Here Comes the Rain Again

From what I'm told, this has been an unusually wet season and it has come late.  I arrived in the midst of a storm and so far we've had at least four more come through.  When it rains, it's unrelenting.  This isn't the starts and stops of Miami, nor the constant drizzle of Portland and Seattle but rather the angriest combination of both: it's a high water pressure shower that someone forgot to turn off and it covers the whole city.

This unfortunate circumstance is compounded with the very poor drainage system in Chennai.  Some streets, especially major ones, seem to suffer much less than the smaller side streets, but they can still flood so deep that cars will stall from the engines flooding.  The auto rickshaws are especially susceptible to this as they ride low to the ground.

On Sunday it rained all day and with the exception of an early morning venture out of the city I spent the whole day inside reading and writing.  It rained again on the two days that Diwali is celebrated, minimizing to some degree the amount of noise we had to sustain at night.  And last night it rained again.  Heavy and long.  I fell asleep to the sound of rain and woke up at 4a.m. to it.

I didn't think much of it but got my rain boots and my umbrella.  The moment I stepped out of the apartment I got a glimpse of the street and gasped.  It was completely inundated.  The cars driving by had half of their tires covered in some cases.  There was a very agitated stray dog standing on one of the mounds just outside my apartment looking at all the water, not sure where to turn to get out of that situation.

I got down and started to walk towards school, watching as the water got deeper and deeper.  My boots are 15" tall and the water first covered them halfway and then quickly left only 2" until the brim.  Everytime a car or motorcycle drove by the wake would push some water into my boots.

Water is one thing of course, but this water was dirty, murky brown and it hid anything that was any deeper than 2" from its surface.  With the street in constant disarray and construction, it was impossible to know exactly what you were stepping on or into.  Could be a pothole that would sink a foot and half or it could be a metal pipe or a branch.  I had to move so slowly to get through.

I've had two moments in India where I have gotten so agitated I could barely contain tears: once when I got lost in a temple city and today, wading through water that had all manner of things that I could not see.  Both times I found myself praying under my breath, letting God know that I needed help with this shit because I was about to lose it.  Both times also represented important realizations: that though I've tempered anxiety when I'm not in control, I certainly haven't mastered it.  When I got lost in the temple city, my agitation was so palpable that even the stray dogs could sense it.  Normally they keep to themselves but they were driven to anxious barking at that moment.  

Today I would've welcomed barking dogs because at a minimum they would've given me a sign of where I could walk without sinking deeper into the water.  Instead all I got was an empty street with an occasional car or motorcycle driving slowly but determinedly trying to get through the water as quickly as possible.

The desolate street with a river running through it was beautiful and horrid at the same time.  I hated walking in it.  I would see large branches tumbling past me on the road.  At one point one one hit my leg and I realized just how dense some of these branches were.  It had taken such strong wind and rain to knock them down.  A couple of times I stepped on uneven ground and took a deep breath hoping the next step didn't make me sink.  Once my foot got stuck on something that I couldn't discern.  I pulled it up gently, being mindful not to yank since I could rip my boot and make my situation all the worse.  I saw a dark leathery skin rise about the surface of the water and after a moment of horror, I realized it was another branch that had gotten stuck in the mud below.

Once I got past the small streets I realized I felt a sense of relief descend on me, clearing away the tension, giving me the freedom to feel and to see what I was feeling clearly.  I was pissed off and scared and also happy.  My pants, which I'd tucked into my boots to keep dry, were soaked from the knee down.  My feet and socks were wet with filthy water that had jumped the brim of my boot whenever I moved too fast, making it so that I heard a squishing sound, and felt a wet spongy sensation as I walked.  Every step I took reminded me of what I'd just gone through.  In moments when you'd rather forget I had a physical and audible reminder.  It just pissed me off more.  And to add insult to injury, wading through the water had made my walk three times as long, which meant I would be late for class.  But there was no way to run in these boots.  They have little traction and the last thing I needed was to slip on the street and end up face down in all the water.

As I walked wet and angry I suddenly remembered something my teacher had said a few days before.  He was talking about obstacles and how, though most of us understand them to be external, they are, more often than not, internal.

He offered the example of someone driving down a road trying to get somewhere and they come across a large tree that has fallen on the road.  The tree doesn't allow the car to get through.  So they turn around and go back, deciding there is no way they will get to their destination.

"What is the obstacle?" my teacher asked.  "The tree?  Or the attitude that lets the person give up so easily?"

Our determination is sometimes all that we have to get us through tough moments, whether they are physical or emotional.  It can seem obsessive from the outside, even reckless, to see someone push through obstacles, taking risks that are seemingly greater than the benefits they would grant you.  But what's going on inside the person is, if not transformative, then something curiously close to it.  Something happens to us when we face difficulty and place our fears and insecurity at its feet.  It's almost an offering we make to be so vulnerable.  In these cases it isn't altogether improper to see God as the obstacle and the remover of the obstacle once the proper offering has been made.  Lord Ganesha, the elephant headed god, represents this precise idea.  He is known as the remover of obstacles, but is also understood to place them in your path when needed.  In spirituality, it's nothing short of transformation that is required.

With this in mind, I mustered a brief smile, a little proud of myself that I'd made it through something terrifying because I was determined to not miss class.  I reached Canal Bank Road and noticed it had its usual deep puddles but there were noticeable areas where the water was not deep.  As I walked past the shuttered shacks I noticed a large dead rat lying on its back and swollen.  It wasn't crushed and its flesh was intact from what I could see, leading me to believe it had drowned.  Before I reached my turn on Stone Link Avenue I noticed a dead frog in a similar state.  I thought for a moment about my trek through the dirty water and how it was very likely there were plenty of vermin beneath the surface and I was thankful that I didn't encounter any then.

And then I realized the entirety of Stone Link Avenue, the dead end street that leads to my school, was flooded.  Flooded in the same way my own street was, with the murky brown water and the uneven terrain.  I could see the school all the way at the end of the street.  There wasn't a soul to be seen, just a single car that moved towards me slowly, water more than halfway up its tires, leaving a wake in its path.

I almost felt defeated and then another thought crossed my mind.  Nothing as poetic as the story my teacher had told, but something that in its own way was just as inspirational.

Fuck this shit.

I was done with this.  I looked to either side of the road and noticed there were decorative steps, flower banks and sand bags that bordered some of the houses along the street and I decided this was going to be my path.  It meant I was all up on people's property, using their cars and fences for leverage, but I didn't care.  I moved quickly looking for the fastest path to get to the school, regardless of what it required of me.  If I'd had to climb on a car I would've.  At one point I heard someone yelling from one of the houses.  I considered for a moment if they were objecting to what I was doing and immediately dismissed the concern.

Let them come wade through this shit if they want to scream at me.

I reached the driveway of the school and saw a few students washing their feet at the foot of the stairs that led to our classroom.  I was happy I'd made it on time... or at least before class had begun in earnest.  One of the students turned to me, smiled, and said that they'd been told to wash their legs because the water carried alot of stuff that would be harmful.  He clearly had not seen the dead rat and frog otherwise the second-hand testimonial wouldn't have been necessary.  

My pants were soaked, but I was able to change into shorts that I'd thankfully put in my backpack... something I had not done once the entire time I've been here but for some reason felt the compulsion to do today even before I knew the state of the street.

As I made my way up the stairs to class I thought of another similar moment I'd once read about.  Years ago when I was stranded in Islamorada, Florida when a yoga workshop with Pattabhi Jois I'd signed up for had been cancelled last minute due to his illness, I used my extra time to read "Eat, Pray, Love."  There's a moment during Liz Gilbert's time in India when she wakes up in the early morning with an intense desire to chant the Guru Gita that she typically despised.  And that precise day her roommate had locked her in her room by mistake.  But rather than give up, Gilbert escapes through a small window, gaining scratches and scrapes but managing to make it to the hall where the group has met to chant.  The experience changed her and her attitude towards the Guru Gita was never the same.

Sometimes it takes these moments testing our resolve to change us... to make us dig deep into ourselves so that we clearly see and then break down barriers and push through boundaries we've created to make room and create a path for where we need to go internally.  It doesn't feel good going through this.  It often feels terrible, like something in you has broken, withered, or died.  It isn't until you realize that the space the process has created has now made room for something else that you understand that perhaps what died was an inhibition or fear you would do better without.  

My Daily Walk

As it turns out, the walk to the Krishnamacharya Healing and Yoga Foundation is mostly pleasant and not very crowded.  It takes a little less than 10 minutes if you walk briskly and traffic cooperates.  Class starts at 7:30 a.m. and so I'm usually walking by 7 or 7:15 and I can take my time, phone in hand so I can take photos of anything interesting that I see.

The first two blocks are a bit of a bear.  Leaving my apartment, what passes for sidewalk is a combination of soft dirt mounds, which you don't want to step on because it can collapse under you, and trash mounds, which you don't want to step on because only God knows what the hell is in there.  Car tires, bicycle parts, wiring, pipes, pulverized asphalt and shards of cement mostly.

So the only option is to walk on the street.  I always keep my head slightly turned back so my right ear can catch any coming rickshaw or motorcyle.  The larger cars make themselves known or steer clear of me altogether.  The others seem to want to see how close they can get to me without a collision.  When they whiz by I feel the sudden current of air shifting in space.

The worst part is this enormous intersection (Chamiers Rd. and Pasumpon Muthuramalinga Devar Rd.) about whose traffic rules I'm still a bit uncertain.  Sometimes the drivers seem to abide by the logic of the traffic lights and road lanes, sometimes they seem to alter them slightly and what is normally a two way street suddenly becomes one way (or mostly one way), and sometimes the rules seem to be ignored altogether.  Crossing the street at the intersection, in my opinion, is taking your life into your hands.  So I typically turn left and walk in a bit, waiting until traffic dies down so I can cross in the middle of the street.  Yes it's jaywalking but there seems to be no problem in this country with crossing this way.  I think most agree it's a bit safer as there's only two directions from which a pedestrian can be hit.

I have on a couple of occasions noticed older women in colorful saris crossing the intersection nonchalantly, as if they know there isn't a chance that someone will run them down.  To see the way these ladies keep traffic at bay is to witness the parting of the Red Sea.  I walked close behind them, alternating my suspicious eyes from one side of the road to the next.  I figured proximity would keep me safe and I could enjoy a direct route.  This seemed like a good strategy for me to get directly across the intersection; there are, afterall, plenty of older ladies in saris walking around so I could wait for one to cross and follow closely.

But a couple of days into my training that changed.  I was rushing to reach the intersection while an old woman in a gorgeous earthy red sari crossed.  She was halfway through the street, meandering in her lazy gate and apparently she tested the drivers' patience a bit too much because suddenly the whole intersection exploded with honking and movement.  The rickshaws and motorcycles began to aggressively move in.  The ran her off the road.  I don't think she ended up where she meant to.

So I reverted to my plan to always cross Chamiers Rd a few yards away from the intersection.

Once I pass it and continue walking on Pasumpon Muthuramalinga Devar (PMD) Rd the experience is alot less stressful.  For one, there's actually a side walk you can use.  In many other areas of Chennai the sidewalk might be there but you would not want to use it because it's used for storage, parking carts, sleeping, selling trinkets or as a toilet.  But PMD Rd has none of that.  The biggest inconvenience is the large trees growing out of the sidewalk that now and again make it impossible to get by unless you jump onto the street.

Cracked in some places and uneven in others, the sidewalk is nonetheless perfect for strolling: free of obstacles most of the time and elevated just enough from the road that the motorcycles and rickshaws can come as close as they want but can't jump onto it.  You barely see the sky as the road is shrouded on either side by tall tropical trees that reach up and over, letting their branches meet and intertwine high above the road.

There's some areas that are nothing short of beautiful.  During my walk this morning I came across a blue cart that had been parked on the sidewalk under a tree that had shed hundreds of beautiful and aromatic white flowers.  I had to turn into the side street to get a picture.  It was so quiet at that moment.  There was no one on the street and I felt blessed to have this simple but beautiful scene bathed in soft light to myself.



Turning off of PMD Rd offers a very different experience.  Since many streets aren't clearly marked with names, if I were to give someone directions from my apartment to the KHYF, I would say:

1. Head South from the apartment entry and cross Chamiers Rd.
2. Continue heading South and pass a few left turns until you get to one that makes you pray from the depths of your soul "Please, God, don't let it be this one" and then turn left.

This is Canal Rd.  Unmarked and feeling more like a seedy alley way than a proper street, Canal Rd is so called because it runs parallel to a canal that you cannot see but which you absolutely can smell.  In Chennai, canals are often the place where junk and sewage end up and the smell leaves very little question of that.  The street itself is lined with shacks that might be homes or might be store fronts.  It's not certain.  Here and there you get glimpses of confusing elements, like crushed plastic bottles that are tied together to create something that resembles a giant flower garland.  They hang from wooden poles that hold up straw or tin roofs and seem to have no purpose other than decoration.  The street looks like it was paved at one point but the earth has reclaimed it.  It is clay colored, rugged and typically has a couple of puddles that look like they could be a foot deep in places.  Stray dogs that clearly live on the street wander here and there and mostly leave the chickens and roosters alone.  There's always chatter from the shacks, either from conversation or a television or radio playing.  Turning into this street feels like entering a completely different world from the clean and (somewhat) orderly feel of PMD Rd.


Were you to walk further down you would see cows on either side of the wall that separates Canal Rd from its namesake, sometimes wandering the wet clay path, resting on the side of the road, or eating the vibrant green leaves from one of the trees that border the canal.

Whenever I walk down the street I get more wary looks than I do anywhere else in Chennai.  It's a community all its own.

Luckily, to get to KHYF, you would make an immediately left off Canal Rd, which takes you down a less dilapidated street which ends at the center itself.

It's a two story building painted white and orange, mirroring the rich clay colored street.  Its border is lined with potted plants and a white gate that is always open.  As you enter you are welcomed with a modest altar to Sri Krishnamacharya, the Yoga master whose teachings inspired the likes of Sri K. Pattabhi Jois (of Ashtanga-Vinyasa Yoga), B.K.S. Iyengar (likely the most prolific yogi in modern time), A.G. Mohan, Srivatsa Ramaswami, Indra Devi, and of course T.K.V. Desikachar (best known in the U.S. for his emphasis on customizing yoga to individuals and for the use of yoga in a therapeutic context).  It is Desikachar's family who runs this center.

Photographed and reproduced with permission from KHYF

The first floor of the center is reserved for administrative and therapy work.  There's a small bookshelf with books that have been authored by Desikachar and his son Kausthub, my mentor for this training.

I met Kausthub in 2011 during the Heart of Yoga training and have since then studied with him whenever he travels to the U.S. or holds Skype lectures.  It's perplexing for many of us in the U.S. to imagine how you could learn yoga via Skype, but in the last two years I've attended five nearly year-long classes (on pranayama, mudras and bandhas, cakras, mantra and on yoga's perspective on trauma), all of which have broadened my knowledge of Yoga immensely.

As an aside: Kausthub also happens to be a photography enthusiast, which gives us something else in common.  He is doing some very interesting work with digital cameras and analog lenses.  He recently created a site for his photography where he will be talking about his equipment and its capabilities.

The second floor is where we hold class.  Shoes come off at the base of an exterior staircase painted orange and nestled amidst palms and large leafed trees.  At the top is a room with industrial looking walls and a ceiling covered in wicker with multiple ceiling fans hanging from it (a feature that is highly appreciated in the midst of India's heat and humidity).  There's windows on every side, letting in ample amounts of natural light and offering views of the surrounding flora.  It is a humble space but it feels appropriate for the work being done here.  The Yoga of the Krishnamacharya tradition is a no frills type of Yoga.  There's no need to dress it up or polish its presentation.  The teachings speak for themselves and the practice itself is what is understood to ultimately relay them.

Photographed and reproduced with permission from KHYF

Photographed and reproduced with permission from KHYF

At the far end of the room there is a portrait of Krishnamacharya as a young man.  Lean, strong and severe, he looks into the room standing in the pose of attention, a portrait that I am familiar with from my many years embedded in the Ashtanga-Vinyasa community.  The framed portrait is dressed in flower garlands daily, a constant offering in appreciation for what he enabled.

This will be home for three weeks and every six months for two years.

Small Pleasures

I finally crashed in my room at 4:30a.m. after a long day of travel.  The road noise was audible to a degree that made it feel like there's no glass on the windows.  But there is.  Glass and a screen to keep out the mosquitoes in case you want a breeze and open the window, which makes me feel like I lucked out even though the mosquitoes still manage to find their way in.  There's been reports of Dengue fever in India recently, especially in this area, so anything to help dissuade the mosquitoes is welcome.  I had Dengue once as a child and though I have no memory of it my mother has made it clear it is not something you want.

The last time I was in India I stayed in a hotel considered posh by India standards but lacking by American ones.  I liked it and have fond memories of it but it was hard to look past the gaping hole in the bathroom that allowed all kinds of vermin into my room.  First mosquitoes, then larger mosquitoes, then larger insects I didn't think existed that ate the mosquitoes.  The parade of fauna culminated with a gecko that scared the hell out of me when I first came across it but which kept my room insect-free for the rest of my trip.

I'm staying at a modest apartment building where one of the apartments has been turned into a guest house.  It has three bedrooms, both of which are occupied by people working in India.  A crew of young men show up daily at 7:30 to make breakfast and then again close to lunch to clean.  My bedroom is spacious by India standards and grants me a space to write and ample floor space for the practice I've been given by my mentor in the program I'm joining.

This new journey began a few months back when I learned that the Krishnamacharya Healing & Yoga Foundation (KHYF) would be holding a two year long teacher training.  Every six months involves a visit to India to study at the center for 3 weeks and in the interim you work with a mentor who provides you with daily practices and with guidance in your own understanding and teaching.

The center is 10 minutes by foot from my apartment according to Google, which is not altogether reliable in Chennai.  So my intent is to test the walk this weekend before class starts on Monday.

Many people have asked me why I would join another yoga teacher training after I have completed three already in the U.S.  Even my mentor for this program asked me that.  My answer is simple: in the U.S. we don't have the breadth of yoga tools that have been available traditionally in India.  The Krishnamacharya tradition, especially in India, has a much greater emphasis on breath control/extension (pranayama), on chanting, visualization (bhavana), special gestures (nyasa), alignments (mudras) and locks (bandhas),  and meditation.  It also uses postures (asana) in ways that we don't typically see in the U.S. and blends the practices I mentioned together for greater emphasis and effect.  In my experience, the combination of tools has been much more powerful than any of the tools alone, and definitely more powerful than asana practice alone.  So this is an opportunity for me to learn these tools and their applications.  

The credential isn't what I'm after.  It's the knowledge and experience.

----------------------------

I woke up exactly at 7:30a.m. and despite having slept only a handful of hours I'm not feeling particularly tired.  I had a text waiting for me from my friend Julianna, who I met on my first trip to India and who is also joining the program at KHYF.  She's in Chennai after a long delay she thought would originally put her here on Sunday instead of Saturday.  I tell her to join me for breakfast since it's being provided at my guest house.  

That's one of the things I love about India.  The same informality that is such an inconvenience allows you to surprise the food service crew with an additional mouth to feed and they won't mind... nor would you be charged extra.  This doesn't exist in the U.S.

When the young men arrive, the only one who speaks some English asks me if we want an Indian breakfast and Julianna and I are both excited to say "Yes!".  He quickly serves up dosas with sambar, chutney, and slices of of fresh papaya.  All of it tastes like heaven after the long journey and the flavors, as well as having Julianna for company, bring back so many memories of what my first time in India was like.

We lingered at the table for a while, talking (I learned Julianna, too, had Dengue fever once!), eating, and sometimes just silent, taking in everything.  Small pleasures like this, when savored, can feel like indulging.  

Here We Go Again!

I arrived in India at 2 a.m. in the midst of a storm that I'd fully expected but did my best to ignore.  Warning emails had come days prior telling me that I would arrive at one of the rainiest times due to a nearby cyclone.  Dark, hot, humid and silent was how Chennai received me.  An empty airport where everywhere I turned I'd see a closed shop, empty counters and no hint of life.  Not even the cleaning crew.  

It wasn't until our herd of passengers moved into the immigration hall that we had our first hint that we'd hadn't arrived in an evacuated city.  All the lanes were open and we managed to fill them all up.  The group was mostly Indian, many from the United States, with some impatient Europeans and a few uncomfortable looking Americans.  The lines moved painfully slow but even at the late time of night few showed outright annoyance.  

I had an older couple ahead of me, easily in their 80s, and when the husband took a bathroom break I helped his wife move the heavy bags they’d carried on (I’ve no clue how because the Emirates airline has a surprisingly limiting policy on the weight of carryon bags).  We struck up a conversation in broken English.  She was appreciative for both the help and the chat.  I learned she was coming home after visiting her son in San Francisco, a city about which she had many good things to say.  

“Except the weather.  A bit chilly.”   

When the husband came back he started to chat as well and complained that U.S. cities don’t invest in their own development and infrastructure.  I turned to look around me at the dirty hall, the paint that was equal parts scraped and faded on the walls, the no-existent decor and the entirely manual process of getting through immigration.  

I am here, I thought to myself.  This mix of warmth, inconvenience, friendliness, dilapidation, and irony is one I’ve never encountered so distinctly as I did during my first trip to Southern India in 2011.

I was asked days before by my husband whether I was getting excited about my trip and I explained that the feeling is was more reserved than that.  I knew I would be happy being here, I knew I’d enjoy seeing old friends from my first trip and my yoga teacher, but I also knew I’d have to get through the emotional and sensory adjustment, which is no small task for me.  

“It’s like jumping into a cold pool on a hot Summer day,” was my response.  “You know that you will love being in that water 2 minutes after jumping in… that it’s infact precisely what you need at that moment.  But you have to get past the shock of the first few seconds.”

It’s especially a shock to come into India via Emirates because their planes are, truth be told, nicer than many of the places I’ve lived in.  The tiny lights on the ceilings glowing through an indigo field, looking very accurately like a night sky or a glowworm cave, the non-stop entertainment, the food (which comes with a spectacular selection and rivals much of what you get in restaurants in the U.S.), the little extras like complementary socks, sleep masks and toothbrushes, and, of course, the free flowing booze that helps take the edge off sleeping while sitting mostly upright (the seats recline more than most airlines but they don’t recline enough if you ask me).  

I was trying to wean myself off coffee and alcohol before coming to India, knowing that I would likely have little to none of each, both because of the emphasis of the trip (yoga) and the relative difficulty in finding places where you can get them.  But the handsome flight attendant that asked me what I’d like to drink was having none of it.  When I asked for water he raised an eyebrow and said “What?!  Come on!” and pulled out two small bottles of wine, one red and one white.  

“Okay,” I conceded, “white please.”  

He set down the red and picked up another bottle of white.  “Which one?” he asked.  

“I don’t know.  Which do you recommend?”

He thought about it for a moment and finally said “You should try both and tell me which one you prefer” and poured a bit of each into cups but then left me with both the bottles... enough wine to get me tipsy.  

I spent most of the flight either sleeping or watching movies (“Ant Man,” which I highly recommend and “Jurassic World,” which I’d already seen but very much enjoyed).  I also binge-watched the hell out of “The Following,” which my friend Sandra has been pushing me to watch for more than a year now.  I loved it but have a really hard time recommending it to anyone.  It is some dark shit and makes "Dexter "look like nothing.

All of that was gone now, though: the movies, the booze, the air conditioning, the pretty interior and the heightened sense of order.  I was left with the barren walls of the immigration hall, the dirt on the floor and the strangely ironic conversation with the older couple.

When I got to the immigration counter the attendant tried various times to scan my passport.  He was not pleased with the results.

“It is not scanning, sir.”

In any other country I might’ve been worried, but here I’d already settled in the understanding that half the time things don’t work, or at least they don’t work like they’re supposed to, and that everyone knows this and adapts.  Not much is taken too seriously.

I shrugged and he proceeded to manually type in my passport number and stamped me for entry.

After getting my bags I walked into a sea of Tamil faces, dark, serious and beautiful waiting for loved ones or customers.  I saw my name on a board that a tall, severe looking man was holding.  I nodded his way and his face lit up with a smile.  He tapped a man next to him who followed him hurriedly to meet me.  The tall man worked for the guest house where I would be staying and since I would be checking in so late he’d accompanied the driver.  

He grabbed one of my heavier bags and led the way to the car.  The driver took the other heavy bag and a third man who came out of nowhere took my carry on.  I wondered why it took three men to pick someone up from the airport.  The three spoke in Tamil as they walked ahead of me, slipping into the darkness and rain amid people, cars, rickshaws and wandering cows.  The smell and the noise hit me.  

I know this.

When we got to the car, the third man put my carryon bag into the back of the van and immediately turned to me and put out his hand.  I shook my head wondering what he meant.

“Tip, sir.”

And I realized he was one of the opportunistic folks who stands near the rickshaws and taxis and jumps in to “help” with baggage, looking official but really having nothing to do with the drivers.  They’re like the men at street corners in Miami who would start to wash your windshield while you were stopped at a red light and then insisted on getting paid even though you’d never asked for the service.

I gave him 20 Rupees.  He shook his head.  “Too little, sir.”  And I shrugged at him the way I did the immigration attendant.  Sometimes that’s all you need to do here.  This is a place where everyone knows intimately that things don’t always go as planned, that they don’t work as they’re designed to, that you have to set your expectations aside if you don’t want to be too badly disappointed.  Come with this attitude and you’re right at home.  Live with this attitude and the world opens up to you in ways you can’t imagine.  That’s what India did for me before: it gave me a taste of life without expectations, of setting aside order and comfort to experience something else… something that can get lost or shrouded by the order and the comfort, and most of all by the expectations.  

And I could feel India starting to do it again.

I’m here, I thought.  And now I’m excited. 

Let's Do This

It has been more than four years now since my first trip to India. It doesn't feel that long, however.  What I experience and learned in that time has stayed with me so that I feel its impact every day.  If I were to ascribe a theme to the last few years it would be adapting to the life I was used to before my trip when I wasn't the same anymore.  It hasn't been easy or enjoyable, which is the irony of these things.  When you see from a new perspective, it's impossible (or at least very very difficult) to be completely at ease with the old one, even if the latter is less challenging.

For a time I withdrew from my regular activities and my circle of friends to make sense of the feelings that came up after I returned to San Diego.  I would walk out into the street in Hillcrest and feel like I was in a ghost town.  So few people were out and about.  So many inevitably indoors.  Conversations over lunch and dinner felt insignificant, their purpose neither functional nor meaningful, I felt.  There is alot written about Yoga and what it should be and what it should do, and among these opinions, one that has become very popular is the idea that Yoga should enable engagement with life and in relationships rather than isolation from them.  I can't say exactly what that means (sometimes sorting out what exactly is meant in Yoga is not easy) but it felt like whatever I was going through was the opposite.  I felt like I had been moving through connected rooms in a house, entering through a door, finding another to take me further to get to the other side; and I had reached a room with no door but the one I had walked through.  It had plenty of windows and an amazing view.  But there was nowhere to go from there except back through the door I'd come through.  And the thought of treading familiar ground felt like failure.

Looking back on it now I don't understand why it raised so much anxiety to be in that space.  When faced with that it seems obvious that you have two options: (1) to chill, enjoy the view and rest, which requires that you learn to stop moving and seeking, and (2) you tread backwards on the path you came until you find a fork where the next path makes sense... but this requires you knowing where you want to go.

It took me some time to let go of these feelings, of the angst, and specifically of the idea of who I was, who I should be, and especially who I wanted to be.  The concept of surrendering to God (or surrendering to the flow of life, if God is a problematic concept for you) is in Yoga for a reason (Patanjali in his Yoga Sutras suggests that this is the most effective and efficient means to spiritual freedom... much more so than any technique, process or effort we can pursue): there are many moments in life when we have to accept that we aren't the masters of our lives, let alone of this world.  We have the means to change it to some degree, we certainly are capable of injecting beauty and horror into it, depending on our choices.  But this ability does not translate to control.  We can nudge things to change directions, but we have no means of managing the implications of this.  So we are advised to learn to let go of this grasping, of this need, and to trust that God is in control and that our collective lives will be better guided because of this.

But it's all easier said than done.  There is what I know intellectually and then there's the mess of emotions and experience that you're mired in.  It offers little comfort to have these maps on paper when the road that is infront of you doesn't resemble what you should see according to the map.

So when Juliana, who I'd met in "The Heart of Yoga" in 2011, mentioned in passing that she was joining Kausthub's 2015 Yoga Teacher Training in Chennai, I immediately saw a new door I could walk through.  A door that would take me back to the same place where I felt I'd transformed.  If I have to retread a path I've been on, it may as well be one I enjoyed and which offered me a life changing perspective.

"When is the deadline for signing up?" I asked.

"Tomorrow."

I immediately contacted Kausthub, who I'd been talking to about Yoga Therapy training in 2017 for some time, and asked him about the teacher training coming up, why he hadn't mentioned it to me, and whether I could join.

"You've already been through teacher training," he said.

"Yes," I responded.  "But not with you."

I meant this sincerely.  I've been blessed to have had many excellent teachers in my journey since it began in 2000 in Cincinnati, but Kausthub's depth of knowledge (and ability to relay that knowledge in an approachable way) is unparalleled.  One of my main concerns of starting a Yoga Therapy training with him when that training has a Yoga Teacher Training as a prerequisite is that the kind of information he would assume you've been exposed to is not what you were actually taught.  I've done three Yoga Teacher Trainings in the U.S., all in San Diego and I loved each one and learned immensely.  But the way Yoga is taught in the U.S. differs tremendously from the way it is taught in India and within this particular tradition.  U.S. trainings are asana and asana teaching technique heavy.  Some philosophy is typical but rarely goes beyond basic introduction.  In this tradition we are exposed to pranayama, Vedic chant, Ayurveda and Sanskrit lessons, all areas that are heavily leveraged in Yoga Therapy so I was concerned I'd be missing out on these and would not be as prepared as other students when the time for the Yoga Therapy training came.

I sat down with my husband to discuss the training and what it would mean: a month in India every six months.  Essentially a sixth of the year I would spend away from him.  It wasn't insignificant.  In fact it was a huge sacrifice to ask of my husband that we should be apart that long over a span of two years, potentially four if I continued with the Yoga Therapy training, for which the Teacher Training is a preparation.

But Kevin knows me better than most and he had lived both my transformation in 2011 and the subsequent frustration, agoraphobia and yearning when I returned.

"I don't want to see you go through that again," he said, the pain of the experience still evident.

"But, babe, I'm still going through it now.  I've just learned to not show it."  These words came out of me more as a visceral response to his comment than out of any analysis over the years.  It was like a truth I hadn't wanted or been able to accept.  I had come back different from India and rejected (and resented) the influences in my regular life that tried to lure me back to the old ways.  After four years I'd landed somewhere in between where I'd started and where India had taken me.  And I wasn't happy there and didn't know how to proceed.  It was an ugly realization of the helplessness and discontent I felt.  And it was the most compelling reason for going back.

The next day I met with my boss and director at work and mentioned the opportunity and its time commitment.  They both agreed I could take the time.

I filled out the application that night and submitted it before going to bed.  The email subject line was simply "Let's Do This".

Even though I was certain after our discussion that I would be accepted into the program, it was still exhilarating to receive the acceptance letter the next day, especially with my teacher's brief but touching comment: "You don't know how happy I am to receive this."

So here I move into a new phase in the journey I started four years ago.  This phase feels as fresh and exciting as when I began it, which at least for now has lifted some of the frustration of the stagnancy.  Let's see where it goes and where it lands me.

You Can Take the Boy Out of India...

I woke this morning with an odd but familiar urge.  "Odd" because it's been a long time since I've felt it. "Familiar" because I've felt its pull before and despite the passage of time and its seeming dissolution, it has remained in me: small, dormant... or to borrow a word from the fields of photography and yoga, both of which mean so much to me: latent.

When my urges feel natural and continuous with my being, when they feel familiar in the same way my own face does in the mirror when I see it, I think it's because these feelings have not only been there before, but that they've never left me.  They may simply not have been as strong.  Or more likely, I was not paying attention to them until that moment.

This particular urge, the one I had this morning, appropriately on the morning of New Year's Day, is hard to confine to one word, or even a few of them.  I woke wanting the flavors of India in my mouth, the routine I had there, so focused and deliberate, the person I was when I was there, and, most of all, the feelings that came with these.  I wasn't missing the fruits of these, but their process.  But I wanted them so badly that I wanted nothing else.

I jumped out of bed and immediately began to cook.  I didn't have a recipe in mind but I knew the tastes and smells I wanted:
     1. Mushrooms cooked in chili peppers, green onions and yellow curry powder.
     2. Tomatoes briefly fried in pecan oil with garlic.
     3. And yogurt doused with hot olive oil with fennel seeds and cardamom.

My partner, Kevin, wasn't sure what to make of my state of mind.  We've been together more than 9 years now and he's used to my sudden "arrebatos."  For those of you who don't speak Spanish, this is, unfortunately, the best word I can come up with to describe it.  It's one that my mother used with me in my youth often enough.  I just don't know how to appropriately translate it.  It's usually translated as "fit," but actually has both negative connotations ("rage," "fury," and "outburst") and very positive ones ("ecstasy" and "rapture").  And it is the closest thing to defining the sensation of an uncontrollable drive that pulls you out of yourself, out of your habits and comfort zones.  It makes you seem irrational to others but it leaves no question in your mind as to what needs to happen, what you need to eat or do or be.  It's at once deeply uncomfortable and deeply comforting.  And it offers you such certainty, regardless of how crazy it is, that you feel empowered by it.  We're usually drawn to the things that are easy, that are familiar and comfortable.  And perhaps that's why it seems so strange when an urge draws us to something strange and completely different from what we've come to know.  But there is such value in it.

Kevin also didn't know what to make of the food: "Everything smells great... and looks disgusting."  I asked what specifically looked gross and he pointed out "what looks like yogurt with yellow slime and roasted termites." I explained that the termites were fennel seeds and the slime olive oil (both things he loves).  He smelled it and on recognizing two ingredients he loves, was content with the mix.

We sat down to eat.  To say that I was finally comfortable is to understate things.  It wasn't an out-of-this world experience.  I was at ease.  But it was an ease that felt more genuine than most.  It was the essence of ease that I felt.

The food was a perfect mix of heating and cooling, spicy and mild, and the amount enough to feed us both with no leftovers but the yogurt.  I felt neither full nor hungry, and I remembered the words of Kausthub Desikachar the last time I saw him: "When you eat with bhakti, you won't overeat or stay hungry.  And you won't gain weight."

"Bhakti" is Sanskrit word usually translated as "devotion," "deep faith" or "zeal."  It is a common term in our Yoga lexicon, particularly because it is one of the three main paths of Yoga as defined by the Bhagavad Gita.  Some would say that there is, infact, only Bhakti yoga, that all other forms, if performed to their full extent, are either a path to it or a means of it.

I wasn't quite sure what this meant when I first heard it, years ago in my first yoga teacher training, but since that time I've come across examples of it in textbooks and articles, have heard my share of testimonials, and I think I had my first personal experience of it these last two days.    

On New Year's Eve I woke with a very different type of urge: to clean.  It was an impulse that I rarely have. This has become a bit of a joke with our friends, since I can (and have in the past) live in suspect conditions.  I have a way of adapting to chaos, to a mess and to dirt that makes it possible for me to be in the midst of them with little noticeable discomfort.

But that's not to say they don't have their effect.  And yesterday I could sense their effect and it was critical that I clean our condo, which has been in one way or another in the midst of restoration since we bought it a few months back, so that there was no dirt from 2012 following us into the new year.  The urgency was so alien to me because, despite often being prone to superstition, I am quite particular about these, and a proper cleaning to avoid the energy or essence of one year's dirt from seeping into the next year was not among them.  But I felt it and followed it without rest.

I wiped everything down, gave the granite a proper shine, picked up all the stacks of paper we've been meaning to go through and put them in their proper place, and moved the boxes of gifts and soon-to-sell-on-eBay items into a nice stack in the guest bedroom/office.  I fixed the scratched coffee table and put protective pads on the new patio set, swept the patio floor, cleaned the bathrooms, dusted everywhere imaginable and took the wet mop to the floors.  I then emptied the dishwasher and cleaned the remaining dirty dishes by hand, and took all the laundry, along with the towels and rags I'd used to clean, and put them in the wash.

All the trash was taken out and I left a little plastic bag in case we collected any trash the remaining part of the day.  The house didn't need to just be clean but also need to be free of all trash.  I opened up all the windows to get even the stale air out and invite fresh air in.

2012 was a loaded year, both personally and globally.  We watched a young friend undergo a bone-marrow transplant and then deal with its uncomfortable and ambiguous aftermath.  We lost an older friend to brain cancer.  Family members suffered serious financial woes.  My yoga community experienced a devastating sex abuse scandal.  And both our jobs had very rocky moments, mostly due to the effects of a sluggish economy, leaving us feeling, at least momentarily, like we were on shaky ground.  On a broader scale, we had friends affected by Hurricane Sandy.  We saw an election year that clearly revealed the bipolar character of our country and the disturbing misogyny that is rampant in some elements.  The U.N. designation of Palestine as a "non-member state" (the same designation as the Vatican) made it clear for many of us that what the U.S. government considers best for the U.S. (it was not a supporter of the decision) is not necessarily what many Americans think is the right thing to do.  The anniversary of the attack on the World Trade Center and Pentagon was marked with the storming of the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, which left the U.S. ambassador and four others dead.  And worst of all, we suffered two senseless mass shootings in Aurora, CO and Newtown, CT.  The latter felt like a loss of innocence for this country.  And perhaps that's exactly what it was.

Maybe it's appropriate that, whether we were believers or non-believers in the end-time prophecy, the year 2012 had as its mark the end of the Mayan calendar and the expectation of something major coming to an end.  For some it was a reason to return to the paranoia and hysteria that has so often overwhelmed the U.S. from so many different fronts; and they reacted by hoarding food and guns and building what essentially amount to minor forts to protect against change, discomfort, chaos and death.  For most of us, though, I think it was a marker that we would rather see as a metaphorical, and potentially energetic, change in the world.  Something known and familiar was coming to a close and we had no idea what was on the other side.  It was (and remains) more curious than it was frightening.

I wanted all this, all of the year's effects, out of the house we share.

Kevin came home to a clean condo, which he loved, but also to a very intense and determined partner, which he has learned to handle with care and healthy suspicion when I get like this.  He simply asked why I was so focused on this and, once I gave a brief explanation, he was happy to let me finish.  My partner exhibits a certain faith that is inspiring to me.  He doesn't need to understand things in order to let them share space with him.  This isn't something most of us can do.  It's something I've worked hard to achieve infact.  And it doesn't always happen.

I think I ended my tornado-like sweep of our place at 6p.m.  And I didn't feel the least bit tired.

Perhaps if you clean with bhakti, you won't be drained of energy.

That "arrebato" finished, I was good to enjoy a few hours of relaxation and sleep until I woke with the new one this morning, the one yearning for flavors and routines that I'd enjoyed almost two years ago now.  What is most comforting about these fits is how much they fill me.  They make me feel more in tune with myself.  They aren't like the typical escapes to food or habits.  They plunge me so much deeper into inexplicable desires and needs.  Needs that are satiated not by comfort foods, neurosis or comfortable habits, but by some churning of energies inside and the activities and foods and thoughts that lead to that.

When I last saw Kausthub I asked him for help with a pain in my chest that no doctor had been able to detect with their instruments, let alone diagnose, and which I suspected has its roots in something deeper than the physical.  He drew up a practice, which I still do to this day, and offered up his reasoning: "There is something inside you that you have to cook."

It's funny to read that now, given this morning's urge.  I understood, and I believe I am accurate in this understanding, that the "cooking" he was referring to, though, was to face and focus my energy on something within me that was undealt with and, in being left alone, was having unplanned, and in my case unfavorable, effects. This is the nature of the unfaced.  Almost every culture, regardless of how non-confrontational they are, agrees that things left undealt with will typically have unwanted effects.  If they are left alone for too long, they can be very difficult to manage, and sometimes, in the worst cases, impossible to isolate via typical means.

The only option left then is to dig deep into your Self, into the essence of you, to find this ultimate connection which then makes everything in the phenomenal universe clear, including your quirks, aversions, addictions, fetishes and the source of your reasoning.  This is, of course, easier said than done, and many people on the spiritual path never experience it, even for a moment.

But the beginnings of it is to listen.  To listen well.  And to listen hard.  That voice inside you is always speaking, nudging you towards one thing or another (and sometimes away from things).  This voice, I believe, gets frustrated with thinkers like me: people who focus too much on logic and reasoning, on what is palpable and measurable.  And out of its frustration come these "arrebatos."  Once I'm in its grasp, I feel so different.  On task but at peace.  If I try to resist it, I'm left with the sensation that something isn't right.  If I follow it, no matter what other concerns I may have, what other urgent things need to get done, they seem meaningless... or manageable and not something I should concern myself with at the moment.

In a way, having done no asana or pranayama, this was my yoga practice yesterday and today.  It is, afterall, this kind of connection that I seek whenever I get on the mat.  Here it happened naturally, without any urging from my own will and with no need for discipline.  And the effects, I can testify, are not much different than what I experience on the mat.  Perhaps practicing with devotion or bhakti is just that: practice.  Ultimately we are to live with it: listening to the call of what we're devoted to and doing its bidding without question.  Not looking for reason or logic or even patterns, but trusting that the inspiration is coming from a good place and leading us to a good place...a better place... infact the place we need at that very moment.

I had a third "arrebato" today after I was done cleaning the kitchen after breakfast.  A milder one.  Not wrapped up in urgency but firm nonetheless.  Or maybe it was my response to it, more fluid and accommodating, having now had practice with the two previous.  It called me to write.  To continue the writings I'd started when I'd gone to India, and to document my journey now, no less important (and potentially moreso) because I'm at home.

Three hours later, here you have it.  My fit is finished for now.

Blessings to all on this New Year's Day!

Leaving India

The days that led up to my departure from India were as surreal as the day I arrived. I'd purposely given myself a few days after our month-long class ended so I had time to adjust, to prepare and, most important, to say my goodbyes to the people and places I'd come to love in my time there. Over those three days my friends left in waves and the goodbyes became more difficult.

On Friday night (the last day of our class) all 25 participants of "The Heart of Yoga" course gathered at Sandy's, the only Western style restaurant I frequented (largely because of their amazing chocolate desserts) and we did our rounds exchanging embraces, phone numbers, email addresses and reassurances about keeping in touch. The food at Sandy's was amazing, as always. It's the one place I allowed myself to eat meat and at that I kept it at fish. "Pesto fish" to be exact; the dish is unreal. We weren't in the main area of the restaurant that I'd come to know so well. Instead they placed us in a small private room with a dark brown door that resembled a Hershey's chocolate bar.

We asked for their wine selection.

"We have one red and one white."

Everyone settled on ordering both to suit differing preferences. Turned out they had exactly one bottle of each of red and white, which was clearly not going to serve everyone. Not that we had a class full of lushes, but after 4 weeks of intense physical, mental and, yes, spiritual exploration, most of us were looking for the proverbial release, which doesn't happen with just half a glass of wine.

"This is India." I'd used that phrase again and again to remind myself that there are places that don't follow the same rules I've been used to the last 27 years of my life, places that aren't designed to serve me. India is full of oddities, surprises and contradictions that are not familiar at all. It is a place where with few traffic signals and five times as many drivers on the road, traffic still manages to flow, where poverty and disease are rampant but people do not become animals and in fact interpersonal relationships seem to be the priority, where the dangers of the wild encroach on the safety of the city and yet people don't live in constant fear.

Where a Western-style restaurant has exactly two bottles of wine.

This is India. And India, I'd learned, wasn't there to give us what we wanted but would easily reveal and offer what we needed.

After 30 minutes or so more bottles started to appear. More reds and more whites. But all were different, making me wonder whether the owner of the restaurant had run home and tapped into his own personal supply to make sure his customers were served.

We ate off each other's plates, tasted and sometimes shared each other's wine (we had to, after all, since there was a limited supply of each) and exchanged glances and smiles that managed relief and sadness simultaneously. A few people shed tears here and there. But no feeling was indulged for too long. Something would interrupt it: the food coming out, the dessert menu, the mosquitos that had to be waved away or swatted, depending on the individual's interpretation of "ahimsa" (translated as "non-harming," it is one of the five restraints yogis are called to).

At one point, something that looked very much like a racquetball racquet was brought out. It had an odd metal mesh though, rather than the nylon strings I expected, and it had a thunderbolt-shaped emblem across the mesh and an "on" button on the handle. It took a group of us a few moments to realize that it was a mosquito swatter. We turned it on, waved it around and nothing. There were a few people who knew exactly what it was and what it did and who kept reassuring those of us that were confused that yes it was meant to kill mosquitos. Someone handed it to one of the girls, who was known to be a tennis player and she seemed delighted but equally confused. Before she could register and react to everyone's gasp and warning, she touched the mesh and from the look on her face it was clear she'd received quite a shock. She handed it off, swiftly shaking the shocked hand, as if trying to release the energy in hear hand.

Someone handed it to me and I was thoroughly terrified, having seen that it had enough power to make its improper use very uncomfortable. I waved it around and nothing. Then while holding it and talking to others about it and its lack of functionality, a mosquito flew lazily into it and ZAP!

I almost dropped the thing from surprise and shrieked like a five year old girl.

Then I was fascinated. I waved it around some more and could see the blue spark every time a mosquito came in contact with the mesh. A couple of times I even saw the bug drop to the floor.

I'm not a fan of killing things. My partner can attest to the many hours I've accumulated now trying to get silverfish and all variety of spiders (even the ones that look especially mean and hairy) out of our apartment without harming them. I even do my best with flies and roaches to get them safely out a door or window. But mosquitos fall somehow into an excepted category.

Towards the end of the evening, the waiters brought out a birthday cake with what looked like a flare in the center. Elyssa, one of the longest yoga practitioners in the class (and my rickshaw nightmare buddy) was celebrating her birthday. I'm not sure if she managed to blow the thing out or if we had to wait for it to die down. We sang "Happy Birthday" in English and then started the process of singing it in every language represented in the room. We had quite a few: Spanish, Cantonese, Mandarin, Russian, Italian, French, Greek, German, Belgian, Dutch, Korean and Finnish just to name a few. I've never been in a room with people representing so many different cultures and languages.

Late in the night we filed out but lingered outside the restaurant, saying a second or third round of goodbyes, figuring out ways to keep in touch and even meet up in the coming months. When my group finally started to move, we did so lazily, or maybe hesitatingly. Every step got us closer to a final goodbye. And for me it was especially difficult because that night I was losing the person I'd been closest to this whole time.

I've mostly refrained from using names and (too many) identifying features. This is to protect the identity of those involved and also because there are some things about any experience like this that are best kept secret. Not everything is meant to be shared.

I am making an exception here for my friend Andrea. It is difficult to talk about some things in my experience, among them the difficulty of saying goodbye, without mentioning her.

I can't remember exactly how we met. That first moment when we exchanged names has since been overshadowed by so many moments that carry more significance. Many of these I must keep to myself because they are so personal; others seem to lose their power and meaning when put into words, but I'll share what I can in the best way I can to do it justice.

It's not enough to say that Andrea was the person that shared a writing stool with me everyday, that as every weekend approached, she was the one person I always consulted, that every powerful, beautiful, frightening and confusing moment I had in my experience was always immediately followed by a concerned or congratulatory look from her.

If I did not attend a class, she was asked about my whereabouts. If she did not attend class, I was asked about hers.

She was there to reassure me when I couldn't stand to look at the traffic as our rickshaw swerved around it (Andrea lived in China prior to visiting India and rickshaws were not unknown to her... though she did freak out as much as I did when we bounced off a car and hit a motorcycle), she was someone with whom I could share stories of Kevin and who in fact would prompt me for them because she knew I enjoyed talking about him. We could talk endlessly about anything and more often than not those conversations delved deeper than I'd become used to these last few years of my life. In my teens I remember discussions with friends being overwhelmingly emotional, with difficult confessions, passionate aspirations and deep regrets often discussed. In my time as an adult, I became used to discussions about generally practical, banal matters; those intense discussions were less frequent. With Andrea, no conversation was trivial: each one carried the weight of what we were working through (grappling with, really) in our practice and our lives. Not that all things were heavy with us. Even the most somber discussion still had a quality of lightness to it, perhaps in relief that we'd found someone with whom we could share anything and everything.

Oddly, some of the things I most closely associate with Andrea, things which accentuate my memory of her, are surprisingly simple: "Mikey" the roach that terrorized her and Julianna (her roommate, who would also become a dear friend), the Western style coffeehouse we discovered that became something of our spot... a place to flee to when we wanted a taste of what we considered home, the smokey crystal earrings that she gave me, and the fiery red scarf that had her name on it the moment I saw it.

I could always count on a kiss "hello" and "goodbye" each day from Andrea.

On our last class of the last day of the course, as we sat side by side in meditation, she moved her hand and placed it in mine just as I considered doing the same thing to her and we both encountered a powerful, almost burning energy moving up our hands and arms, a testament, I think, to the bond we both already knew we shared. I was so surprised at the sensation, that before mentioning what I'd felt, I asked her if she'd sensed anything, just to be sure that it had really occurred, that I wasn't generating this reaction within myself. She described exactly what I had felt. That surge was real.

How do you say "goodbye" to someone like that?

I believe the only way is with tears.

I held mine back as I hugged her in the dark, shaded street in front of her apartment. The evening was cooler than usual but still slightly humid. "Comfortable" is what I called it, trying to make small talk to distract from the difficult task of understanding my feelings at that moment. Our hug lasted longer than usual and I held her hand as long as I could as I began to walk away. I looked back to see her disappear into the dark passageway that led to the stairs and sighed when I considered the notion that this would be the last time I saw her for a very long while.

In that instant I realized I was going to miss this place, these people and these moments. Despite all the training I've had in recognizing and letting go of attachments, I held on as tight as I could to the image of Andrea standing in front of her building, wearing the beautiful red kurta I'd come to associate with her (she always looked so good in red). I wanted to take that image with me, to have it as an anchor for all the others I'd encountered both with and without her.

My heart was heavy the remaining days, each goodbye a chip to the heart so to speak. Another space that can't be filled even with memories. Another piece of me that now belongs with someone else.

If I close my eyes now, I can still see her there, infront of her building, even though she's been long gone, living with her daughter in their new home in Singapore. She left her ghost, her imprint in that place that I will forever link to her. A place that, because of that link, is among the few that I could easily find my way to if given the opportunity now. An imprint so tangible, so obvious that it drew tears the next day when I left Julianna there after our last shopping excursion (trying to get the last of our gifts for friends and family). As the rickshaw drove off I looked back and did my best to imagine her standing there, where she'd been the night before. The street seemed to ache with her absence.

On my last day I went back to the KYM to drop off the SIM card that had proven an ordeal to get. That in itself was a chapter, wasn't it? I timed my arrival so I could see the friends who were staying for the following class, a two week meditation intensive. The last ten minutes of the hour are always a break. I saw a handful of them and gave out the pharmaceuticals and food that I no longer needed. The I walked back to the hotel, slowly, taking every step in with the acknowledgment that it was the last time I'd be strolling down that street.

I met up with Holly and Wyatt at the hotel, finished packing and handed off the rest of the items I wouldn't be bringing back: sesame oil I'd bought to use as therapeutic body lotion, dental floss (which you can't find in India for some reason), the pumice stone that had become my feet's best friend.

In this sorting out of what would stay and what would go, it wasn't lost on me that as we travel we do well to travel lightly, carrying only the essentials, sharing everything else. I couldn't bring India back with me. Not the KYM, the stray dogs, the nervous cows, the traffic, the noise, the smiles, the dirt, the trees, the birds, the sounds or the sunsets and sunrises that greeted me daily. If anything I could take back the memory of these things, and even that, with the passage of time, will have to fade. In truth, I knew the only thing I could really bring back and keep forever are the changes this place had initiated, coaxed and nurtured in me.

When I boarded the Emirates flight, it's star-lit ceiling a welcoming return to the amenities and comforts (and excesses) of the West, I scrolled through my memories, giving them full attention again, hoping to keep them with me a little longer than usual. As many things as I thought of (seeing my first sunset, practicing to the sunrise at the rooftop of the KYM, getting lost in the city, the temples, the music, the street life, my close call with a roach, mahamudra), they all pointed, inevitably back to that night as I walked away from Andrea, doing my best not to let my feelings overwhelm me.

Strange as it is, if I were to describe the face of India, it would not be the rich dark Tamil faces that I encountered every day, the impossibly beautiful green eyes on the almond skin of Kashmiri boys, or the stern painted faces of the Brahmins. For me, the face of India remains a sweet smile on the beautiful doe-eyed face of a Mexican girl from China.