1/28/2007 04:14:00 PM







It's been awhile and now instead of traveling with blog, I'm home and talking about being here in NYC instead of sites far and away. So, now I'm home ensconced with two new kittens and entertaining myself with them and knitting and sculpture. My interest has become tactile, kinesthetic, hands on instead of related to a machine or two dimensional.
After years of taking pictures and graphic design work I am passionate about knitting and working in clay. Go figure!
Or be figurative! Last semester I made a 2 foot Buddha statue and started knitting hats and mittens. Now I'm working on Ganesh studies and making my first sweater. Domestic bliss? I don't know about that, but having things come directly out of my hands and working with color in my hand versus on a screen and having an object versus a picture of an object or scene makes me very happy.Have I turned into a luddite? I guess worse things could happen. BTW- the word luddite comes from Ned Ludd an 18th century British protester who destroyed a knitting machine (yes really) objecting to the mechanizing of tasks done by hand.
Well, personally I'm not protesting (I love my washer/dryer), but slowing down to enjoy simple sensuous things in ones hands, is a nice thing. Besides giving friends hats and mittens is a joy in itself.



6/16/2004 10:47:48 PM

I was waiting to write until something positive happened and renewed (some) of my faith in being home.
Today as I was rushing, (not as before, but more than I have been) to meet my friend and her kids at the park after yoga, I dived hungrily into Balthazaar Bakery. Only after ordering did I realize that I didn't have enough cash. The fellow ahead of me, with whom I had been chatting, bought me breakfast. "Add her order to mine," he told the cashier. She arched her eyebrow and repeated, "Add her order to yours?" Meanwhile I was stuttering and trying to articulate my gratitude. I was dumbfounded. "That's very kind, thank you so much. Uh, I could run to the ATM.....". "No, you don't have to do that, I'm sure we'll see each other again." "OK, that's so nice, thank you." We shook hands and smiled and then I dashed out and jumped into a cab. Yes, NYC can be like that. People can be nice, and generous and enjoy being that way. Not that it can't happen anywhere, but despite my (still) overshadowing doubts about the modus operandi of this too busy of a city, a ray of sunshine appeared.

Still...a couple times a day I figure out what time it is in India. I miss the cows wandering around, even miss being asked, 'where you from?' I really miss the cost of things there, the Alphonse mangoes (though the ones here aren't too bad right now), chai, saris, packs of schoolchildren crammed into autorickshaws, and the lack of exposed skin. Sometimes I just want to say (mostly to women), 'put some clothes on!' It dulls the senses, it goes beyond sexy to explicit. Too much information! The excess of everything gets to me. There is too much to buy, too many buildings, too many restaurants, too many people, too many cars, most of them way too big. The five percent rule applies here. What if it was 5% less everything? Would it make NYC more liveable, more human? It might have to go up to 12% to make any difference. Can I apply the 5% to me being more tolerant? I dunno.

I dunno a lot of things right now. I have plans, but I don't know about work or how things will evolve with having been away. What the effects will be of a different sensibility having washed over me. Unwittingly I have learned about devotion and patience and saying less and doing less. Despite my grumpiness, I am happy, in a quiet, more internal way. I love having my comfy bed and kitties, the easy access to toilet paper and my computer. Having Eddie's shala to go practice in, to be assisted in backbends and even binding (with lots of assistance) in Marichyasana D! The gatekeeper pose that had been my nemesis. The picture attatched here is Guruji lying on top of me with my face in my knees. It is the counter pose to backbending (which opens the heart). Forward bends is a way of opening to surrender. That is where I am now. It is no different than when I had to surrender to India. It's not India or NYC, it's surrendering to mySELF...the greater part, beyond the physical or mental. This can be difficult or not wherever you are. As they say, wherever you go there you are. So here I am.
Me & Guruji

Thanks to my dear sweet pal Debra Kellner for the photo. You can see some of her amazing photos at:
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0009/feature3/index.html
(as well as pix by her lovely & talented husband Eric)



6/08/2004 05:45:41 PM

The first thing I noticed driving back from the airport is how clean it was. Yes, really. How everyone stayed in their lanes on the highway, how rarely anyone used the horn.

When I opened the door to my apartment and looked around, I thought, 'Hmmm, I use to know the person who lived here, quite well, actually.' It's kind of been like that. What is all this 'stuff'? Instead of unpacking, I'm cleaning out my closets, the spring cleaning in the material world. The real deep clean happened in the Himalayas, on an island in Thailand, doing backbends, drinking coconut water, taking overnight trains in India. BTW-The clothing, etc., will either go to friends or a woman's shelter. The swept up area in my head will assist with living the rest of my life.

Being back....hmmm....Well, it's different than I remembered or it seems different. Looking at life here with fresh eyes.

Initially I felt I was in a bad Dick Tracy cartoon. All these characters, overblown, vying for attention. 'Look at me', they almost seemed to shout. 'I'm so busy, that makes me so important. Can't you see that I'm on the phone? Do you know that I am making the deal of the century? My book has been optioned for a film deal? I am talking to my millionaire boyfriend about our vacation plans?' Well that's how it seems to me. The ambition, the striving is palatable. Just watching how people walk down the street here is different. People are walking towards a goal, they aren't just crossing the street, they made it to the other side and are therefore winning/achieving/accomplishing! On the flip side, I sense people as they look in the store windows thinking, 'Oh maybe that will make me more appealing. If I wear that then I can get... the cute guy to look at me/ that promotion/ that role....the sense of ego and showing off with the underlying fear of inadequacy; desperately trying to quench that thirst with something outside of themselves. Perhaps I'm getting too psychological.

Seeing all this makes me familiar again with that person I use to know, namely me. What had motivated or scared me in the past. It makes me wonder if I will cave. Will 'superman' (me) weaken in this land of kryptonite (NYC). Maybe it's just a matter of readjustment, tweaking. I know I need to 'come home' and be here. Not geographically so much as to be present. For the first time since I was a small child (or even younger, like in the womb) I am enjoying not doing anything. Not doing busy things that look like I'm doing something: reading book reviews on amazon.com or walking around shopping for things I don't really need or trying to 'multi task' just to see how thin I can stretch or anything. It feels good. Will this bubble burst ? Is it a bubble? Or is there a way to integrate this 'Winnie the Pooh sensibility' into my life here in busy ambitious NY? I dread the thought of some future date when a well meaning friend says, " Gee when you came back from India you were so relaxed..." . Dread is something to drop.

I think I need to live away from NYC more than I have in the past. I don't quite know how much away or how to accomplish that, but I believe if you aim yourself towards an idea then things have a way of moving that way, kind of like the traffic patterns in India.



6/04/2004 07:45:14 PM

Leaving London for a brief trip to the continent, Paris to be exact, I took the 'Eurostar' the train that goes through the 'chunnel'. Very nice, quick and convenient. Coming into the Gare du Nord and everybody is speaking french! How novel! I even understood some of it and could make myself understood. You have no idea how refreshing it is to make myself understood in a foreign language no less. In India I would ask for curd (yogurt) and the waiter was totally mystified by my request. Finally after repeating several times..."Oh curd! Yes madame."
*sigh*

Through the metro, I navigated to almost the right stop and finally arrived at Rue de Pointoise. Nobody home, not back from the weekend wedding party. Hoof it to a café on the Boul St. Germain have a salade and café au lait and wait, taking in the local color. Ahhh....it was nice. The weather was good, the Parisians were dour and the salade was delicious. It was so nice to have vegetables with crunch. BTW-guess what kind of toilets? Yup, squat. It's not just a third world thing. Went back to the house and there they all were. It was wonderful to see Debra again and Grace and Eric and Aurel and Camila!!! It made 'the west' so much more palatable and familiar aside from sidewalks, toilet paper and take away food. I had croissants from one of the best bakeries, Keyser, in Paris (a few blocks away) and a lovely cous cous tangine. It was great. Besides all this, spending time with Debra was a tonic. Walking around the neighborhood, past Notre Dame with the bells ringing on a lovely sunday afternoon with beautiful clouds rolling around. Still those dour sour Parisians. The waiters are a subset,they are surly sourpusses (no news). How such a joyless group can have such a lovely humanistic city and create such delicious food (the fruit tartes are a near religious experience) is quite a paradox. I had forgotten how much I liked Paris, it had been 14 years since my last visit.

It was such a condensed visit. On my last day (my second day) I had gone to Phillipe, zee hairdresser, and had my hair done....tres Parisian and tres cher, but c'etait mervillieux! I felt like a fairy princess. Later running around with my overnight bag in the rain, it was Cinderella after midnight. Now I was a sherpa. Extreme range of experience isn't just for India.

Then it was over. Back on the 'Eurostar' with my takeaway salade platter and gateaux, lengthening the experience just a little more and poof...back in London. It was still colorless and alientating, but I was leaving early the next morning. Onto the adventure of returning home.




5/29/2004 10:05:28 PM

It is infinitely dull and colorless. People seem preoccupied, angry and frustrated. This is my perception from London. I assume Paris will be slightly more picturesque(architecturally at least), the people will be even more annoying and the food will be much better. Seeing Debra et famille will more than compensate.

It's not that India is full of happy people in paradise. I wouldn't quite put it like that. It's just way different from here. It's not colorless or dull. Overwhelming, yes. Baffling, yes. I wanted to be seduced and I was (a comment was made to this effect, true methinks). Seduced by lime soda, yoga, clothes, chai, palaak paneer, aacha, basoundi, mountains, car & drivers, rotis, leg waxing, feral dogs, gheckos, heat and dust, squat toilets, the dearth of toilet paper, dhobiwallas, beedis and the friends I made. It has been grand. The best time of my life. Another begining of the best times of my life, I hope.

I have been seduced here in the west with shopping of another kind. Marks & Spencer sexy underwear (yes really). It led me down the lane to Liberty's and Selfridges. Now my feet hurt, I want a chai, I mean a cuppa tay. It's exhausting being in a big city, too many faces too much short fused energy going nowhere. Maybe I can spend more of the summer in Orient, as in Long Island. I'm just flayling about, feeling a bit heartsick and rootless.

Here's the song that I planned to quote at the end. Now's the time....
It called 'The littlest birds sing the prettiest songs' that's the perspective you see, a 'bird's eye view'

Well I feel like an old hobo
I'm sad, lonesome and blue
I was as fair as a summer day
Now the summer days are through
You pass through places
and places pass through you
but you carry them with you
on the soles of your traveling shoes...

Well I love you so dearly
I love you so clearly
I wake you up in the morning so early
just to tell you I got the wandering blues
I got the wandering blues
and I'm going to quit these rambling ways
one of these days soon...
chorus:
the littlest birds sing the prettiest songs
the littlest birds sing the prettiest songs
the littlest birds sing the prettiest songs
the littlest birds sing the prettiest songs

It's times like these I feel so small...
but I'm not too blue to fly
Oh I'm not too blue to fly

chorus




5/27/2004 03:49:13 PM

Not mine. It was an interesting affair. Kind of an arranged marriage via friends. The groom lives in New York and the bride will be moving there. That's where I come in, as a contact when she arrives. I think she will really like being there, I don't know about being married though, that seems slightly secondary to her.

Anyway, the wedding. As is the custom in India, these things start late and go even later. We didn't stay for the whole thing. What I saw though was just amazing. It was the procession part. They have these lamps, one kind is just 4 long fluerscent bulbs (like what they use for offices and hospitals) plugged into a box going straight up and then another lamp an antique 4 tier affair with drippy metal doodads and glass beads hanging down. They are also plugged into a box (slightly bigger than a boot box) and there is a long cord between each lamp box. It's quite a sight! Then there is the brass band all dressed up sweating in this faux military style outfits. Then there are the drummers creating this completely different sound of undulating drumbeats that get you moving in spite of yourself. So everybody is dancing and swaying and clapping and I think at some point coinage is being thrown. THEN there is this GIANT sparkler. A anad or anand, it means pommegranite. It's on a 2 meter high stick and there is this circle the size of a dinner plate with gunpowder or something. It starts spinning and spinning and sparkles start to come out of it and then it gets faster and the radius of the sparks gets bigger and bigger and it is all over everything and rising about 15 feet in the air above. Meanwhile this guy is holding the stick and making sure the circle spins in the middle of all the sparks! It's incredible, I felt like a kid taken to the circus for the first time and it was very exciting. Not to mention the colors, patterns and textures of the saris were beautiful and the lawn was soft and dense. It was the croquet game in Alice in Wonderland in a surreal kind of way. It wasn't though, I'm not Alice, and instead of "off with their heads" it was "namaste, so glad you could come..."

Today is my last day in India. I fly to London tonight with a brief respite in Paris. I am sad to leave. Almost extended my trip to stay and go back up to the mountains again, with V. I loved it there. I'm sorry I didn't think it through more creatively, actually more timely. I guess the trip is over for now. My next adventure is going home.

I'm a bit nervous about returning back to NYC. The concern is that all this will be a dream. Well isn't everything? This is one that I don't want to wake up from. How can I explain what my time has been like? I certainly have tried via blog, etc. But well, for me anyway, this isn't a running commentary for TV or the media or anything. It's been kind of a pilgrimmage with leg waxing and squat toilets and momos and lime soda and cows controlling traffic. Am I enlightened? No. Am I clearer with what I want and what is important, yes. One thing I know for sure is that this isn't just a once in a lifetime experience, it's something I plan to continue doing. Being here in India is a challenge, but that challenge nourishes me on some level.

Will try to write again before returning home. If nothing else, about the french pastry I plan on imbibing in Paris. Can't wait. I could if I was going to the mountains with V though, but that's another story.



5/12/2004 02:56:59 PM

I went up to the guesthouse and I immediately went into what I fondly call 'princess mode'. Not only was it a squat toilet, but it wasn't in my room, but around the corner 30 feet away. OUTSIDE for crying out loud!. There is no sink, you just brush your teeth and spit out on the ground. Bucket hot water means firing up this little heater with branches and leaves and twigs, running cold water through it and then getting steaming hot brown water out of this thing. Uh oh. I am so out of my comfort zone I might as well be on another planet. My mind was racing, gyrating, burning rubber to figure a way out of this one. No wastebasket in the room (why this bothered me I don't know, but I was primed for irritation). And forget phone service (though that I had kind of figured). What was I thinking? This isn't ME!! I'm not simple or natural, I was just low on oxygen when I thought this would be a good idea. I don't want to stretch, at least not this far. OK, okay I'll tough it out for one night and then just look stupid leaving in the morning.

So I sat down, an attempt at calming down. I looked over the hills and watched the sunset. It was beautiful, it was one of the loveliest sunsets I've ever seen. Sitting here watching a sunset on the top of the world, I'm a lucky girl. I think this mind ego thing needs to take a holiday. So I sat there mesmorized by the sun and the shadows and the crickets and it was all a lot better than ok. Then the stars came out, it was better than a movie. I slept better than I had in a while. The bucket bath, despite the color of the water was great, there was plenty of water and it smelled kind of woodsy or pine-y.

While sitting eating breakfast, my friend Megan came by, completely unexpected. We took a little hike together. She didn't move as fast as the guide, and the path was easier. We came back to the chai stand chilled with a chai, then we walked down to McLeod. That's why I'm here sitting writing to you folks. The chain is yet unbroken with the plug-in world. But it's getting better. I think walking back up there will be nice in the late afternoon. I come down (yet again) in the am to meet yet another friend but I think I'll try to stay up there in the afternoon. Give my feet a rest. Maybe even my mind.