Maiti Nepal

I read something a couple of months ago that has continued to float its way in and out of my consciousness ever since. It was a poem that compared two ways of giving: "fixing" and "serving." It was written in the context of helping another person, although I imagine the idea could be expanded further. Basically, the author describes a "fixer" as someone who isolates a given phenomenon, decides it is in fact broken, and considers themselves equipped to swoop in, put it back together as they see fit, and then pat themselves on the back for it. This concept is contrasted with the idea of a "server," who strives to give of themselves humbly and fully, acknowledging an infinite uncertainty to the universe and an underlying wholeness that is not of his or her own design. (Do I say "universe" too much? I don't want to be that flaky "universe" blogger)

The last lines of the poem read: "When I help, I feel satisfaction. When I serve, I feel gratitude. Fixing is a form of judgment. Serving is a form of connection." 

I had never really thought about such a distinction, nor had it occurred to me to associate any form of volunteerism or civic engagement with the egotistical. In retrospect though, I do recall a Friends episode in which Pheobe lets herself get stung by a bee in a desperate attempt to prove to Joey and herself that it is possible to do a selfess good deed. While she clearly felt pain, "the bee got to look cool in front of all its bee friends." 

One could certainly argue that ultimately the origins of your actions don't really matter, as long as the support (in whatever form) is being offered and received. 

But it's interesting. And from the perspective of the fixer/server it's hugely relevant, and something I continuously encounter within myself when volunteering at the hospital. To my disappointment, though I'm afraid not to my surprise, I find my behavior tending always toward the conceptualized "fixer"- craving that satisfaction of 'knowing' that I 'helped,' annoyed to be cleaning toys or organizing the playroom instead of becoming that person the child will always remember from their time in the hospital.... really it seems to be just coming from a place of self-serving, manifesting itself under a veil of serving others. Not maliciously, but arrogantly, selfishly, ignorantly.... I've been trying though, to effect that paradigm shift from fixing to serving, and every so often I catch a glimpse and it's so freaking great that it's actually made me laugh out loud. All of a sudden, it's not the patient who's privileged to have you around, but you who is privileged to connect to another human being forced face-to-face with their own vulnerabilities. For that 0.1% of the time I feel what I imagine that poet to have felt. I suppose one could also argue, like Joey, that even behavior that takes the form of 'serving' might also be self-serving in some way. After all, Pheobe didn't realize at the time that the bee had to sacrifice its life to make that sting. However, I think some potential catches to that argument are:

a) the server embraces that reality rather that delude themselves otherwise, and so they feel grateful for the opportunity to serve

b) the line between 'self' and 'other' for the server may be more fluid and dynamic, and so again from that perspective the overlap is not necessarily a negative thing

CNN created an award show acknowledging 10 "2010 Heroes," all of whom are nominated by their contemporaries and receive $25,000 toward their cause. OK, honestly, I highly suggest watching the entire thing because these people freaking live it. We're talking former Cambodian child soldier who now removes land mines (14,000 so far) and runs an orphanage, Kenyan man who distributes free lanterns he invented to village children so they can do their homework at night, Mississippi woman who revolutionized her town from the most obese in America to a health conscious community. Like, these people are not messing around. 

But one woman got voted CNN Hero of the Year, and this woman quite literally moved me to tears. Streaming down my face tears. Click here to see the video they played to introduce this beautiful beautiful BEAUTIFUL woman, Anuradha Koirala. (AKA The Video That Blew My Mind)

**I know, the 30 second ad at the beginning feels impossibly long. Who has that kind of time to wait for online videos these days? I actually found myself multitasking while waiting for the video to load- whole other can of worms**

"You have to join hands. You have to take each child as your daughter." If you look up more videos of her (which I have done exhaustively), she continues to emphasize this point. She continues to dissolve that barrier between self and other, and says that if you truly do so then you will feel the sorrow of these girls sold into sex slavery. GIRLS SOLD INTO SEX SLAVERY. What an absolutely insane and horrifying idea.

I think often we rationalize keeping those borders up between people, quickening our pace and turning our heads, by telling ourselves: if I truly felt for the suffering of others I wouldn't be able to get up in the morning and live my life. But the thing is, she goes on to say that after the sorrow you will feel the strength that comes out of that sorrow. In addition to spreading preventative awareness about human trafficking in vulnerable Nepalese villages, Anuradha Koirala has been nicknamed "The Terminator" for saving over 12,000 girls who have been sold like objects by raiding brothels and stopping transports at the India-Nepal border. She has housed these girls, clothed them, fed them and empowered them through emotional support, education, and skill-training. She has freed them. She has taken the strength that comes out of her daughters' sorrows and used it to propel her life. As you can see in this video and others, they are so so grateful. And so is she.

The Trouble with Condiments

I have been propelled from bed-to-blog by an all too powerful force, created of course, by me.
It's that feeling of being off center, that indefinable inability to shift things into place internally, despite a painful awareness of their discordance. To be fair, it's a delicate balance to maintain: feeling grounded enough in oneself to channel your presence into the present, without losing that liberating humility which allows for the embrace of  change. And I seem to have lost my fleeting grip on it yet again, floundering in a discomfort which I can only hope to transform into creative tension without tripping open the floodgates of self-indulgent melancholy.

Ugh.

I recently became annoyed of my own blog (present company thus far included) AKA annoyed of myself. Which, as you can imagine, makes this entry a bit paradoxical given its attempts to relieve (?) my current state of _______. I think in part it's because the nature of my social life as of late has been CATCH UPS. ENDLESS KETCHUPS. With people I love, with people I am so happy to be crossing paths with again, with people whose lives and well being I am sincerely interested in- and yet, unavoidably I am required (and rightfully so) to balance out the conversation by summing up my past 3-6 months. And I'm getting so annoyed of hearing myself say the same thing over and over, gloss over the same ups and downs, discuss the transition from university student to "undecided...." NOT because doing so is in any way invalid or superficial, only because I have become anxious to add a little more to the story that I have become so obnoxiously well versed in reciting.
Certainly, it was difficult to adjust from juggling an overflowing schedule to, well, not. But for months now I have reveled in this inheritance of time and space- I have read books for pleasure, walked the dog, watched movies, ate slowly and spent time with myself- just the X of us. Really, I have found beauty and value and pleasure in my current, far from bustling, state of affairs. I think I've even recovered from India ;)
But much to my dismay, I must report that recently I have encountered boredom on more than one occasion. What an existentially disparaging feeling it is to be bored... to actually put into practice that horrific saying of "killing time." It's time, I think, to take on a little more, delve into some new stuff.

And so I've been feeling a bit off center. A bit annoyed with myself and the tale of "what I'm up to"- again, not because I resent the opportunity to share myself with people, but because I have come to a place where it no longer feels honest or true to where I'm at. It feels retold to the point of disconnect and I almost don't even identify with it  anymore. I guess it's no wonder then, that I'm "feeling weird." I let my self slip away from myself and get lost in a vast sea of KETCHUP... floating in pieces of dates and events and decisions and facts. And honestly, what's more annoying than when you can tell so clearly that someone's being fake?

It's like I'm reciting when I want to be creating. Not here- I strive for honesty in this blog above, I think, all else. But it became suddenly difficult to think of subject matter, whereas until now it has just flowed into beautiful expression (beautiful in the sense that it has felt honest and liberating and FUN). And it was that newly formed gap that I found endlessly annoying. I think that's just because I've fallen briefly out of touch, confusing my ketchup-me with current me (and probz a disillusioned absolute me has been thrown into the mix as well).

Hilarious, that just expressing that confusion rather than brainstorming ways out, veiling it with certainty, or even distracting myself with talk of other things, was actually what just felt so great. Shame it took me so long (although I can't really be sure of time periods, due to that whole eternity syndrome issue I described in earlier posts- ie. I often feel like what I am experiencing is how I've always felt and how I will always feel). Not that speaking something banishes it out of existence; quite the opposite, language creates and makes real-- transforms from "feeling weird" to articulated concerns that can be embraced or addressed or dismissed.

Thanks for giving me the space to write. Here's hoping I haven't annoyed any of you reading (thank you for reading) as much as I've annoyed myself in the past indeterminable amount of time. Oh, and also I'm menstruating so who really even knows if this will all just pass on its own with the cycle of the moon...

India Revisited

A funny thing happened this summer: I went to India. I'm not really sure why. When I asked a guru in Jaipur who inexplicably knew very mysterious details about my family, he responded immediately that I had chosen to visit India because I spent a great deal of time there in my past lives and so was drawn back to the country.  This differed slightly from my usual response of, "I want to bring my Religious Studies major to life," and that "I had read many wonderful books about the region and was fascinated by its religious, cultural, and geographical diversity." Whatever. Really I just thought it would be a crazy experience with a great exchange rate and colorful scarves so why the hell not? So off I went. With a backpack. And in my backpack was a swiss army knife that I never once used, an exhausted supply of moist towelettes, hiking boots that gave me blisters, impractically large novels, and North American clothing unsuitable for Indian heat waves and societal norms. And in my friend's backpack was a lot of great supplies that I had forgotten. The relative compactness of my bag likely earned me a level of street cred amongst travelers that she could have only dreamed of, but she was kind enough to let me use her vegetable peeler and facial sunscreen nonetheless.

Immediately upon my return to Canada, I fell ill to a bout of diarrhea that was clearly of foreign origins. I recovered about 5 days later, but had retained absolutely no memory of the 7-week trip. I didn't think about it. I didn't talk about it. I was too busy writing emails and trying to figure out what the f-bomb I was going to do now. My analysis, which by no means is necessarily accurate, is that the experience had so blown apart my comfort zone and was so unrelatable (at least on a superificial level) to everyday life in Toronto that I had simply compartmentalized the whole ordeal and put it away for a rainy day. A couple weeks later, I was walking home from the subway station and a construction worker whistled at me. Instinctively, without any conscious intent, I shot him a glare that had been cultivated and perfected on the streets of Northern India. With my eyebrows furrowed in that familiar look of disgusted-how-dare-you-objectify-me-I-am-woman-hear-me-roar-even-if-you-don't-let-your-wife, I realized that I should probably create some space in my mind for reflection upon the journey that transformed me into a ruthless bargainer who could tolerate spicy food and 14 hour bus rides on unpaved roads like it ain't no thing. Which brings me to today's downpour.

First things first, there are ALOT of people in India. The men are generally a lot more chatty than the women, at least they are to foreign girls they want to a) sell things to b) engage in sexual relations with or c) help out because they realize the intensity of our vulnerability. But every so often, one is fortunate enough to sit next to a woman on a 2nd class train ride who is writing her phd thesis on the plight of women in rural Indian villages, and after speaking passionately about social justice asks you giggling what it's like to kiss a boy and if it's true that you'll get bruises if you do so before your married. The streets of major cities are literally teeming with a chaotic montage of motorcycles, buses, cars, rickshaws, cycle rickshaws, cows, goats, camels, donkeys, all of which come to a screeching beeping mooing halt when one pedestrian extends his palm outwards and crosses to the other side. And no, I was not surprised that Delhi was inadequately prepared for the Commonwealth Games.

As I began attempts to reflect upon my "summer vacation," I could recall only instances of
severe physical discomfort- ie. 23 hour drive down the Himalayas where on a chai break my dear friend stepped in human poo while wearing sandals, 48 degree heat waves, pausing to breath every 10 steps while climbing a mountain 5000 m above sea level for 9 hours when we had politely requested an easy stroll
fear for personal safety- ie. rickshaw stalling on a bridge full of trucks during lightning storm in the middle of the night, being scammed on our very first day by a fraudulent government tourist agency into booking a flight to a terrorist zone, accidentally taking a general class train ride and nearly being trampled, skinning my knee and tearing new flowy pants in attempts to escape terrifying gang of street dogs at 5 AM.

Disconcerting, to say the least. I tried going out for Indian food, but quickly realized it was way too soon for another round of Aloo Gobhi. In a frenzy, I left a distraught message for my former travel partner begging her to, at her earliest convenience, remind me what else went down on our trip to India. HOW COULD I IMPOSE AN OVERARCHING THEME UPON THE TRIP AND RETROACTIVELY FIT IT INTO THE COOKIE CUTTER PROGRESSION OF MY LIFE, IF I DON'T EVEN REMEMBER WHAT HAPPENED?!?!?

Thankfully, she returned my call and for hours we reminisced about the absurdities, hilarities, turning points, breakthroughs and ridonkulusnous of our experience together. And we laughed and we laughed and we laughed and it was therepeutic in a way that nothing else possibly could be. And then she reminded me that on our first day (after realizing we had signed up for that terrorist adventure) we made the conscious decision to not take our "spiritual journey" to India too seriously, to just let it be what it will be, and to find beauty in however it unfolds. She reminded me that we learned it wasn't about controlling our thoughts or emotions as much as it was about watching them, becoming aware of them, even loving them, but at the end of the day laughing at them. Not out of superiority, some fabricated notion of transcendence or self-deprecation, but out of a sincere sense of awe and wonder at the beautiful absurdity of our existence.
I had gotten so caught up in trying to make sense of what I learned in India and what the point of going was, that I missed the point entirely, and somehow forgot that from beginning to end it was never linear, never goal-oriented, never regimented in that way. We had no plan or purpose or design for the trip. We just went, naive, overly trusting, and dangerously open-minded.  And it just was, as life is. It flowed, it was rich and hilarious, beautiful and emotional and scary, experiential and unpredictable.
Since coming home, when people ask whether I loved India I have never felt certain how to respond. I am now reminded of the many conversations had about the nature of love while overlooking Himalayan mountain ranges, misty monsoon rain clouds, intricate architecture and devastating poverty. And through it all, love emerged as pure in its independent nature, as prevailing regardless of inevitable transformation and changes in circumstance.
And so I feel now as though I can answer yes, I did and do love India. Not because it is perfect, and certainly not because it is a place I'd like to someday raise a family, but simply because it is- it pulsates with the very breath and breadth and depth of the human experience. And I know, to the extent that I can know anything, that that love is intimately intertwined with the awe inspired laughter of slowly letting go