I am writing this entry because it is long overdue. For weeks I’ve been walking around this city that has grown thick with heat, with thoughts in my head – forming sentences and reminding myself to write them down later, but never finding the energy or motivation to actually do so.
In these past few weeks, my mind has been active and my thoughts so varied and all over the place, but in this strange kind of languid way…coming into my mind and then sort of sluggishly trailing behind me, like a melting ghost in the sun.
My whole being has been entirely affected by the heat. It’s over 100 degrees every day and though the evening bring blessed breezes, sleeping is often miserable. I wake every night, 2 or 3 times in the middle of the night. First because I have to pee from drinking so much water throughout the day and secondly because I’m sweating and need to stand under the running tap – drenching my clothes, so that I can lay back down to sleep. And simply because I am dehydrated. Feeling dehydrated from the act of sleeping is odd.
While the heat is generally objectively miserable, I’ve found myself enjoying the challenge, in some ways. In the States we are never forced to change our lives or our patterns with the weather, because we simply manipulate our environment to whatever will suit our routine and satisfaction – and we often do so at a great expense (both financially and environmentally), I might add. But to shift one’s own life and patterns around the environment, is actually rewarding in a way. Our bodies and our minds and even society can shift – bringing a whole new perspective on the way we live our lives.
My showers, for example, feel blissful. And I love eating fresh cold fruit every day. And at lunch, I eat ice cream. I hardly get any work done, and neither does anyone else (which, I realize, presets in own issues in terms of effectiveness and functioning of a society….), but we have fun at work – and we drink lemonade in the afternoons.
Before returning to the sometimes brutal afternoon sessions of report writing, I pre-game by chugging water and listening Michael Jackson, the Temptations, Lady Gaga – anything that will give me energy. We all hang around the office until it is cool enough to step outside, and then by the time the sun is setting – the city fills again with people slowly returning to the world outside to enjoy the evening breeze. And the mornings, if taken advantage of (which is hard to do if you’ve slept poorly…), can be really lovely, and are often the most energizing times of day.
 |
| The lake in the early evening. It's not exactly pretty, but there' s something lovely about this photo. |
…hm. Author’s interjection: I intended actually to portray the challenges of the heat- and use this space to complain about how disgusting it makes me feel. I suppose the positivity is healthy, and self-medicating. Though, my readers should please note – most days, living in a desert in the summer…sucks.
My mind has also begun to turn to thoughts of leaving, as it is only now about 1 month away. I’m beginning to enter into this strange time-warp where I feel and can conceive of my past, present, and future all meeting at this point where I will leave Bhuj and head toward the next phase of my life. I’ve been thinking a lot about where I was before I came here, how I’ve transformed with time and within this context, and what it is I will do next – or, how it will shape who I am becoming.
One of the reasons why I wanted to come to India this year was because last year was so difficult. I was really in somewhat of a depression and had gone through a challenge so great that at times I couldn’t see beyond it. It wasn’t a challenge that I had chosen, it wasn’t a challenge that I had expected, and on almost a daily basis, I felt largely unsupported and alone. I couldn’t imagine trying to think about, or plan, or dream the rest of my life as a college graduate going forth into the world from such a place of sadness and disappointment. I felt like I needed a challenge of my choosing, a challenge that I could support myself through and grow through.
I know looking back, that I grew from the challenge I faced last year -but I never felt that as I was going through it. This year though, every step I’ve taken, I’ve felt myself grow and learn and all from my own doing. It’s been incredibly rewarding and liberating. I think all young women especially need a chance to grow like that.
My rickshaw rides have become highly contemplative. I think about everything – about jobs, my own theories of development and education, I think about the fall on the east coast, I think about new clothes I want to buy, I think about the work of my NGO and wonder if it’s actually doing any good, I think about how I will explain my time here, I think about when I’ll come back to visit, I think about men.
I get off at the same point every day and walk to my house. In this little corner of the world that has become my own. My house has become so filled these days with all the things I’ve collected, all the stories and ideas, the clothes and the books. Every day it feels more like my home and I spend my free time cleaning it, organizing it, preparing food in it, playing music and reading. Some days when I come home I am surprised at how settled it all is. How strange that I’ve settled here, made a home in this hot and polluted city. Sometimes I forget that this hasn’t always been my life.
And then I think about the new homes I will have in my future, and the task of embarking on really starting a life. Each decision I make, I feel leads me somewhere and so each one feels somehow more momentous than the one before it – defining a clearer path, opening some doors, but already closing others, not knowing if I’ve opened the right ones or if I should quickly turn back around, catch that last glimpse of sunlight and sneak out before the door behind me closes completely.
I think about how I could stay longer, about how long its taken for some relationships to fully form, and how every day there are new friends to be made. I’ve started telling people that I’m leaving and some people have gotten upset with me. My good friend, Kamla, asked me to change my ticket. “Leaving before my daughter’s first birthday, how can you do that?” Again I think about how my time is marked by other people’s lives. How people want me to stay to celebrate their lives with them – and how that is really a beautiful thing.
No comments:
Post a Comment