"Begin anywhere." That's the phrase on my refrigerator, it's on a magnet I bought at some overpriced Mission Street shop, and they credit John Cage, the legendary musical pioneer. It's a good idea: beginning anywhere. It relieves the pressure of starting, which - if one is writing - can be debilitating. The pressure of starting can stop any writer worth his salt, so here I am beginning anywhere...
I was away. I wrote last at the beginning of September, and now it's the beginning of November, so I clearly skipped two months in there, although I have a good reason: I was away, abroad, for a month, for all of October, which means all of September's time was spent getting ready - getting ready for the trip, in and of itself, and then begin able to be away from work for an entire four weeks, no easy feat. The trip prep was extensive, including everything from sewing special travel clothes (2 of 3 of which I was forced to discard on the road, but they were bottoms - one skirt, two pants - that folded up into a small package barely the size of a thick cell phone: very cool) to trying to learn at least a smattering of each of the languages I would be exposed to (Tamil, Malayalam, Greek, Turkish and Italian). I was, at you might surmise, going to south India, as a volunteer, and then immediately on a Mediterranean cruise.
It so happened that these trips, independently arranged and embarked upon with two entirely different groups, were only a few days apart, so that I was able to spend two weeks in India, then fly from Mumbai to Rome, and two days later, board the ship. My fear - earlier in the year when dates were uncertain - was that the trips would be within two or three weeks: not close enough to stay overseas and go from one to the other, and the idea of two transatlantic flights in even the same YEAR is unbearable, much less in the same month. The Newwark - Mumbai leg was 15 hours, by far my longest flight; it was miserable, just miserable. I will never fly 15 hours in coach again; I don't what the alternative (that I can afford) is, but it's a strange form of torture, a 15-hour plane ride in coach.
Anyway, I did it. It was hard because I had nothing but concerns about my trip to India - the long flight was one of the least of my worries; there was also the worry over malaria and rabid dogs and Delhi belly, not to mention that fact that I was going to be working a children's home for a week, and I am NOT a kid person. I am the LEAST kid person I know - I'm not kidding; I was four years old when I categorically announced that I would *never* have kids, and I never wanted to. So of course I found myself in a small town in India (300,000 people - small for India) at a children's home with 150 kids, 15 of which I was made responsible for - all teen or pre-teen boys, no less. And this is above and beyond what the traditional Indian culture shock would provide for me, which was plenty.
For one thing, it WAS hot. They say it will be, and then it was - and humid, too. That's the problem with the heat in India - the humidity. Egypt was hard but India was worse. It's tropical in the south, did you know that? I wasn't completely clear on the whole tropical thing before I went, and then there were banana trees and pineapples and coconuts etc, and I realized, this was the real thing.
Then there was all the other things that you hear about India besides the heat - like the noise, the crowds, the traffic and the chaos. It's all true. There are cows wandering in the middle of the street. The traffic is shocking - the horns alone are more than you could imagine. There are people everywhere. Any place where they can sit and hang out and maybe have tea or a smoke, there they are, doing it. All hours of the night, at least in the bigger cities. When I was there, I kept thinking over and over of that classic line from Spinal Tap, although I was thinking it seriously (not as a joke), which was: India goes to 11. It's one louder.
But here's the thing - and I have a LOT to say about India, probably more than anyone will want to listen to, except maybe the people who were IN India and on the trip with me - that I want to say now, which is I find myself missing India. It was hot and hard and dusty and dirty and loud and so on but once you get used to it, it's really interesting. It's more interesting that anywhere else. It's intense. It's ALIVE. There's lots of THERE there - it's all there. At least that is how it seemed to me. I got used to the craziness of it, and started to like it. Prefer it. Everywhere else is now permanently just a bit boring.
You hear about that - people who go to India want to go back. They go and live there, or go back over and over. My mother warned me by telling me one of her weird stories of a friend who went to India and had to come home and cried for two years every single day because she could not go back. It will change your life, everyone said. But it's hard to willingly go to a place where you know it will change your life and you will want to go back. What if I don't want to WANT to go back? What if I like my life the way it is (and I do, or did, or still do), and don't want to have it change too much. That's scary too - that's as scary as the monkeys that might grab you and accidentally scratch you and then make you require rabies shots.
But I did it. I did it, and I did a pretty good job of it - I mean, I loved the kids, despite the fact that I generally don't love kids - and I helped with the painting and the plumbing and the building of the racquetball (i.e. shuttlecock) court where it was just dirt before. I visited the factory we were also there to witness and I visited the mircoloan recipients we were there to meet (it was partially for work, not your typical tourist visit although we saw plenty of things, visited temples and shrines and such), and I did everything the group leaders told me to do. I got up at 6am and I got to bed at 2am. I ate at 10:30pm (at home, 8:00pm is way late for me) and I took bucket showers. I slathered on DEET and sunscreen every morning and I fell asleep exhausted every night. I did what was asked and required of me, and I had the time of my life. It was hard and it was wonderful, and now I can't stop thinking about it.
There's a lot more about India, and it will make more sense as a I flesh out the details, which I plan to do at least partially here, but this is what is most on my mind, and I am, as advised, beginning anywhere.
I was away. I wrote last at the beginning of September, and now it's the beginning of November, so I clearly skipped two months in there, although I have a good reason: I was away, abroad, for a month, for all of October, which means all of September's time was spent getting ready - getting ready for the trip, in and of itself, and then begin able to be away from work for an entire four weeks, no easy feat. The trip prep was extensive, including everything from sewing special travel clothes (2 of 3 of which I was forced to discard on the road, but they were bottoms - one skirt, two pants - that folded up into a small package barely the size of a thick cell phone: very cool) to trying to learn at least a smattering of each of the languages I would be exposed to (Tamil, Malayalam, Greek, Turkish and Italian). I was, at you might surmise, going to south India, as a volunteer, and then immediately on a Mediterranean cruise.
It so happened that these trips, independently arranged and embarked upon with two entirely different groups, were only a few days apart, so that I was able to spend two weeks in India, then fly from Mumbai to Rome, and two days later, board the ship. My fear - earlier in the year when dates were uncertain - was that the trips would be within two or three weeks: not close enough to stay overseas and go from one to the other, and the idea of two transatlantic flights in even the same YEAR is unbearable, much less in the same month. The Newwark - Mumbai leg was 15 hours, by far my longest flight; it was miserable, just miserable. I will never fly 15 hours in coach again; I don't what the alternative (that I can afford) is, but it's a strange form of torture, a 15-hour plane ride in coach.
Anyway, I did it. It was hard because I had nothing but concerns about my trip to India - the long flight was one of the least of my worries; there was also the worry over malaria and rabid dogs and Delhi belly, not to mention that fact that I was going to be working a children's home for a week, and I am NOT a kid person. I am the LEAST kid person I know - I'm not kidding; I was four years old when I categorically announced that I would *never* have kids, and I never wanted to. So of course I found myself in a small town in India (300,000 people - small for India) at a children's home with 150 kids, 15 of which I was made responsible for - all teen or pre-teen boys, no less. And this is above and beyond what the traditional Indian culture shock would provide for me, which was plenty.
For one thing, it WAS hot. They say it will be, and then it was - and humid, too. That's the problem with the heat in India - the humidity. Egypt was hard but India was worse. It's tropical in the south, did you know that? I wasn't completely clear on the whole tropical thing before I went, and then there were banana trees and pineapples and coconuts etc, and I realized, this was the real thing.
Then there was all the other things that you hear about India besides the heat - like the noise, the crowds, the traffic and the chaos. It's all true. There are cows wandering in the middle of the street. The traffic is shocking - the horns alone are more than you could imagine. There are people everywhere. Any place where they can sit and hang out and maybe have tea or a smoke, there they are, doing it. All hours of the night, at least in the bigger cities. When I was there, I kept thinking over and over of that classic line from Spinal Tap, although I was thinking it seriously (not as a joke), which was: India goes to 11. It's one louder.
But here's the thing - and I have a LOT to say about India, probably more than anyone will want to listen to, except maybe the people who were IN India and on the trip with me - that I want to say now, which is I find myself missing India. It was hot and hard and dusty and dirty and loud and so on but once you get used to it, it's really interesting. It's more interesting that anywhere else. It's intense. It's ALIVE. There's lots of THERE there - it's all there. At least that is how it seemed to me. I got used to the craziness of it, and started to like it. Prefer it. Everywhere else is now permanently just a bit boring.
You hear about that - people who go to India want to go back. They go and live there, or go back over and over. My mother warned me by telling me one of her weird stories of a friend who went to India and had to come home and cried for two years every single day because she could not go back. It will change your life, everyone said. But it's hard to willingly go to a place where you know it will change your life and you will want to go back. What if I don't want to WANT to go back? What if I like my life the way it is (and I do, or did, or still do), and don't want to have it change too much. That's scary too - that's as scary as the monkeys that might grab you and accidentally scratch you and then make you require rabies shots.
But I did it. I did it, and I did a pretty good job of it - I mean, I loved the kids, despite the fact that I generally don't love kids - and I helped with the painting and the plumbing and the building of the racquetball (i.e. shuttlecock) court where it was just dirt before. I visited the factory we were also there to witness and I visited the mircoloan recipients we were there to meet (it was partially for work, not your typical tourist visit although we saw plenty of things, visited temples and shrines and such), and I did everything the group leaders told me to do. I got up at 6am and I got to bed at 2am. I ate at 10:30pm (at home, 8:00pm is way late for me) and I took bucket showers. I slathered on DEET and sunscreen every morning and I fell asleep exhausted every night. I did what was asked and required of me, and I had the time of my life. It was hard and it was wonderful, and now I can't stop thinking about it.
There's a lot more about India, and it will make more sense as a I flesh out the details, which I plan to do at least partially here, but this is what is most on my mind, and I am, as advised, beginning anywhere.
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