Happiness Is Fleeting

I woke at dawn this morning to a wet sky, stood at the Sotla bus stop at 7:45 am watching school children clad in gray uniforms climb onto small, rundown yellow buses. The weather now resembles Autumn in California, or (even closer to my heart), July storms in northern Saskatchewan when the sky is a mix of gray and blue and the wind stirs both hair and leaves.

I have been really, truly, wonderfully happy for the past couple of days. I am living in perfect simplicity and simple perfection. Sunday afternoon was spent sitting in the sun, watching the boys play cricket, New Zealand and British accents mixing with Punjabi calls, the long wavy hair of the young Sikh boys watching on the sidelines streaming as they ran to pick up stray balls. The light rain arrived in the afternoon, so V. and I sat inside the top room of his house with his sister, sharing oranges and guava, sipping on chai and discussing Valentine's Day and illegal labor in the United States to a soundtrack of rain and Punjabi Bhangra. As the afternoon faded we made our way to the wheat fields down a dirt footpath and stood around the new well as his mother and uncle gave offerings of porridge and incense to the gods.

But this is not forever. And it is not meant to be. It is exquisite because it is fleeting. This February-Autumn sky, the falling light rain, the cheerful welcomes of A. as I walk past her home on my way to M.'s shop, the fall of V.'s face when I decline chapatti or karna or tea. This is not forever. This too will end. This too shall pass. And its beauty will rest in prior instead of present days.

But this happiness is mine to hold, now. And it will be mine to remember. And it will be mine to earn again.

Twitterpated

It’s Sunday night. The end of January is near. I am alone in the living room, Pete Yorn’s voice echoing in the space usually filled with voices. But tonight only my thoughts and my blanket accompany me. And I have had a splendid day.

Love strikes us all differently. For some it is warm: growing, aging, into realization. For other it is sharp, bright like summer lightening storms.

July storms in Saskatchewan light up the entire northern sky, jutting against climbing evergreens peaks.

I am a summer lightening storm sort of girl.

Today I walked at dusk through wheat fields. Fog and mist hug the green tips sprouting from the ground, cling to the barren trees that line dirt roads, hang suspended from the gray-blue darkening sky. This winter fog creates space, defines that which is otherwise hidden. You can, literally, see the un-seeable. Instead of blanketing, this mystic wet gray reveals.

Turns out I’m in love. I’m love with Punjab and the life I have created here. Before I was in like. But this is not like. Because like fades with dysentery and giadria’s four month bowel hell. Like dims with aching and breaking heartstrings. It crumbles before the constant discomfort, the constant frustration, the constant struggle. When distance forces goodbyes like tears, retreats, and surrenders.

But love….. love grows. Love sees past the hurt. It looks beyond. Love rises above the chilling cold instead of recoiling before the frost. It floats, warms itself with the heat of compassion, takes rest with friendships in January bloom. Love wraps itself around the constant discomfort, sooths the constant frustration, has patience with the constant struggle. Love is not blind--- no, no. It is forgiving. Love forgives us what we sacrifice in order to embrace what we gain.

And tonight… tonight, after five and a half months of romancing, tonight it is love.

And We're Off!

Fire burning baby. I’ve got a time limit.

If you want to motivate me, remind me that I will soon have a plane ticket home to Los Angeles, that my village days will be behind me, that my Sotla time is a time bomb, that I’ve got to put both feet forward each morning and work some magic.

WHERE DID THE TIME GO?

What on earth have I been doing for 5 months?

First I was sweating, then I was sick, then I was painting, then I was sick again, and then I was in mourning for my loves leaving my village surrounding, then were the camels, then I was sick, then I was freezing (edit am still freezing), and now I am here. Mid January. Time bomb ticking.

I have only a couple months to expand the Girls’ club to the surrounding villages, create a vocational training program out of thin air with no experience or understanding whatsoever (enter MAGIC), and feel like I’ve actually done something in ten months. Ten months.

I had a moment yesterday where I decided that maybe I just wouldn’t come home. Head for Nepal. Take a summer break in Europe. Hit up Africa or the Middle East afterwards. I’M AT MY PRIME. All I need is a backpack, a couch, and a friend. Camels across Pakistan. Let’s go. I’m all in baby.

But I want to hug my sister and have a shower.

SO if I must come home at some point that means we’ve got to ready set RUN.

Hindsight is 16/20

I’ve always been a romantic. Hopeless. A hopeless romantic.

And I was a letter writer. In the worst sense of the term. We wrote scathing love letters to each other, the ones where dreams and hearts meet in pen ink on paper. Our letters, like our goodbyes, were tortured. Because love is often beautifully tragic. These letters reflect that. Nothing was safe from typing hands (because, while I may be a romantic, I’m also a savy email-er). My bursting dreams, my bursting heart, my breaking heart… it’s all there. Every line was sent for him to read. Every ache was reciprocated in turn. Typos and grammatical errors aside, these letters would lurch any heart into beating again with their brutal honesty. Two people who loved and trusted each other enough to say all the things that should never be shared.

I’ve grown up a bit. I’ve wised up a bit. And now love letters remain in my “draft box” instead of my “sent box.”

Recently some close friends shared their heartache and the letters that accompany them. They sent their love letters, but to me, and not to the hearts that should see.

Because they’ve grown up a bit. They’ve wised up a bit.

They’re exquisite. And, with each passing line, my eyes widened with tears.

They’re the “dear love, I can’t sleep without you” ones; the “dear love, I love you, but you are an ass, and right now I hate you” ones; the “dear love, I want you to be happy, but happy with me” ones. The “dear love, as much as I want to be stronger, to be better, to be the friend I would love to be, please let me lay this at my feet and walk away” ones.

These exquisite letters.

These love letters that we will never send.