If Only I Knew For Sure

(begun sometime around Nov. 10^th in the friendly skies)

Twenty-five hours of flying and a layover provides a lot of time and opportunity to let the mind wander and wonder.  One would think that I’d have spent this time going over in my head all that I hope to do in the next eight months.  Yet I found myself thinking, instead, of what I left Oregon for a year ago right about now, how I was excited about breaking away from the life I’d established for myself there since 1974.  I looked forward to life in ‘Paradise,’ one that was completely different than anything I’d ever experienced before.  I was not disappointed.  And while I learned so much and felt so comfortable there, I knew that it was not a life I was ready for—I needed to do more than what I was doing.  I was not ready to ‘retire’ just yet.  Goodbye Costa Rica’s southern zone.  Hello wanderlust! 

It was hard to say goodbye to this view...I see this every day.  I shut my eyes and there it is...as beautiful in my mind as it was every morning, afternoon and evening...

Kayaking and camping on Golfo Dulce, up to Saladero, with the dolphins and the turtles and the rays

It’s been four months since I left what I consider a tropical paradise and a life that I found sometimes challenging and always interesting.  Over these past months, I found it a bit of a difficult transition back to my ‘old’ life in Corvallis.  I was ‘home,’ but it didn't feel like home anymore.  It was comfortable in that familiar way: kids, friends, downtown, music, things to do, places to go, people to see….and, still, I knew that it was time to continue my journey once again.

Road trip through Oregon, Idaho (Redfish Lake) and Montana (summer 2014)

So here I am, somewhere above Russia or Ukraine heading to New Delhi, with a half-smile on my face and a craving, in my mind and on my palate, for a green salad with goat cheese, hazelnuts and Oregon marionberries.  If only I could know for sure what it is I’m supposed to be doing at this time of my life…until then, I’m on the road to find out.  

But wait...there’s this poem, as if its author was speaking to me, directly to me, for me, in my own voice:

Prescription for the Disillusioned (Rebecca del Rio)

Come new to this day.

Remove the rigid overcoat of experience,

The notion of knowing,

The beliefs that cloud your vision.

Leave behind the stories of your life.

Spit out the sour taste of unmet expectations.

Let the old,

Almost forgotten scent of what-if

Drift back into the swamp

Of your useless fears.

Arrive curious,

Without the armor of certainty,

Without the planned results for the life

You’ve imagined.

Live the life that chooses you,

New with every breath,

New with every blink of

Your astonished eyes.

Saying goodbye for a while to Jasmine, Samara, Cindy and Lonnie

Bikeriding in Portland with Jake, Dassi and Dana

With Chandan, being goofy.  Missing one daughter from all these photos...

Leaning into the Embrace (written between Nov. 17-20)

For the wedding reception, I cautiously wore this sari...and it never came unwrapped!

Time is not of the essence right now, at least not for me.  Having arrived in India almost two weeks ago, days and nights have blurred together and whatever I left at home that had to be done doesn't matter, although probably it should.  I think I took care of everything, at least according to my ‘to do’ list, which I carried with me to India in my backpack.  But then there are a few emails I saw in my inbox that possibly mean I missed a few things.  I tell myself nothing matters right now, other than just getting up and being present.  Maybe that’s not the best way to be. 

As I type this, I’m sitting up in bed, trying to fight off some type of crud I picked up here.  I, who likes to boast that I rarely get sick, am coughing constantly and feeling miserable.  For the first day, I thought it was from the polluted air I’d been breathing since arriving.  But over the last two days, when I started feeling really awful, I realized that whatever it is, I’m definitely not operating at my usual energy level and maybe it’s time to just sit back and fall into this illness instead of fighting it.  Let it embrace me and run its course through me and make me stronger.  If I can get through and over this now, I’ll be so much better for the next 7 ½ months.  At least that’s what I want to believe.

And so it went…I typed those first two paragraphs a few days ago and had no energy to finish it.  But now I’m on a flight from New Delhi to Chennai, a 2 ½ hour ride above haze and dust and stuff, that stuff that filled up my lungs and made my eyes almost burn.  I look out the window and see, to the west, blue sky for the first time since leaving Oregon almost two weeks back.  I see a sky on fire with pink and orange and red and yellow, blue and grey, and a kind of almost purple shade way out at the horizon, as the sun sets and prepares me for more dust and haze and stuff that will welcome me to South India. 

I’m already starting to feel better, knowing that I’ll be in a sort-of comfort zone, a place that feels like a sort-of ‘home away from home,’ having been there so many times and knowing people and places and a way to be.  Sort of…I’m sort of easily unsure and sure about everything, from what I’m doing now to what I will be doing next week and next month and next summer. 

What I really must concentrate on, though, is describing this journey thus far, documenting it with photos and notes and thoughts.  That should be my ‘task’ over the next few days.  To start from the beginning, after landing in New Delhi on the night of November 10^th, up until whenever I finish writing this.  What a gift that will be to myself, giving me a chance to reflect on where I just was and what I was thinking and feeling; that in itself should help me figure out where I’m really wanting to be going in the next chapter of my life.  If only I could be sure….

Part of the Sikh wedding I  attended in very northern India (on the Pakistan border) included a parade of sorts with mostly women from the groom's family singing and dancing on our way to fill the water vessel with holy water from the guduwara so that the next morning, before the ceremony, the groom would wash with it.  

Natick (hometown) Oct. 2014