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.