remnants of food off the ground, rather than steal bags of whatever goodness you may have in your hands.  If I was still in Rishikesh though, terror, trouble and shenanigans are all those damn red assed monkeys are about and I have the faint scars of wisdom to prove it.  

Until the adventures continue and I need to decompress from my visit home,

xxxo

DIRTY!

Day in the Himalayan Life - Pt1.

“MADAAAAMMM!!” I’m startled awake from my perch, basking in the morning sun beating onto my balcony during the waking hours.  Mohan is yelling, as he does, from the bottom of my ramshackle stairs that I swear, one day, will topple over as I’m descending.  I’ve already practically face planted into the upper stairs as I’ve climbed them with a quick, impatient but what I thought a reasonable pace.  Why Mohan, one of the brothers who owns and operates the guest house and restaurant I’ve been staying since my move from party crazy Dharamkot Road to a quieter location, just days before Vipassana, continues to call me madam, I will never know.  I’ve requested a few times for him to just call me Jess, Jessica, J, asshole, whatever, anything but madam, but alas, a man forms a habit with no desire to break so I adapt to what I find an unnecessary formality.  I think he just doesn’t want to remember anyone’s name, which I don’t blame him, considering this place is a revolving door of tourists, predominately Israeli, so why remember anyone’s name?  The thing is, I’ve been living in his upstairs guestroom for 2 months, I have dinner with his wife, I play with his adorable niece Shelly and I'm pretty much an extension of their family at this point.  Instead of going through the revolving door as everyone else, I’m that idiot who sneaks into the small opening during the final swing of momentum of a manual entrance, thinking it’s automatic, and I just stand there, waiting for something to happen once the revolutions stop. I'm stuck and here to stay but if madam is what he prefers to call me, then madam it will remain.

“MAAAADDDAAAAAAMMM!!”  Completely unaware of what he wants I brace myself like an old lady and lurch out of my comfortable position on the balcony chair, unlatch both locks on my front door, fling it open and holler back, “Whaaaaat?!”  This is where the formalities stop as we scream back and forth at each other to communicate.  It’s what we do.

“Madam, garbage!  Do you have any?” he asks me.

“Oh yeah!  I was wondering how that works around here.  I’ll be down in a few seconds.”  I hustle to my bathroom, grab the only garbage can I have in my room, slip into my flip flops positioned at the door, grab a few plastic bottles and patiently and carefully step down the stairs.  The first step is a little further away from the top landing and there is a huge open gap that separates them, and it's at a wee incline, not to mention they are made of metal slats so they are a girl in heels worst nightmare!  I am in flip flops and they are still a nightmare.  Any wrong footing and you’d tumble down the very narrow, deathly looking contraption that is a fabricated norm in India.  As I set a foot on solid concrete ground I’m welcomed by an aged gentleman who has a massive old weaved rice bag that holds the unwanted contents of countless houses’.  He looks at me, silently, opens the bag and I dump the contents of my garbage to mix with that of everyone else’s.  I thank him, give him the India head nod and before I walk away, I see him synch the bag closed, heave it onto the top of his shoulder girdle and start to shuffle his way down the uneven,  slanted, crumbling steps that go from upper Dharamkot to main Dharakmot Road.  “Well, I guess that answers my question about garbage pickup,” I think to myself.  Of all the places I’ve traveled in this world and actually set temporary roots, I’m always fascinated by how different system’s work.  In Rishikesh, India and Lesotho, Africa, they just burn everything they can’t recycle.  In Rishikesh, the recycling is minimal and that was apparent by the daily evening asphyxiation we’d be subjected to but in Lesotho, they find the oddest uses for any normal item we’d throw in the trash in the US.  In Peru, we found much of the hillside in San Francisco de Asis, a small community just east of the coastal fishing town of Ancon, buries their garbage in the dirtiest sand hill I’ve ever seen, which we found out was a garbage dump when we ended up digging into it during the process of our construction work.  If they didn’t do that, once or twice a week a truck would drive down the sand path, honk their horn and people would need to run out of their house and throw bags of their waste into the back of the truck.  Some would just leave everything in a big pile, not unlike they do in Manhattan, and the garbage collectors would pick up the mess.  India is just a different world and I really can’t ever figure out the systems they have in place, for anything, really.

I’ve had to leave my green, “keep your surroundings clean” Northwest born attitude at home and believe me, the first time I did the unspeakable, I felt like I died a little inside.  I had just finished devouring delicious steamed momos from one of the street vendors, post one of my first killer Ashtanga practices, and asked a girl if she’d seen a garbage.  Her response, “Uh, look around, India IS the garbage.  Just toss it.”  I swallowed hard, closed my eyes and let my paper container dangle from my fingertips before it silently dropped into the drainage ditch below me.  The sides of the streets at the end of the day look similar to those in the Mission in San Fransisco but something tells me monster street sweepers don’t cluck along Temple, Bhagsu or Jogiwara Roads in the middle of the night and instead everyone in McLeod Ganj has the untouchables to thank for keeping the filth to a minimum.

I’ve been more fascinated with the daily life of those in Dharamkot and McLeod, myself included because during one of my many epiphanies I had during Vipassana was, “why in the hell am I going to do an Ashtanga teacher training when I’ve only done 2 classes myself?!”  That epiphany came on day 3 and day 4 I decided that if Sarah and I didn’t get chosen to be the travel bloggers for a project in Japan, which we were supposed to find out about while I was deep into sitting 12+ hours a day, observing my bodily sensations, I wasn’t going to be upset because the thought of incessant traveling tired me greatly.  My intentions of coming to India were to immerse myself in as much yoga as possible and anyone I met along the way whose plan didn’t align with mine, I would just say hello and then good bye.  Little did I know that while sitting in silence for 10 days I would come out the other end with 2 incredible new friends whose paths were very similar.  I made a decision to stay put, set roots and really begin to live, a normal, daily life, in this Himalayan hillside, without stress, without a desire to move around and without going through another strictly regimented yoga teacher training.  I know that will come again in my life but right now, it just didn’t feel like the right time.  I have to admit, I chuckle to myself when friends back home speak about all the adventures I’m having because, once you’re settled somewhere and set roots, everything just becomes a norm and nothing seems like an adventure.  This is why I haven’t updated my blog in so long, each day brings me the same satisfaction, which is great, but it’s all just life for me.  I feel like writing now would be like keeping a travel blog while I’m in Seattle. J 

Every so often I have to stop and realize exactly what I’m doing and I’m amazed by my life.  I wake up every morning and head to yoga, like I do at home, head to some fine establishment for food and tea with friends, like at home, find a quiet café with a balcony that has an amazing view to read for a few hours, which I do at home, and maybe catch a free movie and then walk up the hill or depending on the daylight, catch a ride up the hill to my place of residence.  Sounds pretty normal, yeah?  I feel like I’ve turned into one of those people who answers with, “oh you know, the usual,” when asked what’s new but in reality, that couldn’t be further from the truth, which as renewed my desire to capture just what life is like where I'm living.  This is less a travel blog now and more a life experience blog, which I find completely acceptable at this point in my life.

Each morning I wake and now that the monsoons have subsided, although not entirely, the sun is fighting with all its might to seep into my room through my blood red curtains, sometimes succeeding and leaving a small bead of light shooting directly into my eyes.  I smile as I emerge out of my burrow of sleep sack and mound of blanket and fling the curtains open with awe at the beauty of the new day.  The mountains have this spectacular glow to them, whether from the dew collected over the night or just how things look here without any explanation, but everything shimmers and it’s amazing.  My entire room lights up, I open all the windows and make my way to the balcony to sweep whatever mess the wild cat has left in the middle of the night of its scratching post, which is my chair.  I plop down for a minute, close my eyes, sun radiating much needed Vitamin D into my skin and just breath in the morning, all while listening to Rinku, Mohan’s older brother, aggressively, almost violently gargle, hack and spit into the sink in their family’s outside shared bathroom.  My Dalai Lama blessed Buddhist prayer flags gently flap in the breeze, which I hung as soon as I realized I was staying for awhile, life on the hillside slowly starts to stir and I can hear the Vipassana bells in the distance.  Now that I’ve lived a life for 10 days by those bells, it’s impossible not to notice each time they ring.  While I was in Vipassana, the moment we could start to speak, one of the first things I said, as Jasmin, the main server, was walking around with one of those god-awful hand held bells going “dinglelinglingdinglelinglingdinglelinglingdinglelingling” was “when I leave here and hear a fucking bell, I’m going to have a Pavolvian response and it’s not going to be salivating.”  Oops, there’s some aversion for you.  The fact is, now that I’m out, I love hearing them and while my meditation has been anything but consistent, when I try my best to make time, I try to time it with the bells.  Those bells, this view, these sounds, the smells, none of these things are anything I have in Seattle.  Life lived on a mountainside in the Himalayan mountain range is like nothing else on this planet and it’s beyond beautiful and experiencing this is my adventure...

Cheers from the mountain and more to come,
xxxo,
Dirty

Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo Day 2 - Enlightenment or BUST!

These are the notes I took from day 2 of her teachings at Tushita Meditation Center in Dharamsala, India

July 29, 2011

Morning session

Observing the Mind

• Even though thoughts are intangible, they rule our lives
• We dress our sense of “I” in memories and cloth it in labels based on what we think we know about ourselves but the Buddha says this is the biggest delusion and it’s all because of our mind
• We do not exist the way we think we exist, we are not who we think we are, we identify with all the wrong things
• The problem is we believe our mind so we then cling to our ideas and don’t question what we think, feel, believe
• It’s not about finding out who you are, it’s about finding out who you are not
• The essence of meditation practice is to observe the mind at all times and what is observing the mind is not the conceptual mind, eventually meditation will move from the non-conceptual mind to the heart.  Allow ideas, emotions and thoughts to come and then dissolve with no attachment or identification to them – Jetsunma lived with a yogi who suggested to really observe the happenings in the mind 3x every hour to become aware.

Empathetic Joy

• Joy in the happiness of others and is the total opposite of jealousy and envy
• We rejoice in others happiness, which then doubles the happiness felt!
• We should be happy when others do good things, are striving for happiness or receive happiness
• Rejoice in your heart with no concern for yourself
• So many people focus on the pain/suffering they or others are feeling/experiencing but they feel that if they open their heart to taking on anymore suffering, it will be too overwhelming.  Empathetic joy and focusing on what good is happening and rejoicing in others happiness will combat that feeling.  There is a lot of good and beauty in this world and it’s important to focus on this.
• 4 Right Efforts:
• Eradicate any negative things in our mind stream and uproot or transform them
• Prevent negative things from happening in the future
• Cultivate and recognize the good things we have in our mind stream
• Bring more of the good things in the future
• All our efforts are to bring us back to where we never left, to our true nature
• The negative feelings/qualities are fleeting and not inherent, we are all pure and perfect by nature
• 3 Kinds of Laziness:
• Gross
• “I can’t do it”
• We keep ourselves so busy with good things that we never step back to work on ourselves – a way to avoid dealing with ourselves
• Like with all other practices, must start with ourselves first.  Be happy and appreciative of all the good influences in your life and recognize and be happy about the goodness in you.

Afternoon Session

• 2 main obstacles keeping us from a balanced mind (where the subject and object are one)
• Agitation – we try to focus and mind has a different idea where it wants to go
• To alleviate agitation, keep sessions short and firm
• It’s scary to realize how little control over the thing that rules our life the most
• The main problem in this world is we are not the masters of our own mind
• If we had loud speakers attached to our minds, wouldn’t we all want to meditate to help calm the mind and regain control of it?
• We try to do too much
• If you do anything with a distracted mind, it won’t work
• Give something simple to start to focus with, like the breath
• If mind is agitated, look at a nice landscape, eat heavier foods, keep warm
• Sinking – This is the dangerous one.  We feel relaxed but our mind is unclear and not alert so people mistake it for deeper levels of meditation but it’s not
• Goal is a mind that is quiet, peaceful, relaxed, spacious, totally vivid and bright
• If you have a sinking mind, sit up straighter, keep yourself cooler

2 mental factors

1 – mindfulness – 1 pointedness

2 – introspection – spies on the mindfulness to see how it’s doing and makes sure meditation is balanced

Impartiality

• All beings should receive our love and kindness, not just certain beings.  Apart from attachment of those near and dear and apart from animosity for those not within our circle
• Feel neither strong like/dislike for those we love/hate
• Not indifference, it’s even mindedness
• Recognize that all beings want to be happy
• Know everything people do is to make them happy.  It doesn’t mean we need to let people get away with everything bcs that may not be compassionate bcs it may cause themselves or others harm.
• Compassion isn’t always sweet and sometimes it can be rawful, it’s the intention that counts

Lady Xanax - Adventures in India Travel

Written immediately after arriving in Dharamkot

19, July 2011

I wouldn’t necessarily call myself a seasoned traveler, especially if you compare me to a majority of the people I’ve met during my visits to various continents but I’m definitely not one of those too fearful or scared to uproot their normal routine in the US to not venture into the wild of the world.  I can say, in my limited travel experience I absolutely ABHORE touristy places.  Touristy places have been added to my list of 5 star resorts of places I don’t care to see whilst exploring the world and I’m glad they are there for the people who feel that is the way to travel but not me, no way, no how. 

My time in Rishikesh came to a close yesterday afternoon and while I don’t think I was fully prepared for the tearful good byes, last conversations with those I care very deeply but once the wonderful faces I came to love started to leave I felt like I couldn’t get out of Rishikesh fast enough.  The last weekend was the beginning of what used to be a huge spiritual festival for Shiva and people, predominately younger guys looking to party, sporting tiny orange shorts that hid NOTHING, and their bright orange shirts w/ Shiva’s face plastered all over them flooded our little haven of holiness.  I spoke to Sanjay on our motorbike ride to see his guru who runs and lives in a guest house just inside Lakshman Jhula and he said that the spirituality has completely disappeared and now it’s just a bunch of people coming to the city to have fun and party with their friends.  Now I wouldn’t exactly say it was like Vegas considering Rishikesh is not only alcohol free but you can’t even get a meat dish to eat but I’m sure hash was smoked by the masses.  Part of the celebration is to walk from wherever you live, grab a bunch of water from the Holy Ganga and dispense some up the mountain at the Shiva temple and take more back with you to your home, on foot.  It was MADNESS!

Seeing the guru was a different experience, which I won’t discuss here but it was a nice way to end my stay in Rishikesh and it was nice to spend some time with Sanjay because as little as we interacted, I felt drawn to him and really appreciated and enjoyed his morning asana practices.  He is a kind soul and has a wonderful smile and spoke with us all without condescension.  Jade and I gave ourselves 2 hours to get to the bus station in Rishikesh proper thinking we could just walk all our tons of shit across the Ram Jhula bridge, grab a tuktuk and be good to go.  Oh no… thanks to the festival, it was actually and very surprisingly not too crazy getting out of Ram Jhula but where there are usually hundreds of tuktuks waiting to charge westerners too much for a 2km ride, there were NONE!  We had to haul all our shit up the hill and walk another 1km or so and were welcomed by a bunch of tuktuk drivers wanting to charge the 2 of us 150INR for what would usually cost 5INR each.  Strong and angry words were spoken and finally we found a guy who would shove the two of us, and our shit, into a an already packed tuktuk w/ an adorable and very friendly little family.  One of the older woman offered to grab my “smaller” bag and hold it in her lap for me as I half sat on the already ridiculously tiny seat and half hung out the tuktuk door, gripping onto my 1ton bag for dear life so it wouldn’t fall on anyone.  Jade somehow managed to get herself and her monster back in this thing too.  If I didn’t think I’d fall out of the tuktuk into oncoming or passing traffic, I would’ve documented.  Oh and I should add, all of the tuktuk drivers tried to tell us we were wanting to go somewhere we didn’t want to go.  Haridwar, Dehardun and only god knows where else they said they were going to take us.  We had to actually yell at them as the 3-4 tuktuk drivers were around us all spouting we were wrong and needed to go elsewhere.  I yelled, “LOOK!!  THIS *pointed to my ticket* IS WHERE WE NEED TO GO! NO WHERE ELSE! Can you do that and not for 150INR!  We’re not stupid, this drive normally costs 5INR from 1km BACK!”  That’s when the one guy chuckled and said, “OH, you want to go to Shiva temple to catch the bus to Dharamsala?”  “YES!  That’s what we’ve been saying for the past 5 minutes!”

Jade and I get dropped off at a gas station and I see no Shiva Temple so we, and all our shit, are standing on the street corner looking confused and also terrified that any of the busses we see across the street are what we’re going to have to take.  The busses in India are NOTHING like the shear luxury that is Cruz del Sur in Peru.  We ask some gentleman also just chillin at the gas station if we’re in the correct place and he points to a random, unmarked waiting room that’s a tiny building on the side of a restaurant and are told it will be another out.  Jade and I meet a very sweet girl, Uma, from South Korea who came to India 5 years ago after getting her heart broken and has seemed to get stuck in various places for whatever reason… love, dance, yoga, meditation. There were a few Israeli people, one girl who was SMOKIN and after a few other sightings of the many Israeli people here, I’ve decided I need to go there. J  About 10 of us waiting in this weird little waiting room and all of a sudden a tiny Jeep comes up and the guy hops out and says, “Ok, the bus is 1km away. Come.”  He throws all our monster bags on the roof and we somehow manage to cram every inch of this car with us and all our stuff and as soon as the doors are closed he yells to the back, “100INR each!”  I’m glad to know I’m not the only one with some aggression in this place and one if the Israeli girls yells at him, “NO!  We are NOT paying you anything!  This is where we were told to go and we bought our bus ticket.  WE ARE NOT PAYING YOU!”  The driver gets out and looks flustered and we’re all about to get out, grab our shit and trudge through the crazy india traffic to get ourselves to the train until he gets back into the car, chuckles and says, “ok, let’s go. No charge.”  AH! 

We get dropped off at the back of the bus and there are a bunch of India dudes just chillin, shootin the shit and we all sit in the middle of the street or precariously on the edge of this ledge where below is a stream of the grosses looking urban sludge you could imagine.  All of a sudden a guy who we thought was in charge hops on a motorbike, says, “be back soon” and takes off.  Our bus was supposed to leave at 4, it’s now 4:30…oh india time, how I love you.  None of us know what’s going on so we do what everyone in India does best, just sits there.  About 20-30 minutes later he arrives again and we’re allowed to put our luggage into the back of the bus and board.  The buses are very simple and I’d almost like to compare them to school buses in the states but there are 2 bucket seats next to each other on either side of the aisle, they do recline and there is a small storage compartment above our heads.  This is apparently the luxury buses in India and no, I didn’t have high expectations.  I’ve come to understand the best way to enjoy your time in India is to have zero expectations at all, maybe even on the boarder of low expectations.  For $21 it wasn’t bad BUT if we want to compare countries, Cruz del Sur in Peru, Daddy and I got bus tickets from Lima to Huacachina for just over $30 for the luxury seating, which are like first class seats in planes, you get food service, there are bathrooms on the buses, as opposed to hopping off, running to the muddy, potentially shitty side of the road (you can’t tell because it’s pitch black outside) to cop a squat and do your business.  There are also movies and A/C in Peru, in India, you’re lucky to get a working fan and windows that open by your seat.  Note, this was a deluxe bus, the public bus, from what I hear, is more like a school bus.

The first part of our journey, once we finally left, was beautiful.  We left the busy hub of Rishikesh and made our way through various small towns.  The sun was setting as a HUGE deep pink orb behind the corn fields and mountains, the air was getting more crisp and less shit and exhaust filled and it was really pleasant, especially since it wasn’t fully booked and Jade and I each had our own row. Once the sun was down I decided there wasn’t much need to be conscious anymore. Thanks to the lovely over the counter medical stores in India, I popped my lady xanax and within moments I was chill as ever and a moment later, I passed out, not to wake again until the sun was rising over the Himalayas and we were only an hour from McLeod Ganj. We get to McLeod Ganj, which is upper Dharamsala where the Dalai Lama lives when he’s here and it is touristy as hell and I’m hoping to god the Iyengar center isn’t here.  It felt like Lakshman Jhula but busier and dirtier, which I didn’t think possible.  I’m still groggy from the xanax so I let Jade attempt to take the reins on where we’re going but neither of us really know and god knows it’s a crap shoot believing any Indian.  Uma thought the Himalayan Iyengar Center was in Bhagsu but upon getting a tuktuk to take us there we ask the driver and he says, ‘Oh no, it’s in Dharamkot.”  Shit, that sounds familiar and thanks to the center’s website for going down a few days ago, we didn’t have info on exactly directions but that sounded familiar.  Our tuktuk driver rolls his eyes, charges 3 times more than we were originally going to get charged but we’re off in the other direction.  Jade finds this adorable guest house that has HOT WATER and really kind manager.  We ate at the little café a few doors down and I proceeded to take my first hot shower in months… HEAVEN!  Oh AND my text messaging works in the mountains.  Yes! 

Signing out – from beautiful, non sticky Dharamkot

Xxxo

Dirty – not really J