writing in india

I came home from work today with such a headache. And as I was walking home from the chakra stand, I realized it was because my head was just too full. Too full of things to write about, to describe and make sense of, to capture beauty in these small moments and they are so slight I worry if I don’t make a conscious effort to remember and hold onto one feeling triggered by one event, that I will loose it. And if I loose it, in some way, I loose part of India, or part of why I am drawn here. And sometimes it feels so difficult to be here that I feel I need these small moments to remind me why I am still here, why I am still sometimes even fighting to have this work out the way I’d imagined it would. And so, I walk around all day, heavy with descriptions and small sentences here and there, filling myself with metaphors and phrases, waiting to finally have time to let it all out, to put these words to rest somewhere. And I walk home and carry with me the coconut man, who sits cross-legged on his cart amongst all his coconuts, as if he himself were a coconut and he recognizes me this evening, asking if I want my usual coconut water, not tonight I tell him, kale, tomorrow. And he stays with me as I dodge a cow, half sleeping in the middle of the road and quick –my mind jumps back to yesterday – I remind myself to write all about yesterday – the mountain

we climbed and how we danced

and the moon rising in the desert 

only just as the sun was setting so the two were gazing at each other, the village, the whole world and me left in between like children between parents; on a bus headed somewhere, with a group of Indians

 signing “we shall overcome” and how I thought of my dad, and the memory has me humming the song again in my mind, already almost too full to sing, and I walk right into a group of ladies sitting and chatting, and I tell them hello and “i am twenty-two” and no, “I am not married” and they laugh – bellies under saris moving and shaking with delight as they imagine, how it might be that I won’t have children for another many years, and I remind myself to write about this exchange as I leave them and don’t forget about the mountain and the coconut man and how my boss at work calls in the evening to laugh about the cockroaches in my kitchen, and I unlock my door and shit I have this headache, and its already 8pm, and my little four-year old neighbor comes to my window and he says “auntie, auntie” and he comes in and I feed him two biscuits and he rolls around on my bed, and we go to his home for tea and I give him bubbles and talk with his mother about pregnancy and cooking while she mixes – onions and mustardseed, tomatoes, cumin, tumeric and rice and the smell is intoxicating, and I must write about our conversation later and how the way she speaks to me makes me feel so warm, like I am eating her food always, freshly prepared and warming my insides in the way only Indian food can, even though i’ve only eaten her food once, maybe twice, and I take tea. And finally I leave, and remember everything I must write, and each piece is like a mosaic memory and I want to admire the intricacy of each individual piece because sometimes the whole thing all together is so beautiful and large it makes your heart burst and your ache with the need to write, to hold onto, to keep always.