Sand and Surf with no regrets

I lied. The previous post was not to be my last from India. This one is. I left the school yesterday afternoon, and got to Varkala a few hours later. And yes, it is a complete tourist trap/bubble. But the sprawling ocean, constant wind, crackling palm and coconut trees and sound of waves are all here nonetheless. This is a gorgeous place. Below is a bit of what I wrote to myself when I first arrived. The rose has already lost its bloom a bit, which is another interesting part of travelling; seeing how quickly the polish of the new begins to rub off. That being said, I'm so happy to be here for a few days!

I'm sitting, completely alone, on the 2nd floor of Trattoria, an Italian/Tibetan/Indian/something restaurant, looking almost straight ahead at bunches of coconuts hiding near the top of their trees. The massive leaves, as they blow, block out varying portions of the sun as it sets straight ahead. Below and to the right is Black Beach, with, yes, black sand, and far beyond that the coean shore roundly zigzagging out further than I can see.

There's a small sandy bit of land before that, near enough that I can make out the shapes of two people swimming together, then leaving the water to lie on the sand, and again going out into the water. The way the two shapes intermittently blend together to make one tells me they are a couple. I think how, perhaps, the memory of this moment, for them, may come back unexpectedly, again and again throughout their lives. Will it resurface at times of trouble to sustain them through the lows that any couple faces?

My iced coffee, after 45 minutes, has heated itself up.

Again, I feel gratitude, accompanied by the nearly constant awareness of how fortunate I am in my life, now and before. I think of the oceans I have seen in my 36 years, and the fewer number of those that I have swum in; from Florida, to the French Meditteranean, to Japan and Taiwan's island coasts, San Francisco's icy waters, Los Angeles and San Diego, its bay crammed with navy ships, Tel Aviv, filled with Palestinian and Jewish families enjoying the beach together, side by side, and now India.

I've ordered baked tandoori fish and Tibetan dumplings (momos), to avail myself of the odd culinary combination of this restaurant, and I think of the handful of places I have eaten Tibetan momos before, each edging a bit nearer to Tibet. The first was in Berekeley, at the little restaurant I stopped at regularly when I crossed the Bay Bridge. I wonder if on this or another journey, I might eat them in their proper place, or at least a bit closer to it, in Dharamasala or Nepal.

I think, as I always do at times like this, of how I wish someone I loved, family, friend or future partner, were here with me now. And this makes me remember all the wonderful moments in the past, when I have been somewhere beautiful and still, that someone has been there with me.

Now, a few eagles enter in my line of vision, flying in circles, dropping and catching and dropping again tufts of material they have found for nest building.

And just now, the first other customers have come and sat down at the table next to mine, breaking this space of no words. I realize again, more and more, how I am coming to prefer quiet. As my yoga teacher kept telling me, it sounds like I should go up to the mountains. :)


And indeed, the newcomers were a few Indian guys who chased me off by talking to me too much. :) The perils of being a single female traveler.

Last nite, I went to one of the many cafes along "the strip"....to the left, the ocean, to the right, hotels, shops, cafes, restaurants. There was a semi-classical India music concert. After hearing a good amount of "straight" classical music at the school, it was great to hear these two guys play drum and violin, with effects on the violin.

It's mid afternoon now and the sun is much too brutal to be sitting under, so I'm relaxing inside until it cools down. I'm meeting a few folks I've met from London and Vancouver tonight for dinner, more relaxing tomorrow, and then off on Wednesday.

Wish you could all teleport here!

Finally leaving the school!

Hi all,
Sorry I have not shared any news or fun tidbits as of late. But now that my time in India is coming to a close, I thought I'd post an update. As many of you have likely intuited, or directly heard from me, I have not been thrilled out of my mind here in this small village in southern India, so, though I have shed a few tears, I am feeling happy to be moving on from Aranmula tomorrow.
I decided to take it easy, considering the upcoming flight back to Paris and then train down to the center of France in the next 2 weeks, so I won't be taking the 17-hour train up to the "ideal" beach. Instead, I'll be going to the "touristy" beach only 2 hours south from here, relaxing for a few days, if that's possible, and then will head 4 hours back up north to fly out from India at 5 AM Thursday morning.
I wore my sari for the first (and only) time yesterday, when a group of us went to a temple concert to hear the singing teacher from the school perform. I quickly learned that a westerner wearing a sari in these parts gets alot more attention than a westerner wearing the less formal pants/long shirt combo. Along with the general stares, I got a number of head nods and "OK" signs from women. :)
I hennaed my hand today (will it survive swimming in the ocean for a few days?), ran around to say goodbyes and do last minute shopping, etc. etc. I have many photos I would love to share from various dance and theatre performances I've seen during the last few weeks, but my computer memory is full, so we'll all have to wait!
I arrive back in Paris next Thursday, where I will spend 4 too-short nites back in the company of my newfound friends there, and then down to Moulin de Chaves near Bordeaux (www.moulindechaves.org) to start work on April 30. I hope I remember how to cook! Or for that matter, how to be an employee again (albeit, one who doesn't receive paychecks...). I am greatly looking forward to eating plenty of leafy greens. The food here has been delicious, healthy and amazing, but despite the fact that the fare has been vegetarian, there hasn't been much in the way of leafy goods.
I hope all are well, and I will write more once I get settled again.

Unabashed Plug for Birthday Wishes

Here it is, my 36th birthday. Usually, I would not write a blog or send an email announcing my birthday, but I am feeling very entitled at the moment, as I am bereft of family and friends, as well as the usual comforts which I would enjoy on my birthday.

I am not wearing my sari, as I have not been back to the tailor after an initial bad experience where the two shirts I had made did not even fit over my chest. Oops. But, to celebrate my birthday, I finally took the various pieces of material I have accumulated during the past few weeks, as well as ready-made clothes which have burst seams or otherwise need to be altered, to a different tailor this afternoon. I am wearing an unbelieveable amount of bright colors since in India, and loving doing so. As most of you know, I'm a monocolor, black or brown or grey kind of girl. But here, it seems almost everything I wear is in the family of reds, oranges, purples, and even PINK!

My day started out with a few neighbor kids giving me a few flowers they picked off the tree in front of the house. Someone gave me cookies at lunch, another woman bought a Carnatic music CD for me, and a third got me some incense. After lunch, one of the vocal teachers (he's amazing, and sadly, not my teacher) and one of the drum teachers did a little impromptu jamming with each other, so I went to listen and considered it a free birthday concert. When I went home after lunch to practice, someone had rolled something in newspaper and stuck it behind my doorhandle. I found an exquisite painting of peacocks on homemade dark brown paper inside. I still don't know who the mystery gifter is. Biking from home here to the office to email, I saw a type of butterfly I have never seen before...it looked like a monarch butterfly, but was blue rather than orange. Nature was also conspiring to help in my happiness today.

Now to dinner, where there will be a little birthday cake for me. Alot of the new folks who have arrived recently are professional musicians from Australia, so we'll probably get together after dinner and have a little jam session. So thanks to all these things, along with many sweet emails and a homemade card from my grandmother, I've had quite a lovely day today. I of course continue to welcome more birthday wishes! :)

Other than that, there is not too much news.....more frighteningly large insects, including a spider so massive in my bathroom that I could see its mandibles slowly moving back and forth in a most threatening manner. I did scream like a girl. There have been many beautiful sunsets, the audible sound of sweat landing drop by drop on the concrete ground during yoga practice, a few dance and theater performances at one of the many local temples, shopping excursions into nearby towns, and the inevitable planning to go.

Next week is my last week at the school. Singing classes continue to be excruciating, so in my final few days here, I'll actually stop singing class and switch to Sanskrit. This will give me just enough time to learn the alphabet. For Indian classical singing (if I actually keep it up), yoga practice, Buddhist studies, it can't hurt to have the building blocks of the language.

I was planning on going to the most celebrated red-cliff beach town in Kerala, Varkala, after I leave the school to chill out (literally) for a few days before flying back to France. But I got a report from a friend that it's horribly touristy, along with a suggestion for a better beach just a bit south of Goa, which is the most notoriously touristy beach area in India, for both foreigners and Indians alike. That town is in the northern neighboring town of Karnataka, and would require about 20 hours of train time to get to. Though my inclination is to take it easy, the thought of ending my time in India in a truly gorgeous and relatively quiet place, versus a gorgeous tourist trap, is pretty appealing.

Hope you all are very very well.