Samurai Coach

The LONG night train (Part 2)

2010-09-12T17:52:00.008-04:00

The station is nearly deserted and still open to the elements. I’m enchanted as I registered no significant changes to the platform that I’ve stepped onto as a small child in my mother’s arms; as a youngster being playfully chased by an older sister, and a half-dozen times as an young and full-grown adult traveling mostly alone. Intuitively I knew this would be the last time I’d trace these steps, yet the intuition was supplemented by a profound gut feeling that I was here for a very particular purpose, one that would serve others as much as it would serve me.

An uncontrollable serge of emotions swept over me as I stepped onto the platform. I slipped on my sunglasses to cover my tear-filled eyes then wiped them with the tips of my gloves. I was having difficulty focusing on the here and now while the foggy image from the past sharpened into view. There before me was my 14-year-old sister with long brown hair parted down the middle 70s-style with her long bangs tuck behind her ears revealing her freckled face. With a parental expression she smiles and motions for me to follow her down the very wide concrete steps to the tunnel, which leads to the interior of the station. I remember the sleeveless turquoise and brown print dress she’s wearing. I turned to look behind me in hopes of seeing my 11-year-old-slender-self in a black and white dress with a wide collar, white knee socks and black paten leather flats and a 35mm camera hanging from my neck. Instead I saw my mother, 15 years younger than she is now, waving at someone on the train as it pulled away from the station. The memories of this tiny place, a mere dot on a map of the planet, are powerful and so readily available, which explains the emotions flooding over me. I remember this scene as if it were yesterday. This is the day my mum came to the station with me to prolong our parting. She’s waving goodbye as I returned London and then onto Gatwick Airport for the flight to San Francisco, leaving her in Ramsgate to care for an aging mother. Yet from where I stand today I can see the tears in my mother’s eyes that weren’t visible from a departing train. I’ve always admired my mother for her tremendous strength, which is just as apparent today as then. Yet as I stand here for what seems like an eternity allowing the precious memories to come, I too am attempting to conceal the trepidation for what lies before me. In the words of Raymond Lindquist, “courage is the power to let go of the familiar.” I've never felt more certain that I am my mother’s daughter.

I came to the bulky cherry wood double doors with small square-paned windows that led to the interior of the station. I grasped one of the chilly pole handle and pulled it toward me; the doors were as stiff and heavy as I remembered. I walked briskly at first and then slowed wanting to savor each of the lovely memories that have been awakened by my arrival. I looked down at the shinning hardwood floor and could see the reflection of my present self. I scanned the interior of the station, my mind recording more characteristics of the station that have gone unchanged, like the ticket agent windows with rod-iron bars from decades ago. I stopped at the thick old wooden doors made even thicker by the many coats of paint and took a deep breath. I was afraid that once I stepped out of the station the precious memories would cease. I reminded myself of the beauty of the present moment even though I was a bit frightened by the uncertainty it would bring. The door creaked as I pushed it open reentering the sunny crisp day still in its childhood. I did my best to collect myself rolling my shoulders and straighten my posture and it seemed to do the trick.

The station was built in a semi-circle with a one-way driveway directing all buses, taxis and private cars in the same direction as if to handle the same traffic of a big-city station. There’s a long line of small economy cars turned taxis parked curb-side of the inner circle just waiting for fares. It’s so deserted and quiet I thought I might have overlooked a British holiday, but it’s simply the characteristics of a remote suburban town far from the city in the middle of the work-day and week. Most of the drivers are napping or reading the newspaper. I tapped on the window of the first taxi in the line. The driver quickly closed his newspaper, straightened his posture and gestured eagerly for me to get in. I maneuvered my body just right so I wouldn’t have to remove my backpack to get in the small car for hire. The driver was in his mid-sixties, slender with wild thinning silver hair and smelt of clove-like cigarettes. Before he had time to ask, I gave him the address and he replied, “Cheers love.”

As we pulled away from the station the reminiscent tears began again. The drive to the familiar road was shorter than I remember but it gave the driver time enough to comment that I was American and ask what brought me to his small coastal town. I kept my reply brief, “My grandparents are laid to rest here and I spent some time here during their lives and wanted to visit again, seizing the opportunity on my way to India.” I managed to say all that while holding back the unexplainable tears. Before I knew it we were about to turn onto the end of the road where my grandparents spent the last years of their lives, and where, at the other end, their ashes rest. I positioned myself to be able see what use to be my grandparents’ house from the car window, knowing it to be the first house on the block.

Several of the houses on Church Road were reduced to rubble by Hitler’s bombs during WWII, but when the war ended and the rebuilding began a miss-calculation left a small plot of land on the west side of the last house built. My grandfather bought the house because of that extra bit of land and turned it into a garden. I remember that garden fondly with the several colors of sweet pea vines growing up the red brick privacy wall. Spring flowers typical of an English garden grew all around the perimeter of the grassy center, left for lounging. The house got the attention of all that passed by after my mother painted both the front door and the gate to the garden bright red. The memory of my grandmother standing at the front door whether to greet me as I arrived or wave to me as I departed will remain in my heart and mind forever.

“Here we are Love,” the driver announced, but I was disoriented because someone dropped a house on my grandfather’s garden. My heart sunk deep as I swallowed my disappointment. I too can be reluctant to embrace change, especially when it rushes at me like a rabid dog, as it is at this moment. I paid the driver, got out of the car and I stood frozen in front of the house my grandparents, and then mother, took care of with such reverence. Today it stands neglected begging for the love and attention it once knew.

The LONG night train to Varanasi

2010-09-04T15:52:00.004-04:00

I continued to gaze out the dirty window. My viewed impeded by condensation but as the train gathered speed the fog cleared bringing unfamiliar scenery into focus. I had no idea why the train was mostly empty but I was grateful to have some personal space, a commodity we in the West take for granted. I took my new cell phone out of my pocket and stared at it as I calculated the time difference, which deduced that those I might want to call were most likely fast asleep in the middle of their night. The excitement of this new experience was still serving as adrenaline yet I could feel a wave of exhaustion settling in after completing the dash from new to old Delhi train stations.

The train rocking side to side was an invitation to drift into my memory remembering the many train journeys I’ve taken over the coarse of my life. The film in my mind went back as far as the trains I took in Germany as a toddler and a pre-teen, as well as those in England as a young adult, which I anticipated with great joy, even more than the most popular Disneyland ride. I’m certain this nineteen-hour night-train will undoubtedly play a vital role in this half-century spiritual quest. But another more recent railed journey, which also left a modern city center to journey to a more historical one, is begging for reminiscent review.

Only four short weeks ago I boarded a shiny fresh coach at Victoria Station to travel to the coastal white-cliffs town of Ramsgate where my grandparents spent the last chapters of their simple but precious lives. When I arrived in London I had no intention, not even an inkling to go to Ramsgate. I purposely chose London because it’s familiar to me and would serve to break the jet lag brought on by traveling halfway across the world. Also, I was a bit concern that I might not get another opportunity to visit this ancient land from which a precious part of my heritage originates.

I stepped into the pristine railcar and went straight for the four-top or cluster of four seats with a table in the middle that would serve as my lunch table and desk to write during the two-and-half-hour journey. The train hummed as it built up speed as if to say, braggingly, that it was new. Only half a dozen passengers shared this car with me. Shortly after leaving the station I saw the refreshment cart being pushed through the automatic doors between the cars. The trolley attendant, a round cheerful lady in her early sixties, gray wavy hair wearing a deep-blue apron to match the décor, stopped next to me and asked, “Anything from the trolley Love?” I laughed to myself remembering that Harry Potter was asked the same thing on his first train journey to Hogwarts. Seated across from Ron and he replied, “We’ll take the lot!” meaning every sweet on the cart. Still laughing, I replied, “I’ll just have tea, please.” She put a triangle-shaped tea bag in a PG Tips recyclable paper cup and filled it with piping hot water. I have been familiar with PG Tips tea all my conscious life thanks to a British mum who taught me how to properly brew a good cup of tea. A function she might have learned from her Irish father who had traveled to India several decades before me. This was another of the sentimental memory clues that continually and superbly appear along the journey of my life as if God herself is placing them before me to remind me of my connection with those I love. She stopped pouring to ask, “You take milk in your tea Love?” “Yes, thank you.” I replied. My mum has always called people “Love,” it’s an English thing I surmise, as well as another memory clue. It’s at these times that I miss my mum the most as she’s my favorite person to create new memories with. She and I have had great times reminiscing the joys, beauties and comedic mishaps of our adventures together. I’m sure it’s from her that I get my child-like wonderment about the world and the adventures of living. It’s her that I think of when I see beauty in life, like a rainbow, because with her it’s never ‘just another rainbow’, it’s that particular rainbow as if there has been no other before it and no other like will come again. I enjoyed the tea with my sack-lunch of chicken watercress sandwich and salt & vinegar crisps that I purchased the day before.

I finished my lunch and opened my laptop to write and at the same time I felt myself being swept away by the romance of the moment, the train rolling smoothly over the tracks, the sun of the new day shining softly into the window across the isle and the satisfaction of having everything I need to let the words flow from my heart, down my arms and off my fingers tips onto to keyboard. At times the words would hide from me and to find them I only had to look out at the cottages, gardens and green pastures gently sloping past the window and there arranged among the scenery was the perfect phrase.

Two hours passed quickly and we would soon reach Ramsgate. I tucked my tools away and gave my attention to the passing stations, some the train would stop and others it would merely stroll through. I began to get a sense of how close we were to the little costal town that holds so many ethereal memories stored deeply in my heart. It’s been nearly two decade since I’ve visited this seacoast town and I’m secretly hoping that I’ve traveled far enough down these tracks, laid so long ago, to make the world stand still and if not still, somehow untouched like passing through C.S. Lewis’ wardrobe.

I knew we were close as we passed through the small town of Broadstairs, where my sister was born more than half a century ago. Just then a disembodied voice over the PA system echoed, “Next station, Ramsgate.” The rolling became a soft rock as the train slowed to the last stop. I felt the butterflies begin to swirl. I ask myself, “Why are you anxious?” I waited but no answer came.

The sun is deceivingly bright and to naïve travelers would give the impression that it was warmer here than in London. I remembered that a winter Ramsgate breeze isn’t all that kind to exposed skin; I dug into my pocket for my gloves. I stood at the automated doors as the train came to a full stop. I pressed the release and the shiny stainless doors disappeared into the walls of the train.

Night train to Varanasi

2010-05-13T19:20:00.002-04:00

Nasir and his uncle discussed what to do and the next moment I was running up an escalator behind Nasir. He said, “Come Trassee!” He gained a good ten-feet in front of me, my wheeled-bag flapping like a tethered bird trying to escape its trainer. “Nasir, will I make my train?” I yelled. But he didn’t hear me. Then I began to laugh and invite what this new experience was bringing. Then I knew deep in my heart that I’d be on this train when it pulled away from station. I wasn’t sure how, but certainty flowed in and though each of my billions cells. Then I felt an energy boost as though an injection of something powerful was released and I picked up the pace. I ran with confidence, conviction and most of all trust, that all would be well and that this event is a very important part of my journey. As I followed Nasir down the many tunnels that connected the new and old parts of this city, my consciousness struggled, without success, to recall a time when I had this much energy. At fifty-one years old I was hurtling stairs with a heavy pack on my back, weaving through what seemed like half of Mother India’s children. As I ran my mental hard drive continued its search and suddenly stopped abruptly on a memory file, almost thirty years old, complete with images of me running up and down the hilly terrain of Camp Pendleton. Another surge of adrenaline rushed in as I closed the distance between Nasir and me. I’m nearly giddy by the excitement of the chase. I wondered why I kept running when I knew with certainty I’d be on the train to Varanasi. But how did I know? Where was this feeling of confidence coming from? As I befriended it I realize it was a kin to the faith that told me that this journey was predetermined, maybe even written in Sanskrit on some ancient scrolls that says, “Tracy will walk the banks for the Ganges in this particular century, this decade, and this year, even on this particular day.”

Our bodies came to an abrupt stop as we slammed into the stainless steel ticket counter of the Metro station. The ticket agent was undisturbed by our sudden and almost aggressive appearance. His lack of reaction confirmed my suspicions that people often emerge abruptly because they’re all in a rush to get where they are going. Where is everyone going in such a hurry? Why don’t they just leave earlier? But it’s not that they’re in a hurry, it’s that there are just so many people, period. I’m coming from a country with a population of 309 million and recently arrived in a country with over one billion people in it and they are all competing for their space in line, for a seat on a train, for their turn to be heard.

I slipped a ten-rupee note through the opening in bottom of the thick Plexiglas. I took my change and thought, “I get change?” But I’ll compute the cost at some later date. Nasir pulled one of the tokens out of the palm of my hand and resumed his lead position. I went straight for the turnstiles and realized I’ve lost Nasir. I turned to find Nasir and instead came face to face with a tall skinny man in a drab khaki uniform and a black leather belt with several molded compartments holding enough unknown objects to make him look intimidating. He held out his arm to stop me from entering the Metro. I followed the sharp military crease up his long-sleeve and into his eyes shaded by the brim of his hat. He was void of any real expression as I attempted to translate his blank face into instructions I could follow. I wanted to say, “Not now fella I got a train to catch.” He said something in Hindi while pointing to some where behind me just as I heard Nasir say, “Trassee, you must but your bag here.” I turned as he dropped my Osprey on the large conveyor belt of a dirty x-ray machine that looked like an O’Hara Airport reject from seventies. Nasir responded to the police on my behalf, probably saying something like, “Silly foreigner, she doesn’t know.” They laughed, I laughed, and we crab the bags and made a quick u-turn to the down-escalator to the platform below us. I’m relieved to find another constant anchoring the familiar with the unfamiliar. These mechanical steps looked just like those leading to the platform at the Powell Street BART Station. I was amazed to see that a particular universal decorum was practiced by commuters all over the world as those choosing to ride stood to the right descended slowly to the platform, while Nasir and I, along with a few others, took to the left as we flew down the moving stairs, skipping every other one.

I realized I was having a blast, even though I was quickly becoming drenched in sweat from wearing more clothes than needed for an unplanned workout. The likeness of this system with those in San Francisco, New York and London gave me a cultural-constant and comfort as time slowed the faster I moved. It was happening in slow motion in my head, while my body was getting another infusion of adrenaline. I saw Nasir almost take out a couple of commuters with my bag that slapped both sides of the escalator walls. The loud thud, was just what I needed to get my mind and body on the same speed. I laughed with relief that I didn’t have the usual breakable souvenirs in my bag that I’ve collected on previous foreign holidays as a tourist. Instead it’s filled with a sleeping bag, a zipper-hooded fleece, a headlamp; not for coal mining but finding the toilet when the lights go out, which I’ve been told happens often. It hits me like the train I’m running to catch and I stumble to a full stop and I say outloud, “Oh my god, I’m not a tourist here! And if I’m not a tourist, then what am I?” Nasir turns to ensure his charge is still keeping up, instead he’s sees that I have stopped. “Come on Trassee, you must run!” I re-position my grasp on the present moment and begin to make a mental list of the inquiries I’m shelving for a less-dramatic moments.

A polished silver train approached from deep inside the tunnel. I followed closely behind Nasir as this would be the wrong time to get separated. The train came to a sudden stop, making the passengers sway back and forth. The train was packed full of working-class Indians that all wore western clothes. I looked at Nasir with a “you really think they’re going to let us on?” expression. The doors open and he took a tight grip around my forearm and pushed me into the crowd of exiting passengers in a country where personal space was non-existent. This slender handsome salmon was determined to make it up and over the waterfall with his charge. The doors closed behind us and I looked for a place to hold on but there was none. I chuckled, realizing it’ll be impossible for me to fall over I couldn’t even see my feet. Heeding the warnings over the loudspeaker in both Hindi and English to beware of pickpockets, I placed one hand on my waist where my money-belt was concealed under three layers of clothing. I gripped Nasir’s sleeve silently saying thank you for going to great lengths to get me on a train, that he wished I wouldn't take for one or two more days. He smiled big, which I took as confirmation that I was forgiven for not fulfilling his wish.

I was tempted to look at my watch but I made a pact with myself that I would just move toward my train and once on the train I could check the time. This would a demonstration of faith, which I knew from previous experience caused very powerful results. For right now the lighted kiosk above the doors got my focus. Nasir confirmed with a nearby passenger that Old Delhi train station would be the next stop. Nasir grabbed my forearm again and looked at me intently as if to say, “Get ready!” I knew that another race was just outside these doors, but other that, I was clueless. The doors opened; last in, first to be pushed out! The shove was just what we needed to establish the momentum to run up the escalator stairs. If I said “Excuse me!” once I said it a hundred times, but I might as well have been saying, “Please stay where you are. I want to increase this game’s difficulty!” I’m sure I left some bruises in my wake.

I watched Nasir move in and out of the ground noticing his inexhaustible effort to get me to the train. It would have been so easy for him to say, “Oh well Tracy, you’ll have to go another day” once he realized the mistake that was made. It’s as if it was his mistake and he wasn’t going to let this karma come back around.

We must be very close because the western clothing has changed to the traditional wardrobe of India. Colorful sarrees and Punjabi suits worn by the women eclipsed the men in drab-colored shirts and trousers. We stood on the stairs above a platform when Nasir yelled the name of my train into the crowd. An available coolie responded with the platform number, which was where we stood, and he snatched my bag from Nasir’s grip as if it was a empty straw basket. Nasir stood on the threshold that he couldn’t cross without a platform ticket. The hand-off was instantaneous. I was now following the coolie down more stairs that led to my waiting train. Was it waiting for me, because the usual platform campers had all disappeared? Once I reached the flat surface I turned around to look at Nasir, telling him “Good bye” with my eyes. It’s not appropriate for men and women to exchange even platonic affection in public. I’ve never left a friend or loved one at the ‘curb’ without even a ceremonial embrace until now. Nasir shouted from the top of the stairs, “Bye Trassee. Don’t pay him more than 65 rupees!” Not the usual good-bye I’ve come accustom to, but nothing is as I’m accustom to.

My coolie took off like a bull-legged pack-mule who had been slapped on the hide quarters. He must have been very aware that the train would pull out at any minute. Watching him run with such exaggerated bows in his legs reminded me of mixer blades doing more folding than whipping.

Still running, I managed to pull my ticket free from my fanny-pack to confirm the coach number. It seemed as if two hours had passed with all the excitement, but it’s not possible because my train is still here and I was told from a reliable source that originating trains always leave on time. Holding to my agreement, I resisted the urge to look at my watch reminding myself, “No you don’t! This is a journey of trust!” I looked for my coolie who I lost track of when running while extrapolating information from my eTicket. I looked for my bag, which is the only familiar thing I could lock onto in these extremely unfamiliar surroundings. I looked behind me doubting that I passed him, but sure enough he was coming up behind me panting, his leathery skin drenched in sweat. My blue Osprey was still mysteriously perched on his head as he ran. Both of us in our fifties; mine were early and his were probably late. We might be in the same place but our cultures put us very in different worlds. His skin is dark and wrinkled by the both the closeness of the sun and his arduous occupation. He looked so small in the distance. Then I realized it wasn’t the distance but his height, or lack there of, that made him seem so small. I stood taller than him even with my bag on his head. I let him catch up to me to ask him which was my train since there were trains on both sides of the tracks. He must have understood enough English because he pointed to the right with his free hand while the other kept my bag balanced on his head with the help of a loosely draped red turban.

My attention was captured by the painted ‘B2’ in on the dingy grey-blue coach. I’ve surely run the entire length of the train. I looked behind me and couldn’t see the end of the train and then glanced up the track in front of me and there were only two other coaches and the engine. If I had more time to inspect the train I would have been concerned that it looked as though it’s been in service since Gandhi was alive. I remember landing at the Delhi Airport and as our pristine plane taxied to the gate I looked out the window at the passing train. I was shocked to see people riding on the top, which I thought was a thing of the past. I was about to learn that the many documentaries on India I watched to prepare for this trip weren’t as out-dated as I thought.

I turned to my coolie and pointed to the coach number. He nodded and said, ‘Achcha!’ Then he asked me something in Hindi as we stood in front of the passenger list pasted to the side of the coach. Before I could remove the folded wet document that once was my ticket, he was pointing to my name on the list. I was shocked. "How does he know my name?" He took my surprise as acknowledgement and disappeared into the coach with my bag still on his head. I followed him through a narrow door that led to the berth compartments. We shuffled and shifted to get our luggage-clad bodies down the small passageway trying not to step on the feet of the seated passengers. I was too deep in cerebral relief to be inside the train, in what I assumed was less than twenty-five minutes, to notice that my presence was stopping numerous conversations as if E. F. Hutton had just boarded. “I’m on the upper berth,” I said loudly, as a clean-shaven tall India man with a gentle face and immaculate haircut stood and lifted my bag the distance between the tiny coolie and the upper berth. My bag now looks like a beached whale on the narrow bunk. The coolie was relieved to be rid of the heavy load and was now looking to be paid. I replayed Nasir’s advice not to give him more than 65 rupees when I looked into the sunken eyes of this exhausted dark-skinned man. He watched intently as I counted the ‘ready cash’ concealed in the back zipper pouch of my fanny-pack. Rupees still looking a bit like Monopoly money to me yet it’s helpful that the notes are different sizes. I pulled out one of the larger bills and expected it for its denomination. I handed him the 100-rupee note wishing I could ask him why he chose such a laborious occupation. I would soon learn the vast difference between my choices and his.

I assumed he was pausing to see if I expected change, but really he was wanted more. I stood up to adjust my bag and couldn’t help but notice that he was still standing there. Before I could say anything to him another passenger in my compartment said something to the coolie and he scoffed and left. As he was leaving I said “Namaste”, hoping that he would realize that I was grateful. I climbed onto the ladder to my berth and stared at my bag wondering how I was going to sleep through the night with this bag taking up a third of my bunk. The man who help lift my bag from the porter said in very clear English asked, “Where’s your chain and lock?” I choose to spare him the boring story of my unsuccessful search in the Chandigarh marketplace for those necessary items. “I don’t have a chain and lock yet.” So instead of him removing my bag from the berth he reached up and pushed it into a vertical angle at the head of the bunk. Part of it rested on the rack that’s for small pieces of over-head luggage such as briefcases. At least it was taking up less of sleeping space. I nodded and said, “I’ll manage. I’m just glad to be aboard. I just ran from New Delhi station where I thought this train left from.” He said, “Well ma’am you’re lucky because this train always leaves on time, but not tonight.”

I scratched my hand on my watch as I peeled off my jacket. I looked at the time. It was 6:10 pm. I smiled to myself and felt sure that I was meant to be on this train. I sat on the lower berth trying to remember if I have ever sweated to this degree. At that moment I felt sure I had triumphed over at least one aspect of menopause; hot flashes. I smiled as I slowed my breathing, which began to cool my body. The air-conditioning, I’m told, would only be turned on once the train had left the station and then it would take a few minutes before we would actually feel it. The car was hot and steamy partly from the passengers who boarded early but they seemed unbothered by the heat but then again they hadn’t just run a marathon. I gazed out the foggy dirty window thinking about how proud I was of myself. I was honorably discharged from the Marine Corps nearly 30 years ago and all through boot camp and four years of active duty I was never required to do what I had just pulled off. I basically completed a 10k obstacles course through the Indian transportation system with a fifteen-pound pack on my back, in jeans, long sleeve shirt and jacket in trekking shoes. The train sped up, but for me everything seemed to slow as I considered all that I have already conquered. I continued to look out the window as the train pulled away from Old Delhi on its way to the even older city of Varanasi where so many new experiences await me.

Who Can You Love?

2010-03-23T08:45:00.003-04:00

Was I feeling the results of the age-old caste system? Sonali’s parents were the domestic employees of my gracious hosts. Yet, what I was hearing was a warning not to blur the lines of the neatly ordered boundaries of ‘her place’, ‘their place’ and ‘my place’; everyone, neatly in their ‘place’. I was in shock! I’m attempting to process what I was taught was unconscionable. My hosts, I thought, were as Western as me. I’m so very new to this culture and yet I think this is my first exposure to the centuries-old caste system that until now, I’ve only ever read about. I had to read about it because no here was talking about except to say it "no longer exists." Really?

What I’m hearing is, “It’s not acceptable to love who you love.” I thought my nationality would prevent me, even protect me from having such a hurtful and personal experience. The closest I’ve even come to this is when I was dating an Africa American man in the 1980s. Whenever we were out in public we could pretty much guarantee to get subtle or contemptuous glances of disapproval. It’s evident that this learning curve is not a curve at all; it’s a 180-degree slant that requires a rope to keep me from freefalling into the abyss between the cultural divide.

As I waited for our sodas and fries, the last twenty-nine days of my life is flashing before my eyes. The memory of me sitting with my sister and mother in the café of the Long Beach Airport before my flight to New York too ignorant and innocent to know what I was in store for; the walk around Time Square on a drizzly night, starbursts glisten romantically off the Christmas decorations; a glimpse of myself in the train from London to White Cliffs of Dover and then walking past the house my grandparents once occupied; laying roses where their ashes are interned in a churchyard that’s could aptly be used for a period-film; the evening I stood in the pouring rain waiting at the bus stop across the street from my impromptu home in Battersea; the plane landing in New Delhi and the broken down plane that took me to Kathmandu; the dip in a Nepali river with a playful elephant named after the goddess who fulfills wishes. It’s all so vivid and yet distant. Was it really me who had those experiences or am I remembering a movie about a woman who lost her mind during her first year of menopause?

I have absolutely no idea what the future holds for me. This is both a curse and a blessing, as it gives me nothing to dwell on. It invites me to stay present, for this is the only moment that I can join forces with; this now is the only opportunity I have to choose who I am. I cannot know what anything will be ‘like’ for nothing is ‘like’ anything anymore. It is only in the present where I have a steady grounding. If I can just stay present and let go of wanting this time, this experience, or these people to be like any other I’ve know before, I’ll be alright; I’ll be guided, directed and protected by the simplicity of now.

Before me is my first ‘night train’ and those nineteen hours will give me plenty of time to pray and to create something that looks like a plan. But right now I’ll just regroup and chill. I can’t unleash my emotions on this unsuspecting Wimpy’s counter person or Nasir, who, could hoping to get some sort of mystery commodity from me.

I was given a receipt and picked a table far from any of the other patrons. The table was dirty, the walls were dirty, and the floor, I won’t even go there. Now I missed my mother’s standard of clean in addition to missing her lighthearted repartee. I sat across from Nasir on a sloped-formed bench, disconnected from the surroundings and looked straight into Nasir’s eyes and said to him, “Okay Nasir, who are you really and what do you want from me?” He stammered a bit and then began to tell me his true intention. It was as if the soda was laced with truth serum. In a nutshell, according to this credible source, the whole of India is on commission. Nasir gets a percentage of what I buy from the pashmina dealer, he gets a portion of whatever my travel costs came to had I arranged trips or tours from a number of travel agents he is ‘in relationship’ with, and he’ll return to collect his commission on my cell phone purchase because he brought me; a customer that they would otherwise not had.

I sat with this for a while and then asked, “What’s wrong with this? It occurs for me to be an honest way to make a living as you help Westerners maneuver around a society and culture that can take a lifetime to understand?” Nasir explained to be a professional “Guide” he must fill out an application and pay the local government, and possibly the police, what could be an excessive fee. Most of the very young men, like him, don’t have nearly the amount of rupees to pay the costly fee, so they operate unofficially without the necessary documentation and identification card, hoping to avoid being discovered by police, which would surely take him to jail, possibly beat him severely and release him only after he paid a hefty fine that would only make it as far as the pocket of his captor. Unofficial guides like Nasir only deal with small time shops like the mobile phone dealer he took me to. Most of the retailers Nasir and his counterparts have ‘arrangements’ with are small and hard to locate with limited inventory, which most foreigners would not normally patronize.

So now I’ve got it, I can begin to understand what Nasir is up to. I can’t fault him because if I did I would have to fault myself for so much. These two beautiful human being found each other in this complicated world and is simply trying to work out this life we’ve both been given.

I looked at my watch and it’s 4:30 and I tell Nasir that I want to go now to be early for this long train journey ahead of me. Without a fuss he agrees. We stop by the travel shop to collect my luggage and he easily flags down a rickshaw. On the way to the New Delhi train station Nasir asks, “Trassee, are you angry with me? Do you not like me now?” I start to respond but he interrupts, “Trassee, I want you to be my friend. It’s okay, yes?” he asks while looking at me with his big brown puppy dog eyes. “Yes Nasir, we are friends. I appreciate your honesty and I have no problem with what you do. You must earn a living somehow.”

We arrived at the station and one of his friends which he called 'uncle,' but no relation, came from a large group of men standing on a concrete rise at the entrance of the station. It reminded me of the group of day-workers you can find at parking lot entrance of a Southern California Home Depot in the morning. These men also want to make money, but they must do so by deflecting foreigners from the train station ticket agent to a travel agency for a commission. Nasir told his friend nicely to back-off. I already got a ticket online before leaving Chandigarh. The three of us walked into the station. My train number wasn't displayed on the kiosk as yet, so I had no idea what platform I need to go to board my train. So we stood waiting at a stand that makes fresh squeezed orange juice with an old bulky hand-grinder. Nasir's uncle offered me a glass that was already poured so I choose to accept it without the slightest glance at the rarely-cleaned-machine that produced it. We took some pictures and I my excitement began to turn to concern since the train was due to leave in less than 30 minutes and still my train number hasn't shown up on the board. “Trassee, show me your ticket.” Nasir demanded nicely. I removed my ticket from my fanny pack and he unfolded it and watched them snatch the ticket back and forth examining it. I listened, not able to understand because they spoke in Hindi. Yet concern sounds the same in any language.

This is when I noticed Nasir’s uncle had two thumbs on his right hand! One that looked like every other thumb and a smaller thumb growing from it. It even hand a nail that I assumed would need clipping and filing. The six digits mesmerized me when Nasir said calmly, “Trassee, your train leaves from Old Delhi station and we are at New Delhi station.” I yelled out, “WHAT?”

Looking for a CONSTANT

2010-03-14T08:04:00.003-04:00

Nasir told the rickshaw driver to make a series of turns down some narrow thoroughfares that certainly couldn’t be called streets. I thought about what his address might look like and how impossible it would have been for me to find it. I also knew I would never find my way out of this maze without a guide. I consulted my intuition to see if it was okay to enter and since I didn’t have any negative readings I got out of the three-wheeled sardine-can that held the three of us and with my luggage. Nasir paid our dark-skin scruffy driver and took my luggage up a flight of tight and steep stairs that made more than three turns. “How does anyone get furniture up these stairs?” I wondered. We stepped through a narrow doorway that put us all in a three-by-four, what I’d call an entryway. The luggage went ‘thud’ and the guys had their shoes off within seconds, me, well I had to unlace while standing. “Thankfully I had enough sense to prepare my body for this adventure. I relied partly on core strength and partly the support of a bit of wall that framed the makeshift patio. The opening that made this ‘room’ a veranda was filled with a symmetrical heavy fencing, which I assume was there to keep out the monkey troops that roam most cities in India.

The guys disappeared into, what I call an apartment, leaving me on the veranda. At that moment I experienced the difference between Western and Eastern chivalry. I use to love it when men, even male family members, would wait for me. Once my shoes were off I moved into, what one with a Western upbringing might call the ‘front room’. It occurs to me, in this early stage of my journey that I’ve become grounded by the familiarities of my life. Now I’m looking--no searching for a constant, something that is the same in both worlds, but I’m becoming unfastened. I realize that I’m more comfortable when an object or space carries the familiar tag or nomenclature that’s embedded in my memory. With no other plan, and frankly an uncertainty of how to deal with such a new and strange dilemma, I’ll keep tagging things, spaces and experiences to something similar, but I know I’ll have to come up with a more dependable strategy soon.

As I surveyed the small ten by eight foot room I attempted to suppress my surprised expression at the sparseness of the space. There was only a thin rug covering the stone floor and a mattress in the corner, also thin, made for two tiny people with no bed linen and a small color TV perched on smaller table. The only decoration is a poster taped to the wall advertising travel to Kashmir. I realized, I was right, no furniture because nothing could fit up those stairs. I would later come to learn that this is simply how many Indian families live.

Nasir’s mother came to greet me with some prodding from Nasir. We didn’t shake hands, as hers were wet from preparing food I assumed; yet it’s my culture that shakes hands when we meet someone new. I said, “Namaste” but later learned I should have said "Assalaamu 'alaykum" since they are Muslim. I forgot her name almost as soon as it was spoken, because, If I don’t write names down with both the correct and phonetic spelling they fall to either side of my enormous cultural learning curve. She’s modest and doesn’t make eye contact and has pulled her colorful print saree up over her long jet-black hair that is pulled back in a thick braid. She’s younger than me, but I only know this because Nasir told me that he’s twenty-five and she had him when she was quite young. She looks so much older than me as the years of her life haven’t been as gentle to her as mine have been to me. She’s shy, average height with a Buddha-like roundness with very dark skin. Her dark eyes held a friendly jealously, free from hatred or anger. At that moment, I knew with certainty that my prayers tonight would be filled with gratitude for a life of irrefutable choices and opportunities.

I was invited to sit, as the two young men sat cross-legged (lotus) on the thin rug. But nature was calling. I wondered if I should ask to use the restroom or hold it. I did a quick inventory of my blatted and knew I couldn’t hold it so I said quietly to Nasir, “I need to go to the rest…I mean toilet.” knowing that the English spoken here comes from many years of British rule, so I better say ‘toilet’ before this American wets herself. His mother, who speaks no English motioned to the facilities, which in my opinion was the real meaning of a ‘water closet’ because it was wet from ceiling to floor. I had to remove my socks and roll up my jeans and slip a large pair of shower shoes on, which by the looks of them are used by everyone in the family and quite possibly the neighbors too. The pennies were beginning to drop. I remembered the bathroom in my hotel room, which had toilet, sink and shower all together, and no toilet paper holder. I wondered, “Where’s the shower stall?” This room was so strange that I didn’t sleep under the blanket, because I knew the it had been used by lots of guests and I wasn’t adding my name to that list. I didn’t shower, because I remained perplexed as to why there was not a separate shower stall, which seemed like a good excuse to keep my clothes on, in a hotel that was managed and occupied by only men, even while in my own room. I thought I watched enough movies, travel videos and documentaries on India to prepare for the cultural differences. I realized that it wouldn’t matter how many I watched, nothing would have prepared me for the actual experience of being here. I was standing in a brick three-by-three room in one inch of water, digging deep in my pockets hoping to find some tissue, which just wasn’t there. I ‘shook off’ as if I had male parts and let my underwear and my jeans absorb the rest.

Nasir, motioned for me to sit on the small thin mattress with him. He had already opened his laptop and his pictures of Kasmir. I have rarely seen images as beautiful as these, except on the Nature Channel. There were many young 20-something blond fair-skinned Westerners in the photos, but Nasir wasn’t in any of them. I became even more suspicion. After all, I was still sorting the Nasir puzzle pieces out and I had barely started to turn over the straight edged pieces to create the border of who he might be and what motivates him.

Nasir’s younger sister came from a room in the rear of the apartment to greet me, followed by a very small woman, also in a saree, less than four feet tall, who shyly emerged from behind his slender teenage sister. Once the saree slipped off her head and exposed her face I could see that she too is a mature woman yet someone forgot to tell her body this fact. It was obvious by their calm demeanor that they have meet several Westerners before, even in this very same apartment. I’m thinking that his home must serve as Nasir’s net as he fishes fervently for a visa to the United States.

The two ladies left and reemerged with a plastic tablecloth to cover the carpet and to create our dining area. The sister just sat across and observed me while not so politely staring. The food, in the same pots it was cooked in, was placed in the center of the ‘table’. We were all given stainless steel bowl-type plates. The young men dug in without saying so much as ‘Grace’ and piled their plates high with rice, watery yellow dal and curry-colored mixed vegetables. All the food was piping hot so I felt it should be safe, because it would be a grave insult to not eat. I said a quick prayer of thanksgiving and protection while the tiny woman piled food on my plate. I smiled and put my hand up hoping I was making the international symbol for, “That’s plenty, thank you!” I knew I wasn’t going to eat a lot since I was cautioned to do what I could to not have a bowel movement on the train, since the bathrooms were quite disgusting and a place that no one wants to spend that much time.

Nasir and his friend were eating as if it was their last meal and the girls were yet to start. I was witnessing a micro-male-dominance in this little apartment of two rooms and toilet that housed six people, sometimes more when relatives come to visit. I was grateful that his mother gave me a spoon to eat with, while the guys made eating with their hands a cultural art form. The food was too hot to put in my mouth, which causes me to be even more amazed to learn that Nasir’s mouth can not only stretch to fit the best part of his fist, but is also lined with asbestos.

I mixed and moved the food around the plate to cool it and I only ate half of the serving I was given. I felt bad to leave food on my plate, especially because this is one of the countries my mother would reference when trying to persuade me to eat all my food when I was a child. As soon as Nasir was convinced I was done he gave my plate to his mother who scraped the uneaten food into one of the pots. “Good,” I thought, “it won’t go the waste.”

I think we all learn exit clues in school, at least I did. When I was a teaching assistant in college I remember how these clues so efficiently took the place of clock-watching. Here was my opportunity to use this skill in India. I was a bit anxious thinking about all I wanted to accomplish before boarding the first night that would take me to even more unfamiliar place. I rose to my feet and said, “Thank you for everything.” to everyone in the small room. Nasir looked up at me confused. But he got it! He realized that I was not staying a few days or even one more day in Delhi. I was ready to go and my body language surely communicated that I was not open to any discussion about staying. I took two steps and went into the little entryway to put my shoes on.

I sat down on a stackable hard-plastic green armchair to lace my shoes. Since I arrived in Southeast Asia, I’ve been making mental notes of those things that I recognize from my world and the chair I’m sitting gets added to the list. Many times before coming to India, I sat in this type of molded chairs. My left-brain began to access all the memories of Forth of July celebrations, weddings and garden parties of which the hosts used these chairs. I want to be present for every moment but right now my brain is running a picture show. At some level of my consciousness is attempting to locate constants, those connections that will help me keep my wits about me as I travel this exotic land and drastically different culture.

Nasir had my Osprey in his hands and I opened the door to a man in his late eighties who’s as tall as me. He wore a Western jacket over traditional men’s long tunic and cotton pajama-type trousers. He has a peaceful dark face that is missing Nasir’s unspoken expression of wanting. This is Nasir’s great grandfather coming in as I’m going out. He’s charming; this is obviously where Nasir getting his training. He spoke some English leftover from working with the British for the many years when they ruled this nation. I fantasized that this gentleman might have met my grandfather when he was here decades ago. Might this man be one of the reasons my British grandfather loved India so much? My grandfather meet Lawrence of Arabia in this o’ so small world, isn’t it also possible that he meet Nasir’s great grandfather? I laughed at myself for being so anxious to leave just moments ago and now I’m wishing I had more time to stay and hear his stories of the India my grandfather came to love. I said my ‘goodbyes’ and went down the steep narrow stairs and walked out to a main road with Nasir. He flagged down a touk-touk, which isn’t hard when you have a Westerner with you.

Nasir’s friend went in another direction as we made our way to Connaught Place to buy a prepaid cell phone. Nasir must have had the rickshaw driver stop on the far side of the outer circle of this very large shopping center, because we walked and walked. We stopped at Nasir’s ‘friend’s travel office’ and dropped off my large bag. I laughingly thought to myself, ‘how convenient that we need to come back here to get my bags.’ The travel agent was trying to sell me a package to Kashmir as we walked away. “When you come back, I show you pictures of where you must go!” he yelled as we disappeared around the corner of the building. We passed several modern and clean mobile phone stores, named Airtel, Aircel, Tata Communications and Reliance without even a glance. I asked Nasir, “Why don’t we go into anyone of these stores?” “No Trassee,” he responded without turning around. “Those not where we go.” He kept walking with me trailing behind him with a loaded pack on my back. We came to a small dingy shop with dirty yellow walls, the size of a long and very narrow hallway. We stepped in and I had to remove my backpack to maneuver enough space to move from left to right. I had made a copy of my passport and visa beforehand and the only thing left to do is quickly complete the application. Once all the paperwork was stabled together the storeowner produced a Nokia box obviously containing a new cell phone. He punched a Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) out of a heavy piece of plastic the size of a credit card, opened the back of the phone, slipped the SIM card in the vacant slot, replaced the battery, turned it on and handed it to Nasir. I gave him the equivalent of $35 in rupees and we walked out of the dirty store joining the rest of the hurried shoppers. I wondered, “Did I just get a legitimate cell phone from a not-so-legit shopkeeper?” But my new cell phone and I had yet to make contact. My mental breadcrumbs were telling me we were on the way back to the travel agent’s shop, because we are stepping over the same open holes dug for the on-going construction, according to Nasir. But it looked to me like the workers had walked of the job months ago with no intention of returning because the holes are beginning to fill with trash. So much trash that I thought it would take months to fill with that much trash. What I’m about to learn, with great disappointment, is that the streets of India also serve a trash receptacles.

Nasir is moving fast with a clear intention to insure I make my train, but I’m missing something. “Nasir, can I have my phone please?” I said as a statement more than a question. He laughed and finished programming something into it and handed it to me. “What’s my phone number? How much talk time do I have? How do I put more time on it?” I flooded him with American questions about my new Indian cell phone. “You have 150 rupees to make calls. I saved your SIM number in your contacts.” He has obviously done this drill before.

I wanted to stop for a few minutes and collect myself. So much has happened in one day and it’s only 3:00 in the afternoon. I’m starting to forget if I got off the train from Chandijarh this morning or yesterday morning. No, it was this morning. We walked by a Wimpy’s, a fast food burger place from the United Kingdom, and I walked in without saying anything to my young friend. Nasir turned and followed me in. “Trassee, what are you doing?” he asked. “Nasir, my mother and I stop in a fast food place for a soda and fries in the middle of a long day of shopping or running errands to restore some energy.” I explained. I realized immediately that he had no clue what I had just rambled in English too fast for him to understand, but he acted like he was completely up to speed. I was glad because I was in no mood to explain. I ordered a couple of sodas and an order of fries as I held back the tears. I am missing my mom so much now that I have brought her so vividly into this present moment.

These are the times when I think I am completely out of my mind. What am I doing here? I know even less about his country than I thought I did and I have no plan. I can here my mother warning me, “Tracy, you can’t just go off half cocked! You need a plan!” I think my dear mother was made more confident about me coming to India because I have a home base, somewhere to call ‘home’ and return to, somewhere I can regroup in the safety of a family who welcomes me. But what she’ll learn soon enough, is that I have no intention to make that place my ‘home base.’ The only thing that would draw me back is the loving energy of Sonali and the balance of my belongings, stored ever so temporarily in a navy blue laundry bag that I was given after using the French dry cleaning and laundry pick up and delivery services when I was a yuppie in San Francisco. More in a tall paper shopping bag and the thin cloth-zipper bag that once held a new hand-woven rug I bought in Istanbul. The rug is history but the container, as it turns out, is much more useful for this particular journey. Returning at the end of the day was such loving experience. As I passed the front of the house and turn the corner of the street, where the ‘servants’ entrance’ was, Sonali would be there waiting for me. She’d see me, light up with a smile and run into my arms. We walk the fifteen feet or so into the house and she would gift me a piece of candy. We would talk as much as our limited knowledge of each other’s languages would allow. She’d show me her school work and I would encourage her to go study. She’s says good night with “Tomorrow, see you. Bye, bye.”

I wonder now, if I’m just so needy that I’m fooling myself that she was genuinely pleased to see me return? Was it something about me that inspired her to run into my arms and hug me, with what I know was authentic affection? What confuses me is the memory of being admonished by my gracious hostess, when she discovered that Sonali and I had become friends and that we had been spending time together. “Tracy, where will this relationship go?” she interrogated in such a soft and gentle tone. She was very convincing, so much so that for a minute I too began to wonder where a friendship between an American woman in her 50s and a 10 years old Indian girl could go? But then something stung in my mind, like a brain-freeze from eating ice cream too fast. My consciousness was being pricked to consider if there was a price to pay for loving someone. Would this little girl have to pay a price for loving me, or at the very least being affectionate to me? Hell no! The pain we experience in life isn't from receiving love, even if it's brief, but from it being withheld! Where will it 'go'? Where all expressed love goes; in the ether! I think it's what's present when we feel peaceful or like smiling for no reason.

India Gate Pictures

2010-02-10T06:36:00.002-05:00

New Delhi Nasir Part 2

2010-02-06T03:15:00.000-05:00

I can still hear Nasir instructions to “walk straight about two kilometers on this road” and my brain registers the small number two. “Okay, how far can two kilometers be?” I think back to the lack of a surprised on Nasir’s face that this Westerner wanted to walk the distance. With 40-plus years of being in the world of feet, yards and mile measurement my brain simply won’t think in terms of meters, so I’m left to my own ignorance and begin a walk the distance. I think back to the decade or so that my family lived in West Germany, when we would purposely set out to do just that, walk, even in the cold and sometimes in the rain. Just walk, for no other reason than to simply walk, which is easy to do when you’re a healthy youngster calculating nothing except for how many more days you have until you have to go back to school.

I didn’t mind so much then but it’s different today. I’ve been walking for some time up and down the raised sidewalks, which I can only assume are constructed to keep people out of the watery streets during the monsoons. I’m thinking many things while walking as I make the naïve assumption that it’s going to be easy to keep my fitness program up with lots of walking and stepping up and down from sidewalks to streets. I’m about to be faced with some amazing truths about a journey that requires both a strong body and even stronger mind.

It’s my first time in Delhi so I don’t know how much attention I should get from taxi, touk touk or bike rickshaw drivers, but now I’m begging for the attention. I must have walked a half-mile and I have yet to see the India Gate, which is an memorial arch as prominent as the Arc de Triomphe and larger than the one in New York City’s Washington Square. A touk touk (motorize rickshaw) driver looking for tourists, like the fisherman scans the water seeking his catch, sees me and jettisons his little yellow and green chariot towards me. He outlines the parked cars as he keeps pace with me an with a strong voice carrying over the honking horns he asks, “Ma’am, where you go? You want to see India Gate?” I respond only in my mind, still guarded from a new culture I’ll soon have to embrace, “Oh yes, I want very much to rest this heavy load in the sallow vinyl sofa-seat of your rickshaw.” I brought all my valuables with me heeding the advice of an Arabic Sage who says, “Love Allah, but tie your camel.” The hotel clerk only gave me a heavy padlock with one key on a chain, certain that they held its clone. I’ve got laptop and all my valuable electronics packed into the small backpack. It may be small but it’s heavy and I would welcome some relief.

I motion for the driver to draw near so I can learn what it will cost to travel in the comfort and style of this motorcycle turned mini taxi. We agree that he would take me to the India Gate and back to the hotel for seventy rupees, which seems very fair to this tired, visually stimulated and excited voyager. We make our way to the arch, which I’m get several glimpses of as we motor up the very broad, modern and busy boulevard. I learned quickly that my driver speaks enough English for us to communicate. Raj, a name as common as Robert in the States, is married with one child and has completed his undergraduate studies, which he explains is of little value in India. A person must have a Masters or Doctorate to get the highly desired posts. Raj parks with the other rickshaw drivers on hire and instructs me to take my time. “Take lots of photos and I will be here waiting when you return.” His assertion is reassuring and I want so much to trust my blessed chauffeur. I haven’t given him any rupees as yet, which adds to my confidence that he’ll be there when I return. I use the crosswalk to negotiate the busy boulevard. While I wait for signal to change I think about Raj’s lovely demeanor, which gives begins to build the emotional evidence that this journey is right for me. As I cross the street to this powerful structure that honors the memory of 90,000 soldiers who lost their lives fighting for the British, the very people that would oppress them. I declare that this too is my threshold, my door and my gate to India.

I’m the warrior battling my ego and any leftover experiences that need to be forgiven. I walk around the powerful terracotta structure, a symbol of honor and in some respects; forgiveness. I can see a light in the Amar Jawan Jyoti, the flame of the immortal warrior under the arch and it reflections in the eyes of those around me. I am confident that I am exactly where I must be.

I walk looking up at the tall structure unaware of the many eyes on me until a tall Indian man in his 20s asks if he could have his picture taken with me. It was obvious to me that he assumed I would agree because his friend had ready composed the shot from ten feet away. The young man thanked me with a huge smile, rejoined his friend and they walked away with such excitement you’d think he just took a picture with world-famous Cricketer, Sachin Tendulkar.

I took my time walking gently with reverence around the monument breathing in this new culture and its people. For the first time in my life I felt oddly alone in a vast crowd. I was such a minority--this strange fair-skinned woman with short grey hair in a sea of dark-skinned women with long dark black tresses—and the curiosity about me could have killed a tiger.

I said a silent farewell to the gate and returned to the dirt-parking lot with more than twenty rickshaws and drivers who all looked like Raj. Yet, as soon as he spotted his Westerner in her jeans and bright t-shirt he began to wave. I got back into my tiny chariot and we returned to my hotel in enough time to catch my train to Chardigarh.

I folded my wings for nine days in Panchkula with my gracious hosts making all the social, emotional and verbal mistakes I could before being divinely pushed out of the nest.

Knowing I had a familiar face to welcome me back to Delhi gave me a sense of confidence. Nasir crabbing me and my luggage and cut a sharp but narrow path through the crowd of both tight and loosely wrapped turbans of the men in the train station, all whom desperately want me as their customer or victim of their scheme. We were walking so fast I thought we committed some crime and attempting to leave the scene without being detected. More drivers aggressively approached but my tall slender friend deflected them as if he was Neo in the Matrix and they were Agents.

As I follow him I realized that he obviously received my Facebook email telling him I was returning to Delhi. He’s still in front of me and begins his interrogation. It takes a certain awareness of the Indian male culture to not be provoked by this kind of cross-examination. I had to realize that Nasir isn’t aware that he is behaving inappropriate according to my culture. He says, “Trassee, why you not give me your train number and train name? I ask for it on Facebook but you no reply? You know how long I wait for you? I come to station at eleven o’clock and you not come for one o’clock!” I say nothing until his questions ease and then begin with an apology and explain, “I didn’t get online again after I emailed you. I didn’t expect or ask you to meet my train.” Without knowing that I was quickly opening a can of worms that would never go back to their dark resting place, he overpoweringly asked, “Why you not think I come to see you?” I said, “Nasir, let’s leave it.” He taught me about the importance of leaving a topic during my last visit. I said, “I’m here now and I know to give you the train name and number for the next time. But I was certain that there wouldn’t be a next time. He wasn’t ready to leave it as he pulled out a small white ticket that had been stamped with a time that he would have to leave the platform of get a huge fine. He explained to me that Indians not holding a train ticket are not allowed in the station and the only way to enter was to pay a small fee for a kind of ‘platform pass’. Had the police checked his the time on his pass and discover that it had expired he would have to pay a hefty fine of 100 to 200 rupees. Now that has pleaded his case he was ready to leave it.

He told me, versus inviting me, that I was to have lunch with his family. He had called his mother and told her to prepare lunch for us and his other friend, which had been with us the entire time but I just thought he was simply someone walking in the same direction remaining in our non-existent personal space. He hired a motor rickshaw and literally threw my bag into the small space behind the back seat and the three of us squeezed in. His friend was more out than in and on his cell phone throughout the entire twenty-minute journey. I swear only Indians are able to carry on phone conversations on the boisterously loud streets. My Western ears aren’t able to differentiate the multitudes of sounds from a caller’s voice to have a coherent phone conversation but I’m thinking that when I have a cell phone I may have to adapt the necessary talent within my ears.

Nasir asked me how long I would be in Delhi and seemed excited to get to know his American friend more. I was tried to conceal my excitement about the next leg of my journey. ‘I need to be back at the station at five o’clock to get the night train to Varanasi” I told him with an instructional tone. I was happy that my first journey outside the safety and comfort of my ‘home base’ was going to be the most spiritual city in India. Nasir was disappointed and changed the subject as he asked, “Trassee, when will you go to Kashmir with me?” Not wanting to offend my gracious host, I just patted him on the arm and said “Later, after I’ve seen more of India.” He seemed to be satisfied and said, “When we go to my house I show you picture of Kashmir.” I nodded in agreement.

I asked him if he knew of a place that would give me a ‘pre-paid’ cell phone. He said, “Yes, I take you for that after we have lunch.” He then laced his fingers in mine and looked at me romantically and said, “Trassee, did you miss me?” I pulled away quickly and said, “Nasir, friends only, no romance, okay?” He looked away and with the most insincere pout, “I have emotions of love for you.” I now know I about to get a hefty cultural lesson. He continued his subtle innuendos so I laid down the law by saying, “I don’t come here for romance! We can only ever be friends and if you can’t handle that I’ll have to turn around and find my own way back to the train station.” He said, “Okay, okay, Trassee, but you not feel love for me?” He’s so not getting the point. I ask him, remembering the gigolos I meet in Kathmandu, “Nasir are you a gigolo?” He sincerely didn’t know what I was asking so I said, “Do you think I come here, lonely and looking for young men to have sex with?” I continued my own interrogation, “Is that what you’re hoping for; to find an older foreign woman to hook up with and get a visa to America?” He laughed and said, “Why not? No, I joke. You want only friend, then we be friends only. Tell me truth Trassee, you didn’t think of me once when you leave Delhi?” I looked at him as if a very angry mother, “Nasir, leave it!” We did.

I’m relived that I’ll leave this evening after this conversation but I’m slightly concerned that he’ll won’t get me back to the train station in time since he’s suggested I stay one or two days with him and his family. I will eat lunch, see the pictures of Kashmir and insist that he get me to the shopping area for a cell phone and back to the station to catch my train.

New Delhi Nasir

2010-01-14T23:33:00.000-05:00

The train eased into the New Delhi station assisted by my own ease and I ‘got down’, which is what the Indians refer to when one disembarks, with confidence that I am guided, directed and protected. I pitched my bag down the two-foot drop onto the platform. I paused on the platform to get my bearings looking for a coolie (porter) to carry my luggage up the many stairs and over the catwalks to exit the station. As I stand there I feel the breeze created by what seems like an entire Indian population rushing by and with my left hand I spin the ring on my right ring finger that says, “Expect Miracles.” I take a deep breath and locate a coolie by the common uniform of red shirt, dirty white pants or a male sarong type-diaper and loosely wrapped turban. I ask the coolie who appears many years older than myself, yet is five times stronger, “How much?” He replies with the obvious ‘tourist price’ of “60 rupees.” Most ‘service providers’ in India automatically double or triple their price when they see the fair skin of a Westerner. I want to tell him “I might have just stepped off this train but it certainly isn’t my first.” but I resist knowing he wouldn’t understand. After about three weeks in the country I began to ask for the, “Indian price!” before they have time to answer, which often avoids the sometimes-stressful ‘bartering dance.’ Not this time, instead I reply, “30” and he says “No.” I walk toward the stairs knowing I have no intention of carry my bag up and over the catwalks, which are in most station and move passenger traffic up and over the many platforms. New Delhi station is huge which is another reason I wish not to carry my bags. But alas he yells at me as though I’m deaf, “50,” and without turning, still heading for the stairs with my Osprey rolling behind me, I yell back “I pay 40,” using the economical English, leaving out the extraneous words we Americans use when speaking. I must get right to the point when speaking to an Indian with a limited English vocabulary. He does the India head bob which indicates we have reached an agreement. But I’m not done yet; I have to close the deal tightly before I allow him to put my luggage on his head. I tell him, “40 rupees, no more when you get outside the station, tikay?” (Hindi for ‘okay’). He responds with, “Okay.” I watch him heave my heavy-to-me Osprey atop his head thinking that his turban might actually help him balance the load. It’s a shorter distance for him, as he stands no more than 5’4”. I’ve seen coolies balance two to three suitcases on their heads, and a handle bag on each shoulder while briskly leading his temporary employer out of the station to waiting transportation. I’m still in awe of their unassuming strength. This is where it’s obvious that life in India is hard on so many, especially to the lower casts/class.

I reached the exterior of the station and realize I’m over-dressed for the warmer Delhi weather. I’ve got my day bag packed heavy with books and laptop, which prevents me from taking off my warm black vest. I put my favorite golf hat on and like flies to a bowl of sweet milk the touk-touk drivers descend, all yelling at the same time, “Auto Rickshaw ma’am? Where you go ma’am? You need guest house ma’am?” I’m laughing to myself because they aren’t giving me a chance to respond. All of a sudden I hear the familiar voice of my Kashmirian friend, Nasir, “Traussee!” I look up and see him penetrating the crowd of touk-touk drivers. He reached to the center of this mob and grabs the handle of my Osprey with one hand and my sleeve with the other and said, “Come, Traussee.” He intentionally reached for my sleeve versus my hand, as the only public display of affection you see in this country is between the men, who walk while holding hands or arm and arm around each other. This behavior makes it easy for the homosexual boys and men to blend in while showing affectionate to one another in public.

I meet Nasir on my first official day in India. I had a few hours to spare before my first experience on an Indian train that would take me to Chandigarh so I took a taxi from my Palace Hotel, which should have received a hefty fine for putting “palace” in the name of this hotel. I can only assume that they name hotels using 'palace' or 'mansion' to get more guests, in any case, that’s how I came to stay there. I am as green as a chickpea, which as you know, don’t come from chicks. But I am more aware now that I have duped by this one; okay twice. The Green Mansion in Chitwan, Nepal was the first. Yet I won’t count that as a dupe since I hold a mansion-sized affection for the place, the people and my extraordinary experiences in the Chitwan National Park.

It must have been obvious to the desk clerk that I was fresh Western meat as he phoned an auto taxi driver for me. What I know now, is that he and this taxi driver are in business together and share in what money they make on me. Auto taxis are simply cars and is what this naïve newcomers used to get me to Connaught Circle, also known as Rajiv Chowk, so that I could go to McDonald’s for breakfast. I was unsure where to get stomach-safe foods, so I picked the familiar so that I wouldn’t arrive at the home of Puneet and Anu with the runs or something worse. The taxi driver let me know immediately that he too had duped me when he said, “Ma’am, you pay an auto rickskaw forty rupees to take you back to the hotel.” I stood there in a daze and motioned for him wait to explain to me why he just charged me 120 rupees. I was still dazed when he left the scene, of what I thought was a moral crime. It was nine thirty in the morning on a weekday and McDonald’s India hadn’t opened yet. At every turn I’m reminded that, “I’m no longer in California.” Rickshaw drivers begin to circle this fresh new foreigner like vultures, as I look up to see a tall young Indian man coming closer as though he’s coming off the sunbeam from a sun that was slowly making its way to the highest point in the Delhi sky. “Hello, May I help you?” he asks with nearly prefect pronunciation. “Yes, I need a place to have breakfast and a cup of tea.” I replied. He attempts to take my bag and I pulled away motion that I’ve got it. “Come, I take you to a place.” he says, revealing his strong accent. We chatted about the usual information that most Indians want to know about me so that they can fit me neatly into a category. By the time we reached Baristas, an ill-equipped want-to-be-an-American coffee place, he knew where I was from, how much education I had, how big my family was and where in India I was going, and yet I knew only perfunctory details about my New Delhi ‘guide.’ We exchange emails as I questioned him about his family, education level, job and such over coffee and a muffin. My stomach was still requiring more food and planned to stop into McDonald’s later when I was sure it was open. I paid for Nasir’s coffee and my tea and muffin and we set out for a travel office to get a map of Delhi. Unbeknownst to me that this is the point when Nasir goes on the clock.

As for me, I just got on the Indian learning curve and will eventually catch on that pretty much all of India is on commission. Nasir, introduces me to the ‘head man’ at the travel office and we sit, he calls for a boy to bring us chai which is both a courtesy and what is used to keep me a person in place until they can be sold whatever the merchant is selling, in this case travel. As he’s telling me I should Kashmir and the Taj Mala his voice fades to white noise and my right-brain cautions, “Careful Tracy, you’re not here as a tourist.” And my left-brain chimes in and says, Yes, but It won’t hurt to see the sites in the area.” I drink my chai quickly and look at the map to see what’s close for me to see in the three hours I have left. I’m soon to discover that Nasir has a different plan. “Trassee, I want to show you my friend’s shop” he pleads. I follow him up some stairs into a small space where there are stacks for pashminas in plastic. The floor is covered with white muslin and there are four pairs of shoes in the entryway. I remove my shoes and crouch low so that my backpack and I clear the low doorframe. I am asked to sit and ‘take tea’ again! There’s a German couple-sitting lotus going through shawl after shawl covering the floor with beautiful fabrics and colors. Nasir takes a submissive posture and sits, allowing me to be the center of attention, second to the German tourists that is. I’m asked to remove my backpack and get comfortable. I refuse as I begin to pick up on Nasir’s agenda. Again, I finish my tea quickly and say my goodbyes. The proprietor says, “Look, look, looking is free.” I say ‘thank you” and put my shoes on and go down the stairs with Nasir following. I take out my map of Delhi and am determined to shake my new friend and go explore by myself. I ask Nasir to tell me where the India Gate is according to where I’m standing. He says, “Come, I show you.” But I insist on going alone. I have the business card of the hotel in my pocket and am confident I can make it back without incident. Nasir realizes that he must let this fish go. He removes his hook by telling me which way to walk and we said goodbye for now, knowing we would meet again on Facebook.

Leaving Chandijarh Part 3

2010-01-03T00:20:00.000-05:00

I woke Thursday morning with the same suffocating fear that I went to bed with. According to my logical mind, my immediate future has never ever been so absolutely undefined. It’s just before 6:00 and I put off my mediation for the train. It’s my story that “I’m tired, as if I got no sleep at all.” I notice that I’m sticking to that “story” too. Anu, knocked at 6:30. I opened the door and Busanti was right behind her with “Chai, Ma’am.?” My hair was still wet from the cold shower, but I was clean for my journey.

Anu hovered, as if wanting a most coveted table in a fine restaurant, which I happen to occupy. This brings on even more anxiety. I wish she would leave me to my tasks but she must believe that her anxious presence will hurry me along. Puneet thinks I have to be at the airport for a flight. Not sure how he got that impression since Anu was aware of her employee printing out two train tickets for me. Nonetheless my hosts seem very eager for me to leave. Anu presents me with two tiny brass statues that were gifted to her by a dear friend and represent the Ying and Yang. She hopes they will give me peace on my journey. She says, “Feel free to pass them on to another for peace on their journey.” I accept them with an open heart and again feel so connected to her. I have experienced this open door to her heart only a few times and when I do it feels as though I’m held in the hands of the universe, warm and safe. But this door can close quickly without warning, and I’m afraid to linger for getting bloodied by the abrupt slam of the door.

Everyone is trying to take my still-open-luggage out to a waiting car. I’m pressured; glad I’m awake from my cold shower, which after telling my mother this story she voiced, “They could have turned off the hot to get you out quicker.” Finally with wet hair covered by a favorite cap, I climbed in the backseat of the car.

I took my middle seat for the four-hour journey to New Delhi. Sandeep, a professionally-dressed Hindu sits in the window seat to my right. He’s the Security Director for the Bank of India in Chandijarh and once we get talking about Varanasi, he took out his cell phone, texted my sister that “all is well” and then called his counter part in Varanasi to assist me in finding good accommodations and to “ensure that his new American friend has pleasant stay in Varanasi.” His colleague agrees without hesitation. It was as if his agreement was turning the knob on my heart rate to ‘LOW’. I say to myself in semi-prayer, “This is God, God is everywhere, God is everywhere I am. I am in complete care and safety with God.”

I open my spiral notebook that I use to record names of places I visit, delightful native foods I eat, as well as places I intend to visit; and the hard-to-remember names of those I meet, but for now it becomes my journal. Inspired my the reassurance that all is well by the kind soul to my right, I write this:

"Pushed out of the nest like a duckling whose mother knows it’s time for her youngster to fly. I only know where I’ll be for the next 48 hours, after that I have only my conviction that God walks with me. Trust will be my bed and faith my shower, and that tells me that God will make certain that my sleep is peaceful and my shower is warm. I am the tiger and the Universe my trainer. So many times I’ve asked my clients to jump through the ring of flames knowing that all will be fine, but until this moment I wasn’t sure what I was asking them to do. What I know now with certainty, is that a pedestal has been placed there for those living their dreams, yet many times we are distracted by the apparent danger of the flames. The Universe is a kind and loving trainer with a sharp prod to encourage us to jump. I am honored that it has faith in me that not only can I jump through those flames once, but many times over again."

The train is pulling into the New Delhi Train Station.

Leaving Chandigarh 12/10/09 Part 2

2009-12-14T04:09:00.000-05:00

I attempted to inquiry without success what was happening to an all-Hindi workforce. I got that a catered dinner event was to take place tonight. Anu returned home shortly after me, to be as surprised as I, but with the advantage of having her inquiry answered completely. She discovered that Puneet could not secure an adequate venue to host twenty-or-so VIPs to commemorate his new post to an international business organization.

With the strained events of the day I missed lunch, wishing I had said, “yes” to Busanti’s request to pack me a lunch. Anu brought some food home and asked Busanti to prepare a quick meal. Anu whipped up a salad of chopped fruit and vegetables with lime juice, salt and pepper dressing. It was delicious. With the dinning area prepared for tonight’s event we chose not to disrupt the stage and eat in my room. We had a lovely chat about achieving harmony in ones life and the importance of taking care of oneself. She even expressed her concern if I could handle the journey I’ve embarked on, because my emotions indicated to her a frailty and lack of strength to continue. I assured her that I would be fine and that I’m a veteran of transforming fear into personal strength and courage. She presented me with two small metal statues that represent the Ying and Ying, which she too was gifted when setting out to return to India. Just after Puneet opened the door to say that guests were arriving that were asking for Anu. I said I’d just stay in the room and complete my preparations to leave. He would hear it, “No, you will come out enjoy the festivities too. You too are our guest and I want you to join the dinner.” Puneet’s demeanor was invitingly forceful, which was difficult to refuse. To honor their mostly Indian guests I thought it wise to dress in traditional Indian clothes of the Punjab state.

On my first official day in India, after returning from Nepal, I met Raj, a wonderful English-speaking tuk-tuk driver who took me to the India Gate, said that if I wore the traditional clothing of India I stand to be cheated and over-charged must less than if I only wore Western clothes. Doing this would give off the impression that I was a veteran and that I knew the customs of being a foreigner who has been in the country for a while. After checking in with my intuition I agreed to let him take me to a place that pre-made these garments, which he said, “the sales of these go to help disabled people in Delhi.” Now my intuition was saying, “get those clothes on quickly, it’s getting kind of deep!”.

I changed into the Punjabi I bought in Delhi, and emerged from my room. I didn’t know that the house could hold as many people. There was a mixture of mostly Indian entrepreneurs and business owners, some who had employees in the Finland, which explains why the Finish Embassy Director was in attendance. Gus, who’s here with his wife, is a handsome cleaned shaven young man with a shaved head that stands 6 feet tall. This profile causes his fair skin to stand out even more than mine. He wore a blue and white pinstriped with a white collar and a red tie with a deep navy blue blazer, which are the lightest and most cheerful colors in the room. All the other men from this region are in black, grey or brown with either off white (maybe due to the elements in the water that turns whites gray), even the women are were dark color, yet the richness of the fabric gives them a subtle shimmer over the men. Gus has completed one and half years of his three-year-post here in India. I am still naïve with only nine days under my belt, which is hardly enough to make any truly logical assessments, which made listening to Guus’ impressions of India stimulating and educational, especially when it comes to business matters. It was especially fascinating to witness an Indian business-owner plead his case with Guus regarding issues of taxation and lines of credit for an Indian owned company operating in Finland. The man was deeply concerned and maybe even a little bit annoyed about the doors he’s unable to open if the ownership of his company should become more than forty percent Indian owned. Interesting, is that this man laughed and smiled all through his passionate plea. I believe this is what Devdutt Pattanaik is addressing in his attempts to improve East and West business relations. I see how this behavior can bring about the opposite results, as I thought to myself, “He can’t be truly upset about this because he continues to laugh and smile,” as though it’s not really a problem to be solved but a topic of conversation, like the weather.

I asked Guus if he was familiar with TED.com or if he saw the India Devdutt Pattanaik_ talk about the business styles of the East and West and what can be done to bring more synergy between the two. Another Indian man in listening distance chimed in, happy he and I--this creature of everything opposite, shared something in common. At least that’s what his deeply relieved demeanor said to me. He expressed how much he liked it the presentations he’d seen on the site. Guus, to my surprised had no knowledge of TED.com. I promised Guus I would send him the link at the same time we were interrupted by our host in attempts to be sure all the power players had at least an introduction to one another.

I mingled a little and the varied conversations I had told me that Raj was right. These people thought I had been here for a long time. One Indian woman asked if I lived permanently Chandigarh! Another couple expressed their pleasure that I was wearing the garment correctly as “So many Westerners, just put it on not understanding how it is worn correctly.” I have to admit I was proud.

I was very near my room when I ended my last conversation and thought it was time to excuse myself to continue my efforts to ready myself for two long train trips. It was about 11:30 pm when I finished packing and eradicating items into three compact piles that will be left in my Panchkula-homebase. It was midnight when I started to feel my body drop off to sleep even with the very loud voices of those who still lingered just outside the bedroom door.

Leaving Chandigarh 12/10/09 Part 1

2009-12-14T04:06:00.001-05:00

Okay, today it’s time to cut the crap! I’ve been blogging as a tourist, safely protected by the walls of what many would consider to be palaces, and yes that includes the Star’s humble and spacious Bronx apartment. I know now that I’ve been on “holiday” so far. I’ll pick up my description of London and Ramsgate, England and all the sites and experiences of Nepal at some later point. No more of the easy life, even in Southeast Asia. I, like the Buddha, have come to see that my work and experience lay on the other side of the palace walls.

Just yesterday, about 9:30 am I was having another pleasant ride to the office with my most recent of gracious hosts when she said, as if discussing the weather, “We’ve guests coming to stay that we are obligated to host because of who they are to us.” I didn’t ask. I know that the room I have been staying in is the only spare quarters in the house. We were both sitting in the backseat and in many ways ignoring the driver as if the car was on autopilot. I’ve yet to get comfortable with what I will refer to as a ‘colonialist’ attitude—ensuring everyone stay neatly within their caste. I knew immediately that I was getting a very gracious heave-ho. I’ve overstayed my welcome, for this phase anyway. She continued, “We thought you would be here for only a couple of days and now that we have others…” I interrupted, “I completely understand and I can make arrangements to leave within the next few days.” She cautioned me, while her hands did the universal sign for slowdown, not to be too hasty. “Let’s wait until Puneet tells me when the guests are coming. We should know something later today.”

I guessed that I had at least a couple of days to arrange, what exactly? I felt my temperature rise and knew not to show the wide array of emotions that were trying to surface. The displays of emotions (fear, tears, or upset of any kind) are seen as a sign of weakness in both mind and character in this country. And they certainly have absolutely no place in business! I’m glad I wasn’t hoping to recruit Puneet and Anu as coaching clients because I’d sealed a certain “no deal” the moment I shed tears of missing my mother and sister at the dining table on my second evening here. What I’ve learned in nine short days, is that if I can’t suppress my ‘public display of emotions’ I just shake my head and say while smiling, “I have allergies,” or do the universal hand signal for “I’m congested”, which will quickly put those around at ease.

I Skyped with mom for about 30 minutes, the first seven minutes where taken up with my emotional display of a tremendous wave of homesickness, coupled with fear, uncertainty and those emotions still indescribable to even me. Mum was encouraging, compassionate and more accepting of who I am and what I feel now than I ever knew her to be. I see her journey paralleling mine. Our conversation turned comfortingly generic and then it was time for her to find out who was voted off of So You Think You Can Dance. I asked her to Skype me once more before going to bed, which she did. We signed off in the usual fashion, in which I wait for her to hang up first, so I can enjoy a site for these sore eyes. I watched her image fade to the gray vacant Skype screen and just then Anu came into my little office space she has been allowing me to occupy and said, “if you could leave tomorrow that would be good?”

“Shit,” I have to plan my next designation, reference it with hotels or ashrams and book train tickets. All that on top of the errands I intended to run which included, exchange “Beginners Hindi” to a book shop (too small to call ‘store’) that’s open at the oddest hours (12:00 to 14:30 and reopens again at 17:30 to 22:00 or 23:00—whichever the bookseller fancies) as well as make time to go to the shoe store to get the last American currency changed into rupees and finally locate a cable or chain for my luggage to be secured on the train. Yes, a Shoe Store, which the three “Singhs” (my Seik lunch companions at the Chandigarh Subway) turned me on to the day before. There I was at the high-gloss white counter in the midst of a currency exchange while the woman beside me was purchasing a very trendy Western pump. I wondered how they knew the shoe merchant was moonlighting as a money-changer. We went outside, faced the shoe store and while one Singh pointing at the large glass storefront said, “See there, that will tell you that you can change money here.” I questioned, “See what?” as I looked behind a tall stack cardboard boxes full of new merchandise that was blocking an 8x11 sheet of paper taped to the window advertising that they also serve as a local Western Union office. I surely hope they weren’t expecting too much business from a sign that is 1/100th of the glass window it’s taped. Nonetheless, Indians are very enterprising and always looking for more way to generate income.

“Okay Tracy, assess the situation.” I’ve been on sensory overload for the past few days in attempting to get a most coveted data card to bring Wireless Internet freedom to my life and being cared and cooked for their servant, Busanti, a woman that has treated me as though I was terminally disabled and she’s trying to make my last days of life as pleasant and effortless as possible. But, at 16:30 I had two train vouchers in my hand and knew that I would arrive in Varanasi 8:50 India Standard Time (IST) Friday morning. No hotel reservations, just a full-page list of the many ashrams that the Mobera Systems ‘tech guy” printed out for me. After that I have no idea what the future holds. I put my backpack on and set out to complete my errands. I exchanged the book, exchanged money and went to three places that sold luggage that had no cables or chains. Another book vendor next to the Samsonite store said, “Go to Sector 19 to the hardware store by the post office.

I went to the main roads to hire a touk-touk (a nickname for the motorized rickshaw), to take me to Sector 19 to buy the chain and then ‘home’ in Sector 6 of Panchkula. I bartered with the driver to pay him half of what he quoted for the journey. Most Indians believe that Americans, even over most Westerners, are all wealthy. From my limited perspective of India, the poorest of Americans in fact have so very much more than even the Indian working class.

We arrived Sector 19 in the dark. My touk touk driver pulled to the left side of the curved road and pointed across a busy street that I had to cross to get to the dusty and dirty hardware stalls, each specializing in only one category of tools or equipment relating to plumbing, lumber and metal, which sold chains. I stepped into the staring Indians, greeting them with a friendly “Namaste”, which most respond to very favorably. I mean really could you reject a person if as they approached you they powerfully declared that the ‘God in them recognizes the God in you’? My fair Western skin is known to stop traffic, which also stopped all employees and customers to stop what they were doing and observe me. The metal chain merchant understood what I was looking for and pulled a few feet of chain from a spool under the counter and handed it to me. I put a two or three foot length in my grasp and pulled. Unable to break it, I still didn’t trust it to secure my unattended luggage. I handed one end to the young man behind that counter, motioning for him to pull on it. An older man, I assumed was the owner or manager said, “Strong, this will not break” and nodded for the young man to pull. Just then the chain snapped as we both regained our balance and laughed. All the seven or so men, including nearby voyeurs, laughed out loud. It was a very unifying moment. The owner instructed the young man, in Hindi, to fetch another strength, he resurfaced from the dust and darkness dragging a length of chain that could safely anchor a lengthy sailboat. I laughed, thinking how desperately I’ve been working to lighten my luggage and he brings me my weight a single length of chain. I thank them all and choose the leave this task for when I arrive in Delhi.

I returned to the house on the very dark streets of Sector 6, Panchkula. I couldn’t get anyone to answer the bell from the front of the house so I walked around to the back of the house. As my eyes focused with a new light source I saw Busanti’s 10-year-old daughter, Sonali, running towards me. I’ve befriended this amazing child; to my hosts’ disappointment because our friendship stands to blur the very defined social lines between employer and employee. She swung her arms around my neck in full embrace. I lifted her up knowing what she didn’t--that this in many ways is farewell embrace, possibly for be a long while. I was taken back to find a large truck parked at the gate, a fire burning in an oil drum to warm the many men working. I came through the back gates to see men setting up catering tables covered in very white linen, sparkling wine glasses, white plates and silverware. For a moment I thought my hosts were throwing a party to celebrate my leaving, but in an instant reminded myself that, ‘It’s not always about me.”

Day 5: Road to India - London, UK -Part 4

2009-12-09T04:24:00.000-05:00

The freestanding transit booth is nothing but concrete and glass on the outside, yet the activity is inside with the two men in obvious important conversation among the piles of reports and schedules piled four to five inches tall. I waited patiently at the round stainless steel opening to allow my inquiry to travel inside a work place that must have been occupied by the men’s grandfathers. After all, in this country the highly sought after security of a government job will usually be inherited to the next generation.

There was a break in their cockney (the accent of native Londoner) and one of the men swilled around in his chair to see only my head and shoulders standing at high window that made this 5’8” woman feel like a child asking for sweets (candy) from an adult. Before I could speak he said, “Jolly good hat. Were’da get ‘it?” “In California”, I replied. “Yeah, it doosn’t louk like anythin’ ya’d get ‘ere.” he said. He was flirting with me? “Sweet!” and not like in candy. I was relieved to know that my journey dedicated to knowing and trusting God hasn’t left me androgynous. This bloke (informal way of referring to a man in the UK) wasn’t bad looking either. I shook my head and got present to my inquiry, even though I wanted to linger to hear more British flattery. “I need to get the train, I mean the Tube, to Victoria Station to pick up a 170 bus to Battersea.” I said. My inquiries were typically comprehensive so that my guide understands exactly where I’m trying to reach. The usual results have been to actually arrive at the point of my destination and not somewhere in the vicinity. He pointed me down the stairs, which would put me right on the platform for a Circle or District line to Victoria Station.

I guided the wheels of my backpack down the stairs making a considerable thump on each of the concrete steps—celebrating that it has wheels and I don’t have to actually carry something designed to be on my back. I can’t remember who was it that told me about backpacks with wheels a month or two before me departure. Simply another angel sent to me to ease what would turn out to be an emotionally heavy journey.

I was now outside, liberated from all the tunnels. I was breathing the fresh clean air of England. I was jumping for joy inside, but maintaining my composure for the only two people waiting with me, who I assumed were Brits by their fair hair and skin. I went to look at the enlarged map of the London Underground to get a sense of where I was. All I could see was a beloved memory of the picture a stranger took of mum and I together in front of a map just like it in the Piccadilly station more than 15 years ago. My eyes started to sweat as I wished she were with me now when I sensed I was blocking someone from seeing the whole map. I took a deep sniff to compose myself, I turned and move aside while excusing myself to find I was addressing a handsome young man of what I believed to be of Indian descent. He wore a pleasant smile and as I passed by him to stand near the tracks I caught a whiff of his cologne and before I knew it I was complimenting him on it. His smile got wider as he thanked me for noticing.

The Circle line pulled into the station and I choose the third car from the front. The seats were situated opposite of the HEX. These were one long upholstered bench on each side facing each other with the occasional bright yellow pole conveniently place so the each rider could hold on if need be. I thought how nice it would be to have upholstered seats on public transportation in San Francisco and New York City, but the contrast displays the civility and charm of the English culture. The higher quality interiors of these trains supposes an expectation of parents to more closely monitor their children’s behavior and for people to be respectful of these public transportation vehicles in general.

I know something about expectation; in my experience it’s fulfilled long before hopes or wishful thinking. I’ve notice that people show up generous and kind because I expect them to and life itself concurs in all the way I believe it will.

The train had more windows than walls affording me a nice view of the sunrise. The car had a continuous stream of advertisements posted just below ceiling level, yet sitting down I had intentionally look up to read them. The car was empty when I boarded, then a lady embarked and went to the farthest seat in the car. I went straight for the abandoned newspaper and turned to find my handsome young friend hoping on just as the doors shut behind him. He came over to me and motioned for permission to sit near me. He said, “You’re so friendly. It’s just that so few people at as approachable as you and I like to meet new people. I have friends in so many parts of the world.” We talked about Los Angeles and how much he’d like to pursue an acting career and to live there. His name is Zack, but spells it “Zed-a-kay”. He’s in London for just a few days to participate in the graduation ceremony of York University. He was awarded his Law Degree a couple of years ago but didn’t ‘walk’ to make it official. He giggled and said, “My diploma folder was empty.”

I asked why he was out and about so early and he explained that he just saw a friend off at Heathrow and that he has another friend to see off in a few hours, who is as unfamiliar with public transportation in London as I am. He’ll be returning ‘home’ tomorrow afternoon. He doesn’t have to many classmates left in London as they’ve all splintered off after completing school and wondered if he could help me get reacquainted with London. I jumped at the opportunity to have a new friend show me around an old city. Since he lived in Battersea long ago we agreed to meet on the Battersea Bridge. A bridge I had no knowledge of but I took his word for its existence and agreed with a seize-the-day-attitude to meet at noon. The five hours between would give us time to do what we needed. It was essential that I get settled in my temporary digs and take a speed nap. Zac also told me to get off the train before it reached Victoria Station, “because it will be crowed with commuters that I’d have to compete with on the bus.” I thought, ‘thank god I ran into Zac to help make my journey a bit easier.” I would soon learn that following Zac’s so-called ‘more convenient route’ would actually take me thirty or more minutes out of my way.

I left Zac on the train as I disembarked at Clapham North Station to catch the 345 to the Battersea. I pulled my backpack out of tube station into the dimly lit morning. The sun was waking up so slowly. My mind was also waking slowly. I now had to think about which bus was going in which direction because American cars are operated on the left side and we drive on the right side, but in England that’s all reversed. So if you what to go North in England you stand at the bus stop on the South side of the road. It took me a few minutes and I said to myself, “Bullocks” (which is like saying the F-word in the States. It simply means, the balls of a bull, but it’s been given a highest x-rating for profanity in the UK), “I’ll just ask for directions again.”

When my friends in the states meet my mom, they always comment how much they like to hear her talk. She’s been in the US for at least 40 years and I tend to forget that she’s still carries a British accent. But if these Brits would hear her they’d say she sounds just as much like a Yank as I do. I also forget that most Brits like my American accent as much as I like their English accent, therefore, seldom do they complain when I ask directions. There just happy to her me say just about anything.

I was directed to the right bus stop to get to Battersea, however my gracious guide must have been too compassionate to ask me which Battersea I wanted. I was about to find out that there was Battersea Park Road, Battersea Bridge Road, Battersea High Street and Battersea Church Road. Why didn’t I just follow my original instructions and take the 170 from Victoria? I guess I needed to make this journey even more interesting? I got off on the first stop that had ‘Battersea’ in the name while desperately wishing for a cell phone. There were very few people on the road and they were obviously rushing off to work. They had that “Don’t stop me” expression on their faces. So I didn’t dare. I pulled my luggage Osprey down the cobbled-stone Battersea Church Road, which I thought was hopeful because any road in England with “church” in the name was a sure to have a church on it somewhere. I was wishing my Osprey would take flight and locate St. Mary’s steeple and return to me like a homing-pigeon to show me the way, but instead the weight of it just helped the wheels to lodge into the spaces between the cobblestone. My biceps were getting a workout. After walking, what seemed like a mile for this weary traveler, and not spotting a church I turned around and walked back to the Bridge Road.

I turned the corner and saw the street a Newsagent; a shop where one could buy just about any newspaper or magazine printed in the free world. They also sell sweets, but I was in more need of sleep, than sweets. I tapped on the door realizing that they hadn’t quite opened yet. An averagely attractive 20-something girl of Indian decent, with long black hair tied back in a ponytail, opened the door. I asked for directions to St. Mary Church because Father Paul’s email response to Yvonne said, “Just ask anyone in Battersea where St. Mary’s is and they’ll know where to direct you.” Well I found the one person in Battersea that had no clue where the church was. I asked her if I could use their phone to call the church. With some hesitation she pulled her “mobile” out of a pocket as I extracted my printed-itinerary from a convenient exterior pocket of my travel purse. She dialed the number once and it didn’t go through and almost dismissed me after hitting the ‘end’ button on her phone. I asked her to please try again. She did and we got the double ring, a sign that that call was going through. She handed me the phone and I said, “Father Paul?” but it was still ringing, and then I heard a man’s voice say “ello”. The British tend to drop their H’s all together or at least make them so soft they become no existence. “Father Paul, it’s Tracy, I’m at….” I looked at the young lady to tell me, and she said the “Brigde Road.” I guessed that once in Battersea that one could drop the formal name of every street when referring to them. He said, “Simply go round the corner and walk south down the church road until you pass the church and Vicarage Crescent will be on your left.” I said okay, fearing that I had been on the right road already but didn’t go down far enough. I pulled the heavy, dead bird down the cobbled stones again but much farther than before. “Hallelujah” I can see the steeple of what I already know is a charming small church with creaking doors and worn wooden pews. I rounded the corner and passed St. Mary’s on my right and staying, as instructed, to the left side to find the Vicarage. I walked and walked some more, the sun was getting brighter and the temperature rises to make for a beautiful day for London Bridges.

I was getting a bit frustrated thirty minutes into my journey down the long winding road and decided to turn around and go back to the church to pray. I drug the wheels into the grassy courtyard and thought I was hearing the voice of God, saying “Tracy, I’m here.” I turned full-circle and saw a handsome English gent, early-forty’s with a premature receding hair-line, glasses, clean-shaven, wearing black trousers and shirt with a small bit of white on an all-black collar. Awe, my prayer was answered before my knees even reached the cold St. Mary’s grounds.

to be continued.....

Interesting tidbit: I'm listening to the soundtrack to Love Actually while writing this. Serendipitous, yes?

Day 5: Road to India - London, UK -Part 3

2009-12-07T07:29:00.000-05:00

I needed to get to Victoria Station, the heart of London’s transportation system. Victoria supports England’s railroad system, the London Underground--referred to as the ‘Tube,’ a nickname it was given around the late 1800s due to its shape--and the coaches and buses servicing Greater London. I followed the signs for the Heathrow Express (HEX) that took me on a long walk through a series of well-lit clean white-tiled-walled tunnels with posters advertising a wide array of products I celebrate no longer needing, until I reached the HEX Ticket Agent. This agent replaced questions for a passionate desire to help me get to my destination. He even saved me some Pound Sterling (the official name for U.K. currency) by selling me a ‘Return’ (British term for Round Trip) for thirty-two pounds. Cool, or “brilliant” as the Brits say, I have my passage back to Heathrow when I leave for Southeast Asia.

I asked directions to the appropriate platform. On this journey I’m glad not to be a stereotypical male because I stop and ask directions a lot. I have learned that it’s better to stop three or even five people to ask or confirm directions than to carry my still-heavy worldly possessions a long way only to have to return. I have come to enjoy asking for help. It allows me to interact with the people that inhabit the part of the world I find myself in. Engaging them is to include them and to allow their journey and mine to become one, even if it’s for a brief moment in time.

“People enter our lives for a reason, a season, or a lifetime,” is a mantra I come to live by. The catch is for us is to be careful not to force a person to stay for a lifetime when they are only come for a season. When that’s a bit too philosophical for me I remember the chemical rush that our bodies get when we show kindness to each other. Serotonin; or happy-juice as I like to refer to it, is secreted from the hypothalamus when we help or when we witness someone being compassionate or kind to another. This happy juice also strengthens our immune system. This is evident in my health and energy level since I’ve been a journey-woman. It sure does help cure the jetlag. My sister would say, “it’s because of who you are, Tracy,” referring to my positive mental attitude that attracts like-minded and generous people who want to help me. I believe that’s partly the case, but I also believe that people are basically good and it’s natural for us to want to support our fellow human beings.

I reach the HEX about 06:00, which is waiting with doors open for its fortunate passengers. The HEX is a more dear (expensive) way to travel to and from Heathrow and those more knowledgeable and fungal passengers typically choose other modes, which do take longer. I realized this a bit late, but I’m happy to go this way because in a way my sister and my mother were my travel agents. While I was in New York City Yvonne goggled my London destination from their Beach House in Imperial Beach, California and looked at the necessary web pages together, but mom and Yvonne’s heads were clearer so I simply took notes and followed their instructions.

Mum and Yvonne had gone to the Beach House to spend precious time together after I left. I’m sure they needed some downtime considering how emotional it was for us to say ‘good-bye’. It’s always been a rare occasion to have Yvonne all to oneself. We have a small but large family, that for the most part is very close, something we all owe to Yvonne. She has a passionate desire to keep us all together and have us ‘get over’ our differences so we can get back to being together, especially to go on holiday together. That’s adventure nearly pales in comparison to the one I’m on.

There are fourteen of us to fit for the latest vacation tee shirt from one to seventy-three in age and from petite to triple X in size, that identifies us as the fun-loving-band-of-crazies that we truly are. We are a varied clan that can cut deep with disdain and yet will show up with titanium strength when we needed. I’ve been drawing from that strength for the last few days when the waves of culture shock swirled with the sands of loneliness find their way into the days and nights. (I’m in India as I write this.)

I stepped aboard the HEX, noticing I didn’t need to ‘mind the gap’ that is between most platforms and the trains in the UK. The stainless steel walls and doors are spotless and the seats are upholstered with deep-ocean blue high-quality fabric freckled with red flakes. They have high backs and might be too comfortable for the weary transcontinental travelers who need to disembark soon. But not me, I’m almost on the edge of my seat in anticipation of what I might see even though it’s still dark. There are several conspicuously placed LCD screens showing commercials to sell me more unnecessary products. The car was deserted with exception of me and a businessman in a wrinkled dark grey suit who sat across the isle one row back. I think we both wanted to enjoy some expanded personal space. I wondered if this was a maiden voyage across tracks that were laid a hundred years ago. I felt safe and still very energized. A state I tend to stay in until I reach my temporary resting place, at which time I sleep harder than Henry the Eighth after a huge meal, and yes, I probably do some real snoring.

I had to transfer to the Tube at Paddington Station which would take me to Victoria where I’ll needed to catch a 170 bus to Battersea, a suburb of London. The HEX train made another one of it’s stops and because I was still getting use to the accents of the ticket agents and announcers in the airport and train stations, I nearly missed my stop. I followed the exit signs to the London Underground, which is hard to miss once you’ve seen their logo. It’s a red donut with a horizontal cobalt blue stripe with UNDERGROUND written in white text over the circle. That striped changed from a teal the cobalt in 2007, but I’m not sure why. Yet, if you stand on any London street-corner and turn 360 degrees around and don’t see a sign to one of 270 tube stations then you just aren’t looking.

I pulled my luggage from the HEX train and this time I did ‘mind the gap’ heaving and swinging my luggage onto the platform. With a sigh of relief I paused and scan the area to get my bearings to see that I was in yet another maze of tunnels. I could hear Bob Parker saying, “Will it be tunnel number one, two or three?” Time to ask directions, again. The conductor pointed me down tunnel number two and at the end I came to a London Transport ticket stand with a lovely black woman behind the bullet proof Plexiglas. With no cue, due to the earliness of the hour, I stepped up to the window. I don’t know why, but I always feel the need to raise my voice so that the person behind that thick Plexiglas can hear me. Logic says they can hear a normal tone of voice but it plays a game with my left brain, which assumes that even my loud mouth can’t be heard through anything that thick. So I kind of yelled and either she heard me just fine or was just being polite to this Yank who has obviously traveled far. After all, I was in “the land of good manner.” Whichever she remained pleasant and sold me an Oyster Card, a hard plastic key card tucked inside a yellow and blue plastic holder supplied by Ikea, which is great product placement to something 3.4 million weekday riders carry in the pockets, purses or briefcases. The Oyster Card will allows passage on any one of the eleven lines and all Greater London buses. The pass was twenty-three pounds, which would be very heavy if I had to bring that many pounds of silver to buy it, but no fear since almost all currency is no longer backed by gold or silver. I’ve been using my debit card to purchase these tickets since I haven’t seen an ATM or “Cash Machines” yet.

I figured I’ll go to a Thomas Cook travel agency, which I hold a fond childhood memory of those rare occasions we’d return to England with my mum (Brit for Mom) to visit my grandparents. It’s interesting to observe the sentimental memories of long ago I have stored up and now find myself attempting to reconnect with them. Why am I inclined to go to a business with people behind the desks that have absolutely no connection to me other than the memory of following my mother into an all-red storefront with the white block THOMAS COOK lettering? Are other people as sentimental as I and choose a place to patronize based on a precious memory that lasted for a fraction of a moment? If they don’t, I might be the sappiest woman on the planet, but if they do then we are kindred spirits making our way through this beautiful life hoping from one sentimental cloud to another.

The nice lady directed me on to a station that had to be built around the time my grandfather was a boy. Actually the first section of the London Underground opened in 1863 and was the first system of its kind in the world and starting in 1890, England was the first to operate electric trains. Old maybe, but I loved it. I said, “Tracy, welcome to back to England!” It was cooler in England that NY, but I can’t say it was cold. As I was leaving the train I caught my reflection in the window to see that I was sporting a full-on Alfalfa so I put on my pink angora cap. I stepped to the ticket agent box to find out where I must go next. Again, if I got on the train going the wrong way it might be hours before I got the Battersea.

To be continued....

Day 5: Road to India, arriving UK - Part 2

2009-12-05T01:32:00.001-05:00

November 17, 2009

My days are no longer marked by a beginnings or endings. I’m a time traveler now, jetting over time zones as my internal GPS downloads new geo-data. MY flight to London left LaGuardia at 2130 EST and landed Heathrow at 4:40 GMT, more than an hour early, leapfrogging me over five hours.

As the pilots began the descent the flight attendant passed out the customs forms. Groggy passengers dropped their tray tables, wiping sleep from their eyes to focus on the task at hand. Flight attendants serving coffee, tea and water, while another collects trash to ready the cabin for the next group of excited and exhausted passengers, if they’re anything like us.

I removed the hard copy of my itinerary from my travel purse, which I created just days before leaving. It’s pretty exciting to look at with its list of flight numbers, departure and arrival times, public transportation directions and as more addresses than I’ve had in the last 10 years. Yet the most usual is the address to my ‘home base’ in, which is a numbered sector within Panchkula, a subsidiary of the city state of Chandijarh (pronounced chan-di-gar).

The pilots set the transatlantic ship down easy and before I knew it I was stepping on to British soil. I began to feel a surge of energy as I stepped onto the concourse. I believe the chromosomes that held my British DNA were happy to breathe in the jolly ol’ air from an ancient land that I haven’t visited in over ten years.

I cued up (stood in line) for customs with Mooshi and her mother. The cue was very long and the non-British citizens were kept organized by the Disneyland-style-ropes. Mooshi and I continued our pop culture banter about our favorite TV shows. Her pre-med education doesn’t allow her to follow shows like Lost and Survivor, bit luckily she has a close friend that can find pretty much anything on the web. That’s when I learned about freetv.com and missedashow.net. I was so happy there was a way I could follow season six of So You Think You Can Dance and season one of Flashforward, a new program I discovered while surfing iTunes. Each episode is about $2.99 to download and since I’m being very frugal with my current funds, which are only meant to support me on this journey, I will refrain from incurring further download fees.

I handed Mooshi a small slip of paper with my name, URL to my Blog and my Skype name. I’m so grateful to Jim, a member of Riverside Community Center for Spiritual Living (RCCSL), who produced about a hundred of these little slips for the attendees of my farewell party. The rest I have been using to stay in touch with the amazing people I meet along my Road to India.

I was first to a customs counter and noticed Mooshi and her mother stepping to desks at opposite sides of me. I agent began to ask me a litany of questions, similar to those I answered to post my eHarmony profile. Is he hitting on me or does this country really need to know how I met (or in this case, not met yet), the people I’ll be staying with in London? “It’s a vicarage, not a terrorist cell, for All Saints’ sake!” I remember Pat Spencer, one of my mentors, working on her Ph.D. telling me that her dissertation was finished, not when she completed it, but when one of her advisors says, “Okay, you’re done.” Now, I know what she was referring to, because I had no idea how long the essay questions would last and if I was providing adequate answers. There I was in mid-answer to about the twentieth question and the agent’s stamped my passport and dismissed me.

I put my passport in my travel bag for safekeeping and turned around expecting to see Mooshi and her mother, but they vanished into one of the many corridors. Surely they had to make their way to the next gate for the continuation of their long journey to India for her sister’s wedding. I think she said they have four connections before reaching their home state in India, and I thought I had an intense itinerary. Their hectic journey is exactly what I believed I was avoiding by stopping in New York and London.

It’s obvious that I’m no longer in Kansas by the signage. “Water closet” is not where one fills an empty water bottle. That closest is more for making deposits than withdrawals. I followed the “Baggage Re-Claim” signs and when I reached the turn-style for my flight I saw only passengers with terribly wrinkled clothes impatiently peering down the beltway. As the silver slats expanded and retracted to make the continuous circle, I took the opportunity to chat up any human beings that are in earshot. After all there weren’t any trees around. Toria, my longtime friend and college roommate in San Francisco, would describe me as someone who, “Would talk to a tree, if it would only talk back.”

A lovely British couple who have been “on holiday” in Newport Beach, California, were my choice de jour. Americans go “on vacation” and the English go “on holiday”. I love the concept of taking a vacation from work and calling it a ‘holiday’. I wonder what they call an American legal holiday that gives us a single day off of work, a “vacation”?

The luggage eventually came and we said our farewells. I was off to follow to get a train to Victoria Station and they had a car service waiting for them. I silently hoped they would offer me a ride into London, yet had they; my first day in the U.K. might have been just okay.

Day 5: Road to India (Somewhere over the Atlantic) Part 1

2009-11-23T00:53:00.000-05:00

November 16 & 17, 2009

I attempted to sleep once more but became alerted by the considerable fidgeting of seatmate to the left. I was present to my irritation several times during the whole ordeal and before I gave her the international “you’re disturbing me” expression complete with a deep sigh, I said yet another prayer. “God please forgive me for my unwillingness to embrace this moment. Please grace me with compassion and patience and help me to see what this telling me about myself. I trust that everything that shows up on this journey is for my expansion. I choose to fully embrace this moment. I pray that I will soften and be of service to this beautiful expression of God that has appeared to the left of me. Amen”

I completed my prayer and looked over at her with a “How can I help you?” expression to discover that she become trapped in her aisle seat. The opening had become too small for her frame, especially with the passenger seat in front of her fully reclined. She was sweating and only ensnared herself even worse by her intense struggle. It reminded me of a recent wildlife program, which showed the dramatic rescue of a helpless polar bear cub that had gotten snared by a trap. It too fought hard to free itself only to increase the chance for injury. “I must do something! I can’t let this innocent creature suffer for one more minute.”

Knowing that aisle seat armrests are suppose to lift up, I got on my knees in my seat and lean into her round mass to locate the release button to free her. She somehow realized I was attempting to her, yet she continued to struggle. The commotion finally alerted our cabin steward and he too attempted to release the armrest without success. He reached for her to take his hands so that he could free her, but she pulled away from him lifting her arms as if she was protecting herself from a blow. How is it that any transatlantic flight attendant is unaware of the cultures they serve? When he became frustrated by her refusal to accept his assistance, I said, “She can’t touch you! Her culture prohibits a woman being touched by any other male, like a husband or son. The man in front of her woke and straightened his chair as her mass exploded into the aisle. We had drawn many onlookersduring this melodrama, which all breathed a sign of relief as she was freed, much like I did as I saw the small cub running across the ice to its mother after being freed by a few brave human beings.

Buddha-lady went to the restroom and I took the opportunity too or I’d have to crawl over Mooshi, her mother and another passenger to exit right, if I should have to use the facilities later. While in the galley I asked to be moved to an open aisle seat to prevent another entrapment. The flight attendant said. “Look around, there are no aisle seats available.” I took the long way back to my seat in hopes of finding an open seat. I did. It was an aisle seat several rows in front of ours. I asked the handsome longhaired European man, who witnessed the recent commotion, if the seat next to was vacant. The tray table was down holding an uncollected dinner tray so I wasn’t sure. He looked at me with such disgust you’d think I asked him to hold a fresh bag of pooh. I told him it would be me sitting next to him since it would be difficult for me to get in and out of my seat should I need. He softened and agreed. I was thinking how nice it would be to sit next to such a hottie and what amazing conversation we might have. But before I could collect my belongings, the flight attendant was already moving Buddha-lady into the vacant seat I had found. He had come behind me to ensure that the armrest would release. So instead of my belongings, I picked up her shoes from the floor with my left hand (very important that left hand is used for unclean things in her region of the world) and brought them to her when she went into a series of bows as if she was having a “darshana” (Sanskrit for seeing an avatar or holy person). She thanked me, but Mister European-Calvin-Klein-model just glared at me as though I set him up. I went back to my seat and wondered what he might be resisting that the present of Buddha lady would assist him in letting go? Again, his journey!

I went back to my seat, now on the aisle and stretched out thinking I might be able to sleep now. No go. I sat up, pulled a little battery-operated pin light with a clip, pulled the Velcro loose on the seat back in front of me and clipped the light to illuminate my journal. The overhead reading lights are just too bright and would disturb my fellow passengers in their slumber. I wrote in my journal for a long time and then pulled out the laptop to work on a video of the little Jewish angel I saw yesterday in Lower Manhattan.

Before too long the flight attendants were making their way through the cabin with water. People stirred as blinds began to open. I was hoping for light, but it was still dark. We were landing early, about 4:40 am, so I should be ahead of the morning commuters.

Day 4: Road to India - Bronx, NY, USA to London, UK

2009-11-20T16:57:00.000-05:00

November 16, 2009

I woke about 8:00 and putts around a bit before I got serious about closing my backpack. I was in consolidation mode with my toiletries and condiments. I really must wean myself off the sugar substitutes and the powered creamer. I was going to bring the small jar of Metamucil, but it held me up at security at the Long Beach Airport so better make it smooth sailing, which is what it for anyway. Ironic….

I was on yet another skype calls with mum and Yvonne as I zipped my bag closed with some strenuous effort. It’ll all flatten out soon and the teeth of the zipper will go from a tight smile to a casual frown.

I looked at the clock with un-made-up-eyes and panic set in. I putts alright! I had to be out of the flat in 20 minutes. Okay, here comes the all-natural Tracy out in the world. Man, I remember a day when the thought of going out in public without make-up would mortify me. Not these day. I love showing up just as God intended me to at this age. I mean after all wouldn’t a tube of mascara be there at the cutting of the umbilical cord if our creator didn’t do the job well enough? I spent over two decades coloring my hair only to choose a journey that doesn’t support carrying a bottle of Clairol around with me to discover that my Creator did a ‘bang up job’ (I’m in England as I write this ;-). Now, people stop me on streets, buses, trains and planes to ask me for the name of my hairdresser, my response, “GOD, she’s very talented isn’t she?”

I gifted my special hostess with “The Laws of Spirit”, an amazing book by Dan Millman and a starfish on a silver chain. These items were mine but I realize now that some of what I brought with me was always intended for others. I felt the vibration of that necklace and book shift to another frequency that was no longer the one I was vibrating on.

Carrie helped me to the train station to be sure I was going the right way. Good thing too, as I headed for the ‘Uptown’ platform. Carrie yelled from outside the black heavy gates of the subway “No, go Downtown!” I will get off at 125th Street station in Harlem where I need to catch the M60 to LaGuardia.

I came out of the subway and thought ‘Now what?” and saw other luggage-toting folks and turned to follow them. Sure enough, they led me to the M60, which was at the bus stop. I ‘dipped’ my pass in the slot and it popped up signaling that it was okay to board. I spied an open seat right at the front across from Camika. She is dressed in many bright colors, with 6 inch-round transparent plastic rainbow loop earrings I’ve ever seen. She conceals some of her colors with a black and white tweed coat and black suede slouch boots. She’s voluptuous with a friendly and welcoming smile. I begin to chat her up and learn that she’s off the Columbus, Ohio only until February, because as she says, “it’s hard to go from fast to slow” so she has every intention to return to New York City.

We exchange emails and promise to become friends on Facebook. We approached the airport, which I’m completely unfamiliar with, since I always used JFK. Yet, I remind myself that God is always guiding, directing and protecting me! I’m walking through this journey with a peaceful presence that speaks to me in the stillness. As Camika and I almost step off too early I hear that presence speak to me through another. I thought that there were wise people and they speak with wisdom and there are not so wise people who speak nonsense; and I’ve listened to both. I never realized until now that God speaks to me through everyone and not every message has to be ‘wise’ or ‘profound’. Now I realize I needed that wisdom of that lovely man that said, “This isn’t your stop! Wait and I’ll tell you when it’s time to get off.” I intuitively knew that was God. Gandhi says, if you don’t see God in the next person, do not take another step.” Me, I keep walking. Man, does God look and sound great!

I take a short flight in a very small plane to Dulles and get a bite to eat in the food court before proceeding to security. Matt and Jeff are at the next table taking about all things male and mid-20ish. Jeff is in the Air Force after examining his life purpose (so profound for his age), which had him in the Baltic’s helping people rebuild their communities and lives. He really ‘got himself’ while servicing others and now his friend, Matt, from Queens, is inspired to be an officer and not so much to follow his friend’s footsteps but to set his own.

They joined me at my four-top table and sat for about half an hour and we talked about the possibilities of leading an epic life. All though out communing Jeff called me “Ma’am” and each time I heard it I thought about how I probably look the age of their mothers and yet I just don’t feel like a ‘ma’am’, I’m not even sure I know how to ‘feel’ like a ‘ma’am’. They said their good-bye’s and I called Yvonne and mom to tell them I’d skype them in the Dulles Airport. As Jeff shook my hand he said, “Ma’am, you sure do inspire me!” Funny, because he really moved me and gave me the opportunity to look at what I’m doing in the big way as he sees it!

I read “Soul Identity” on my Kindle and before I knew we were down. I exited the small plane and walked around those who collected their carry-on luggage at the bottom of the stairs. Even the smallest carry-ons were to big to fit in the overhead compartments. I surveyed my surrounds from where I stood. Peeped out a monitor and noted my gate. I had to take an shuttle, which looked more like was a prop leftover from one of the Star Wars movies. It was a box-like train car without a protruding driver’s area you see on most people movers, and moved with robotic jerks. I mentioned it to the lady next to me and she laughed out loud as she thought about it, never being able to place what they truly resembled until now.

I knew that I was now in the larger part of the airport. Hundreds of people walking so fast you think someone yelled ‘fire’. “Really people, slow down for your heart’s sake.” I thought.

I used the facilities and looked for an outlet to top off the charge of my laptop. I wasn’t the only one. I was having difficulty getting online and asked the people around me if the airport had free Wifi. Mostly they chuckled and turned away, except for Mesha, (spelled phonetically) who said, “Here, use my laptop.” There was God again!! I asked if he had skpye, he did, brought it up, I signed on and was talking to mum and Yvonne again. We chatted until Mesha had to board his flight that left earlier than main. He was on his way home to Seattle ( I think). He was in some amazing warm place with his girlfriend, which he was able to go because he telecommutes from home, which he can do wherever ‘home’ might be as long as there’s Internet access. I really must keep my pen and pad handy at all times. I will ask him where he visited when we connect on Facebook sometime soon.

They called my flight and as I stood in line to hear the call my boarding group I got a ‘message’ to use the restroom one more time so that when I get settled in my seat and the Melatonin begins to take effect, I can go right to sleep. That wasn’t the ‘plan’ at all. I was in the middle of the center row of seat in the back of the plane and when I got to my row there was a lovely Buddha-round Indian woman in a ivory Sari with only a black fleece hoddie to keep her warm when she lands on the cool and windy side of the pond. She was on her cell, which I’m sure every passenger that had board thus far was aware of. She was speaking with such passion in a language that I’ll soon get accustomed to hearing on a regular basis. I didn’t learn any Hindi before leaving, yet I’m hoping the children that I help to know English will help me speak their language. I stood for some time motioning that I needed to get in, but she just continued her call. There was great fear in her voice an emotion that needs no translation. After a few minute a male flight attendant approached me with an impatient, “what’s the hold up” expression. Finally she ended ‘this’ call to allow me to climb in to my seat. She had put her two pillows and blanket in my seat, for safe-keeping I guess, so when I lost my footing and fell into my seat I had a lovely soft landing.

The plane began to fill up and I knew that we were about loaded and would take off soon. I missed the traditional last “I love you and will call when I land.” phone call to a loved one before the plane doors close. When the doors close it also indicates the “no more cell phone use” status that few heed. So I had my seatmate to the left, who will be to my right? Just then an Indian mother and her 20-something daughter climbed into the seats to my right. This young woman would become my next ‘best friend’ which his what my great niece, Ava, says whenever she meets a new friend. Ava has a world full of potential best friends. I’ve come to adopt that mindset. I love that I borrowed it from her.

Mooshi, is 25 and has been studying to be a doctor like her father that immigrated from India to Tennessee, but he no longer practices “due to his age when he immigrated”. Mooshi and her mother speak Hindi as well as the dialect from her region (or state) in India. Mooshi also speaks some Spanish. She’s lovely and so very vibrant. Her mother is obviously devoted to her and desires to protect her and reveres her as she listens carefully as Mooshi speaks fluent English with such ease. Mooshi was born and raised to about 13 years old in India and then they came to the states. Why Tennessee, I didn’t think to ask at the time because we were busy talking about pop culture, traveling (US and in India), boys and men (she’ll marry an Indian because she says, “she loves and is loyal to her culture”). She smiles and pushes her long black hair away from her face.

My seatmate on the left is solo and is terrified of flying. She’s on the phone with her daughter again and as soon as she sees another Indian she gives her a quick bio and hands her cell phone to Mooshi’s mother. She has a quite extensive conversation with sad Buddha-lady’s daughter and hands her back the phone, without terminating the call. These loud conversations go on for a few minutes as all the passengers get situated and buckled in. Each time this freighted woman dramatically adds to her story and in doing so she leans across my seat as if I’m not even in it. I say a quick prayer that God will calm her heart and mind for the journey and like the tiger who jumps through the ring of fire, will realize that she’ll come down safely on the other side. After the third-or-so talk with the woman’s daughter Mooshi’s mom is starting to get a bit impatient. Yet, I’m learning that Indian patience go way beyond the patience of the average Westerner, which since I’m one and will go easy on my fellow Americans, but truly they would have told the woman to “get over herself and chill so they could enjoy the flight.” So the line up is this, Buddha lady on my left, Mooshi’s mom on my right and Mooshi on the right of her mother. So we’ve got two sets of women caring on conversations over other women, and somehow we’re making it work. Finally, Mooshi and her mother change places “so that Mooshi and I can talk and her mom can sleep.” My frightened seatmate is now further away from her touchstone.

Mooshi and I begin planning our flying time entertainment schedule, which movies we’ve seen which ones we hope will be available, have dinner, a potty break and off to sleep. I love schedules these days, because I only make them to break them. I glance at my seatmate as I settle down to watch the first season’s episode of “Flashforward” on my iPod, because there were no movies on that I hadn’t seen or wish to see again. I look over and gently lean forward to confirm that I was seeing tears running down Buddha lady’s cheek. She fidgets and leans into the aisle as one would lean out into the road when waiting for a bus to come. I assume that she’s waiting for the dinner service, which might take her attention off her dilemma, but as the cart makes her way she tells Mooshi that she is fasting today. When the male flight attendant assigned to our area comes by with dinner cart filled with trays and the plastic and foil containers disguised as dishes half full with just enough to make you want to ask for more, I happy to be of service to her and tell him she’s not eating.

I’m thinking, “Great if she’s fasting I’ll take hers and mine, which might make a whole meal." I’m hungry but seconds later I think that eating too much would interrupt my sleep. Now I wished I had taken hers too, because I was wide awake the whole flight. “Pasta or chicken” the flight attendant asked. I took chicken and Mooshi choose pasta. Taking one look at her pasta I thought I choose wrong. Still guided and directed, the chicken was amazingly tasty. I polished of the salad, diced chicken in red peppers and stashed my packaged chocolate brownie into the seat pocket in front of me for later.

Buddha lady watched us all eat which a drooling expression. Her devotion to God is stronger than her desire to eat. They picked up the trays and begin to put the cabin to bed. I saw Buddha-lady peer into the screen of my iPod, and I turned it in her direction to help her see the screen. She looked away. I pointed to the TV screen in the seatback in front of her, pulled her headphones out of her seat pocket and hand-motioned that I would help her find something to watch. She waved me off with a half-nameste’ bow. “Okay” I thought, leave her alone and let her be with her fears. This is her journey just as yours is yours.

Day 3: Road to India (Bronx, NY, USA)

2009-11-19T19:43:00.001-05:00

November 15, 2009

Today, I woke up with freedom on mind. I remembered how I felt oddly homesick the days leading up to my departure. I asked a few people close to me if it’s possible to be homesick without leaving home? They would hug me and made some audible “awe” sound, as if to say “isn’t that sweet” and “I have no idea what you’re taking about but your leaving and allowed to be a little weird” and we’d move on to whatever we were doing.

Up until a few days ago I took it for granted that I knew what it meant to be homesick, but now I realize I don’t have a clue. It’s not what I felt at 19 years old as lay crying in my rack in the dark of night in a squad bay that held the 50 some young women marines that made up the platoon 5A. I cried then because I was feared that I might not be able to keep up with the demands of being someone I had yet to become and of the five Drill Instructors that wouldn’t think twice of kicking my ass to be sure I became her. It would have been so much easier to be home with mom so I cried, and someone decide to diagnosis me as ‘homesick.” So what is it? I guess it’s what one feels when they are afraid of feeling the growing pains of becoming something more than they are now, or simply know they can be more.

I’m not homesick today! Today I woke up steady and grounded in the faith and trust I have come to know as the center of me. Here I am in all my glory, one healthy 51-year-young poised woman who lives life each day with the wonderment and optimism of a child. Not knowing whom I’ll meet or even what I might do today, but with all the confidence that it will be good, no matter whoever I meet and whatever I do!

I blogged after the usual pee and tea about 10:30, which could be considered early since I finally falling asleep at 3:30ish. I skyped, showered and dressed knowing I would be going into the City for last time for who knows how long. It’s all about this precious and blessed moment in time, right now! It was 14:00 when I made my way to the ‘D’ train headed for downtown, and then my stride straightened as the picture of Lower Manhattan came to my right brain. I knew immediately that was my destination and said, “Yes” probably audibly for my fellow subway passengers to hear. I rode the vibration of the train listening to a ‘mixed tape’ on my iPod that my friend Dan made for me when the thought “I need to change trains” came and instead of checking my subway map tucked into the back pocket of my travel purse my friend Irma gave me, I jump off the train at the next stop. I asked a platform conductor to direct me to my destination and he said, “Oh Yes, all you need to do is cross over and catch the ‘A’ train to Chambers”. My heart sang and I looked up to God, my prayer of gratitude penetrating the yards of steel and concrete between the sky and me. I’m beginning to feel quite sure that God has sent instructions to every earthly angel to roll out the ‘convenient’ carpet (what color is that anyway?) to ease my every step.

I went straight to Ground Zero, camera ready, iPod playing one of “Dan’s favorites”, which has become one of mine. I don’t know the name of the angel that’s singing the words in my ears (“be still and know that even when you are lost and lonely and hope is gone you’re not alone. Through the darkness see there’s a light, remember that God loves you.”) I scanned Ground Zero with my video camera from my perch atop marble planter in front of the Millennium Hotel, I began to weep as I thought about the great sadness that fell on this place only eight short years ago. I want to tell them “through the darkness see the light and remember God loves you.” Thank you Dan for choosing this song to carry me on my journey.

It was 68 degrees at 15:00 in Manhattan in the middle of November. The gods are happy! I walked around the corner and saw a mother and her young son sitting on the concrete steps. There was some teaching going on, maybe for their faith or religion because he wore a small black cap on his of his head with a beautiful braiding on it and he was mimicking his mom. It was something out of a old-world Jewish fairytale. As I walked by them I was swept into their endearment. I filmed them and eventually walked on. It was difficult because the energy there was clean and Godly.

I went to the nearby park with the fountain and old flamed lanterns. I’ve never known the name of this graceful place. I walked along filming the trees, which are changing late in the year, another one of my mysterious gifts. I’ve had every intention to come here for the changing of the leaves/season, since Christmas of 2008.

I left there with an equally graceful farewell. I’m comfortable with telling things and places ‘farewell’ for I share this world with them too. I made my way into the subway and was redirected to 59 Street by the interrupted train schedule due to reconstruction of the tracks. I embraced those ‘interruptions’ and heed them as co-creations with the divine. I exited the station and went straight for Central Park as the sun was setting. I picked up a few leaves (one is in my journal and the other is now on it’s way to Yvonne for her scrapbook). There’s a café just as you enter the park and I returned to it for a cup of tea and to sit at a small tabled lit by the café’s bright lights. I sat for over an hour journaling until my fingertips became chilled (I wore the fingerless gloves mom gave me). The Starbucks, that mom spotted Raquel Welch at in 2002, was right behind me. I first stood in line for the restroom and when it was mine turn I entered and locked the door behind me and then noticed an official looking set of keys still in the storeroom door. I finished my business and return the keys to the barista. His mouth dropped open and said a passionate ‘thank you’. The manager said what can we get you. I got a chai tea and coffee cake on the house. There’s wasn’t an open seat when I entered but as soon as collected my treats I saw that someone was leaving a large table. I pulled out my laptop and skyped mom and Yvonne and when she saw my leaf she requested and since I was completing my thank-you cards I dropped the small one into her card. I was happy to share my large table with August, from Africa, but now a Manhattan-ite.

This is my last evening in NYC and thought it might make sense to get home for a good nights sleep so I headed for the subway after a quick stop at the mailbox at 61st. I got a call from my friend, Krista, so I stopped at the entrance of the 59th Street station (Columbus Circle) to hold the call. I was chatting away and saw a familiar face coming out of the subway. He paused and a few seconds later we placed each other. It was Aaron, an eHarmony match that I dated in the Inland Empire, coming out of the station. He was there on unplanned vacation. He asked, “Aren’t you supposed to be in India?” I explained and we said our good-byes and I went into the station in perplexity.

What does this mean? What do I want to make it mean? Especially since running into David, an old boyfriend I dated 13 years ago, in a Riverside CVS drugstore two-days before I leaving. (we are both single.) At that moment I thought, what am I missing here? I let it go and went on my journey and now I have run into another man whom I thought had the potential to be my life partner. After some soul-searching, I see that there’s something that these men have in common, besides me of course, and that’s how held a belief that something will prevent these men from wanting me and if they don’t, I’ll generate it. I have an amazing opportunity to transform this, if I haven’t already with my most recent liberation.

Day 2: Road to India - Bronx, NY, USA - Part 3

2009-11-19T18:02:00.000-05:00

November 14, 2009

It didn’t much begin considering the time that Day 2 “ended”. It was 12:30 am (EST) when I was still on one of many Skype calls with my sister and mom. Mummy with her maternal Blair Witch in the camera sweetly saying, “Go the bed, you must get your rest!”. I hung up with mum believing I was off to sleep, but I had the video bug. I had such a wonderful day and evening that I thought surely my vicarious travel-mates would enjoy the wonders I experienced. So there I was speeding down the technological learning curve and my geek-car was handling “like it was on rails.” I was slicing and dicing my NYC video clips like a true IT chef, as I matched my evening with “I got a feeling” by the Black Peas. I was sharing my evening and it was pure joy!

I was so excited for those loved ones who have shared NYC experiences with me to see the video. As I watched the end of the video when Mr. Yellow M&M knocks on the screen, I wanted to tell him, “yes, I’m here enjoying the moment like no other.”

Wow, I was away from home and feeling such joy, how could this be? Less than three years ago home was where I hung my many hats, but now that I have a deeper and more abiding love for my family home is now wherever they are and that could be in Timbuktu and it would still be home for me. I have always ‘loved’ my family, that come with the chromosomes, yet the love I have for them now is so expansive that when totally present to it I begin to well-up and “my eyes sweat”. This love is too big for my body and it escapes like a sweet perspiration that those with similar emotional bonds instinctively know they got a whiff of that precious home that lives deep within their souls.

Friday, Chuck stayed back to allow Yvonne and mom to be alone with me as I departed, I assume this is the case, but I’m even grateful for the assumption that it could be so. When it was time to say “good bye” we walked toward each other, and as he approached me I said, “there’s only one thing I want…” and before I could say that I wanted a two-armed hug, I was already in them both! This meant so very much to me and I welled up and made a quick move to dawn my sunglasses so not to make him uncomfortable by my tears. I love every member of my family equally, yet the way I express it is unique to each member.

The next noise I heard was the familiar and comforting sound of keys unlocking the door (my “roommate” Carrie, is home!). This is one of my favorite sounds lately since I had been living with others over the past two months. I’ve been surprised by my many new favorite tastes, both literal and figuratively, lately.

I was glad the Star, a name I’ve taken to calling her since I know her aspirations, was home and I was excited to show her cameo appearance in my first completed YouTube video. She laughed in her usual joyful way that includes an innocent shyness with head going back and hands coming forth as if trying to regulates how much escapes her reservoir of happiness. This can make you forget that there’s a bold black woman there that makes her appearance especially when giving a New York taxi driver explicit direction to her Bronx flat, “You were suppose to turn right there and that’ll be coming out of your tip!” I wonder if someone told her not to be “so loud and expressive” when she laughs? If so, they did her and all of us a disservice!

We watched the video and chatted about the day and evening, work and play, dreams and fears until after 2 am. I was so split; should I roll with the fun or obey my mother and go to be. I laid down and stared wildly at the ceiling. I shifted from one side to the other, but my body said, “You’ve past the threshold Lady, better think of something else.” So I did. I remembered the Tylenol PM mom gave me in the convenient hard-to-open packet. I took only one, boiled water for some Vata tea Sue gave me, and reached for the book, ‘Becoming Human’ Shannon gave me and read the first chapter on “Being Simple” and there it was! I forgot that I’m ‘processing’ the latest detachments from earlier that evening. After a magical and almost weightless experience in the glistening lights of Time Square I return ‘home’ and became heavy again. I knew it was time to go into the dark caves of my psyche, which needs to hold on to things to sustain its existence, and purge yet again. I opened the wings of my Osprey backpack and pulled out all they held. Knowing that I chosen to have only ONE bag. That meant that two had to go. I began by making two piles, what I needed, and what I could live without. I dug deep and pulled open three small space bags. Each one took a deep inhale as if holding its breathe and I did the same and rescued the wrinkled clothes as I heard mom’s inquiry, “You really need that many tops?” as I split them between the two piles.

In my defense, I have no idea how to live this new existence, as I ignored mum’s warnings and shoved them tightly into my bag the night before I left. It took me to haul all this to NYC to come to realize that all I clung to was helping me cling to the past or better yet, what I knew of life up until to now. I could just hear my ego crying out, “ If you don’t have that Ado(red) tank top how will people know that you’re one of those ‘socially conscious individual’ who pays $29 for a cotton tank to show you care?” As the discard pile got taller I realized that I was purging what made me who I was to the external world and I felt my own wings expand revealing more of who I am internally. I thought I was as liberated as I could be, yet now I know I can go deeper, bringing light to those dark corners of my mind while opening my soul!

I realize I’ve been listening to “Psalm 23” over and over again as I journal, not just this time but while I’ve written every entry since I started my “road to India” journaling. I don’t feel like I’m walking through the ‘valley of the shadow of death’ but some darkness, yes, certainly. I am comforted by the fact that I am “God’s forever.”

Another quote from my journal:
“I travel a lot; I hate having my life disrupted by routine.” – Caskie Stinnett

Day 2: Road to India - Bronx, NY, USA - part 2

2009-11-15T12:54:00.000-05:00

November 14, 2009

What's left of my worldly possessions is still too much! They are still heavy on my back and now I realize they are too heavy on my mind and my attention. I don't want to have to focus on what I have and what I must carry to the next place. I realize my holding on to that extra weight represents the debris left exposed after the initial purging and detachment. Oh what fun, I get to dig deeper and excavate more of what I haven't dealt with. I welcome it! The Spring-cleaning of my heart and soul of all that impedes it is a process I could embrace.

I only hope that after it's done I'll have at least one pair of shoes, some undies, a shirt and a pair a comfortable jeans. I don't see myself as someone who would shed all her clothes, cover my body with ash and sit by the road chanting and giving blessings to the occasional passer-by. What I'm sure of is that there's more detachment for me to do.

Day 2: Road to India (Bronx, NY, USA)

2009-11-15T11:30:00.000-05:00

November 14, 2009

I woke with some sinus pressure which I released pretty quickly with a couple of tylenols and applying pressure to my sinus bones with my index fingers. I got up at 6:44 am to do the usual pee, tea and a quick sort out of what I'm purging today. My bags are just too heavy!

I'm at my new friend, Carries' apartment in the Bronx. It's beautifully basic, without a hint of pretension. I love its simplicity. Carrie is a rising star, it even says so in the bathroom on a handwritten affirmation taped to the mirror. It's a small, well situated one bedroom minus adequate closet space that found typical of NYC apartments. (An alarm sounds that I first think is the alarm of a huge truck backing up on the narrow street just outside, but realize that it's coming from the bedroom. It continues for a long minute which tells me I didn't need to do the tip-toeing I did while putting the kettle on for tea. I clanged a few cups together and thought "eeekkk I'm going to wake my gracious hostess from her slumber!" I realize now that she, like me in my 20s, would wake if a mac truck plowed right through the middle of my home.

The first cupboard I opened was where I would have put mugs if I had lived her. Bingo, right in front was an obvious favorite, with the smaller mugs to the back. You know those ones that feel somewhat awkward in the hand, but this one is yellow (the fung shui color of health) it's round with a perfect handle to slide 3 of 4 fingers into while holding the mug with the left for the occasional hand-warming on a NY winter morning.

(The alarm sounds again for the third time.) back to the simplicity of my temporary resting place. The walls are landlord-white and somewhat bare except for the few chromed famed posters having something to do with plays, actors and the awards they when. There's a lanyard hanging with my host's full name printed about the title "actor". The TV is small and just barely holds the cable box perched on top. It sits on a box draped with a gold silk curtain or table cloth and in front of that is my backpack, carry-on bag-now only half full after a quick purge as my tea brews-and my laptop bag. A book shelf made of light wood holds books about enlightenment and screenwriting, a box labeled "Playbills" and two Absolute bottles collecting pennies.

I love this place, it's functional nature is so honest! There's a purity here, no place to hide oneself, an authenticity that makes it a welcomed home that sincerely says, "come as you are!" I look forward to getting to know my generous host more over the next two and half days. Being in this place reminds me of what Rumi said, "Wherever you are, be the soul of the place" and that's what and who I'll be. I go to London in a few days. yet the riddle I've taught my niece, Ava, comes to mind, "What time is it? and Where are you?" allowing her to use only one word for each answer, "Now & Here", and if not I am no where.

Day 1: The Road to India (Riverside, CA, USA)

2009-11-14T12:13:00.000-05:00

November 13, 2009

1:41 am - Today began by being awakened by my mum going to the restroom. She came back to bed to fall asleep almost immediately. I was glad because, as she reported yesterday, she was 'exhausted'. I laid there in the bed I have shared with my beloved mother on and off for two months, a pattern broken only by a week or two of housesitting for my sister and brother-in-law, caring for their large house and their small dog, Noka, allow them to travel worry-free. I digress.

I laid there listening to Ash purr on my right (a cat I've come to affectionately love from merely tolerating a few short months ago) and mom on my left doing her own kind of purring as each exhale is pushed through closed lips making a kind of puffing sound. A sound that my sister just admitted that she recently woke up doing that same puffing-snore. "Mirror, mirror on the wall, I am my mother after all." Not such a bad plight I think.

I laid there a bit more and reached for mom's hand and held it while I said a silent prayer that she would be able to find herself-her true self as she examines her life. This after confessing that she has somehow gotten lost in the lives of others. Who is she beyond the mother of Tracy and Yvonne, or Gigi to Ava, Haylee, Paige and the new baby on its way? I believe this is an exciting time for her as well.

I let go of her hand and sat up disturbing Ash only slightly as he resettled on my now vacant pillow. I pulled the bedroom door closed enough to prevent the light in the kitchen from seeping into the bedroom as I put the kettle on for tea. I switched on the lamp aside the sofa to begin this journal entry. I poured some water into a small glass and dropped an Airborne tablet into it thinking that it would would keep my immune strong as I get weak from rising so very early.

When I first got up and begin switching on the lights I crabbed my Kindle (a gift from my new yet life-long friend, Sue) thinking I would read, but the call of the crisp pages of this new journal (another gift from my beloved friend, Ester) was calling to me much louder. I wasn't going to take this journal with me due to the added weight it would give to my already heavy bags. But the thought of re-gifting it (probably to mom as much of what I choosing to leave behind is going to her) just didn't seem--not 'right' so much as the desire to have a wonderful connector to such an adored friend as she. I also picked up mom's guestbook that was laid open last Sunday at the potluck, farewell birthday party for me. I want to pull out the pages that hold the precious sentiments of my loved ones and take them with me, but that too doesn't make sense after purging a third of what I thought would fit in my 28" Osprey backpack (man, am I relieved it has wheels!) I will soon come to learn that if truth be known I'll only need a third of what's in it now. What I find profound is that the last entry in the guestbook was penned by my own hand nine years and two days ago, which reads, "Saying it is one thing, but living it is something else entirely. I wish this new [Shirley Valentine] group will empower us all to fulfill our potential!" I find that to be more than a coincidence and feel certain that I am moving closer and closer to fulfilling my own potential. I thumbed through the eight pages that contain the most encouraging words ever bestowed on me. (I almost wrote 'ever given' then an ever so brief argument with my ego which accused me of using 'bestowed' to impress. It lost the battle as I retorted "word of this nature are not given! They can only be 'bestowed' because they are said based on the way the recipient is 'being'." This is what is so humbling about what has been written on those pages. It's proof that I made it out of the cocoon and I'm ready to fly. I replaced the copy of the invitation to the party in between the pages for safe-keeping and as I closed the book I felt a sense of responsibility to fulfill the wishes of the authors of those words.

I'm so enjoying my second to last cup of tea (2nd to last considering we won't leave for Yvonne's for our drive to the airport of another six hours and anticipate having another). This one is perfectly sweetened with just the right amount of creamer for the long brew I gave it.

--This journal has inspiring quotes written on every forth page. The two that accompany this post are;

"Adventure is worthwhile." Amelia Earhart

and

"Do not go where the path may lead; go instead where there is no path and leave a trail." Ralph Waldo Emerson

Day 0: "Disclaimer"

2009-11-14T12:02:00.000-05:00

Notice:

I use to blog to attract new coaching clients and in general to impress others. I detach from the need to impress you or anyone else that reads this blog. This blog is a personal undressing of my life. Anyone who reads it will be merely voyeurs peering through the window to witness the exposure of my soul.

I welcome your comments but I do not rely on them to gage the value of my life or my journey. It may sound harsh but there it is. you get to deal with that as I deal with the dismantling of my past to leave it just there, in the past.

What is silence?

2009-11-04T12:17:00.000-05:00

What is silence? It’s not the quiet you find in any location because pretty much wherever you are there will be a barking dog, a meowing cat and always bird song or the chirp or a cricket, and if there is none of that you’ll always have the chatter of the mind making comments like, “isn’t this peaceful” or “you know you should be going.”

I think silence just might be not a where but a when. Silence is when we embrace the un-embracable. When we are in full cooperation of whatever sounds or thoughts we hear. Silence can only be experienced when one is in harmony with the dogs, cats, birds or the constant chipping of the mind. There’s nothing more peaceful than the silent created by the unconditional acceptance of the whole world before us, no matter if it’s dressed in its coat or war or a saffron robe.

This is my world just as it is right now, in the whine of the freeway, the clang of a teacup placed not so gently on the glass patio tabletop. Silence is the yellow-orange juice seeping out of frozen mango squares into the bottom of the bowl—can you hear it? It’s varied and distant bird song and the constant hum of the vibration of my physical body reminding me I’m an energy being adding my harmonic instrument to the universal orchestra of life.

Has the view ever made you cry?

2009-03-19T15:15:00.000-04:00

In the movie Last Holiday, Queen Latifah plays Georgia Byrd. There’s a scene in which Georgia is checking into a five star hotel in the French Alps. She’s standing at the front desk and looks up at the ceiling and finds herself in awe of the beauty overhead. She turns to the desk clerk and asks, “Does that ceiling ever make you want to cry?” The desk clerk replies without looking up, “I’ve never really noticed.”

How much beauty has always been around you that you’ve simply been unaware of until someone comes to visit and pauses to give it the reverence it deserves? How many people, places, or events have gone by that you took for granted? I lived in three apartments in San Francisco over a period of 13 years and each one was better than the last and what I know is that I created my home improvement circumstances with my focus and faith.

The first place was just outside the City itself and it had a view of a lush wooded area. My ultimate goal was a view of one of San Francisco’s bridges. What I did each day—sometimes twice a day—was stand at the window looking into the wooded area and say ‘thank you’ and admire the beauty and fresh smell of pine just there outside my window. I had a goal of living someplace in the city limits within two years. I would go into the City and walk the downtown streets confidently looking for my new address. I was walking around Nob Hill on Leavenworth Street with a friend and stopped and said, “I like this building. I think I’ll live here next!” He laughed at me with an almost dismissive tone as he walked on. I laughed too, but my laughter was in thanksgiving for my future home. I lived in the apartment by the woods for only 18 months when I moved into my new studio flat on Leavenworth Street, which was only one building South of the one I stopped at four months earlier.

My Leavenworth flat didn’t have a view of a bridge, yet it had a charm I couldn't help be grateful for. Mind you, I didn’t give up my dream of having a view of a San Francisco bridge. Yet, each time I would arrive home I’d take my shoes off and slide around on the wood floors in my socks and do a sort of Risky Business-type dance in gratitude. I spoke appreciation to my little flat daily as I described the many reasons I loved being there. The flat became a meeting place for spiritual groups and soon it was considered New Thought Central. At times my 400 square foot studio, with my queen-sized bed in the walk-in closet for more space, held as many as 15 people discussing ways of achieving higher consciousness. They might have taken the elevator up four flights to get to me but their departing journey surely took longer.

One lady that frequented our group was being called home to New York City and wasn’t sure she’d even return to San Francisco but planned to sublet her place in the Marina District until she felt sure the relocation was permanent. She had placed ads and told everyone of her desire for a sublet—except for me. She had become discouraged and she told me about her dilemma as I drove her home after one of our Course in Miracles meetings. Once she realized she hadn’t told me she invited me in to see if I’d be interested. I walked up the three flights of stairs behind her thinking where’s the elevator? I remember entering as I scanned my brain for people who where looking for an apartment. I rounded the bedroom door and crossed the room and stopped at the window. I saw lights sparkling in the night and asked her, “Is that the Golden Gate Bridge?” One month later I was living there paying the same as I did for my studio downtown. Yet this time I spent reverent mornings at the window with a hot cup of tea, watching San Francisco's moody weather reveal and conceal the golden-orange bridge. Many times I’d look out and at the view and shed tears of joy and appreciation.

Reaping from the seeds of our thoughts

2008-09-15T21:38:00.000-04:00

Consider, if your thoughts of yesterday created your todays, then what thoughts would you choose to have today to create your tomorrows? Think about the abundance you’re enjoying now and realize that it’s all a result of your thoughts that you had in the past. We are always living in the residual matter of our thoughts, feelings and beliefs. Everything in nature is subject to conception, gestation and harvest. This includes your desire for events, circumstances and possessions.

Think of your thoughts as seeds that you plant in futile ground to produce an equal and corresponding harvest. You will only get tomatoes when you plant tomato seeds. Have you ever planted lack and scarcity and expected to harvest prosperity? Let’s say you plant seeds of abundance yet you dig up the seeds to check if they are growing. Looking for evidence of the manifestation of your desire will only delay it even more so, because by looking for it you can’t help but notice its apparent absence and this causes thoughts of frustration and doubt.

It’s critical that you go about your business as if you know without a doubt that what you asked for is not only on its way but you’re actively expressing gratitude for it as if it were right before you. When you choose thoughts of abundance, improved health, or increased wealth today you must keep the faith all the way through to the harvest.

Quantum Physicist say our thoughts are waves and manifest into particles. We give the wave its genetic code by ‘injecting’ it with our desire and beliefs. The particle has no choice but to become what it must based on the code in it. In the Science of Mind spiritual tradition this is called the Creative Process. According to the Law of Attraction our thoughts vibrate at a specific frequency attracting physical matter that vibrating at the same frequency. Whether it’s seeds only giving you what you plant; or you send out a vibrations that attract like frequencies; or you consider your thoughts as waves that change particles into corresponding matter; you are always playing the Match Game. Match you thoughts and belief to what you desire and manifest what you desire.

Divine Spirit is always present to assure us that can create our lives as we see fit by using the Spiritual Laws that governs all life. Choose your harvest, plant seeds, and dance in celebration and gratitude that you have received.

Tracy is a powerful Spiritual Coach who can help you find YOUR path to God.

Want to feel better? Take action!

2008-09-15T21:37:00.000-04:00

I recently had a powerful meeting with a prospective client who shared his deep concern for his diminishing motivation as compared to early this, when he was a top sales person at his company and very much on top of his game. To listen to him you would think he had lost something tangible, like a PDA or the like, and he was fervently searching for it and in many ways asking me to help him find it. I asked him to talk about how it felt when he was in the zone. You know that place where everything is clicking? He began to tell me how at peaceful and easy life was. His family was happy and he even realized that he was more relaxed and easy going with his kids.

Once I was able to get him to focus on how he experiences life when everything in harmony, you could see his physical body relax, his breathing began to slow and deepen. We chatted a bit more about how I could help him and then we parted. He called me a few days later to tell me what he was inspired to after our meeting.

He has an area in his territory ‘that for some reason he doesn’t like to canvas’ but the day of our meeting he went to that very area to call on a prospect that he was now inspired to follow up on. As he walked up to the business he realized they weren’t there anymore and another business now occupied the space. He went inside and inquired about their needs for his services. ‘Coincidently’ they were in the market for his type of services and asked him to sit down and give them the details of his product. They kept the information, thanked him for stopping by and said they would call the following week if they decided to buy from him. About two hours later his cell phone rang and it was them calling to ask him to come back so they could sign the contract!

Just that morning he was feeling lost and disempowered. I could hear it in his voice when he called to tell me about the results of his inspired action. These are the times that we should keep going, taking even more actions to regain momentum. Having a coach to “set up back on the path” is sometimes all we need. The most powerful players in the world have coaches, mainly because powerful people know that two focused heads are better than one!

I’ll close with this very important fact, and I mean, fact! It’s easier to act your way into a better feeling, than it is to feel your way into action. Which is what my coaching practice is founded on. Now go take some action!

Clearing the way for more prosperity

2008-09-15T20:57:00.000-04:00

I recently read an article by Jane Beach in the Science of Mind-A Guide for Spiritual Living (magazine) about the effects of clutter. What Jane said was, “Human adults are rather preoccupied with the physical aspects of their lives [evident in our need to acquire more and more stuff].” The article got me thinking about the energy-drain that clutter causes as our much-needed stuff begins to accumulate. We are a nation of garages that no longer house our cars.

Most of the really good massage therapists know that blocked Chi (energy) can cause knots and tension in our muscles, which can lead to health issues and/or injuries. The therapist must get in there (the muscle) and break up the blockage so that the energy can flow freely throughout your body. Unblocking Chi helps to relieve pain and promotes flexibility, in other words, you are no longer distracted by the discomfort in your body and now your body can help you overcome obstacles that get in the way and impede your success.

I think by now we’ve come to understand that everything is energy. This means that stuff or clutter in your desk, closets and garage is storing ‘unused’ energy. Many of my clients who begin to clear their life of clutter tend to lose weight and/or attract more income. This happens when we free the blocked Chi (energy) in our office or home and ultimately from our minds, which allows for greater creativity and problem solving. This can cause wonderful results especially for those who work from or at home.

Many of us wonder why we can’t seem to find a solution to a problem or the answer to a question. Go clean out a draw or a closet and come back and see if the solution doesn’t appear.

You can hire me to help you create prosperity, abundance and wealth--are you ready?

The price you pay to sit on the fence

2008-09-15T20:46:00.000-04:00

Many people spend a great deal of their life sitting on the fence. Stop and think of the last time that you were fence-sitting. What were you doing or better yet, what were you not doing? The fence represents a mental place you go while you’re not choosing. Others, maybe you, call this their decision-making place or deliberation period, or the considering-their-options stage. No matter if it’s a place, phase, or stage you call this, it firmly located in the past. When making choices firmly in the present you would have nothing to consult except to ask yourself, “Do I want this or not?” The past is disempowering but more importantly, it’s distracting. The danger of spending a great deal of time on the fence is that the opportunity that you’re considering can slip away completely. If that happens you may think, “Alright, opportunity gone, no problem, now I don’t have to choose at all.” Guess what? You did choose, however you choose passively. Your active indecision and resistance ends up choosing for you. Said in another way, not choosing is allowing your fear to choose for you. Some people allow their fears to paralyze them, yet they’re going to have to be strong eventually in order to deal with the pain that results from a choice made out of fear. If this seems like a doubled edge sword, it is!

How will you know if you choose correctly? You’ll never know. Why? Because once you choose opportunity ‘A’ you’ll NEVER know what the results of the choosing opportunity ‘B” would have been, simply because you didn’t choose ‘B”. Thoreau said, and I’m paraphrasing, Go boldly into the direction of your dream and you will meet with success in uncommon hours. Our wisest teachers and sages tell us that our success is found in choosing and staying the course. Yet how often do people stop in the middle of the journey—or before—and change course completely?

A powerful choice and investment in yourself is to hire me as your Life Coach and watch the magic begin.

The discord in life is caused by refusing to CHOOSE!

2008-09-15T20:24:00.000-04:00

One of the components of my Warrior Spirit coaching program is that participating clients get a 15-minute window for a Warrior Power Call each weekday morning. They talk with one of my Associate Coaches to receive highly focused coaching, they set a powerful intention to be the theme of their day and they read the Warrior Spirit Affirmations. Saying daily affirmations are a way to achieve greater personal power. One of these affirmations is, The universe has no intention for me other than the intention I give it.

This affirmation speaks to the heart of the universal and spiritual principle of freewill, which is our freedom to Choose. The universe has so much in store for us when we choose. The moment we choose choice A or B, the universe snaps into motion taking actions on our behalf. Yet, you must look closely for the instructions that this affirmation alludes to, which is that the universe cannot take action until we actually choose. Choosing is our intention and sends a powerful message to the universe that it’s time to take certain actions. For instance, the universe will help you to get a promotion at work or create a new business. All you have to do is choose which one you want and stay focused on your choice. This means if you choose the promotion, then you don’t go back to ponder if you made the right choice. This type of wavering is what causes confusion and interrupts the flow of life. It’s like accepting a marriage proposal one day and taking it back the next. Commit yourself to your choice!

Many people are waiting for a sign, but what they don’t realize it that their choice is the sign! Your choice is the sign to the universe that this is what I want so please arrange people and circumstances that can help me have this.

So many people are going without because they don’t understand this very powerful universal principle. The bible says that the kingdom is ours, yet many people are living in bondage all the while having full access to the kingdom. There’s a wonderful invisible force that is just waiting to spring into action on your behalf. This amazing force wants to bring you the keys to the kingdom, which incidentally ISN’T LOCKED!

Accept the keys to the kingdom and choose to live life with power, grace and ease.

In my Tools for Manifestation workbook and audio program you can hear the inspiring story of, Heather, a singer songwriter in San Francisco, who was given the choice to go to Los Angeles or New York City to further develop her singing career. Hear how she spent weeks weighing her options only to choose and experience the universe open the floodgates of abundance in less than 18 hours of her choosing. You can purchase this and other tools on my website at www.tracyhutchinson.com.

Choose today and see what amazing opportunities of abundance await you!

Courage Is...

2008-08-20T13:26:00.000-04:00

I hear many people speak of courage, especially in the context of those serving in our nation’s armed forces. It might seem that the first consideration given to those who are courageous are those who are armed and are forcing the will of a person or nation on to another. Many might think that courage is facing death. I want you to consider courage it takes to face ones life--your life!

Many of people are waiting for life to be a certain way before they volunteer, adopt a child, write a book, or simply go on vacation. It seems to me that waiting for life to change or arrange itself before you take action on a dream, especially something you’ve been dreaming of doing for a long time, could be risky, the kind of risky that contains very little courage.

One of my clients, ‘Margaret’ grew up with a very strong desire to be an artist. Her father considered her goal frivolous and would not approve of her attending a nearby art college. He considered that the career of an artist was not a real profession and wouldn’t support her financially. For many years she held professional positions that her father, who past away in the early 80’s, valued and respected. She has been quietly waiting for life to arrange itself so that she could live out her dream. So quietly in fact, that her daughters didn’t learn about their mother’s desire to be an artist until 2006.

‘Margaret’s’ life never did arrange itself to support her dream. She got tired of waiting for life to get organized and hired me to coach her as she organized it herself. She started formal art classes at the age of 69 and today she’s a very talented artist that has sold several paintings, commissioned more than once, and has had one public show. ‘Margaret’ is courageously facing life by taking action on a dream she’s held for six decades.

I would be lying if I told you that ‘Margaret’ doesn’t have challenges to overcome in her life as an artist, yet her challenges reside only in her head. Fearful stories and visions of rejection and failure are first conjured up in the mind and a simple solution is to take action regardless of the fear. Courage lives in the action!

Courage is in facing your life, not death!

Why do I get Upset?

2008-08-13T21:32:00.000-04:00

Upsets occur when we are not in the present moment and become hooked by what we may think is an outside circumstance. Circumstance that we “think” we had nothing to do with creating. Please think again! Once we accept that we have created every circumstance, experience, or situation we can find a way to be effective in an upset. Here lies the problem, because if we don’t believe we are the creator of our lives we have rendered ourselves powerless during upsets.

During an upset we find it difficult to remember and even to understand what caused the upset.

The following are some tools to use to minimize or overcome upsets:

1. Upsets persist because they are generalized. Being specific about an upset will more it toward a resolution. What specifically upsets you?

2. What is the upset about? Is it a thwarted objective, an undelivered communication, or an unfulfilled expectation? Which of these three elements is dominant?

3. What happened EXACTLY?

4. Upsets occur at a specific location. Where did it occur?

5. Upsets occur with a specific person or group of persons or a specific thing. Who or what is the upset with?

6. Who or what “seems” to be causing the upset?

Consider the possibility that you are upset about something in the past and not with the current circumstances. The current circumstances simply remind you of the past. Ask yourself, “What past event am I bringing into the present moment?” and “How does this upset connect with an earlier upset?”

When you can get to the actual ‘who’, ‘when’, ‘where’, and ‘what specifically happened’ of the upset, then they can exist as facts, not as interpretations and conclusions you have added to the upset. You will then find yourself released from the hook and can function effectively with the stimulus that hooked you in the beginning.

Humans have been getting upset since time began and will continue to get upset for the rest of our days. No matter how enlightened you are you will continue to get upset.

If you are thinking that upsets are negative, please reconsider. As you learn about them, and yourself, you might see them as a useful tool as you navigate your way through the rest of your life. If you harness the way you deal with upsets you can function more effectively with life.

An upset will contain all three of the following elements to some degree, but one of them will always be paramount.

A Thwarted Objective: As you set out to make something happen and you experience something ‘external’ stopping you. Something you believe you have no responsibility or control over it stopping you from fulfilling your objective. When an objective is thwarted, it often occurs that the very center of our being; our very identity is being brought into question. We also have the opinion that what is stopping us ‘shouldn’t be’. This perception then reduces our options and our creative nature to deal with the situation.

An Undelivered Communication: An undelivered communication is when you have something that is ‘actively being withheld.’ There’s a filter created when there is something to say and you are not saying it. Most everything you hear after that is heard through this filter. Life begins to be filtered through what you are feeling and thinking, but not saying. It’s like a trap waiting to be sprung. When something happens or is said that trips over what you’re intentional not saying, the trap is sprung. Also, the thing that you’re not saying is often the loudest point in the conversation. At times anything that is said reminds you of what isn’t being said and adds to your upset.

Unfulfilled Expectation: An upset is an unfulfilled expectation. An expectation is looking forward to something happening; something that you think you are due, something that is ‘proper’ or ‘necessary’. It’s not, “It sure would be nice if…” It’s, “I have the ‘right’ and it needs to happen.” An expectation is always a potential upset. This fact is probably the most important aspect to understand.

Clarity Achieved, Success Gained

2008-08-13T21:29:00.000-04:00

Many departments within an organization, regardless of size, are often working in a bubble, which is only beneficial when the individuals in the departments not only recognize, but also operate, as part of the same soap.

A common frustration that my executive coaching clients have with their organizations is that the right hand isn’t clear on what the left hand is responsible for. Yet many tasks, processes and workflow require both hands to not only work together, but also work with synchronicity or in tandem to deliver a quality service or product on time that generates a profit.

What’s typically missing is a simple solution, yet one that’s not so easily achieved when left up to middle management to carry out. What is it? Clarity! Many leaders of organizations assume that each of their team members, like those on a winning basketball team, know what to do to win on the corporate court. And they’re right. They do know what to do, once the project finds its way into their bubble, yet they are frequently unaware of how their actions impact the organization at large. The benefits of achieving clarity among all departments can be limitless. When clarity is achieved by all who touch the products – and that’s pretty much everyone in your organization because “no man is an island” – retention is increased on many levels, which can be seen in increased employee and customer loyalty. Clarity produces the experience of synergy, confidence and continuity among the members of your organization, which translates into a measurable asset when members come in contact with potential customers.

Clarity is a journey of discovery that requires a skilled professional who understands the wonderful nuances of human behavior. When asking two senior level managers to get together for the purpose of discussing the responsibilities of their respective departments, it’s important to consider that some managers return home to argue with their spouse about whose turn is it to empty the dishwasher. One must also consider the climate when asking people to reveal their process in today’s economy where nationwide cutbacks and layoffs are common occurrences creating a need to ensure one’s job-security. It is possible to have clarity among and within all departments in such a way that it occurs to the members that they achieved it on their own. Company-wide clarity will greatly assist organizations to maintain stability in what’s being reported as an unstable economy.

Retaining a skilled and experienced consultant can take the pressure off the executives to cause behavioral changes, a skill that they may lack. Also, it addresses the fact that “no man or woman is a prophet in their own town [organization]. “I’ve coached several senior-level managers who have been made responsible for fulfilling personal behavior-change mandates while holding a degree in business systems. These types of directives require skills in developing people in such a way that they relinquish old stories that are disempowering and impede lasting change.

Clarity is essential to organizations considering wide-spread change in operations because if departments aren’t working fluidly with each other now, how can you expect them to comprehend the need for change. Clarity, understanding and buy-in are synergistic and with these elements you’ll keep your team taking and creating profound results and lasting internal harmony.

Conscious Partners Program

2008-08-13T21:25:00.000-04:00

When I began to develop the Conscious Partners coaching program I had one married couple in my mind. These two people have asked that I hold them powerfully to account for the intentions and goals they set for themselves INDIVIDUALLY within their INDIVIDUAL coaching programs. These two passionate people know the return on investment of having a coach to guide them into the life they have visualized. They both come to each session energized, engaged and anticipating a breakthrough that will cause them to live each day more extraordinary than the last.

With that said, the focus has been on their individual goal achievement yet they are partners who want to live powerfully together with their two children. They also want to leave their children with the legacy of “You can achieve anything if you’re willing to take consistent and persistent physical actions to do so, and it’s critical to take those actions when they feel least like taking them.” I dedicate the Conscious Partners coaching program to David and Laura.

I get a great deal of insight from nature and inspirational films, or as my friend Shana Rassner calls them, “Transformational Movies.” As I began to create Conscious Partners; a coaching program for clients to achieve their individual goals and their partnership goals simultaneously, I remembered the commitment displayed in the film The March of the Penguins. The movie is an inspirational account of innate determination and devotion found in the natural world. The brief, yet deeply committed partnership of the Emperor Penguins is one to be marveled and emulated.

There are so many metaphors in the plight of the Emperor Penguin that can help us strengthen our human partnerships. I’ll take you through some of the prominent metaphors as well as draw out a few subtle messages we could use to empower ourselves.

The Emperor Penguin chick that has no concept of what his parents went through so that s/he would have life. The chick is about nine months old when it first goes into the ocean where it spends its days until it reaches its fifth year. At that point a natural instinct calls them to get out of the water and march.

The young Emperor Penguin will walk approximately 60 miles to return to the artic breeding ground where it was born to find a mate. Once they have chosen their mate they enter into a committed partnership that will have them to balance their small egg on their feet for weeks while standing in 100-mile per hour winds in temperatures as low as 180-degrees below zero. They will overcome starvation and undertake long treks back and forth to the ocean to feed. (In caparison, don’t you find it interesting that some partners will complain about going to store late at night to get an ingredient needed for the morning meal.) The natural instinct to demonstrate even this level of commitment is in each one of us, yet through the evolution of our culture we have somehow forgotten what we are truly capable of. Fear is another emotion that we allow to get in our way to powerfully engage in the deepest concept of commitment.

After several weeks the egg hatches and reveals a glorious reward for the devotion and dedication displayed by the parents. As a partner your reward might not be a newborn child or proudly watching your child graduate from college with the powerful attributes you gave them to ensure their success in life. Your offspring might be a successful business, achieving for a higher level of success in your career, writing a book, or maybe it’s purchasing your first home or your dream home. Your reward might be to achieve financial freedom by becoming debt-free. In any case, there is a glorious reward for the devotion and dedication you displayed.

This program is for those of you who want to fully commit to your partnership. The Conscious Partners coaching program is available to all types of partnerships whether married or romantic, business partnerships or executives and their assistants. Being on the same page of the same book while working toward the fulfillment of any goal is imperative to the success of any partnership no matter the composition.

How to live an enlightened life?

2007-04-09T23:31:00.000-04:00

Today, the road (to enlightenment) was again like no other, yet not one has been like another since I started my journey. I am happy to call it a journey....because I simply don't know the destination....the place where I will get to....from what I understand today, a destination doesn't exist. That fact takes so much pressure off me and I am grateful. I won't share the details of my day except that it started with listening to myself and my thoughts. I celebrate this now because they have transformed. I have returned to the knowing state of age 9 when I understood that I create all of my experiences. I get cause and effect and it lives within. I think and/or focus on anything (that which brings me joy or sorrow) and it comes quickly.

I often remind myself of the time I was riding my bike at age 9 and looking at the rock several yards away, as if it was yesterday, I can hear the voice saying, "Don't hit the rock, don't hit the rock." There I sat on the curb with skinned knees, which did their best to break my fall....looking at the fallen bike and the rock which stood its position. I got it...I got exactly what I focused on....not what I wanted. I was about 13 when the realness of what IS began to escape me. I was back in the collective consciousness. Wow, what a trip. It was pain, then joy, a little bit more pain and then some more joy. Fast forward to age 30 and I'm having flashbacks of days when I was intentionally creating my own experiences. And, I realized I had been asleep for 17 years! That time felt like the recollection of a dream. And yet it was real... Finally, I began to predict the outcome of every relationship and that's the outcome I got! Wow, did I have magical powers? YES I DID!

Good night lovely Universe! Thank you for the sunset. It was a gift!