It is not quite 5pm here in Malavli, and the rains have begun again.It falls thickly now, beating at the roof and walls and sending the trees into a watery dance. The soil here, red and fine, is diluted by the rainfall, and soon everything will be tinged the dirty maroon of mud and dust.
I had meant to begin this week with a description of my adventures since we've last spoken, but a lazy day in monsoon season is good at changing such things.Instead of the stories of my week, I want to talk to you about sadness, loneliness, and being alone.
I counted today. It has been three and a half years since the last time I finished reading a work of fiction.
Three and a half years, until today.
The book itself was given to me by a friend who is challenging me to take things easier. I am grateful for his kindness, and for letting me read Sold by Patricia McCormick. It encompasses the story of a young girl sold into the sex trafficking industry, lost in an abyss of despair, of torment, and betrayal. She is strong and willful and alone, and her story is one of the most compelling pieces I've read.
Today marks the first time in more than three years that I've read for leisure-- truly for the thrill of the immersion into fantasy-- and the first time in a long while that I've cried. I am not one to forsake work, nor am I one to recline in fantasy and illusion, and I am realizing that cleansing myself of these traits has proven to be one of the most debilitating choices I have made in my young life. Rare is it that a 20 year-old woman thinks of herself as an ancient, hobbling crone-- but this is the image that I have wrought of myself after having chosen to deny myself the luxury of youth. I am beginning to recognize this as a choice, and not a necessity, of my daily life.
It is a difficult thing, the life that I live, but it does not have to steal my softness. I am not required to lose myself in the turmoil of work and studies, but can make the choice to recognize my own inspired nature and to revel in the life that I have been given.
And so I have been sitting in this home that is still a stranger to me, in a country drowned by rain that teases at all its majestic colors, and I have spent an afternoon in another world, with another heart, and I have cried. I have hope again, and that is a kind discovery.
I suppose the moral of the story is that when you find yourself very, very alone in a country in which you do not speak the language, in which it is not safe for you to walk the streets alone in the evenings and on the weekends, you will find yourself feeling sadness. I have been reminded of my brokenness here, and that it is going to be okay.
There is no hope for a future in which you run to the hills like a desert father. There is no salvation for those who do not ask for a gift. There is no sunshine for a person who is always waiting for rain. And so I will plant myself in this moment, ask the universe for a gift, and drink in the sunshine.I will make my own luck.
Know that you are going to remember your weaknesses in the silence of travel. Know that you are going to find yourself desperate for the company of the familiar, and for the daydreams of what is not real. Know that you will find yourself missing something that you've never had, and know that you will come back to yourself again at the end.
I will not let the heaviness of my heart keep me from my journey. I hope that you will do the same.
Namaste. नमस्ते
I had meant to begin this week with a description of my adventures since we've last spoken, but a lazy day in monsoon season is good at changing such things.Instead of the stories of my week, I want to talk to you about sadness, loneliness, and being alone.
I counted today. It has been three and a half years since the last time I finished reading a work of fiction.
Three and a half years, until today.
The book itself was given to me by a friend who is challenging me to take things easier. I am grateful for his kindness, and for letting me read Sold by Patricia McCormick. It encompasses the story of a young girl sold into the sex trafficking industry, lost in an abyss of despair, of torment, and betrayal. She is strong and willful and alone, and her story is one of the most compelling pieces I've read.
Today marks the first time in more than three years that I've read for leisure-- truly for the thrill of the immersion into fantasy-- and the first time in a long while that I've cried. I am not one to forsake work, nor am I one to recline in fantasy and illusion, and I am realizing that cleansing myself of these traits has proven to be one of the most debilitating choices I have made in my young life. Rare is it that a 20 year-old woman thinks of herself as an ancient, hobbling crone-- but this is the image that I have wrought of myself after having chosen to deny myself the luxury of youth. I am beginning to recognize this as a choice, and not a necessity, of my daily life.
It is a difficult thing, the life that I live, but it does not have to steal my softness. I am not required to lose myself in the turmoil of work and studies, but can make the choice to recognize my own inspired nature and to revel in the life that I have been given.
And so I have been sitting in this home that is still a stranger to me, in a country drowned by rain that teases at all its majestic colors, and I have spent an afternoon in another world, with another heart, and I have cried. I have hope again, and that is a kind discovery.
I suppose the moral of the story is that when you find yourself very, very alone in a country in which you do not speak the language, in which it is not safe for you to walk the streets alone in the evenings and on the weekends, you will find yourself feeling sadness. I have been reminded of my brokenness here, and that it is going to be okay.
There is no hope for a future in which you run to the hills like a desert father. There is no salvation for those who do not ask for a gift. There is no sunshine for a person who is always waiting for rain. And so I will plant myself in this moment, ask the universe for a gift, and drink in the sunshine.I will make my own luck.
Know that you are going to remember your weaknesses in the silence of travel. Know that you are going to find yourself desperate for the company of the familiar, and for the daydreams of what is not real. Know that you will find yourself missing something that you've never had, and know that you will come back to yourself again at the end.
I will not let the heaviness of my heart keep me from my journey. I hope that you will do the same.
Namaste. नमस्ते
Thinking of you, dear one. Thank you so much for sharing a piece of your heart and soul with us. Love to you!
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