Bangalore

Hello again,

I am writing to you now from Bangalore (Bengaluru) – I have been here for the last four days, and head out the morning of the sixteenth for Delhi. From Delhi I am catching the United 83 flight that leaves at 11:45 pm for a fifteen hour journey to Newark. I have trouble wrapping my head around the fact that I can count the number of days before I step foot on US soil on one hand. Where has the tyme gone?

I am intrigued by how emotions are bubbling inside of me. I have found that I am pretty firmly rooted in a neutral state, strong emotions will make themselves known, and seem to fill me up for a moment, and then dissipate. Is this recognition related to the mindfulness training I have been doing? Is this the culmination of non-judgmental awareness? Almost, I think, because when I feel my chest constrict and the tears start to rise I want to let them overflow. I want to feel them on my cheeks and for my breath to hitch. But precisely when I try to let the surface tension break, it fades. I think I am trying to force it instead of surrender to it – aren’t I supposed to be distraught over leaving? Aren’t I supposed to terribly miss all the people I have come to know and love, the people I lived with this semester? I am experiencing an internal stability that I was not expecting. A sense of wellbeing and okayness that is both exciting and a little disconcerting. That is not to say I am not feeling meaningfully about my journey coming to a close, no quite the opposite actually. I am just handling this shift differently than the goodbyes I have had to say in the past, a fitting conclusion I suppose to the ways in which I have grown this semester.

The last email I wrote to you all was an update from our Corbett trip, and then I had two weeks left in Mussoorie and a week in Bangalore. Since then, life has been filled with so many goodbyes, many of which I feel are actually see you agains. But how do you say so long to a place that now holds pieces of your heart? I walked the nature trail to Hanifl, sent my love out to the hills that look like dragon’s backs, and said thank you. I walked to Char Dukkan and kissed the bazaar farewell as I drank my last glass of honey ginger lemon tea, and said thank you. I walked up the stairs one last time to CC and appreciated the way the journey has shaped my body, and said thank you. I organized and enjoyed a bonfire with friends while eating momos, and said thank you. This place, this world, has become a part of me, and so it is a goodbye, but also a promise for this experience to live on inside of me.

In my last week in Mussoorie I listened to a podcast with Sue Monk Kidd and Oprah and loved every minute of it. In this podcast, I became aware of my internal aversion to the word prayer – something inside of me wriggles uncomfortably with this discourse, and so I started to pay attention to it. In the podcast, Sue gave a definition of true prayer that spoke to me rather than to my aversion. She said, “Prayer is the attention of the heart.” She says her deepest prayer is to try to be able to give some expression to what is inside of her, she says you become what you pay attention to. That’s just it isn’t it? Haven’t I been saying this same prayer with each footstep, each breath, these last months? You become what you pay attention to… Yes! This is why I watch my thoughts, this is why I cultivate kindness and compassion and gratitude in my everyday reality. The way she talked about prayer, how you are praying every time you are present, put the words in a language my heart understood. Her words gave me the means to notice that wriggling creature inside and to make some peace with it, oh the power of words that connect!

Her words in this podcast found purchase in my reality in many ways. She went on to talk about how life is a process of waking up, and then waking up some more. Here I found my faith in the process of growth, of becoming, of being okay and learning from the contractions and expansions of life. My life in India has been the manifestation of this glorious expansion – I have been so alive, so capable, so big! The world has burst wide open for me, and I am so inspired to keep taking advantage of the opportunities and to learn from the spaces I move through. I am searching the edges, and in so doing finding myself. Sue says, “There is no place so awake and so alive as the edge of becoming.” And this experience has allowed me to become so much, and coupled with this expansion is its partner, the contraction that has appeared on my horizon. Sue also says it is important to be a seeker, but also to acknowledge when we have found something. I have felt from the beginning of my semester that this is an experience I will be processing for years to come. I have found something – and in my expansion I have broadened my dreams and hopes for how to live my life, and in my contraction there will be space for acknowledgement, space to manifest dreams and lay foundations for my next steps. I am not the same for having seen the moon rise on the other side of the world, and when I return and collapse inside myself, I will be introduced to new pieces. My fetal position will be punctuated with enquiry, with reconciliation between old curves of my spine and new lines on my palms. Each contraction is necessary for its counterpart expansion, each expansion needs its contraction, it’s time to recover, to process, to embody, to manifest. So yes, I am returning home, and recognize the difficulties that will come with filling old spaces, but I am open to the necessity of the process. I am fearful I will forget so much of what I knew here, but at the same time I feel this need to decompress, this need to integrate this experience with the reality that is the rest of my life. I believe it is this process of expansion and contraction that is the strength of the human experience, and I am excited to experience it with grace upon my return.

To help my future self with this process, I created a cocoon of words in my sketchbook. I strung together quotes that have been at my heels as I walked the Himalayas and excerpts from the goodbye letters my roommates wrote to me. I filled these pages with the strength of the dreamer I am now, I filled them with strength and hope and love. Pawmo is the Tibetan word for female warrior, and it means, “one who cultivates bravery,” and so I filled these pages with reminders to myself to live bravely.

“Walk carefully, well loved one,

Walk mindfully, well loved one,

Walk fearlessly, well loved one…

Be always coming home.”

And so I am, always coming home. It’s just that now home is all over the world. It is in the hearts of people in so many different time zones and so many different lifestyles, and still growing so beautifully. I believe this world needs some more gratitude, and so it was important to me to write thank you letters to all the people who have impacted me on this trip – the list kept growing! I wanted to communicate my genuine gratefulness, to look people in the eyes one more time, and say thank you. ‘Thank you’ letters are the secret to success, and it was so fulfilling to even attempt to communicate my thanks. This trip has done a wonderful job of allowing me to meet so many new people, and also cultivate an awareness and gratitude for the beautiful people already in my life. I am coming back to “home,” and so excited to reconnect and build more relationships. I need people who are as in love with life as I am, who will help me grow, and love me with their authentic selves! I want to continue to surround myself with people who inspire me to be the best human I can possibly be. Any support any of you can send my way would be so appreciated and received with a wide-open heart. And then same goes for any of you – if I can help in any way, shape, or form, all you need do is ask and I will be there.

One of the quotes I put in my sketchbook is this: “I would like to be known as an intelligent woman, a courageous woman, a loving woman, a woman who teaches by being.” And so I have left Mussoorie, but with the means to live an intentional life. To let my life be my art, and oh how that inspires my heart.

I am now in Bangalore, and really loving being part of a family here. I am staying with a woman named Sruti and her husband Vinod and their two little girls. Sruti is the older sister of Johann, who is the closest friend I was able to make in Mussoorie. I am completely blown away by how they embraced me (how they even opened their house to me in the first place), and it has been a gift being able to occupy space that feels like a family gathering back home. I am meeting cousins and uncles and aunts, eating incredible food, watching Disney movies with Sami, all while still being on the opposite side of the world. Yes, pieces of my heart will be staying here.

South India has been quite different from the north. First off, it is eighty degrees here (I am going to freeze when I step off the plane in Pittsburgh!), and the food and language are different. I have decided I really enjoy eating dosas for breakfast, and the coconut chutney is magnificent. Bangalore feels a lot like Washington DC to me, if it were and Indian city and not the capital. But it has been really interesting to have the city feel while still having everyone drive like Indians and have all the small shops around. Before I head home I am getting a traditional Indian massage, going to one of the largest second hand bookstores in India, getting my sari tailored, and enjoying being part of the family some more.

I will be in Pittsburgh the morning of December 17th, and then in Omaha on the 20th, and Wyoming the 26th. If any of you would like to catch up, please do let me know.

Sending love from India,

Regina