transit(ion)

(The following has resulted from my conversations with Nancy as of late, and is also in response to some asking "How are you feeling?")

I have been feeling as if everything is at once deeply meaningful and at the same time transitory, and I have been aware of an intensity for all of my experiences and feelings lately. I think this is what happens naturally when one is outside the comfort and confines of the daily grounding routine. Insights into personal situations perhaps come more clearly, or at least the questions of 'life' come into sharper focus if not the answers to them.

Traveling is an obvious metaphor for transition and change and it's only natural to make the association with metaphysical change in one's life. I think because of this exposure or sensitivity to emotional and existential transition stirred up by the physical act of movement, this is a deeply meaningful period. It's not that other more stable times in one's life aren't also meaningful, but I think the emotional rawness one feels in these times of transit(ion) are what helps to put us deeply in touch with ourselves and others. This emotional rawness pervades my daily existence and there are many times when I feel as if I might cry. Those are the moments that I live for... they let me know that what I am experiencing is real and deeply personally meaningful. The uncontrollable physical upwelling of emotion that seems to come from nowhere, start from almost nothing, and then takes over my vision with tears and my throat with the closing off of words... that is when I feel most connected to the people, places, and moments that for me are imbued with meaning for my life. I feel most in touch with the truth and depth of universal oneness... unqualifiable, unquantifiable, inseparable, indescribable oneness.

I feel like my entire life is opening up with any and all possibilities. I feel happy, really really happy. I feel secure and stable despite constantly moving from place to place. I think I'm learning confidence and gaining clarity through simply participating with awareness in life as I move through the day. Making decisions for myself about when and where I want to go, instead of doing what someone else tells me to do, is incredibly powerful. Self-empowering. After having worked for someone else for almost 10 years, and as a result allowing myself to be lulled into a selflessness by the very mind numbing act of prioritizing another person's will before my own, I know that I can never go back to that situation ever again. I feel as if I am waking up from a self-suppressed dream state, and I'm slowly assembling the little pieces of me that were left behind, forgotten, pushed aside, or ignored.

We all have a choice in the direction our lives take, and a level of awareness that either consciously or not allows a choice to be made. That's not to say that randomness and circumstances don't play a huge roll in what choices become available to us, but I think our freedom lies in what we do with the situations and circumstances that do present themselves. And therefore I think the key is self-awareness. Awareness of what we would like, or need really, for ourselves, awareness of our affects on others, awareness of what is our deepest truth. It is that deep personal truth that I'm trying to tap into and the experience of traveling forces a confrontation with my self at every step.

You can try to make a personal change by pulling a geographic... feeling like somehow your life will be better over there once you do this or that thing and set up your apartment just so... but YOU are always there no matter where you go. You can't avoid your self. I don't feel as if I'm running away from myself by traveling but instead I'm trying to find my self by forcing hyper-awareness of me everywhere I turn. I can't get lost in the day to day rhythms of the habit trail because nothing is ever the same.

french fry

It's really hot in Pondicherry. It's funny to me how much a little French makes a huge difference to me in whether or not I like something. There's a completely different vibe in Pondicherry from anywhere else in India, obviously because it was a French autonomous region until the 1960's, and I really enjoyed the mix of South Indian 'laziness' with the French laissez-faire. Actually, the South Indians of Tamil Nadu aren't so much lazy as they respect the heat. They take breaks during the day from around 12 until 4, and they get done what they can in the cooler times. Pondicherry reminds me of New Orleans. I loved riding my rented bike around the colonial streets and snapping up quirky blends of modern architecture mixed with the Indian exhuberance for color and pattern and intermittantly tempered (only slightly) by Catholic reserve.

deserted

Camels are flatulent animals, and they seem to enjoy throwing up in their mouths and chewing on the putrid half-digested remains. And they look funny. But they are tall and proud and for some reason Rajasthani's consider them the animal that represents love... I have no idea why. But I got on one anyway and set off into the Thar Desert to go camping on the edge of the India/Pakistan border and I did fall in love... not with a camel but with the desert. The region has actually received good monsoon rains in July and August over the past two years after an eight year drought and so it's appears fairly green. I saw small antelope chasing each other in the dunes, a stray jackal looking a bit peckish, twittering birds, large beetles leaving a cross-stitched trail in the sand, purple blooming desert flowers, a sunset, the milky way with a night sky I didn't recognise, a 3/4 moonrise that lit up the sky all night, and sunrise over the dunes... it's no wonder the Maharajas were romantics. A warm breeze blew from the east and I was up for much of the night (probably mostly due to being a bit uncomfortable on the hard fine sand) dreaming awake.

rajasthan (part 1)

There's just too much to try and convey in words so it's time for another slide show... the short of it is: Pakistan/India border crossing pomposity, embarrassing portraits of babies, met a lovely Indian family traveling on an overnight train from Amritsar to Jaipur, crazy Jaipur traffic, tourists and touts and elephants and camels and sadhu's in the streets, scary monkeys, a procession of Durga devotees on the road to Udaipur (our driver "Bapu/Baboo?" has this flag of India on the dashboard that keeps falling over every time we hit a bump which is every other minute and he keeps setting it back up while simultaneously making prayers that look like baseball pitching signs each time he narrowly misses getting us creamed or passes a roadside shrine which is also about every other minute... comedy; oh, and he has an eye infection which isn't really what you want in a driver; oh, and he keeps spraying Axe body spray for men all around his waist whenever he passes gas... at least that's the only explanation I can think of.; oh, and he has been playing this horrific indian pop music that sounds like high pitched wailing set to a techno beat... he sings along!), gardens and lakes of Udaipur, Lake Palace, maharajah's palace, temples, strange idols covered in tin foil with little eyes painted back on, a model of the taj mahal in styrofoam, more cows, blah blah blah... and me riding the daily/hourly rollercoaster of excitement, enjoyment, frustration, disgust, despair, resolve, and exhaustion, as well as being hit up for money or hit on for sex (by boys) constantly. On to the pictures.