I am home, living in my little sisters apartment sharing a tiny room, full of our mattresses and bedding and clothes strewn about in every corner. I love my home town, coming here after visiting my brother in LA really makes me appreciate what is special about small towns since they are dwindling away to strip malls and housing complexes. It’s funny living with my 18 year old sister. I went with her and her 18 year old friend to the mall last night and for pizza. Oh dear me I felt like a mom, there constant talking about this girl and that girl and this girl is really dating that boy and can you believe what that girl was wearing. Every once in a while my little input from the back seat of “learned wisdom through the years”, and my brain becoming more and more exasperated brought me to realize how old I am, (or how old they were making me feel. It was funny though because my sister would comment from time to time how they were tiring me out from there chatter, and that would make me laugh.
My travels to England were long wearisome and very comical to me this time. It started off with me sitting at the train station waiting with my luggage to catch the train to the aiport. When the train came I was in a very calm mood. I new it was the right train, and nothing to rush about, it was right there in front of me. I casually walked over reading off the the list of names on the different cars not letting my self be bothered by the Indians rushing past me in a frenzy to board the train in time. I did get a bit nervous when the doors of the car I was supposed to be on were shut, and so were the next car. I walked farther down the train away from where I was supposed to board looking for a spot to get on, the next door had a crowd of people all trying to jam thereselves in at once while three of the men were yelling and shoving everyone out of the way trying to load huge steel chests into impossible small entry ways. I walked past that door and down a few more cars where only a few people were getting on, and almost started to step up when one of the men with the steel chests shoved his way in front of me. I started to get a little anxious when I saw the panic in his eyes. I walked much quicker to the next car and got to the door as the train started moving, the entry way of the door was so crowded that bodies were coming out the door. I hesitated while fear started to attack my brain with scenarios. Scenarios of missing my train, or trying to jump on and getting hurt, smashing into the side of a tunnel, even though there weren’t any around and the train was still moving slowly. So I stopped thinking and jumped on with my huge traveling backpacks attached to me making me heavy. Me and about ten Indian men behind me squeezed in like marshmallows. As the men behind me were climbing on I was getting shoved into a pile of luggage, my right leg straddling a huge suitcase and my left leg getting left behind as my upper body kept moving forward. I looked around me at all the faces, all looking at me observing my frenzied face and I could have burst out in stress relieving tears but instead I saw the situation for what it was, very very funny and I began to laugh. Eventually a very nice man (a hero in my eyes) helped me through the packed Indian aisle while carrying my huge backpack, and we pushed and shoved ourselves all the way through to my car. The rest of the sweaty ride I was taken care of with people feeding me chapatis full of subji (vegetables) and tart mango chutney, buying me mountain dew and water, even though I didn’t ask, and begging me to come to there home for a visit.
I am now living in the himalayas. They are stunning of course. The scenery outside our front porch is full of hills, trees, flowers, and snowy mountain peaks in the misty horizon. This is the kind of beauty that can take your breath away, but for me, when I am sitting in an old church building with airy light flooding into the ancient windows and a little lady bug is crawling along my flowery skirt, or when I am getting dressed in the morning and notice in the mirror a lady bug on my collor bone, that’s when I enjoy nature most. When I am sitting on a bench in the morning eating oranges and chai with my friends and three donkeys are crowding around us with there heads in our faces hoping we’ll share our food. When I am walking down a street in Goa with colorful old portugese houses and bouginvillea flowers carried along with the wind as if they are dancing fairys. When the wind is God whispering life into creation, flowers, leaves, my hair and puppy fur all flowing in the same breeze that is when I enjoy nature most.
Some random guy with his Trumpet?
Roomies
We girls have started a tradition here, of going out for sunday breakfast to a restaurant called double dutch. My favorite thing about it is that the owner told me she always knows that it is sunday when she sees us there.
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I am moving up North in a few days so I will post lots of pictures of life here in Arambol. These pictures are from my dance class.
As the sun is setting sinking and melting into the ocean, I wonder if the dolphins gather and drink in the melting buttery drops dispersed into the vast salty horizon. Do they look forward to this time like I do? Do they bathe in the crimson glow. I think that the dolphins share my same feelings. They swim through the glowing plankton gearing themselves for play. Gliding through the dark waters as I long to swim through the night sky.
As I was resting my chin on leafy’s cushiony head singing Leafy is the sweetest boy in the whole entire world, he is the sweetest boy ever ever ever ,Leafy looked up at me with his chocolaty puppy dog eyes and responded to my song by saying “I have so much love in my heart”.
I am looking back over my 28th birthday and it was nice. If you could here my voice (or the voice in my head anyway) when I say nice, it would be a refreshing end of the day contemplative sort of nice. My birthday celebration started off last night with a little surprise party,because Kai wanted to be able to celebrate my birthday and he can’t today because he’s gone all day for surgery. Dear sweet boy, I would squeeze him to pieces if he would let me. So as I walked into Rae’s house last night on my way to the meditation I was greeted with little pajama clothed children shouting Happy birthday Renee! And then I was truly surprised when the silence of our meditation time was broken up with clanging pot lids and flowers showered over me, and those same edible children bearing gifts of balloons with face drawings and Kai’s whispered instructions that I must tape the end of the string onto my window so the balloons could dangle down my wall.
Today for my birthday I decided I would simply enjoy my day. I had my birthday cake for breakfast, giggled a bit with my new adorable roomates Kat and Jocilyn. Read a little bit , day dreamed a little bit, played a bit of my Mbira placed the flowers from last night in my windowsill and swung my legs as I dangled in my hammock chair, and that was basically the relaxed thread of the day. There was also dancing on the beach in the moonlight, tea and playing skip-bo with a 28 year old 18 year old 4 year old and three year old. Now doesn’t that sound like a nice day?
I am trying to have some discipline in my life. I really want to develop my writing, and blogging is something that helps me. But I am still such a beginner. Sometimes as I start to write a post, I get ideas of what to write and a seed of inspiration grows, like a child learning to ride a bike, picking up speed then getting scared, wobbling all over the road, and then slamming on the brakes. I don’t know how to write all of my thoughts, and when the inspiration comes I don’t know what to do with it. I stop short, slam on the brakes. I guess it is just a process that grows with time and familiarity. The more you do something the better at it you get. The other day I prayed to God that he would make me a good writer, smiling to myself at the idea of such a prayer, hey God could you oh I don’t know, maybe make me like a good writer or something, and how about also if you give me some talent at singing, , maybe also you could make me a good painter and a musician too, thanks God that would be so cool if you could do that for me. That’s how silly I felt my prayer was, but he answered me with the simple truth that I need more discipline in my life, and so that is my goal, I won’t worry about my writing abilities or lack of, I am simply going to make it a priority in my life, I am going to write.
