I am running out of people to hang out with, running out of things to do (besides pack and clean) and all I can do is make hot cocoa to calm my nerves. When I get hungry I make cocoa oatmeal (why didn’t I think of trying that before, its amazing!!). It’s better than portfolio week where all I ate was idly in the morning and kept a jar of peanut to spoon-feed myself encouragement. My portfolio is done and unlike last semester I feel more accomplished. All that I did for my independent study was built on my own initiative. I tried to collect water samples from the slum at 5am in the rain, climbed into a sewage filled storm drain to pick out trash and talk to the neighbors, I wrote a letter to the government about what I learned on my study. Not only that but finishing all my other assignments that had piled up throughout the semester (including a paper about procrastination, the irony!) and being peer mentor I learned a lot about myself. heres the link to my online portfolio: http://indiacenter2011.weebly.com/
I have been spending the last moments with all the other students who are leaving Bangalore to other places in India or those going home. Everyone is sad about leaving in their own way and don’t know how to properly say good bye. How easily they leave and are gone. All of them dealt with it in their own way, some stressed, twitchy, lucky for me, my roommate cleans. My roommate, Aileen, left first, after we all went to the idly place for breakfast she left with a stuffed backpack and waved three times before finally disappearing. I can feel India disappearing from me. Like in inception it feels like the dream is slowing falling away around me, I am watching it disappear, the spirituality, the noises India makes, and then lastly me.
It’s hard for me to remember what its like back home, the cleanliness and how straight and square all the houses are with square lawns in front. India is messy but there’s magic hidden in the piles of rubble, the stories from yogi’s that live in Himalaya who can teleport, the mystery of a Baba who couldn’t be assassinated, and how the Ganga runs pure in Rishikesh but is totally polluted in Varanasi. I will miss all the Tibetans, Maoists, Marxist’s, Rajas, Muslims, Babas, Uniks, Strays, Beggars, Brahmins, Monkeys, Villagers, Tribals, Indigenous, Shopkeepers, Auto drivers, fruit stands, chai garam, fresh coconut, temples, mosques, cows…
I turned 20 in this country...
I look at this website that posts pictures everyday that Nasa has taken of space. This was April 15th ‘s post, the big, beautiful spiral galaxy “Messier 101”. I thought this was relevant because “Messier” is a good title for how I gracefully entered into my 20’s. Although spent with friends, took care of by friends, but I managed to mess things up with some friends. I received an e-mail from my mom the day of my birthday with the lyrics from the Joni Mitchell song she used to sing my sister and I to sleep when we were younger. I had totally forgot about this song, always singing the chorus part couldn’t remember the others lyrics never finding out who the song was by. Us on the top bunk, voice breathing these words that I did not know later would so easily describe the point I felt when I was turning 20.
So the years spin by and now the child is twenty
Dreams have lost a lot of grandeur, coming true
But, there'll be new dreams There'll better dreams a plenty
Before the last revolving year is through
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Credit: Hubble Legacy Archive, ESA, NASA; Processing and additional imaging - Robert Gendler |
Maybe life is like my birthday galaxy, a mess, spiraling, sparkling, until I end up in the nothingness black void, the center where I will die and decinegrate, disappear into unrecognizable matter. How easily we’re here in this world and then gone.
The oldest walking culture alive will remain in my memories until I return, good-bye India.
