peace

This morning I feel myself getting in a bad mood again. Two meetings cancelled with no phone call and now already KK is 45 minutes late. But instead of letting irritation start to blind my experience of the moment, I decide to relax. I lie down, in shivasana, and start some yoga nidra (the yoga of relaxation). Suddenly the relationship between negative thoughts, emotional anxiety and physical tension is abundantly clear. I note it and start to really relax, slowly, slowly. A minute later KK comes in. Without moving I say, "I'm busy. Yoga nidra." "Oh," he replies "I no problem". (this is one of my favorite expressions - this and "should be must" and adding "the" in front of people's names; I often hear people talking about "the Marcie" - how to keep the Marcie happy!) "I no problem. Your work carry on."

Only in India. I'm lying motionless on the bed - your work carry on! And indeed I do, finally I have the sense to realize what my most important work is - and to start to do it.

When I get up I feel good, much less at risk for getting excited, emotional, or depressed. We head off to find material for the curtains for the guest houses. We're going to the local market, a narrow road of a few kilometres packed with all the inexpensive and interesting shops as well as the crowds and every type of conveyance. The road there is broken and dusty and finally I admit to myself - India is not beautiful. Even the sky is not that clean, vibrant blue I've so often enjoyed and taken for granted. The dust fills the sky and the color, when not the polluted browns of Delhi, is a thin white, coating the nearby mountains so they fade into the sky and feel more distant.

Much of India is of course very beautiful. But day to day life in the city is not. It's the most dense country in the world and the government has no system of collecting trash. If it's done at all, it's done by the sweepers, gathering garbage in little plastic buckets and throwing it perhaps a few feet away, I'm not really sure. And could the trash habits be changed even if there were facilities? I watch young children throwing wrappers directly on the floor in their home, just like their parents, though Mummy, or the servant, will clean it up later.

Sometimes I long for the Bay Area. My lovely house alone, with the garden, stream, pond, fish, flowers, my worms, the spiral staircase up to my friend Jon's and Snowpaws and the rugs and Dana's art and taking walks at night, watching the weather and seasons change overlooking the whole Bay and the classical pianist who practices at midnight. The hot tub, the sauna, the violin and accordion duets with Nada, and sometimes Aron singing Ladino songs, the Breema, oh the Breema by the fire in winter, and the clean, fresh beauty of everything.

But today I made my peace. Today I accepted India as it is. I saw a train next to the road and for the first time since I've been here I saw all the people hanging out every door and all the people packed on the top. I just laughed out loud - it's just like in the movies. But here I am, and any and every interpretation is possible. Sometimes I like it here and sometimes I don't. But as everyone says to me over and over in response to my interminable questioning, the India is the India.

So we go to the curtain shop and the shopkeeper is rolling out the beautiful fabrics all over the floor. He and I see a rat at the same time and he starts chasing it, stomping hard on the fabrics trying to smash it. Luckily he didn't and maybe it was even show for me, no one else was bothered. But I retain visions of if he been successful, though with much less of a western emotional charge than before.

Across from the curtain shop is a Sony showroom. "Please can we go look?" I don't even know why I'm so interested. We walk in the clean, air conditioned store and suddenly I'm in America again. KK's engaged with the salesman and very happily learning about home theatre systems. I feign interest and nod while I just drink in the atmosphere. I'm home, I'm home. For 5 minutes everything is clean and high quality and materialistic. I want everything, a flat screen TV, a home theatre system, a new DSLR camera and more, more, more. I feel myself relaxing. No wonder no one's heard of yoga nidra in America! KK and the salesman are chattering away in Hindi and as usually happens suddenly I hear a "Come Marcie". I take a breath and walk back into the Indian heat, the Indian look of things, 1/2 way around the world from everything I know, every single thing here completely different.

But 5 minutes in the Sony store was all I needed. I'm restored. I'm ready. Mango season is ending, pomegranate season has begun.

Come, Marcie.