Awakening (again)

Up until now I've kept this blog pretty light. I've written about my day to day encounters with locals, red and grey faced monkeys, my avoidance of rickshaws and motorbikes, weaving my way through the throng of pilgrims across bridges and trying not to be horned by cows. It must all seem rather exciting on the surface. But in all honesty, I've been undergoing some kind of a happiness crisis. I've been feeling so alone, sometimes going for days without talking to anyone except for asking for "fruit salad curd and papaya lassi, no sugar please" and "thank you" after paying. I've been sitting on my balcony at night staring into the Ganga and wondering if I'm too old for this after all, and wondering why I travel alone when I have so many amazing friends back home and, in fact, in various pockets around the globe. And then I've been getting frustrated at myself for navel gazing, and feeling guilty for my self-reflection in a country where just living day to day is exhausting enough. Depression is such a Western luxury, and I've certainly suffered for the past few years. I thought that coming back to India would offer me some kind of release from this heavy blanket that descended after I took on my career, but if truth be told the same old blue feelings have been creeping in lately, despite my freedom to do absolutely anything I want; to take three yoga classes a day or to eat chocolate cake for dinner. I've been feeling a change in the way I travel, and what I want, and even missing the daily routine of work as well, which means I may end my travels sooner than I intended to, and go earn some cash; not because I'm broke but because I may simply need the familiarity of 9-5.

So today, I shared all of these epiphanies and more with a lovely Czech girl over breakfast (fruit salad curd and papaya smoothie this time)that I'll probably never see again - we chose not to swap emails or facebook names. I'd had a good yoga class this morning and was feeling particularly energetic as I elbowed my way through the bus loads of Rajasthani tourists fighting their own way across the Laxman Jhula bridge. As the wind blew I cursed the ridiculously frilly skirt I was wearing and tried not to have a Marilyn Monroe moment in the midst of the usual pairs of male eyes boring through me. But apart from that, I had a spring in my step and was off to eat my favourite breakfast at the Little Italy cafe.

I usually sit alone at my own table, not wanting to impose on anyone. I wonder if other travellers feel like I do when I see them sitting alone, or I wonder if they're content to be solitary. And don't get me wrong - sometimes I just want to sit and read my book or write in my journal, which is why I never want to impose on others who might be after the same. But sometimes I wonder why we travel, if we all go to our own little tables, our own separate universes and stick our noses in a book. Anyway, today was different. The restaurateur - a rather good looking Nepalese boy with a slicked back Elvis-esque fringe - was particularly welcoming, and gestured that I should sit down at the table where he was teaching this girl how to make Malai Kofta, so I sat and joined their theoretical cooking class.

We exchange the usual 'where are you froms' and 'how long have you been heres', before quickly, somehow, getting to the heart of the matter - India's heart and how much we both love it. Lately this heart has been changing for me however, either that or I've forgotten how to connect to it, so I express this and we talk, and talk, for over an hour about our lives, our natures, our own searches. How we've both been coming to India for years (me 4, her 6) seeking the peace we never found in our own countries OR in ourselves. Every so often I got distracted by the grey-faced monkeys swinging in the tree overhanging the roof top restaurant and exclaimed how one didn't have a tail!, or how cute one of the babies was. But we'd always come back to our stories - both of similar age and nature, and both travelling alone. How for me it had changed and I no longer wanted to be alone, I'd had enough of it. For over ten years now I've always been so intent on 'doing my own thing', and 'walking my own path' that I continued to insist on travelling alone or moving to a new town. It's made me who I am, for sure, but now I think that enough may well be enough - I think I'm old enough now to realise how much potential community is around me, and I want to one day settle back into one of those communities. But I'm digressing.

I hadn't realised how much I'd needed to have this conversation with someone. About choosing to be alone or not, and getting older (she 29, me 31) and our lives changing. How we couldn't expect to do the same things year after year, or for the same things to satisfy us. She reminded me of the deep spirituality in this land, which neither of us had found anywhere else. Lately I've been looking too much inside, or perhaps its all perfect, perhaps this stuff has needed to come out of me. Either way, I think 'god', whatever you call him / her / it answered my prayers today. I don't feel alone anymore, right now anyway, and am at peace with my tendency towards depression and I think I know how to combat it. I'll never completely heal it, because how can we completely change our natures? But I can learn to live with it and nurture it and one day even accept the gifts it brings - compassion, quietness, understanding.

So, today I am willing and able to speak about the things that really matter now, and how there's no shame in weakness. We all want to appear so strong all the time - but there's a beauty in letting go and letting our real face, however strong we deem it not to be, show through.

Phew! For the past ten minutes the keyboard's been a flurry of thoughts, and as usual I have a hell of a lot of editing to do. I'm the world's worst fast typer - mistakes fly left right and centre while my fingernails are doing a mad tribal dance over the keyboard. Many have joked about this in the past, but that's how my brain works - quickly!! So I'm going to lightly proofread this and then post, not succumbing to the need to edit, cut out the gushy bits, make more savvy and street wise - I've never been streetwise, I've always been a soft human. This is why I've struggled with teaching so much - there's a limit to how much I can harden myself to humanity's flaws.

It's another beautiful day. I'm going to walk the Beatles road, and properly visit the ashram I visit every year, as when I went the other day the sun was setting and I was too aware of the snakes in the grass or the strangers hiding out in the abandoned buildings to truly explore. But there's a certain peace I find on that road that I want to rediscover today, after such an awakening breakfast meeting. Life is good! and hard, and rough and beautiful. If we can only accept these things about it, rather than expecting it to be easy all the time maybe we can become better and brighter humans. This alone time has been good for me; I can reflect and conclude that straight away. But all of a sudden I feel ready to re-enter the world of the human... and whether or not it lasts, it's going to be sweet...