I have been home for a few days now but have been too jet lagged to do anything. Then again it's currently 5:36 AM and I'm blogging. I'm having difficulties turning around. I figured it would be harder at home because my family is just like 'Take your time' while in Auroville it was 'Let's go guys' after four hours of sleep.
Where to start. I'll recap Saturday on....
We, being Crystal, the guys, her friend from school Andrew, and myself, were all going to play ultimate yet no one really showed up. So we decided to make samosas instead. A samosa is a deep fried triangular pocket filled with cooked potatoes, carrots, peas, onions, herbs, and spices. Tasty little buggers. It took quite some time to make them but they were defiantly worth it. I helped chop the veggies and roll out the dough to make the pocket. The last day I think I alone gain 10 pounds because my meals were as followed: chocolate, coconut and banana croissants for breakfast, then samosas for lunch along with chocolate and I skipped dinner because I was still full from all the fried food.
I took one last walk around the field out behind the guest house with Nandhu. We talked about what it was going to be like for me to come home. Then at around 7:15 PM it was time to load up the bus. I didn't become an emotional wreck until I came to Crystal, who was my roommate at CGH. I completely broke down -- not 100% why other than the fact that the end had finally come. I teared up when I hugged the guys as well. A chapter of my life had just closed....without me really wanting it to.
From all the emotional and physical stress/exhaustion I slept most of the bus ride to Chennai. Once on the plane to Frankfort, Laura and I were able to sit next to each other. We both crashed though. By the time I was in Frankfort I was somewhat rested and we had beers for Nealy's 21st birthday. My plane was before many of the other peoples so I did another round of good-byes, this time without the water works. The Chicago flight was uncomfortable. I wanted to sleep but couldn't find a position that worked. When I landed in Chicago I actually had no idea we had touched down other than the fact I felt the wheels hit. When I looked out the window all I saw was snow, wind, and very little visibility. It actually looked like Antarctica.
Chicago was a MAD HOUSE. Flights being cancelled left and right, including mine to Louisville. I had a small break down because I just wanted to get home. It looked as though I would be spending the next in the airport when I found a flight to Lexington. I made sure there were seats, called my dad to see if he would pick me up, and I finally was on my last plane at 7:30 PM. We got stuck on the runway for quite some time but I was in and out of sleep so I really didn't notice. I finally touched down around 10 PM and was in my house a little after 11 PM. I was happy to see everyone but all I really wanted was my bed. Jordan and I went to sleep and I didn't get up until noon the next day. I feel back asleep at 3 until 5, when Jordan left. I still haven't been sleeping very well but I am slowly making the switch.
I have been an emotional train wreck since I have arrived home. I’m basically crying at the drop of a hat. I'm not really sure why -- I assume it's all the emotions and stress that come with coming home. I have a lot to deal with on my plate, more than I think is fair. I know I am strong enough to deal with them it's just actually facing those daemons. I'm scared, upset, and worried about facing them but I can't put them off. I wish I had Laura to talk to yet she is up in Mass. I know I can do it on my own but I have a hard time believing it at times. Christmas is tomorrow yet I feel little of the cheer. I just wonder how long it's going to take me to get into some sort of 'normal' state. I know I have changed a lot and I don't know how to express this to others. I'm confused too because I know I have changed yet I feel like I have to turn back into what I use to be. That is impossible though. I'm just as lost as I was in my last blog, just now I am home not half way around the world.
I suppose I need to admit something. As Saturday draws closer and closer I am becoming more and more nervous. I'm not sure I'm ready to leave. I know a few posts ago I was ready but I'm not so sure anymore. In the last few days I have being spending more time out in actual India and I love it. Not saying that I would want to live here, way to hot for me, but I am almost 100% sure I'll come back. Now I won't be coming back for Auroville...just the relationship I have developed with India. I really can't believe this is how I am feeling now. Myabe I am trying to escape my responsibilities that are waiting for me at home. I don't know but there is a strong desire to stay here longer. I am worried that I'm going to become unhappy once I'm home because I'll be 'homesick' for India. At night I think about what it's going to be like at home and shutter. True I don't really know but I have a pretty good idea and I'm not sure I like what I'm seeing.
I'm an adult however and cannot run away from my responsibilities....or life itself. Or can I? This question has been floating around in my head the past few days. I know it's wrong but I can't help but wonder. Now that I have had a taste of travel I am hungry for more. It's almost as though I feel like I'm slowly being crushed by a boa when I think about actually having to deal with real life again. I just want to be free....which is too much to ask it seems. During my community stay I was able to get out everyday and not worry about anything. I didn't have to be at a meeting or worry about dealing with female drama, I just got to live in India. Now back at CGH I'm tied again, on the plane I'm tied, and home I'll be strapped down as if I have a straight jacket on. I know all this imagery is harsh.....but I know it's true. I have been having a hard time acknowledging these facts to myself, but after talking to some people and admitting it out loud I know it's fact. Argh! I'm a month shy of 23 and currently life is very difficult and I don't see it getting any easier anytime soon.
I'm somewhat confused as to the feelings that I'm having. Are they normal for my age? Am I just going crazy? Whom do I talk to about these things? I know I won't always have answers and I love the unknown but some of these feelings I want to be explained. Life is a true challenge and I don't think I learned that until now. What sacrifices do I have to make? What will I gain from doing this or that? At some point I have to stop making lists, stop looking at all the options, just stop....and do. But what to do? These are my struggles and I am constantly feeling their burden. I want to be free of them, soar on the wind with the birds, but I am grounded, unable to make decisions. I don't think I can say much more, all that is left is more of the same....no need to keep beating the dead horse. I upset I have these feelings, but I have them for a reason right? With that I go.....still walking in the darkness, no light to drift toward.
I really don't have anything new to post but I need a distraction from my paper for awhile. I have been up since five, it's now 10:45. It's break time. We move back into College Guest House tomorrow so I will finally be able to escape from here. I feel really bad about not enjoying my time here but I just haven't been comfortable, or feel very welcome. Don't get me wrong the people are nice, but they don't always seem pleased that we have entered their space. Yep....I'll be happy to leave tomorrow.
There is huge drama once again in the community ever though we are not together. Information that individuals wanted to keep secret has been passed along and has now gotten to our mentors. Hopefully nothing bad will actually happen but with the track record we have....I am a bit worried. While I am looking forward to going back to CGH I don't want to be part of the community anymore. In the past 2 days I have lost all trust in talking to any of the girls. (I am one of the people who have information that didn't need to spread around.) I know gossip happens, and epically with 12 girls....I know that. But I thought the people I talked to were not like that. I have been in close contact with them over the past 4 months that I thought I knew them....I suppose I was wrong. So I am currently very careful with my words, who is around when I talk, and anything I don't know certain people to know I don't say. I am really upset that I am doing this but I don't see another way. This next week is going to be packed with closing semester events but I still have to live with them again. I believe it's going to be difficult to dive and weave my conversations.....I have a feeling I'll just not be speaking much to anyone over the next week. Which is really sad since this is the last little bit of time I have with these people, or at least the ones I enjoy.
I don't really have anything like I said....just killing time. It is raining once again. It has been nice for the past few days but for some reason today it's cloudy. I am suppose to help Nanda and Raja take pictures of their work in order to make a portfolio. They have been doing tin, aluminum, copper, and steel roof construction. Now they are looking to work elsewhere because their current boss doesn't pay them enough. It's rather upsetting how little the local people are paid....completly taken advantage of. They are actually hoping to come to the States and do roofing work for some time that's why I'm trying to help them create this portfolio. I've seen some pictures and they do a good job. Most of the roofs look a lot like my grandparents cabin's roof. I hope they are able to make it to the States but it costs a lot for them to get there, not to mention living expences once they are there. We will see though.
I'll leave now.....and try to be more productive on my paper.
The day when we leave keeps drawing closer and closer, I still don't think I have realized that I've been in India for the past three months. With the semester drawing to a close we are slowly wrapping things up in the academic department. I have one final paper due soon, the draft is due tomorrow. I'll admit I haven't started yet, I don't even have a topic. Here is why...even though I suppose excuses shouldn't be a vaild reason.
My main reason for coming on this program was for the solo. The solo was finished probably over two weeks ago...I am slowly losing track of time other than the fact I leave soon. Everything had been leading up to the solo and now that it's done I am too. I am completely over doing anything academic or any person reflection. I think if I have to self reflect one more time I will explode. I have been looking at myself for so long, since May of this year, that my last two weeks here I don't want to be productive. I want to be free and explore everything I haven't gotten to experience yet. I deserve a break. I'm in India and yet know so little about it because of the giant bubble called Auroville which I live in. It makes to so upset that I cannot eat Indian food. I'M IN INDIA AND I'M NOT EATING THEIR FOOD!!??? I am so frustrated with the western individuals I am forced to be with everyday. My community stay is a prison. I feel so trapped, my wings have been clipped so I cannot soar.
I am escaping every night back to College Guest House, where I lived the first two in a half months, to talk and play games with the night watchmen. They are my only connection to India in this messed up place. I love spending time with them and will miss them a lot once I return home. Some of the girls in my group cannot understand why I am always there, I cannot understand why they want to lay here all day? I have done my duty to the program and to the academics -- I want a break now.
I will say that by being in community stay I have had the most freedom. I am able to do whatever I want whenever I want -- this does not mean that I do but I have the ability. The ball and chain that has been shacked on my ankle since I have been here has been released. Do I know how to walk without it? I am slowly testing the waters and coming into my own again. But next Sunday I become shacked again this time only for a week, then I'm free once I'm on the plane home. What are my chains at home? I haven't thought about that yet. I am free of school now, until I decide I want to attend grad school. I have many monetary obligations, non of which I want to think about. Did I put the chains there myself....or were they forced on me? Are there invisible ones I don't know about? How can I break them? Do I want to break them?
Rain falling, clouds pouring into the already damp earth Nature creating it's own music that slowly rocks me to sleep Water purifies, water is a mirror Mirrors that bend and ripple what time is it? what reality is it? Setting listening I understand so little the music falls on deaf ears... when will I hear again?
Everyone seems to be hearing more information about what is happening in India than I am. After the attacks on Mumbai I understand everyone's concern. I too am actually starting to wonder what is happening and what I should be doing. Auroville is such a bubble that little information from the outside world ever enters. Currently we, as a group, are in different communities around Auroville. I am in one that has four other girls from my group and one guy and one girl from the other cohort. The seven of us pass along whatever information we do know, but it's so little and usually we never hear anything. We also hardly see any of the faculty during these two in a half weeks while in the communities. The news usually cme from them but now it's not that we don't have contact we just don't see them.
I assume that Auroville is pretty safe because we are pretty far south and the largest city is Pondi that's twenty minutes away. I don't really know how safe Pondi is, it hasn't been on any of the US Government e mails I've been getting...so I guess it's fine. Then on the flip side it seems like the terrorists are attacking 'Westerners'. This place was established by a French woman and the majority of the people here are foriegn. I'm sort of just at a loss of what to think....or do. I have no clue what the Living Routes office back in the States is thinking. I guess they are watching what is happening and will make the choice to pull us out if it really does get bad.
The lastest e mail I recieved from the government had the usual warnings of be safe while traveling but it also said attacks might happed December 4th-6th. My flight is a few weeks off so perhaps it will be better by then, but who really knows right? I have been running around with some of the local Tamil guys and one of them thinks civil war is knocking pretty hard on their door. I think he's right. But again we really don't know what is going to happen so I shouldn't worry about it. I suppose I'm just ready to go home and getting antsy.
As far as the rest of life is concerned I'm doing ok. I don't want to try and cram in all that we have done in the past month into one blog so I'll do it slowly over the next few weeks. At the moment I feel very trapped. I am in this community, that I picked, but I feel that I made the wrong choice. I had first chosen this place because it's quite and I could self refect on what I have done so far this semester. But I have done so much self reflection that now I need fun. I need to excape all this New Age, let's constaly look at ourselfs attitude and run free. I live in a small room that looks a lot like a nun cell in a monastary. That room doesn't help because I end up feeling like a caged bird. I have been getting out more over the oast two days but it still isn't enough. I think it's the place itself that is bring me down. It is a beautiful place...but it's not what I need right now.
I also think a part of it has to do with the fact that I feel as though I'm 'done' even though I still have two weeks of the program left. My main reason for coming was for the solo, which is now done. I am also doing nothing in my community so I end up just sitting around thinking about home, usually. So I am ready to go home yet amd stuck here. I know I shouldn't think so negativily about it but that's how I feel right now.
As far as the solo is concerned I went into it without any intensions. I wanted to see what would come up on its own. We had the choice of doing with 40 hours or 60, I chose the 60. I had a conversation with my boyfriend the first night out loud to myself which allowed me to settle a lot of issue I was having. The next full day I didn't do much because it was so hot on the rocks. I meditated for the morning and then from 11 until 4 I laid in my cave to stay out of the sun. When I came out to watch the sunset I started to question why I was doing 60 hours when I knew all well and good that 40 was enough. Over the summer I came to terms with many of the deamons I had. For the solo, and the past 3 months, those things I learned have been challenged. I didn't need another day to understand that. I then started to cry because I realized the reason I was staying and was amashmed of it.
I have a very competitive nature and I have started to identify myself to that, probably not the best thing. Being competitive can be a good thing but at times it can be damaging. I figured out the only reason I was doing 60 was so that I could 'be a bad ass.' I felt so bad because I knew other people actually needed that time in order to find themselves. I was taking that away from them without their knowledge. I then decided not to do the 60 hours and to come down after 40. I also made a pact with myself to try and not be as competitive....or at least in certain situations understand that I'm doing it and step back. I think I'm doing ok so far. This is something that I am never going to get rid of though. I guess it's not who I actually am but it is so much a part of me....it's what drives me at times and I love it. It might be a bad addiction but I see it as part of my being....something I've always had and I wouldn't be me without it.
It actually was good that I came down the next day because that night I got an awful headache from not eating. If I had been able to walk I would have gone down. I actually tried at one point but only made it about 20 feet from my cave before I collapsed. I laid there a while then dragged myself back to my cave. I took my migraine medication but I think it might have made it worse. I didn't sleep that night, I just kept clawing out of my cave looking for the sun to rise. It was a meaningful experience that I would like to do again some day, perhaps at another turning point in my life. I also believe that everyone should try it. You really learn a lot about what you can do and who you are....and it stays with you forever.
I'll close with a little bad news. It seems like another cyclone is heading this way. I don't know how large it is compared to the other one but the first one lasted nearly a week. I must say I like being dry and not having all my clothes mold. I'm going to have to leave about half my clothes here because they are covered in mold. But that's India. We have made the joke that India teaches you how to survive.....that is 100% true.
The past weeks has been the craziest time every. I don't have a lot of time to go into detail but lets just say a cyclone hit Auroville a few days before we came back from Hampi and stayed. It set up camp and high winds and heavy rains poured down on Auroville...and College Guest House in particular. I think we were actually hit the hardest. Out of all the trees on the property I would say a third to half of them fell down. I loved the energy that it created. I loved seeing the trees fall and while I know it's sad to witness something that powerful is amazing. The storm last nearly a week yet we only have 3 days of it. We were forced out of College Guest House because of the dangerous conditions. Community stays started last Friday yet I am not really settling into mine well.
I though I would need down time to look over the work I had done so I picked the most quite of all the stays. Yet it has been the opposite. I had a lot of time to myself while traveling and now and ready to go out and have fun in my last two weeks. I think the storm also brought out a lot of this energy. But I have been really restless in my community.
On the flip side, the traveling was amazing. We got to experience they craziness of Bangalore and even went into the shopping mall, whoo buddy was that weird. Hampi was gorgeous. That's the only word I have for it. I watched the stars at night and the sun rise and set. But the most wonderful sunset so far was at Fireflies, which is a non-secular ashram outside of Bangalore. I didn't have my camera with me that night but all colors of the rainbow appeared in the sky. I doubt that I will ever see another one that beautiful.
I am sorry it has taken so long to blog but with such limited connections, us traveling, and then the cyclone which knocked out power for awhile...it has been difficult to find working e mail. I'm going to try and keep things more up-to-date over the last two in a half weeks, yes only two in a half weeks. That's so crazy...time has really flown by.
I'll admit I'm ready to head home. I don't want to say that I'm homesick...I just feel like I have done everything I came here to do and I'm just ready to head home. I think most of us actually feel the same and are ready to hop on that plane. The closer it gets the more ready we are. I'll sign off for now leaving a picture of one of my sunsets. I will later try to post images of the fallen trees in College Guest House.
Tomorrow morning we set off on our 3 week long tour of India. During this time will will be staying a four different places but the final place is where our forty hour solo is. I have been exited about this solo from the moment I read about the program sometime last fall. I am not sure what to expect but the unexpected. I am going to be open to whatever wants to talk to me, use me, guide me, open me. I am a sponge, fill me with knowledge. I cannot become frustrated if nothing happens, stay calm and when something is ready it will come. I am tingling with excitement that can hardly be contained.
The day has come.... The time has come.... .....I am ready.
