The World We Love

Some mornings words spill from my fingertips and tongue without hesitation, without reservation. They are called forth from clarity, further accentuate the crisp colours that define the walls of my village life. Other afternoons they lurch, unsettled, because just like my spirit they feel uncomfortable, unsure.

This is one of those afternoons.

I see myself now through the mirrors of others. I see my transformation through their pauses, their reactions, their perspectives. Living here has made some of my limbs larger. They've refitted out of necessity. And these awkwardly sized limbs seem to grow larger still through their eyes.

I wonder what Kristen I would have been, had I not been here. I wonder what pieces I would lack had I not adorned my mind with the gold and muir of this world. I wonder who I would have loved, how I would have grown, what I would have indulged in, where I might lie. I wonder what life I might lead, did I not lead this one.

I wake and sleep and breathe in a world where life IS. Life is determined. You find joy in what you are given, what you have, instead of seeking, seeking, seeking more. Instead of choosing, choosing, choosing and then wondering in between. And, as a seeker, as a chooser, as a wonderer and a wanderer, it has been a difficult world for me. It is a world in which my limbs grow to awkward sizes, in awkward fashions. It is a world in which my limbs turn my strut to my limp.

And because of limps I walk differently, I pause, I see. My henna stained hands are bruised, calloused, worn in. But only because they have turned so many stones, braced against so many falls, touched so many textures.

Yet this world is one of many. One of many that combine to make mine. I do not belong here. While making chapatis on the fire to the acoustics of chirping parrots is a beautiful belonging, an experience that very few encounter and I have had for six and a half months, it was not one into which I was born. And it is not one I will keep. I will take burnt fingers along with me and I will return "home" to build a new home, to find a new path, to make a new choose. I will keep moving, keep seeking. I will not remain squatting in front of flaming logs, flipping flour as the bread turns from white to gold.

The most terrifying moment of my life was when I realized that my parents were human, that they were flawed, that they too stumbled. That they didn't have a life plan that extended from now until the end of their days. That they too, were seeking. The second most terrifying moment was when I realized that there is no "moment." There is no defining choice, there is no blessed assurance, there is no right or wrong. We are, each one of us, people. And we are, each one of us, continually trying to build a world we love. Both now and then I will be but a human being, a wonderer, a wanderer, a dreamer. I will be but a chooser.

But, with henna worn off my palms, I will be a chooser that knows that it is not the choice but the waiting, the loving, the wanting and the fighting for the choice that give our hands and hearts rest.

Love, Actually.

At the beginning of "Under the Tuscan Sun," Diane Lane looks at her run-down house, into which she is about to throw her heart, and tells her neighbor all the dreams she has wrapped in its brick walls. Its yard will hold a wedding, its rooms a baby, its walls a family's laughter. And she means for her. It will be her wedding, her baby, her family.

And at the end of the film her friend turns to her and smiles, saying "I guess you got everything you wished for." She hasn't gotten married, or pregnant, or created a "family." She hasn't received or given love in the form she wanted to. But, looking at the wedding and baby and family before her, it dawns that she did, indeed, receive all that she wished for.

Life continues to surpass even my own expectations. All my wishes come true. All in ways I never wished them.

There were no red roses on Valentine's Day. No romance. No Halmark cards with sweet nothings mass-produced. There was just love. Love in plenty.

My time in India may very well be cut short. Ineffective medicines and deteriorating health may yank me (body and soul) from S.'s warmth. June's homecoming may very well become March's return.

Yes, life is what we make of it. We are not helpless bystanders in the whirlwind of our years. But sometimes life happens to us. Sometimes life happens to us, and then life goes.

As an adolescent I pictured my 22-year-old self as living in a posh apartment, sipping on cocktails in skin-tight black dresses, coming home to a stable handsome romance. Instead of a posh apartment I dwell in a dusty plain home. Instead of sipping on cocktails I drink chai in jeans. And instead of a stable, ordinary, handsome romance I am involved in what can only be described as a "romance with living."

I moved to a rural Punjabi village and found love in every way shape and form I never imagined it. I moved to a rural Punjabi village and, I suppose, got everything I wished for.

And sometimes we cannot hold our wishes forever.

Sometimes life happens to us, and then life goes on.

Happiness Is Fleeting

I woke at dawn this morning to a wet sky, stood at the S. 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.