Seventeen paces from the edge of the church is a grave. The stone is marble, and the words read, “The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away.”

Seventeen paces from the edge of the church, my heart gives way.

Eleven years ago, a child was buried here. The priest stood at the edge of her grave and sprinkled sand on it.

Eleven years ago, I buried my soul in a dusty town in southern India.

The people stand by, their beady eyes watching closely. I want to scream. I want to tell them that this isn’t a movie. That this is life.

The women stand on one side, their sarees lifting in the light breeze that drifts through the open church. There is a sound of a hammer knocking on wood. It is distant and perhaps I’m the only one to hear it.

We walk in single file. My hands are sweaty and clammy.

I want to cry.  It's all I can think of in the moment. My sister is dead. And the crowd is watching; we're on display.

I don't cry at my sister's funeral and for the life of me will never be able to let that thought go.

so happy right now... that i had forgotten until this moment that im turning 21 in ten minutes. and that is what great friends and family will do.

Dinde, an Indian Turkey

Tomorrow: family and friends are coming in for Thanksgiving Dinner at our home.

My mom and I are making cheese scones, pumpkin bread, and a pomegranate-apple-walnut salad among all the other staples.

Denise - my best friend since I was four - and Sam, my brother's friend, drove all the way from Massachusetts. It's been so nice having them here.

Lately, I've been feeling like things are falling into place - like things will get better. Life has been good these past days and I feel calm.

I'll be 21 this Saturday - we;ll see how things go from there.

today is a new day.

watching parks and recreation while drinking a cold glass of 1% organic milk. life doesn't get better than this :)

today was not the best day.

the little things that frustrate me

have the greatest pull on my feelings

the smallest victories elate me

and the tiniest of defeats drag me so deep,

that i feel water filling my lungs,

i feel the waves dragging me to the deep.

if i were to tell you of the latest defeat that has left me feeling shattered,

you would laugh,

because even i can tell that it is so insignificant.

and yet, i have no control over how i feel.

and that is a terrible way to live. 

progression

it is truly a sad day when football takes precedence over rape.

i've been inspired by lizzie to start knitting again ~ i think it has been seven years. i'd like to make something simple for now.

i'm in the process of decorating the house for christmas.

i feel a strange mix of certainty and uncertainty. like i know my future is set and also that i don't know in which way.

i'm reading the girl with the dragon tattoo. i am in desperate need of sleep.

what i ate:

papaya

grapes

rice, dal, and french green beans

lemon water

what i did:

skating lesson at 10:00

derm appointment at 12:00

sephora

cleaned my room and bathroom

went shopping - new royal blue coat and mustard cardigan - 

finished my essay - crossing my fingers on that one

what i'm looking forward to:

this upcoming week

thanksgiving - family and friends -

hot cocoa - now -

going to the movies more often - alone, preferably -

In less than a month I'll be twenty one. I always thought that by twenty one I'd have my life under control. Someone once said how much they hated birthdays because after a certain age, each passing year was just a reminder of how little they had accomplished. I laughed at that idea. After all, I felt accomplished then, I felt that my life was in order. But, not so much anymore.

Perhaps though, I am not the failure I think I am. The failure that society has deemed me as. I am on a journey. I am feeling out the road. It is dark and someone has pulled the signs out. So it'll take a little longer. Maybe I shouldn't have to feel guilty about this year off. Maybe I should just breathe. Let it pass. But account for it. Maybe I should be whatever it is that I am capable of right now. And sometimes more, sometimes less. But, I need to stay happy. Because in the end it won't matter what they've said. All that will matter is what I think of the person I once was.

constantly the eyes of God watched over me

My first ice skating class was not the disaster I thought it would be. Starting something new is always intimidating, but now that I've put myself out there, it's not all that bad.

I bought a Norfolk Island pine, it's quite small. It's been pre-decorated but I will be adding to it. Also, I put up my Christmas lights and I love them dearly.

I've been drinking fresh lime water in my blue nalgene. I try to drink at least a liter and a half every day. 

I am currently watching the United States of Leland. 

I wish I could explain what I'm feeling. I can't quite put it in words. Perhaps, tomorrow when I have my Christmas lights in my room and I've accomplished something for the day, I'll better be able to write. Right now, I'm watching Half Nelson. I went to the movies today. I sat in a near empty theater and watched 50/50.

but i can't move the mountains for you

I signed up for a skating class for the next eight Saturdays.
I am going to learn photography.
I continue to teach myself Hindi and French.
I will be an ice hockey player by the end of 2012.

I will flourish.

the twenty fifth.

This morning, I made myself buttered toast and warm cocoa. I sat at a clean counter and read a National Geographic article on Mongolia. I went to mon cours d'histoire and learnt about Watergate and the end of the Vietnam War. I am determined, by the end of this year, to be somewhat fluent in French. 

Also, I went to the movies today  - something I haven't done in months - and saw the Ides of March and the previews for J. Edgar and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. I desperately want a nose ring and feel I am not complete without one. 

Someone once told me that I wouldn't make it as a journalist. I am determined to prove them wrong. 

an update

Today, I made a friend. I nibbled on a berry coffee cake, with the sun shining outside and laid out everything I've been battling for the past year, to a stranger. But nothing has felt more right.

Today, I type at my wooden table, which I love dearly; I'm listening to 'after the storm' by mumford and sons. I am sad on the inside but somehow feeling something is better than living numbly. Somehow I feel like I will get past this.

I have a pile of National Geographic magazines (1970s -1990s) on my table. I have 'the road to dallas' on my nightstand. I have a Tintin painting that needs attending to. I will find myself.

i want to say, ‘my love, keep your chin up’ because she doesn’t yet know that the waves will crash on her bare back, that they’ll drag her to the depths, that her lungs will fill with water, that she’ll be swallowed up by the ocean. 

i want to say ‘little child, you are loved more than you know, if not by people, then by spirits of the earth, by the wind, the trees.’ i want to tell her to preserve her worth, to treasure herself because she is the sun, she is everything.

i want her to know that the ocean will spit her out but perhaps not until its stripped her of all but shreds of her soul. but i need her to know that she will recover; that she will regain herself; that the light in the tunnel is not a train, barreling toward her to crush what remains, but rather the faint rays of a sun that is awaiting her arrival. 

i want to say ‘my child, wrap your arms around yourself, keep close to who you were; it will all pass’

i want to wrap my arms around her. tell her i love her. remind her that she has a future. she has not been forgotten. 

i am ‘her’. i have recovered. not been forgotten. i have a future.

I never understood why they couldn't see the way I did. I dreamed of living in a tiny rented room in the Himalaya, even if it came with a leaking ceiling and a broken cot. Redemption, I believed, would be in a view of snow-covered mountain peaks, in the steaming hot cup of chai every morning, in the vibrancy of colors and people; redemption would be in the life that resounded throughout this place.
I had never been there but my imagination knew no bounds.
I wanted to be a tortured writer, I wanted to write desperately, I wanted my mind to run free, unbounded. Desperation, I knew, would produce works greater that I deemed possible from myself.

                                ..............................................................................................

I'm sitting at a table. The wind is ferocious and it rattles the windows and the paper thin walls. I wrap my shawl tighter around my shoulders and put on a second pair of socks. The candle light serves better purpose casting eerie shadows in the tiny room than providing light. Nevertheless it will suffice. I let my mind wander, slip a pen into my hand and watch as words and stories are brought to life. I write and smudge words and cross out others but by the end of it, I am satisfied.
I blow out the candle and climb into bed. The mattress is thin and the frame is sagging in the middle but it will do.
It has been a long day and I fall asleep under the cover of three blankets. Tomorrow is a new day and there is a bazaar to be visited and a road to be run.

and so, i'll return in the fall.
my dreams were only dreams.
i'm terribly frightened for what awaits.
but i'm not sure i've any other choice.

"It should not be denied... that being footloose has always exhilarated us. It is associated in our minds with escape from history and oppression and law and irksome obligations, with absolute freedom, and the road has always led West." 
— Wallace Stegner

alaska, 2010

Stampede Trail where Jim Gallien dropped off McCandless

Cassin, Sultana, Tuya - beautiful names for beautiful dogs

i feel, oddly enough, happy. as though this is happiness i do not deserve. as though it will be snatched from my hands. but im happy, and it is all that matters for now.

and an update:

For the past two weeks I've been working in the inner city with African American kids. The surroundings are miserable, broken down, and often, heartbreaking, but the kids show such resilience; I have yet to hear one of them complain. I love each and every one of them and I want everything for them.
I am smitten with wanderlust, I am impatient, and consequently I loathe commitment. But the places I've been and the organizations I've worked with have always left a mark and I dream of the day I'll return. So it is with this program. I could never stay committed to working here for more than a year and yet I know years from now, the indelible imprint that it will have left, will leave me yearning for a chance to return.

I've been reading lately. I am now reading Anna Karenina.

and finally, i think i mentioned earlier, how in a moment of discomfort and irritation, i chopped off my hair without precision or care - and it looks choppy and awful. its short and id take back that awfully impetuous decision any day. what to do?

i cannot tell you what it feels to sleep in ones own bed. to eat homemade food. to watch tintin and to read books that have nothing whatsoever to do with the human body.
to feel what the living feel.

for it has been five months. and i am now living again.

i am almost certain i know what i want but i believe in fate - that certain things, no matter how hard we try to manipulate them, occur in their own set way, that they proceed according to their own plan. so i have my plans of course, but i don't know if they will come to fruition.

i guess what i'm saying is that i'm taking each day as it comes and making plans only so far into the future because what i want and what i get are not always the same.

I'm going home tomorrow morning. Here's to the best summer, for you and for me.

i read this somewhere and i feel the need to share it, especially in light of recent events and the direction i plan on taking my life:

The first step towards getting somewhere is to decide that you are not going to stay where you are. 

– John Pierpont Morgan

do you believe in miracles?

Even when you've given up on yourself, when you've no hope for the future, God does not give up on you.

There's a verse from Jeremiah that says:

"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."

and isn't that so.

theres a thunderstorm brewing outside.

and i drank a liter and a half of water in less than an hour.

but its yet far from where i need to be.
and it looks awful.

and i took a pair of scissors and chopped my hair off.

i dream of a distant time. distant from here. distant from now. into the distance.
and i forget about myself. the person i am now. the person i wont be later. and i forget to take care of myself.
i remember a time when i cut my hair short, when i drank two liters of lemon water a day, when i read in abundance. when i ran for hours each day. practiced yoga on a wooden floor. when i was the best i could be.
i remember a time when i was happy because i was happy. and for no other reason. i remember being strong. a mighty soul. i remember a year of pure, unadulterated, sublime happiness.

and i'd like to return to that state, but not necessarily that time. i want to take care of myself. i want to be healthy again. i want to be the best that i can be. for no other reason than myself.

a clearer truth

the marginalized are often the most sane people. also, the ones that have the clearest idea of what life is.

impressive indeed

21st summit of everest

i wonder what will happen to me.
and it all depends on the next month and a half.

when you least expect it.

I spoke with my friend Rosa tonight.
I met her years ago, in 1998, in a small town in southern India.
We were practically the same person - physical resemblance aside, we shared the same dreams, ideals, and beliefs. There is no one else who knows as much about me and has been with me through my worst moments.
Our families spent as much time together as possible during those years I lived in India. If not for her family, liberal and open minded as they are, I am certain that I would have suffocated under the oppressive atmosphere that is so characteristic of India.
As kids who grew up with physicians as parents, our intertwined dream was to become pediatricians, to share a large home - dreams that only kids dream of. In the end, we went our separate paths - she to law school, I to medical - and our lives drifted outwards, in different directions and yet we lived our lives, unknowingly, in parallel.
Her grandfather died at the same time my grandpa did - their funerals were on the same day. Neither knew of the other's loss; we struggled with the same grief and change in ways we never thought we would and yet all the while, worlds apart.
I spoke with her tonight. I see how little has changed between us - our lives run in parallel, our dreams as well. When I tell her of my plan to quit and become a teacher, she is shocked. Only yesterday, she says, she has shared this idea with another friend. We have become disillusioned with the whole process of education and the paths that we've taken but ultimately, we both decide - as we already have - that quitting may be a mistake and we both agree that we will work for a few years, fill up our bank accounts and "branch out", see where life takes us. It's not that we're not ambitious; we are, just in a different sense. We see life as something different - not a cycle perhaps, but a line, with an end. No propagation, no perpetuation. To live, to make a difference, to forget rituals and set patterns.

I hope we will be reunited. I hope that we will soon pick up where we left off so many years ago. That we will share dreams and hopes and ideals. That we will dip our feet in a swirling river, eat chunks of white chocolate, tell tales of fairies and giants, make leafy hobbit-like homes, and be the best of friends that we've been, even in all these years apart.

when what you say you don't want is taken away from you by force and not by your own will, does that leave you as happy as you thought it would? or is the argument simply a matter of whether you have a control over your own destiny?

studying pathology while listening to the music of the shire

A life to be lived.

Whatever you choose to do, live with purpose.
Life cannot be about deadlines and schedules. Often, we judge our worth by wealth and power and status - societal ideologies which are noxious to the human spirit. Our worth is far more than the judgment men pass on us; it is determined by the level of happiness we create for ourselves - whatever our circumstances may be.
Undoubtedly, happiness varies from person to person and I am no judge of what constitutes happiness for each individual but often people define their life, void of happiness as it is, by society's expectations.
My idea of happiness?
Life in a dusty town out west, one of minimalism, discipline - moth moral and physical, a limitless supply of books, and one dedicated to the betterment of humanity.
Such is ideal.

In this difficult day, in this difficult time for the United States, it's perhaps well to ask what kind of a nation we are and what direction we want to move in.

I watched Ripple of Hope last night, a documentary on Bobby Kennedy's reaction to Dr. King's assassination. The speech he gives, to an impassioned and enraged crowd on the night of the assassination, sends them peacefully home. Kennedy, for the first time in five years, brings up Jack's assassination and speaks of the loss he too has experienced at the hands of a white man. His point in doing so is to elucidate the matter at hand: that hatred and prejudice are indiscriminately present in all societies, that one act of bloodshed is not made right by retaliation. Retaliation, as made evident throughout history, serves only to propagate the "mindless menace of violence." Kennedy's speech erased the lines between color that night and prompted the country to move toward forgiveness and compassion toward men regardless of the color of their skin.

a new life.

my days now consist of:
uninterrupted sleep.
thunderstorms.
studying at a well lit table.
peanut butter sandwiches.
frozen juice bars.
golden eyeshadow.
family and warmth.
anna karenina.
activist literature.
hope.

i have not looked back.

I've stumbledupon my dream home.

I signed up for StumbleUpon last night and spent almost two hours perusing through websites I normally would not have found... Perhaps my favorite is this one:
Hobbit Home
This is the home I'd like to live in. It is environmentally friendly, low impact, and extremely affordable. This entire home was built for 3000 pounds over a period of 3-4 months. Imagine living without a mortgage and being completely self-reliant. Everyone has a dream home. This is mine.

if it means i have to live in a homeless shelter, eat peanut butter sandwiches for every meal, drink from water fountains, then i will. anything is better than the alternative.

a good day.

lemon and water.
sushi and miso.
pens and paper.
accomplishment.
and now,
monster bug wars.
it's been good.

I received my acceptance packet from yellowstone today for the months of September and October. I'm not sure I'll accept as I'd much rather work in the summer of 2012.
I still haven't the courage to tell my parents of what I intend/hope to do this coming year. I am actively researching the possibilities and I've found exactly what I'd like to fill my time. I feel my insides knotting up when I even think of bringing it up.
I'm not sure what I want for myself. What I want for my future. My nature is one rooted in wanderlust, in simplicity, in opposing conventionalism. And I think that a year off would help me unearth my soul, which as of late has been buried under a myriad of expectations, of worries, of dreams that are not my own. A year off would help me become acquainted with the person I know I am, the person that I am becoming.
This is something I desperately need. I'm not sure my parents will agree.

i want a yellowstone summer. a sunburnt face. i want the summer to stretch out in front of me. full of possibilities. to dip my bare feet in cool, shallow rivers. to breathe the fresh air. to live. and to be free.

i am going home tomorrow.

on another note.

if i ever get a tattoo, itll be of an acacia tree. on my back - upper right. perhaps the exact image would be the picture on my pickwick honey rooibos tea packet or the still from the lion king.
why? because trees symbolize change, steadfastness, loss, recovery, growth and the acacia is a beautiful tree.

i forgot to mention, im dying to do the mont blanc circuit trek. dying.

boombox man is alive. hurrah.
do you believe in miracles?!