Happy Journey

My last week in India I was busy. Busy figuring out how I could breakdown and package my souvenir gift to myself, a 50 pound steel frame Indian roadster. Busy with coworker/ friend as he took me to his family’s tailor he had told me of for months, getting silk and khadi dress shirts in a 8 x 12 shop in the old corridor of Bangalore. Busy wrapping up work projects and savoring the many things I didn’t photograph or write of previously, the corner coconut stand, my favorite sweets shop, the street seller outside my apartment who manned his cart each evening fanning burning embers with a plantain leaf to roast corn, reminiscent of Mexican elote I ate on Los Angeles streets while visiting my grandma. And savoring the progress made in negotiating with tuktuk drivers and other purchases, one of the lasts being ankle bangles for my niece, chimes that serenaded temple halls and city streets to the rhythm of children’s frantic steps and dances.

There are many things I did not write of in India, some due to time, some to keep to myself, some because I was in the moment, and many I just simply lacked the language. Most of what I what I wrote were observations, easier to do than feelings. And observations I didn’t document but still reflected on, observations I felt inadequate to comment on: insights into globalization, India’s internal politics and powder kegs of Maoist and Kashmiri insurgencies that reappeared, notions of love, marriage, family, caste, poverty, village life / happiness.

I ran out of time to write about the second part of my two week backpacking trip through Rajasthan, the week I had outlined to spend with an American born Indian friend who I was suppose to meet on my 25^th birthday, only to cancel due to a family emergency. And the following week I spent without Internet or guidebook roaming the desert, turning 25 on the roof of a village cement slab alone. Or the family I met in Jodhpur, a tea and spice shop run by seven sisters after the death of their father, and the spontaneous Christmas night I spent bopping around a city thousands of years old only to end up in their shop and sample saffron tea as my Christmas celebration. And making my way to Gujarat, and spending New Year’s Day at Gandhi’s Ashram, standing in the very place where he stood each morning and night in reflection and prayer.

I ran out of time to recount the trip where my first love, someone I hadn’t seen in 7 years visited me in India. A reconnection born in the age of Facebook and enough time between us. And the 3 weeks together we spent, flying by helicopter to Himalaya, to Gangtok, Pelling, than the Queen Hilltop station and rolling tea fields of Darjeeling. And 3 ride share jeeps, 2 trains totaling 24 hours and 1 tuktuk to the holy city of Varanasi on the river Ganga. That flows from the abode of the gods, Himalya, from the foot of the preserver Vishnu. Witnessing with a friend, turned lover, turned stranger and now friend the end of samsara, life and rebirth, along the funeral pyres of the river, and the nightly prayers of floating candles down Ganga. And recalling with her old memories, studying if people really change, and where does love go. And laughing. A lot.

After six months alone in an apartment 10,000 from home I came back to California. And after the product of much searching, decided to leave the company that had afforded me so much. With newfound realizations, many to do with the necessities and cadence of my own heart, I decided to continue to pursue a career in renewable energy and trade the ocean for the mountains. And head back to Colorado.

The month at home was one of adjustment, relaxation and family and friends. Marveling at the changes in my now toddler niece. And her saying “noñi” a reflection of the intended Spanish “niño” for godfather (knee-no). I went surfing with a friend when he came into town. I stayed up late around campfires. I flew to Boston for St. Patrick’s weekend to see old college buddies while I had the time and the money. I prepared for the move and packed what few things I owned.

And I took a trip with my grandma to Death Valley as I had promised her in India. The place where her husband and my namesake took her on a second honeymoon, some fifty years ago. To see California poppies and wild horses, and at night driving into the desert against the silhouette of old company mining town building frames to look up at the stars.

I convinced my dad to drive out with me to Denver where I had no plans just a destination, taking the scenic byways route and hitting three national parks along the way in Utah. We detoured for a small mountain town of Paonia Colorado prior to reaching Denver, an old coalmining town where coal is going, and fracking is sadly coming. But where agriculture has always been, since the displacement of the Ute Indians. And an eclectic mix of off-griders, alternative living, growers, artisans, hippies and farmers call home. That and a leading institution in solar energy training. I decided right then I would delay my return to Denver.

A lot had changed when I did go to Denver, to say hi and then bye to old friends. Places I once visited were closed, and more than anything, things just progressed. I often figured well away in India for six months (and having not lived in Denver for almost two years), things would stay the same; people would wake up, go to work, come home and do it all over again. But I was wrong, places and people did change. Things I was not prepared to digest.

But the real loves in my life, ones spread all over haven’t. The ones who support me and keep me grounded despite my “ungroundedness.” After months in a hotel room it became apparent I wanted something more homely, a dog maybe or just a room to call my own. On each of my trips in India my coworkers would leave me with the expression “Happy Journey” as a substitute for “have a safe trip.” I found those simple two words more encompassing of the purpose of travel or at least the intent of mine, and the greater journey I am on. Over these past few months I have learned many things, mostly concerning myself and my heart, and the pressing need to adhere to it. And though it pains me have to leave many things behind, including people I thought would be with me all the way, I look back on the odd and few things that have come with me in these nomadic past few years. The things trapped in the inner folds of my pockets, in zippers in backpacks. And realizing after all my friends and family, despite my wanderings and experiments aren’t leaving my side. And that I am embarking on the path of a Happy Journey.