First Glance

HIS -  12/11/2011  11am
The pigeons are always having sex. Just like the dogs, and the insects, and all of god's creatures. But the people fuck only with great and beautiful inhibition. At this point I could launch into a diatribe about India and the stigmas amongst the sexes, but I will save it, and describe the Metro.

Arriving in India after 72 hours without more than a wink of sleep, the airport was eerily deserted, and I cast about for the most inexpensive way to reach the city. Eventually I stumbled upon the underground mausoleum, which is the new Airport Express line of the Delhi metro system.  Their halls, of which any great city would be jealous,  were all but deserted in the early afternoon.  Escalators carried me down to a shiny new commuter-train style empty capsule that, with a cheerful honk, shot me to the New Delhi station. The new line cuts through long shallow forests covered in dust with the occasional laundry adorned apartment building rising enigmatically above the tree tops. 


As soon I dragged my wheelie suitcase out of the metro and into the smoggy noon streets of the city, I was greeted by three, and approached by six, gentlemen wishing to offer me their assistance.  Auto-walas each had a different official government tourist information bureau that I should visit for maps and other essential information. I turned them all down, but had no idea where I was, and just rolled my suitcase down the honking, sidewalk-less boulevard, until an entirely friendly and un-salesmen like middle-aged man took an interest me, as an English experiment, and walked down the road with me a few blocks. When he realized that I had arrived five minutes ago, he too directed me an official government tourist information bureau, but out of kindness instead of commission. The tourist information benefactors inside allowed me to use their internet and telephones to find the numbers and emails of my friends in the country.  They also shared tea and a meal with me, and so I felt obligated to take their suggestion for a hotel that night, which was clearly over priced, but what are you going to do? 

First Glimpse - views from our balconies- more to come - music from Iron and Wine & Lynx

HERS - 12/22/2011 9pm
Lines, lines, and paperwork: that is what the Indian Airport is about.  But, I have learned patience, almost. I pass through the Duty Free, and he is on the other side. We awkwardly run toward each other, and embrace in a strange collision of remembers and precursors, too overwhelmed by the moment for our brains to know what to do. I ride that metro with him, the one that is like a space shuttle, and we arrive in the dark and fog of another land.

New Delhi opens up to me, first in the worn, dark faces of the rickshaw drivers and the Auto-walas, and as we load up our belongings into one rickshaw, the rest of the city begins to speak. The cool wind rushes past us, as we dodge honks, animals, and vehicles.  We are all racing in the wrong direction. Not one person knows what is the right way; they only know their way. The crumbling forgotten buildings and glowing signs of questionable hotels loom in slow roaming fog that seems to be the product of car light, kilos of dust, and constant movement. Perhaps it is just my mood, but I find this land bound dust cloud magical, and it makes the arrival all that more momentous for me. It easy to imagine that it is a different time, in some undiscovered country, and all that lay ahead is unknown except for adventure and romance, which is always guaranteed in stories such as ours.

The driver takes us through the crooked alleys, the garbage stained, and vendor filled side streets. I am enthralled. This place is more than I could have imagined. I inhale the layers of poverty, spice, decay, and color, and it all wraps around me like some bright jeweled sari, and everything is different. I am different. I can't wait to wake up new, in New Delhi.

Victim of Poetry

I wasn't sure at first. Go to India? Why? What would I do there? I am not the type of girl who follows a man. I'm not the type of girl who is naturally good at relationships. Romance, yes. If it were a class, I would get an A. Long term partners, I would fail miserably, and then the instructor would go out of her way to advise me to focus on other subjects. Life had always come between me and my partners, and when it did, I would often welcome it. 

Now here I was, puppy drooling hopeless slap happy over some boy I had known less than 3 months. Danger! Danger! The warning bells were going off, and as usual I ignored them. I was a victim of poetry and idealism. He had offered me something that no one else had before. He wasn't persuading me with silly promises, or lavish dreams, stability, or flowers. All he offered was an opportunity, a chance to be and live in this strange country, and perhaps find another path for myself. He offered me friendship and freedom.


So I find myself subleasing my Portland apartment, donating and selling half of my clothes, putting work on hold, and packing a single suitcase for what is sure to be the best sort of adventure. The kind of adventure where nearly everything is on the line. Damn poetry!

What he writes me...

Once down the hill - see my river before it gets too low.
Too much thinking what should be done.
Turn left past the burnt out church; head up the washed-out drive.
You'll have to walk up soon.
Come see the garden that you planted;
harvest time went on by unpicked, but the garden remains.
There's a hole in the woods behind the dock.  A foundation for a thing
unbuilt.
We can make love in holes like these.  I think,
about you, maybe more than I should.
I think of the friends that I've told I'm dead, and
all the other times I've lied
about the places I've been since then.  Its all the trouble
of explaining the things I love instead
of them, and you, lying on top of heaps of golden seeds,
beckon me on Halloween, and call out to me through laugh and scream,
in pleasure, pain, and alone in dreams;
here on the ground there's a boiling whistle getting louder each time
you sing.
You get in my eyes and between my teeth.
When you walk, I follow the red dirt under your feet.
Your body is a basket.  You fall apart; you unweave.
You come back together after you leave.  You come in and out, then you
come and sail through
the waves and the caves and the blue breath of you. I want to be in
your body, and there's a mud hole nearby,
just in case we're feeling too dry.  We need to rub the red mud on
 each other from toe up to tip till we're slathered and slip our bones
all betwixt one another; then we must lick the eye lids of each other to
keep from going as blind as the others.