“Today, like every other day, we wake up empty and scared.”

Thanks for that Rumi – true enough, but the news is none too welcome. He ends up suggesting that we let the beauty we love be what we do, which is more uplifting (and more frequently quoted). Monday morning I woke up (admittedly a bit empty and scared), attended to my creature comforts with push-ups , a hot shower and a bowl of banana porridge with tea at the restaurant upstairs, and sat down to figure out what the fuck I’m doing here. Here’s how it went:

I chatted with a guy making a slow course up the stairs on my way to breakfast – I told him I was struggling a bit and he asked why I didn’t do what made me happy, and said that some people didn’t want to be happy, and that China would make me even less happy than India – why not go to SE Asia he sd. I found it difficult to not take his comments, particularly about wanting to be unhappy, as a challenge (which is of course backwards – ‘Oh yeah?!? I’m happy! Really, I am!’). I think he was right – China would be difficult in the same way India has been difficult, and frankly I have not been very good at enjoying myself when traveling alone. I don't often justified spending even a little money or time on myself to make things easier (I try to walk rather than taxi, I try to buy cheaper, ‘local’ food, I try to not find refuge in music or the internet, all to travel 'better.' And when I do take a cab, listen to music on the train or in my room, eat western food, I feel like I am cheating – not traveling well.

Corinne suggested that I allow that sometimes I will pay 'too much' (in India this means 3 dollars rather than 1 – not going to break me), and to be good to myself, to relax sometimes, and I resisted that too! I can DO this, I thought, I can travel well. I can suffer diarrhea or being hungry or walking when I am sore or hot or tired or all of those at once. I can do this – I can do anything for a few hours, or a few days, or two months. I don’t need creature comforts. I’m surrounded by people with an astonishing lack of comforts, I can handle that for a few hours, days …. I’m pushing, rather than relaxing into traveling – pushing against as a form of being, resisting as being. I ‘am’ to the degree I can successfully travel (work? be in relationship?), all of which are beyond my fundamental control. I cannot force success, it will either grace my efforts or not. This one-step-at-a-time guy challenged me in his calm know-it-all-voice to do what makes me happy, which so far has not been an explicit part of traveling successfully. Confusingly. Why wouldn't I do what makes me happy? Why is that intention with traveling?

‘Don’t open the door to the study and read.’

Internet at this place costs 100 rupees per day (which I scoffed at for some reason, it’s 2 whole dollars), so I held off in an effort to not distract myself while I wrote this. On the train the guy next to me asked why I read, and I told him – realizing it was true as I said it – that reading for me was kind of like taking a nap, a brain nap, that when I read something good the world becomes quiet, literally, and I am entirely engaged in the story or article. I’ve been reading the food issue of the New Yorker and have been consumed (haha) by the stories of different foods. I thoroughly enjoy reading (and Arrested Development, and music), but the world I leave is the same one I return to when I stop. The other day I told myself to take it easy, yet after I ate I found myself looking for an excuse to wander around town – I need to buy a water, or I can sit in a café somewhere to think, or walk around the old fort, it’s supposed to be lovely and it costs money to stay here after all (again, a whole 6 dollars per day). I’ve felt this a lot while traveling, in part it was a similar restlessness that carried me over here. It can be the same kind of distraction for me (and I embrace it for a reason – it has been very painful for me when I run out of distractions and have been forced to confront something head on, even if it was necessary). Even writing all this out is a kind of distraction.

‘There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.’

I’ve been looking into ashrams, or spiritual centers, around India and there are plenty; similarly I'm looking at desert tours, the two week excursions being the most attractive at the moment. I resisted going to them straight away, for some reason I felt this pressing need to see the sights of India (which of course involved looking them up as I didn’t have the first clue about what they were beyond the Taj Mahal). After seeing exactly one sight (the Qutb Minar) and taking exactly one train, that pressing need diminished. One-step guy told me I didn’t want to be happy, Corinne said they are all just buildings (and I add that most of them aren’t even standing anymore) and if they don't make me happy to find something that does and for god’s sake it’s ok to just sit around for a little while. Ashrams and the like are attractive because they seem to handle the world on your behalf – room, food, schedule, that sounds lovely. And I’m starting to think of them as taxi rides for the soul – not necessary but certainly pretty damn helpful. Apparently even the Gandhi wanted a guru to follow, he just never found one.

Tony Liuzzi’s parting suggestion to me, seasoned travel that he is, was something his grandfather told him – whatever decision you make will be the right one. Figuring out what makes me happy has been a surprise, difficult, I’ve not done it before, or not well (even after the encouragement of Corinne and family and you and me and everyone we know). It has been tricky to discern it behind the noise of what I desire, or what I’m afraid of, or the culture I’m from. Part of me knew that this is what was coming, or that this is what would be good for me. I remember getting excited about the struggle, something akin to my 40 days. I’m still not entirely sure about what I’m doing, or where I’m going, but I have to say, starting to focus on being happy, I feel better about getting there.

Thanks for reading!

(Thanks to Anna Shoe for the Rumi in my travel book!)