The End

I've taken a week to reflect (a little) on possible endings, yes, endings, for this blog.

Romantic

I enjoyed a long, leisurely breakfast surrounded by a circle of new and old friends. We ate fresh, hot muesli, curd, dosas. We ate fruit salads of every variety. We ate two different types of eggs. We had fresh milk and tea. We sat around a large wooden table on soft floor cushions, stretching our beings, trying to learn how to soak up small moments in time. The car arrived outside. It was white. Cars are usually white. And because it wasn't a rickshaw, I knew it was for me. As I waved goodbye, a light switched off inside of me, and I turned to look ahead to the road to come.

I slept the whole ride to the airport. I walked to the Kingfisher counter. I stared at the woman asking me for a ticket. She kept saying it and saying it and saying it and I kept not giving it to her.

The light turned back on.

"Actually," I said. "Can I change my ticket?"

I've never missed a flight and I've never tried to rearrange a ticket. For me, I start cooking a meal, I cook the meal, and then I eat it. But this time I was surprised to find how easy it was to just stop cooking. A friend recently told me about this San Fran mouse that can jump like 12 feet and mid air, turn 90 degrees. That's me. Born the year of the rat.

So this rat turned 90 degrees away from the USA. This rat jumped back into India.

Expected

I sat in the car going to the airport. I was amazed to find that I was at the exact limit of permit luggage weight (25 kilos). The plane took off and I was in a daze. I landed in Mumbai. The plane took off and I was in a daze. I landed in New York. I had no keys to my apartment. I had 25 kilos of luggage. I had jet lag. So, I went to practice.

I didn't know exactly where Eddie's was, but somehow, managed to navigate my way to the unmarked, second floor studio. My body buzzed from lack of sleep, airport funk, 24 hours of unused muscles, and the adrenaline of the "fight or flight" instinct surging through my veins as my body shifted from one side of the world to another, from one culture to another, from one teacher to another. And in that torrent of energy, I practiced. My body carved the air and I could feel the boundary where New York met the cloud of Mysore surrounding me.

Cop-out

As the car drove further and further from the place I've called home for the past few months, I thought of all the people I've met, all the things I've seen, all the things I've learned. I saw the landscape outside the car as if it were the first day again. I tried to pick out the things I was fascinated with on that first ride. As my eyes jumped from one thing to the next, I slowly drifted to sleep.

My eyes began to flutter open. I could see someone rolling out their mat to the right of me, and someone else beginning to walk away on my left. I arched my neck and moved to see the clock on the wall behind my head. I struggled to read what it said. "No, really?" I asked myself. I had been asleep for an hour. I sat up on my mat. There was one last person finishing up in the front of the Shala in New York.

I was so excited about my upcoming trip to Mysore that I had dreamt about it during what was supposed to be post-practice rest (savasana).

What is real? Maybe a little of all of them, maybe none of them. I have to keep a little of this magic to myself...

:)