So last night, I had this big long posting all typed out for today, went to save it and it promptly disappeared.  I don’t know where it went so I believe I wasn’t supposed to post it.  Donno why.  So, with that said, I have no post for my last Thursday in India.  Oh well.  Tomorrow it’s off to Kangra Fort with the lovely Ganden and Saturday and Sunday are teachings with His Holiness.  Way too much going on to wing a posting at this late hour so I might post on Sunday and then again I might wait till I’m bored out of my skull and on the verge of watching TV on Monday.

For those heading out for Holiday festivities, please be safe.  Theres a lot of crazies out there driving drunk because there’s a fat man in a red velour suit enroute.

I get on the bus to Delhi at 6:00 pm, Sunday night.  Yuck.

So I got the bitching out of my system and now with approx 7 days left, I have once again swung back to “I don’t wanna go back to America yet!”  I’m sitting here on my veranda at 8:20 in the morning and I have already eaten breakfast and finished a bucket of laundry.  I am wrapped up in drinking my second cup of tea, wearing my sandals, 2 pairs of sox, 2 pairs of pants, 4 shirts and my fingerless gloves that I bought off of one of the nuns (she knits gloves and hats) and listening to the chanting all around me in preparation for their exams on the 18^th and I don’t wanna leave!  It’s perfectly lovely out today.  It’s a sunny 48F outside and in, of course.  Hahahahhaha.  I couldn’t care less.  I’m going to go for my walk and then go try to eradicate some viruses off of the new nunnery computer that were put there by some monastic angel that has no clue what a computer virus is.  How can you get mad at them?  It’s not their job to know of such worldly things!

 My return to long-distance running…..

While doing my regular walking here, I’ve noticed that oh so familiar feeling returning to me.  I have the undeniable urge to run again.  Even have dreams about it.  My exactly 2-year hiatus from my sneakers gave me insight into my physical and emotional needs for running.  I just meditate better when I run, plain and simple.  I won’t be going for those 18 to 26-mile jaunts anymore because I realize the point of it wasn’t for some dumb award at the end of a race telling me what a good runner I was.  I am supposed to be running for myself because that’s what I love most and it’s how I give birth to my next me.  My hella-sciatica will be kept in check with regular yoga, now that I have a good grasp of it and why it really does work so well.  I have gained great knowledge from friends that are holistic practitioners and I paid attention!  In 11 days I brave the Day After Christmas sales so that I can start running around the reservoir by my parent’s house and watching the buffalo roam ASAP.  I wonder if maybe those foot/bike paths were finished while I’ve been away.  And please, don’t anyone go panicking and trying to talk me out of it.  I realize that when I quit running two years ago, I was kind of a crippled mess and I said it would be my last time, but I can’t say no.  I’ve had a 16-year love/hate relationship with my right leg (especially since the great Diamond Head knee blow out of ’97) and I’m determined to get it right this time.  And if I have trouble I’ll slow down….I swear! 

 A BIG THANK YOU TO STEVE BAUMGARTNER!!!!!!!!!

Sopris West’s ever reliable and sweet Steve B (not to be confused with Steve C in the   Design department) picked up my down comforter and pillows from the dry cleaners last week.  Guh.  Yeah, I know I’m a bit of a loon but the dry cleaners were the last thing on my mind when I left Longmont.  They’d been there since the day I moved from the horse farm into town….February?  If he keeps them I wouldn’t hold it against him.  They’re super nice and he’d be getting quite a nice set for the $50 it took him to get them out of hock.  Who do you know selling a king-size down comforter with matching pillows for 50 bucks?  Oh well.  They’re just things.  He DID of course offer to send them to me…..I’m 50/50 on it right now.  I’d have him send them to Patrick but Patrick’s got kitties and a girlfriend to keep him warm so I’m not too worried about him.  We shall see. 

 CJ!  Find Steve a girlfriend already!  

 The Weather

 In case anyone out there has reading comprehension issues, it’s cooling off here.  I was remiss in bringing two pair of long underwear so I wash the top and bottoms on alternating days.  It’s been dropping about 1/3 of a degree per day and when the sun shines it only tops out at 55 or so by 2 pm.  This morning it was 47 in my room when I woke up.  There were 5 solid days of clouds and rain then back to sunshine yesterday and today.  The humidity has also been on the rise, now hovering around 59% give or take.  When the sun shines, there is a mad rush to the showers.  Everyone here savors her hot showers, with the cloudy weather upon us.  I’ve been abusing my water kettle these past few days for bucket showers and laundry.  I silently thank Lobsang Chodon every time.  I get the feeling I won’t be jonesing to go camping anytime soon, and then again I might go on retreat this coming summer in the mountains of the great North West.  Never know.

 NUNS!

On the nun front, I’m starting to get serious flack for leaving and I want to cave to it.  The girls frown when they hear I’m leaving and when I mention my intentions to return in July of 2009, they point out that July 2008 is much closer and I should try for that instead.  If I knew I had the money to keep Sallie Mae quiet, I’d be back in a flash.  BUT I have some HUGE projects to sink into upon my return to America and many nuns are counting on me SO my time for selfishness has come to an end.   

 I desperately want to pack Rinchen, Ganden and Lobsang in my bag and bring them home with me so that I have someone to talk to when I’m back in the land of high-strung, competitive women.  I know that I will cringe the first time I am confronted by a big, strong, perfectly put together, in-your-face business woman.  I will also feel compassion for her that she feels she needs to be that way so others consider her “successful” in life.  I used to be her.  I know.   

 

Living in the foothills of the Himalayas ain’t all it’s cracked up to be some days.  I woke up this morning and it’s down to 50F in my room.  I actually got warm enough last night under all of my layers of covers to take one pair of pants, one pair of socks and my gloves off!  WOW!  But had to immediately put it all back on when I got up so….whatever.  I took a walk down to the kitchen to get my breakfast and thought just out of curiosity I’d put my weather station outside to see how cold it is on my veranda.  Whadaya know its 50F outside too!  Gee Whiz!  What a shocker.  Could it be because there is a 2-inch gap at the bottom of my door that my flimsy floor mat can’t block?  Or maybe it’s because THERES NO HEAT?  This is about the time I sit and laugh to myself remembering when, in Tibetan language class in Boulder, I asked Lhoppon what the weather was like here.  His response was “sometimes it get SO COLD we have on two coat AND mitten and we STILL shiver!”  I know, I know informative but I didn’t think it’d get that cold down here.  I’m still in the foothills but I’m not up at 6,000 ft. either.  But I’m not as cold or as hungry as the feral puppies and kittens that I see everywhere that nobody cares for so I suck it up and shut up.  This was my choice, they don’t have one.  But the really interesting part of all of this is NOBODY has heat.  People live huddled around either electric space heaters, a propane can with a boiling pot of water or a little steel pan in the middle of a room with an open fire in it.  It reminds me of growing up with the wood burning stove and always smelling wood smoke in the winters. 

 But remember that these people don’t sit around and watch the stupid boob tube all damn day.  There is no such thing as unemployment benefits or disability cheques.  These people are grinding grain for flour, making meals for 28 people, feeding livestock, tending crops, washing clothes in a bucket with a rock, walking sometimes MILES for water to do these things, some of the men leave the home to go try to make a living as a taxi driver or shop owner.  This place ain’t easy, folks.  But at the same time there IS ease about the place.  There is no harried pace of 40 things to do before the day is out so you don’t lose your job.  There is all the time in the world to get things done here cuz there’s always tomorrow.  Nobody is going anywhere, so nobody panic.  I adopted that frame of mind somewhat in America, about a year before I left.  The “it’ll be here tomorrow, the world won’t end….calm down”  At work it was tough because in the corporate atmosphere people expect that harried, panicked fervor of striving to be better than so-n-so or going for a promotion or kissing the bosses butt.  I stopped that and ya know what?  People thought I had gone mad.  What I succeeded in doing what giving myself perspective.  Life isn’t all going to work and being a slave to “your things” you are so very proud of, THANK BUDDHA.  But what these very rural and very isolated people DO have, sadly enough, is a very twisted view of America or anywhere else for that matter.  They only know what they see in movies or on the occasional television and we all know that’s not real.  You’ll truly never know until you go. 

 There is this really neat bug that has set up shop on the spine of one of my books.

 And yes, I know I bitch but really do have my heart set on returning in July of 2009 to trek to Manali, Spiti, Sikkim, Zanskar and Ladakh.  I am hoping since it will be summer break here at Jamyang Choling that Ganden will be available to be my guide.  She is looking forward to it as she is from a village in Spiti like Lobsang Chodon.  Maybe Lobsang Chodon will be free to come along too! 

Yes!  I have got it!

 Yes, I have come up with the slogan for the department of tourism for India…”Come to India!  Appreciate what you have at home”. 

 I am officially ready to return to America, the land of forced-air heat and reliable power.  Today it hovered around 52F in my room and the fun part of all of this is even if I WERE inclined to purchase a space heater?  It’s been raining here and snowing up in the mountains so there’s been no power for 80% of the day.  Can’t blame this power outage on the monkeys this time.  Couldn’t even give classes today.  I lie in bed most of the day and read Once Were Warriors.  Gawd what a heart-wrenching book.  I am guessing The Maori of New Zealand received treatment similar to the Native American tribes.  I am curious to do some research on them when I return to the country of stable power sources.  I haven’t read anything Buddhism related today because frankly, my head needs a BREAK from being here and everything Buddhist for 24 hours or so.  And especially after yesterday, I’m just tired of my being a target everywhere I go.  I talked to Yejung about it and she said that if I were going to stay longer she would insist I have some Punjabi clothing made so that I would get left alone.  It’s that simple, wear the local, modest women’s prescribed dress and suddenly, you get a seat on the bus, nobody tries to harass you on said bus, you don’t get followed, teased, things thrown at you or requests to show men your va*ina.  Yup, had some teenage boys following me, giggling and taunting me with “Give me all your money!”  “Give me your purse”  “Show me your va*ina”.  I was infuriated to say the least so I made a proper public spectacle at the boys and they were appropriately horrified by my outburst of yelling, stomping and arm waving.  Even though they don’t know English (but they certainly knew what they were saying to me), the loud, negative attention brought upon them in public is what counts here.  The novelty of my being a novelty has officially worn off.  I long to go for my daily walk and nobody care.

 I am pleased to report that, after some horrifically long emails, Dharma Dan is well on his way to ditching his yuck life and living life the way he really wants!  YAY and congratulations.  It might be a long road, with some real pain in the ass things that have to get done but like I told him, nothing seems bad if you’re getting closer to the life you really want.  The hellish crap I went through to get to India would have made me crazier than a loon (no comments please) except that it was all to get here so it really wasn’t that bad.  When the car needed over $300.00 worth of work done?  I panicked for about 4 hours then calmed down, did the math and realized that if it was going to get me to India, it was worth it and that the Universe would make sure everything was fine.

  And here I am in India, pining away for big bathtubs with lavender scented bubbles and salts, anything that generates heat, my kitties, Raising Arizona (thanks Dan), a hot toddy and an organic dark chocolate bar with raspberries.  But for now I have a hot water kettle (when there’s power and will only cause me repeated trips to the outdoor loo), 3 blankets, 3 layers of clothes, two layers of socks and 3 candles.  Oh yeah.  This is the life!  The girls won’t even come over to visit because it’s so freaken cold over here and they have to study because their annual Philosophy exams are on the 17^th and 18^th so I CANNOT bug them.  I DID manage to pull all of the junk out of my large duffel and actually pack it so it all fits!  Bonus!

 And I am officially lonely.  As much as I adore the girls, the language barrier and the fact that they study ALL THE TIME makes my quiet, single life on the east side of the compound very solitary.  It was so unusually quiet here today I enjoyed the sound of someone nailing a fence together.  The hammer hitting nails made me think of the crazy, great summers my family built houses.  The smell of fresh cut wood, lunch runs, cleaning up the yard in the evening, staining and installing windows in exchange for brakes on my car, the excitement of getting the trusses delivered, being afraid of falling in “the hole”, getting into mud fights with the masonry crews, living out of boxes for 90 days, helping Kris texture the ceiling in the great room, brownies for breakfast, teaching the bird how to cuss, Dick, Norman, the Gorfido boys.  So many memories.           

I got be a tourist!  Since I had Saturday off, I was going to take it easy getting up the mountain Sunday morning and I’m glad I screwed around.  Two people appeared at my door between 7 and 7:30 to tell me that Lobsang Chodon was on her way to Gharoh to spend the day with me.  A promise kept.  Wow, that was fast.  She had her annual exam on Friday, which coincidentally is the same day as my cousin Linda’s birthday!  I was sending good vibes in two different directions all day.  So I had time to get laundry done AND clean up a bit as well as clean both bathrooms, tidy up my room and read some of a book she loaned me!  She showed up at my door at 9:15 begging apologies for being late, I, of course, am not a big fan of being the watch Nazi anymore.  I must say, she and I both agree that even though it is tradition in this part of the world that “I’ll be there by 9:00” really means closer to 10:00, that it is kind of rude because it shows lack of respect for the other person’s time and daily activities. 

 
So we started out at Dormaling Nunnery near Gaggal.  The nunnery was founded, funded and designed by Western women.  It is beautiful!  And yes, I forgot my camera.  After the tour there (and a quick realization of how much my girls are doing without) we headed down the street to Norbulingka Institute which is the summer home of His Holiness, a learning institute and it also is home to the famous Tibetan Doll collection that was all hand made by monks. The dolls represent different eras and areas of the true Tibet and they are amazing and of course, the power went out while we were there.  Next it was off to The Kangra Museum in Lower Dharamsala because everyone knows I LOVE archeology and anthropology and museums in general.  We actually saw a mastodon tooth that is 1.5 million years old.  The statues of Krishna and just learning about the history of this place were fascinating!  We figured it would be a tiny setup but the entire museum was quite large and on multiple floors.  There were things that weren’t labeled and it was fun guessing.  The clothing, carvings, art work….it was all beautiful. 

 
She then dragged me off to this little whole in the wall place for a great lunch of Palak Paneer and Potatoes w/ Cauliflower with FRESH chapattis at a great little restaurant (50 rupees for the entire bill and we were STUFFED!) and finally a quick email check and some tea at her favorite cyber café.  She picked me up at 9:15 and we didn’t get home till 4:00.  Lots of walking and talking, she has a GREAT mind, good English and is quite clever and funny.  After she graduates and becomes Geshe (in about 2.5 years) she is set on going back to her home village in Spiti and teaching Philosophy in a nunnery there.  The 90% of the nunneries in the world don’t teach the Philosophy program, only pooja and meditation.  She sees this as her chance to go back to her first nunnery to make a difference in those girls’ lives by giving them a TRUE Buddhist education.  I applaud her.  She is such a great person with amazing goals and aspirations.  I love having her as a friend and can’t wait to visit her in Spiti some day in the near future.  Who knows, if the nunnery needs an English Teacher, I just might offer to stay there for a while and help out.  Some day, some day.  

 

…no post yesterday.  I was surprised by Lobsang Chodon bright and squirrelly yesterday morning when she showed up at my door so we could go be tourists for the entire day.  I will give a long and sordid post about that on Thursday. I managed to escape today because it’s a nun Holiday for His Holiness.  These Tibetans and their holidays, I swear.  I had to run to the Animal clinic for mange meds for Dorgee (old man) and for wormer for the ADORABLE kitten that has been hanging around lately.

I WOULD LIKE to ask everyone to give my cousin Linda in Colorado a BIG Happy Birthday.  It was Friday the 7th.  And while I didn’t forget it, I had a tough time getting to the internet that day to send her an email.  It apologetically got there a little after midnight on the 8th, darnit.

Gotta motor….gotta catch the bus back down the mountain.

See ya Thursday.

*Friday, November 30

9:00 a.m.

The girls have exams today and tomorrow and it hit me while making my tea this morning and while watching them all wandering around studying that I might not have to give classes until MONDAY.  I will let Ganden screw around on the laptop for a nice stress diversion if she so chooses.  Guess I could go do some solar cooker research up in Lower Dharamsala with all this time I might have on my hands.  I’ll drink my tea and think on it.  I circumambulated (walked clock-wise around the compound, making special trips around the stupas) this morning and stopped in at The Temple to watch them set up.  Had a little English lesson while I was in there.  They bicker over correct sentence structure AFTER I have corrected them.  They are interesting.  While sitting here, watching ‘crutches nun’ (a nun from Taiwan) try to hobble to exams quickly, I am contemplating what I could do with my next few days.  Just the other day I pulled about 7 new books out of the library.  There is plenty of Internet research I could be doing on the myriad projects I will be sinking myself into upon my return to America.  Yeah, I have enough to keep me busy till I’m about 80.  Great!  I also snicker to myself thinking of the ginormous email I sent to Dharma Dan yesterday morning.  Our beloved Dharma Dan is on the same self/religious/career discovery path I was on these past few years.  He wants to know how I came to be where I am, geographically and consciously and with great understanding knows that I can’t just tell him what to do.  It’s his journey; he has to figure it out.  I can give him some anecdotal guidance and a lot of crap to chew on but the rest is his bag.  Everyone wish him well.   And since he and I are temporal equals, I am going to take advantage of his great brain and run some things past him for that ever-sought “fresh perspective”.

11:30 a.m.

I was wrong, I still have classes.  I still managed to ditch my afternoon classes to hit the Internet and download some riveting reading on solar cooker grants.  Goodie.  Tomorrow it is classes as usual.

Saturday, December 01

7:41 a.m.

The 2 year-old that screams his head off and throws fits every morning will NOT be missed.  I will treasure returning to a quiet environment that I have control over somewhere in America.  The Hindi music is a 50/50 split; some mornings I will miss it, some I won’t.  I does manage to drown out the 2 year-old some times so that’s a plus, yes?  Last night Ganden came to my room to help me close my windows and we ended up sitting on the bed talking, looking at maps, taking pictures and freezing to death together.  It averages 57F in my room these days.  This morning it’s 55F.  If the sun doesn’t shine soon I’m going to go nuts.  Indian winters do include clouds, dammit, and I can’t have a HOT shower unless the sun shines.  Cold-water bucket showers suck. 

The pictures that are being posted today are of just random things from the past couple days that are just part of my daily life.  On the wall where all my stuff is, the lower left is the downstairs kitchen and it got messy last night.  Above that is the upstairs bathroom because it has toiletries and my comb, to the right is the upstairs linen closet (shawls and sweaters) and then in the lower right corner is the downstairs closet (clean clothes).  The spare bed in my room collects random things that I like to see at that level.  I found that if I put things away, I forget they exist and then I go nuts trying to remember where I put them.  So I guess I’m a visual person and that explains why I like leaving things out so I can see them.  The nuns all think I’m tidy and always marvel at the amount of books I have stacked everywhere.  The other shot of my room from the door contains my bed, bed table and the window that praying mantises, moths and spiders came in and out of earlier in the season.  Why couldn’t they just use the door like everyone else?  I’ve closed the windows and it’s now a few degrees cooler but at least I don’t have the Himalayan winds rushing through, making my room a wind tunnel.  So that’s it.  That’s my life.  Oh, I forgot the pictures off of my veranda but they would just be shots of trees.  Okay, I lie.  There is one shot off my veranda and it’s breathtaking.  The Himalayas got snow last night.  This morning was spent with my head in a bucket washing my hair and boiling water for a tepid bucket bath.  Going to dream of mom’s huge bathtub full of hot water, lavender bubbles and bath salts tonight.  

I might not email anyone tomorrow as I’ll have Ganden with me and I’ll be getting her acquainted with the cyber world, setting her up with a Gmail account and teaching her how to email.  Her sponsor in Austria would like to correspond with her more and she wants to email with me after I’ve gone back to America.  Ganden is also going to help with the commissioning of my winter coat at the seamstress shop that made my Chuba.  Ganden might get me a better price because she’s a nun and I am volunteering at her nunnery.  How the heck do I figure out how to get back here once a year or so?  The airfare is 1,300.00 and I’m allowed to come and stay here for free as long as I do anything that appears to be remotely helpful.  Hm.  Very tempting. 

Enjoy the pictures

 23 days.