-Kiran Desai, the Inheritance of Loss

A week ago, I was lying in bed next to Ryan in a tin-roofed cottage in an orchid nursery on a steep hillside in Kalimpong, India, scribbling in my journal, thinking forward to our return to the states.  I began a sentence:

“I am trying to fathom”

and a power failure swallowed us in darkness.  They’re part of ordinary life in India—usually happening several times a day and frequently lasting hours.  I crawled off the bed and bumped around in the dark looking for the matches, which stubbornly refused to light when I struck them, as the dampness of August monsoon in the Himalayan foothills had softened their matchheads.  After a half-dozen, one sputtered into flame, and I lit the 4 candles we’d been burning across India.

I crawled back into bed in the candlelight, and we lay without speaking.  The forest was suddenly audible in the absence of the oscillating hum of the electric fan; now we heard the low buzz of thousands of crickets rubbing their legs together, the brushing of insects against the leaves and the echoing telegraph of the village dogs, passing messages in the streets.  Ryan returned to his book, and I picked up my journal again.  “It seems to me,” I wrote, “in the darkened silence, that we’re made aware of where we really are, this place it is we inhabit.  Suddenly it feels like we’re surrounded by jungle-forest, even though we’re only dwelling in its edges.  After all, it is vast enough, this thick green of the foothills of the Himalaya, that even roads and villages are little more than an interruption, and a small one at that, as all of this “civilization” could be washed into the river by the forest in the mudslides of of monsoon.  Listening, it seems the forest breathes between the paced exhalations of cricketsong, and having just read about the tigers of the Sunderbans [the mangrove-forested islands in the mouth of the Ganges River], I feel respectful and small in the dark.”

The lights and the fan clicked back on after only a short while, and I returned to the unfinished thought I’d begun before the power outage.

I am trying to fathom

I am trying to fathom what I’ll say to my dear ones next week, when they ask

so how was your trip

which moments will I select for recapitulation?  which observations will surface in my jetlagged disorientation?   I realize I am trying to fathom what This All Means.  These 32 days in India, living out of a backpack.

One the one hand, These 32 Days in India Living Out of A Backpack were nothing more than a collection of moments.   They can be reduced to a list, of places, and journeys between places: cities, airports, trainstations, rowboats, hostels, lodges, rivers, mountains, monasteries and restaurants, faces, pots of tea, meals and evenings and books and rickshaws and tickets and rupees and bad maps and alleys and signs in Sanskrit.

Then there’s the underlying emotional-intellectual-spiritual experience, which is harder to encapsulate in a 45-second anectdote, which is all the average asker is looking for.  Walkabout— wandering just for the sake of wandering— is an act that is, by its very undertaking, a fundamental unmooring from the Acccustomed, the Habitual, the Known, the Routine, the Familiar.  It is a submersion in entirely new waters.  You step out into the water, and suddenly you’re in over your head, bobbing up and down and rubbing the sting out of your eyes, as wave after wave of new smells, tastes, sounds, visions splash into you.  You are washed over by culture, history,  curious, probing stares, and new and ancient ways of doing things.  And as the hours pass and you get your footing, you start to recognize the universal currents flowing around you, human suffering, joy, art, commerce.  And you start to take stock of all you have carried with you from home: preconceptions, useless luggage (why this pair of pants? why that assumption?), and then the things that prove useful: patience, that orange pashmina scarf from Emma, that nail clippers, that gluestick, open eyes, open heart…

You begin to realize things about yourself, attitudes and prejudices and capacities, revealed over the passing days, things you never really understood before.  The country, the people, offer you a mirror in which to see yourself; your mannerisms, your skin color, your clothing, your privilege, your guilt, your joys, and the wellspring of patience that is infinitely deeper each time you dip into it.  It is the kind of mirror most Americans conspire to keep covered, because the reflection is not always flattering to our ego.  Yes, I see in the mirror of India, I am capable of racist thoughts.  Yes, I am capable of walking past a starving child, reduced to bones and skin and eyes, sitting next to his unconscious mother on a traffic island surrounded by a chaos of cars and rickshaws and buses belching diesel fumes, walking past and doing nothing.

There’s plenty of beauty too, too much to take in, enough to bathe in the memories of it well into my old age.  But I think the discomfort, the awkwardness, the truly unnerving took more fathoming, had more to teach me about myself.

Now I am home again, in the states, and my jeans and my music and my shower and my kitchen table and my house feel like a foreign country for the first few hours.  I am trying, again, to fathom

what I’ve brought home.  What it means to be here, to be of here, in my sweet kitchen, my backyard garden, the land of milk and honey, Michael Jackson and roads with lanes.

The dictionary of English etymology defines “fathom” as the length made by the outstretched arms, 6 feet.   It is a verb for measuring depth, getting to the bottom of.  In the act of fathoming, we metaphorically spread ourselves wide, stretching open our most vulnerable body parts to the dangers of the world, stretching our fingertips as far out as they will go, to measure what it is that lies at hand.

trying to fathom.

[wrote this listening to: \”First Breath After Coma,\” Explosions in the Sky

Standing in the back of a Jeep/truck going 40km down a small bumpy road next to a 17 year-old monk won’t necessarily help you gain enlightenment, but it makes for one heck of an amazing time!

We visited Jangsa Gompa today and we were whirled off into an amazing adventure.  If you don’t know the story of the bulls, catch up by reading the story here.

We started off the morning navigating Indian maps through Kalimpong in an attempt to find this place that the bulls managed to find no problem!  In fact, as Tshultrim told us, they traveled over 1km from the butcher’s to the gate of the gompa.

First we found something that looked like a stupa, but no it was a small Hindu shrine.  Next building we approached, nope, turned out to be yet another Hindu temple to Ganesh, but in our third attempt we located the same gate the bulls did so many years ago.  In fact it took the bulls coming back to the gompa (monastery) three times before their request for refuge was accepted.  So all in all we did not do so bad!

Lama Kunzung is currently in Hong Kong, but trusted us to the service of his friend (“practically my brother”) Tshultrim.  I asked some monks for Tushultrim and Sarah and I were dashed from one place to another before arriving in a small basement apartment.  Surrounding us were his Thangka paintings he is working on.  This incredibly detailed work was in all different stages of completion.

Tshultrim’s laugh immediately set the stage for what would become a day of tea drinking and belly laughing.  But before we can even begin we discussed his art form, the English premiere league (and how his team is doing), my teacher Sakyong, and the like.  Next he took us down to meet the bulls that have residence at the gompa.

The lama keeps them here before moving them out to various farms he finds to support and provide a peaceful sanctuary for the bull to live out his remaining years.

After visiting the bulls it was time for lunch, and oh boy did they hook me up on the vegan side of things no problem.  They did not even blink an eye.  Such simple fair, but so so so so so so good.  We ate with Tshultrim and Lama Khenpo Jigme Wangdi, who we would late discover would accompany and guide us to various locations around Kalimpong.

After completely stuffing ourselves at the insistence of our guests we all hoped into a jeep and tore down the road in search of…  well…  farm animals!

Everything was going great, sweeping views down the hillside to the river where we suddenly veered off the road and the monk stopped the car and got out.  We followed our friends down to the river.  We were not to sure what was going to happen until the monks started lifting up there robes and securing them near their waist.

I looked with raised eyebrows at Sarah as did she to me, when we both started rolling up our pants.  What happened next is best left to the pictures, just insert an unbearable amount of laughter:

From there it was a steep climb up the hillside (Sarah in flip-flops) past rice paddies, bamboo, small dwellings, every shade of green, butterflies, prayer-flags, and incredible views of the valley and river below

before arriving at our first destination way up the hillside tucked in behind a cliff, was a Lepcha family caretaking 20 some goats, a water buffalo and two bulls, who have received permanent refuge from the slaughter house.  The family welcomes into their home (doesn’t hurt when you have a recognized lama with you!) for tea and biscuits before we head on to our next stop.

From here headed back down the moutain side, back down to the river, back across the river and back into the jeep for our next destination.  Well, some of us got back INTO the jeep:

the rest of us rode on the back, dodging low branches and pothole bumps as best as we could.  Little communication was needed here, just eye contact and once again lots of laughter as we rolled through the village of Pedong, up across alpine boulder scared ridges and mist filled lush jungle before arriving at our next desitination:

All in all we visited three different farms that support the efforts of Lama Kunzang’s work.  The families recieve money from the Jangsa Animal Trust established by Lama Kunzang for the expenses of keeping the animals.  The ones that are not so fortunate to find their way to the gate of the gompa, are purchased by the Lama at market and then afforded a place to stay at the gompa until monks can get the animals to their new home.  The work here supports the economy of rural farmers and villages, and introduces an alternative with respect to animal life as well as diet.  Tshultrim says that in Nepal this is difficult work but that in Bhutan there is more genuine interest in the programs and way of life.  “Bhutanese have the habit of saying ‘we can’t cook without meat’,” an active founding member of the trust said. “We want to show and tell people that it is possible to cook meals without meat and to enjoy them.”

Is it changing the world?  That is for you and your truth to decide.  The act of saving lives, the effort to live a life free from suffering, to recognize that not just humans suffer, tends to lead to more compassion (in my experience) and provide a more complete picture of the interconnectedness ALL life shares on this planet.

Would we care as much if Michael Vick abused chickens instead of dogs?  Would he of been suspended from the NFL, fined and then upon his return, interviewed on 60 minutes engaged in cock-fighting?  When one form of life is valued over another, then none of us are really free…  And no, we wouldn’t of cared if it was chickens, please pass the nuggets…

but I digress, and apologize…  as this most recent trip has given reason to pause and reflect both on personal choices and current headlines!

As we prepare to leave for the long trip home, we must once again say goodbye to a small corner of the world we have fallen into routine with.  Our last experience here will last and be retold long past the grave.  The expression on the faces of children as a tall white dude on the back of monastary jeep roared by, all the vegetables and fruit we ate from the market, the offerings of black tea and biscuits made and offered by people with very little (or is it that they have a whole lot?).

Auspicious is the word that comes to mind in considering this experience in our final leg in this walkabout.

H.H Kyabje Chatral Sangye Dorje Rinpoche

Though my intellect and voice are too feeble to adequately express
The Ganga-like deeds of past conquerors and bodhisattvas,
How wonderful it is, to raise up with my finger a single drop of what I have heard and seen,

As an offering to delight devoted followers!

By the goodness of this writing may the essential teachings never wane,
May the sublime holder of the doctrine to live long,
And may I and every other sentient being
Cross samsara’s ocean to reach omniscient enlightenment!

Though in dearth of eloquent and refined expression, its meaning may possibly yield an excellent crop.
Without the conceit pretentious scholarship, its authentic words have a potent taste.
Free from the eight concerns and ambitious craving, its contents bear the liberating story of our master.
Though lacking sweet words to fool people, may this writing be auspicious with virtuous goodness!

Not that this will surprise anyone who knows us.   We may not pack many clothes but we’ve been lugging quite the library around India.  (this, i grin shame-facedly to admit, is not the whole of it. I think there’s another 5 or 6 volumes floating around.)  The fantastic fact of the backpacker bookstores… most have only 2-4 shelves of english language books, and a good 3/4 of those are how-to-get-rich, trashy romances, mysteries, or other mass-market fiction or self-help that doesn’t hold much interest for us.  But the 4th book?  invariably, some fantastic piece of fiction or travel writing that has somehow fallen right into place for us. 

a few favorites.

The White Tiger, by Aravid Adiga, is an absorbing account of working class life in Dehli and Varanasi, and we read it just as we were visiting those cities.  Its a stellar bit of writing, and many of you would enjoy it thoroughly, even if you’ve no interest in India.  For those who do have some curiosity about this crowded and exquisite and troubled country, the book is a gold mine.  A thousand details we read in these pages were played out live for us every day—India made the book come alive, and the book lent a whole new dimension to India. 

Same goes for Kiran Desai’s The Inheritance of Loss… beautiful piece of literature set in the Himalayan foothills (between Kalimpong and Darjeeling) chronicalling generational struggles, political unrest, colonialism, migration and return, and the storied landscape itself.

Pema Chodron’s the Wisdom of No Escape… a slim volume of incredible eloquence and calm, and not a small amount of self-effacing humor.  Buddhist thought writ so simply that the observations in the pages are doubly stunning.  Many’s the time I’ve finished a page, re-read it, and had to put the book down just to soak in the gravity of some perfectly simple statement.      I’ve re-read each tiny chapter 2 or 3 times and still haven’t gotten to the end of this one.  If I get nothing else out of it, she’s given me an invaluable gift for India:

When one encounters the chaos, the grime, the poverty, the frustrations, the heat, the confusion of India, there is, quite literally, no escaping it.  Following Pema’s guidance, I’ve tried to “lean in” to these inconviennces and troubling things, breathe thru them and practice patience, and see what they have to teach…  What have I learned? 

• While I may fancy myself a patient, unaggressive, and observant individual,  I am, like most Americans of means,  plenty used to getting what I want, when I want it, whether its information, food, comfort, or shelter.  In moments of frustration or anger, I see these expectations writ clearly, and I’m amazed to realize I’m every bit the American of high expectations.  Hmmmm.   
• One may think one has a framework to handle the sight of poverty, and most of the time back home, my intellect can rationalize the guilt of my privilege away.  No such luck here.  The situation of the poor here is too vast, too desperate, and too omnipresent.  There’s no “feeling better” about it… there’s only the cold light of realism, that This is the way most of the people of the world live, and that until the privileged come face to face with it, we will never begin to appreciate the scope, the decadence, and the obligations of our privilege. 
• Made uncomfortable by the stares of Hindu men and reduced to looking down like the subservient woman (to make eye contact is often interpreted as a sign of prurient interest), I have more than once caught myself soothing my bruised feminist ego (they really do look at me as if I have 2 heads) with the balm of not-to-subtle racism.  Shameful to catch myself in the act— but enlightening to see that when I’m made uncomfortable, I’ll revert to the same human tendencies as those I’d judge harshly. 

So…. lots of reading, provoking lots of thought, in the rainy days of Kalimpong monsoon.   We’ve slipped into the habit of morning tea at 7, followed by a few hours of reading and conversation, then a walk uphill 1 km to town if the rain permits, for lunch and maybe a soccer match at the local stadium, then perhaps a “takeout dinner” (which is handed to us in a re-usable cloth bag) to carry back down the hill to home.  Afternoon tea, and a quiet evening in our orchid nursery cottage listening to the rain falling through giant tropical leaves and spattering the tin roof.  Much love to all…

women every half mile or so breaking stones into gravel with hammers

landslides

terraced rice paddies descending impossibly steep hillsides

tiny houses perched on stilts

a lake tucked away in the hills ringed entirely by prayerflags

nighttime monsoon, rains steady through daybreak, then clearskies

a monastery on a ridgetop, visited in lateday… they welcomed us in during the protector chants, and we and our Finnish friends tucked ourselves along the wall in the back corner.  Chanting, drumming, and horns echoed off the faded, aged monastery walls.  One young monk poured sweet rose water into our palms; another followed with a place of cucumber slices.  Another offered us slices of local pear, then returned with halved passionfruits.  Each of us was given a tiny packet of biscuits as well, and then another young monk brought us the remainder of the giant cucumber, easily 18 inches long. we gestured that we didn’t have a knife, and weren’t sure what to do with it— he looked to the other monks, then grinned at us and proferred it again.  (We ate slices for dessert later that night.)   

bumpy 5-hour jeep ride from Pelling to Kalimpong, wedged into the vehicle with 11 other adults, squeezing past other jeeps and trucks and cars on the narrow road.  As our British friend Sammy observed, here in India, they make efficient use of space. 

Now, perched in a peaceful guesthouse at an orchid nursery on the hillside of Kalimpong, surrounded by forest and tropical plants, with a tiny waterfall running past.

Looking forward to staying in place for the remainder of our trip, exploring the area on foot, reading, writing, and savoring the flavors, the politics, the history, and the breezes.

Much love to all

mist, clouds, rain…

tea in tea shops, plantations, mountains that dance with clouds,

smiles, stares, biscuits

peek-a-boo with moon,

settled, sipping, rolling hills,

woman picking tea for eight hours at 50 rupees a day

learning how to make tea the “Darjeeling” way,

walks along paths that seem to go nowhere like everything else lie in an interconnected tangle you see or miss,

discussions of Obama and what change really means,

buying tea directly from the workers,

early rising to see if the clouds, puppets on strings, release a finale of breathtaking proportion, but ahh, never any disappointment as we Americans must learn to wait, whispered Kanchenjunga from just beyond the hills,

When one arrives in a destination that pushes you out on an edge and forces you to feel the juxtaposition of your own life, pushes your borders, something in you wants to eat it all up, pull out the guide book and and start checking of destinations, not to unlike back at home and our intimate familiarity with a to-do list, always moving, always have to be doing something, does not matter what, just as long as I am doing…

Pushing back against that urge to do everything there is to do, you begin to discover place, your vision changes slightly, you observe more of the day-to-day life, you settle, as the tea leaf that somehow slipped past the strainer and sank to the bottom of the cup, slowly becoming more aware while simultaneously opening…  not as able to place your projections as easily onto the world that surrounds you…

Spending 5 days in Darjeeling was never a part of the plan, after taking a 4 am taxi to the top of tiger hill to watch the sunrise, and instead being center stage in a Shakespearean comic-tragedy, surrounded by white thick clouds in rain that would have put Seattle under the water (imagine a room with four white walls, a chair and you sitting in it), we might of packed our bags and headed to the next destination, leave, as leaving is always the easy path, right?

There we were sitting in our hotel, staring at our bags, before we recognized we were not ready to leave yet, there was still something here for us, still a path to walk down, faces to greet, conversations to have and things to learn and so we continued to stay in place…

what is it about place, the tension between the to-do list and just being…

as Wendell Berry writes from his poem What We Need is Here:

Geese appear high over us

pass, and the sky closes. Abandon,

as in love or sleep, holds

them to their way, clear

in the ancient faith: what we need

is here.  And we pray, not

for new earth or heaven, but to be

quiet in heart, and in eye,

clear.  What we need is here.

As Darjeeling is crossed off our to-do list, as we begin our journey to Sikkim, our hearts our heavy, contradicted by the blessings this place has provided in a short but thick 120 hours…

grateful to have stayed in place, learning something about ourselves, this place here, and maybe more importantly, about the place half way around the world which we hold so dear…

and so as this morning began, my eyes opened just before 6 am (5:30 pm pacific time) and the sun was filtering through and the moon was setting against cobalt blue, I jumped up to the window, cocked my head to the right, and announced Kanchenjunga had been revealed, the curtain pulled back, as we quickly dressed, dropped off the key with the still sleeping front desk and proceeded to speed walk (heel toe heel toe) all the way to observatory hill, past the closed shops and the Darjeeling running club, past the one-eyed Tibetan refugee walking her dog, Hindu’s praying, cell phone chatter, monk chanting, to a bench over looking:

Farewell, Tibetan Refugees, thank you for your kind smiles, your determination, and sacrifice, and your art,

farewell to Kusun, thank you for selling us tea directly from the workers, and yes we hid it away, and thank you for sharing your passion for an independent state:  Gorhkaland for Gorhkas! and sharing the history of struggle,

to Sammy for the conversations only travelers can share and your unexpected assistance in locating my next destination within India for some unknown date in the future:  may you find what you are looking for,

to the Thai restaurant for playing Michael Jackson and Bob Marley, serving up amazing food and wearing that cowboy hat with such a smile and kindness,

to our Northern Irish folk, Sarah and Tim, for your willingness to get lost in route to the Self-help center and the shared jeep on the way home,

to the tea pickers, your smiles and despite our lack of shared language, communicating to my ignorant ass, how to pick something I just take for granted, your eyes will never leave me,

to our taxi driver, for the stories, directions, sites, horn honks, turn arounds, tight squeezes,  smiles and laughter,

to the Tibetan family at our hotel, for a beautiful room, clean sheets, toilet paper (!), assistance, smiles, calm, and  providing a  space so many shall have and will continue to find refuge in,

to our Portland brother and sisters (what a small world), to everyone who helped us understand and decipher the world’s best tea,

to all that is Darjeeling, may this place remain a jewel, nestled near the top of the world…

namaste…

ps- to my sister and gorgeous mother of my newly arrived niece Egan: Molly, in the immortal words of Brigham Young; “This is the place”

Mom and Gretchen… the extended handcraft slideshow was made with you in mind.

We are so happy to be here… thinking of you all every day.

namaste.

This is just a random assortment of photos as I was just playing around getting them online.

Please Enjoy as much as Sarah enjoyed visiting the Tibetan Refugee Self Help Center today!

Okay so I liked it to0, but to be there once again in the presence of Tibetans and watch my wife talk with Tibetan women about weaving rugs, sweaters and the like, then touring around where all the work was done, observing the smile and near tears on her face, the excitement, the memories of her mother’s weavings (of which we now own a first edition!), she just came to life as the sun appeared from beneath a white blank canvas and shone down.  She shared with me her knowledge of every little piece and skipped around not unlike a kid taking photos and feeling an overwhelming amount of calm and joy.  I was just lucky enough to be there.

Okay, okay, I will post pictures of our visit on the next post…

blessings…

Out of sheer frustration, I am giving up for now trying to get my photos directly onto the blog from this particular tempermental computer.

snapshots from recent days, and a few favorites from earlier in the trip, are online at:

We walk down muddy paths, rain thudding onto our umbrellas and cascading down around our feet.  White cranes flap overhead, wide-faced water buffalo feed in the tall grass.  We are turned back by closed gates and flooded paths, make our way anyway, by walking. Walking, walking.  Two thousand years of pilgrims here, prayers, contemplation in this place.  Even though I hesitate a bit to call myself a pilgrim, I begin to feel it in my body, my subconscious.  Mind softens, quiets.  Feet sting, where blisters are opening under wet sandal straps.  We keep walking.  The rain keeps falling.  Cranes flap overhead.  At the monastaries, we shed our shoes and walk barefoot over smooth marble and stone paths, made slick by sheets of flowing rainwater.  It feels divine on aching feet.  Monks sitting under monastary eves laugh and watch the rain.  Others chant softly in the temples.

Passing through the eastern monastic district, we turn off at a gate where a handful of monks in orange and gold robes stand with two Nepalis, likely the caretaker family: an old man, who is squatting by the road, and a young boy of maybe 2, who presses his hands together, grins so hard his whole face crinkles, and offers us the most precocious namaste I have ever heard.  We pay our respects in the temple, and grin to each other at a young pilgrim who stays on his cell phone as he dashes in, bows, and dashes back out to his waiting bicycle rickshaw while we are still putting on our shoes.   Walking back out into the road, we see one monk has walked ahead aways with the little boy, who is splashing in a mud puddle.  We  all four step into the grass on the side of the road to get out of the way of the cell phone pilgrim’s bicycle rickshaw, which is tearing past, and when we start to walk again, the monk stops me, gesturing to my foot.  We don’t see it right away, and I’m still shocked he spotted it— a small brown leech under my brown sandal strap.  He calls down the road to the old man, who comes trotting up,with 3 or 4 other people.  I discover I can’t remember anything I’ve heard or read about getting rid of leeches, and when I bend to contemplate pulling it off, or maybe holding a flame to it? (where I’d get that flame, unknown), the monk stops me.  with hand gestures, he explains that the leech has teeth, and that those teeth will remain inside and irritate my skin.  The old man and others arrive.  He kneels by my foot, and sprinkles some white powder from a tiny plastic container over the leech, which immediately retracts its little teeth (or tooth?), curls and falls off, followed by a surprising amount of blood.

The old man nonchalantly rinsed his hands in a mud puddle and smiled at me.  Astonished at how painless, quick, easy, the whole thing had been, relieved, a wave of gratitude spreading over me, I say thank you, namaste, thank you, bowing to them. Ryan is doing the same next to me…  They smile back, and the gesture had nothing but kindness, openness, generosity in it.  Our thankyous feel inadequate, and they smile again to tell us they are unecessarily profuse…  We walk on, me giddy over my first leech experience. (go figure.) A shining moment of human kindness and altruism, with no real lasting discomfort, (and a mildly gross post-leech photos to prove the story for later.)

Many more stories to share from the past week… promise to transcribe a few more and maybe upload photos tomorrow morning. We’ve been on the road a lot the past few days, so not much chance to blog, but we will fill in the gaps.

For now, internet is getting shut down for the night here in Darjeeling, where we arrived safe and sound at 680o feet in the foothills of the Himalayas this afternoon, after a fanastic 4 hour jeep ride on very narrow roads through terraced tea fields, bamboo, tiny shacks covered in prayerflags and tiny potted flowers, mist, fog, and the whispering suggestion of massive mountains closeby. its an incredible relief to be out of the heat and into the cool mist…

we have a dear little room looking down over the village and the vast valley… we’ll stay here 3 days, through Friday morning the 7th, then head into the state of Sikkim.

namaste…