There's No Place Like Home

To say that I have returned a changed woman would be an understatement. Not only have I experienced objectively through witnessing art, architecture, people, animals and food, where the true wealth lies is subjective, through pages upon pages of letters never sent to all the people in my life, repairing the circuits in all the fuses I've blown over the years, breakthroughs and epiphanies. I've ceased to search for things beyond and realized that I am that-which I seek. I have received advice over the years from Buddhist's, Catholics, Baptists, Hindi's, tarot card readers, psychics, reiki healers, yogis, a therapist, countless books and palm readers to name a few just to conclude that I am my greatest guru and healer. For the exception of myself, no one knows what is right for me. My personal journal where I write in a stream of consciousness differs greatly from my blog. Some experiences I have chose to take to my grave. Nothing will force you to live in the present moment like unplanned solo travel. Hopefully my soul has been cleansed in the oceans and rivers of which I swam in the most necessary of ways, such as my hideous taste in men and situations that rob me of my precious vitality. Surely only time will tell. Some days it feels as though I've lived lifetimes and others the past six months are mere memories, so dubious and improbable that I find difficult to acknowledge that I have once prevailed. New York has never before looked so vibrant and alive to me. I am exactly where I am supposed to be at this very moment. As I rest my weary head on my brothers couch in Brooklyn, drifting into slumber, I am content because now I certain that I was wearing the ruby slippers all along.

Varanasi and Calcutta

Where to begin. These two places were inspiring, exhilarating, irritating, disorderly, confusing, morbid, heinous, corrupt, stunning, radiant, repulsive and blithe all existing in one single moment. This being my most challenging of all my travels, I was grateful to have my friend Michael with me in Varanasi or I might have lost my cool in the narrow streets of this three ring circus. We dodged the unrelenting scams, shared the experience of frequent near head on collisions in the rickshaws and went sari shopping together. He's going to make his into a wall hanging and I into a duvet. This cow dung obstacle course is known for its vibrant fabrics and is most famous for the burning ghats on the Ganges river. People come to Varanasi to die so their body will be cremated on the shore of the Ganges and ashes scattered into the holy waters. Holy men and babies are not cremated but are submerged in the river, I have heard several rumors of dead babies and animals floating at the surface. Not to mention the millions of liters of feces and other sewage being dumped into that river, I passed the boat ride and a bath and was more then satisfied with the view of the water from a distance.

Michael and I met a local on our first night there and he took us over to see the ghats, I couldn't believe what was before my very eyes. I was within feet away from a burning body and didn't realize it at first. I was not expecting everything to be so exposed for the public to see. They do this twenty four hours a day at an average of 200 each day. It is not unusual to see corpses being carried through the streets as they are being carried through so frequently. They are being carried in the same manner one would carry lumber to a construction site.
Calcutta was much more civilized but still not easy. It took me almost three days to get there from Varanasi. It should have been a simple overnight train ride but I missed my first train after waiting eight hours because of delays because the track that it was originally supposed to arrive on was changed and I couldn't hear on the loud speaker that they switched. I couldn't figure out why there was whole families of Indian people sleeping on the floor of the station. They are camped out with blankets, pillows, food, the works, because they are aware that they are going to be there for a while. Even when I finally boarded a train it sat in the station for about an hour and continued to cease all through the night. I feared I would never reach my destination. When I finally did arrive, I went to see a Hindi movie because I heard that cinema is such a big deal in India. They like lots of suspense and action and dance scenes and not one dull moment. There was no build up to the plot, or subtleties. The entire time people were scaling the walls, jumping from one building to the next, shooting things and having wild car chases and then an intense choreographed bellydance scene thrown somewhere in between. The audience cheers and claps and eats and talks on their cellphones. The men here were following me around the streets wanting to know where I was from, if I want to buy something, offering me a chai or a rickshaw ride or asking me for money. I tried being direct as possible since I realized early on that they can't take a hint, for example saying "get the f*@#k away from me!" doesn't phase them one bit. I tried ignoring them and they would follow me for blocks. If they weren't saying anything, they were shamelessly staring and watching my every move like a hawk. I stayed focused on the purpose for coming there and that was to see where Mother Theresa did her healings and to see the little Bengali girl I sponsor which made it worth every tribulation. Who would have known that very sunny day in Manhattan on my way to the library when someone asked me if I wanted to be a sponsor would have brought me to Calcutta. I am so glad I paused my ipod for this solicitor because it changed my life and someone else's. Her name is Koyel and she is five years old, she is beautiful and funny and clever. I brought her a Barbie and she was obsessed with it, it is only the second doll she owns. I also took her shopping and let her pick out a toy and a dress and took her and her dad to lunch. What an incredible experience.
Submission accomplished.
a man with his daughter dressed up for a festival

Michael and I getting suckered into buying silk scarves

getting my henna done

the finished product

Koyel with her new Barbie

women shopping for saris

people sleeping in the train station

me putting the plastic watch that came with the Barbie on Koyel

she loved the sunglasses that came with it

Koyel drawing me a mango

The Doctor Is In

Ayurveda that is. If you are negligent, please allow me to enlighten you on the subject at once. Ayurveda is India's medical system that has existed for thousands of years. The word Ayurveda translates to "study of life" and everything they believe is the polar opposite of how we conduct anything related to health in the west. They treat the cause and not the symptoms, they prevent diseases instead of waiting for them to develop, and they believe the mind and body are one and the same. It's all about balance and being intuitive to what your body needs. They treat you with therapeutic techniques and through diet. The initial consultation was ten dollars, a far cry from the $150 in New York, so I decided to do panchakarma, a purification of the body. From merely listening to my pulse, Dr. Rana gave me specific details about my life. Within seconds she knew how much I despised the morning hours, that I ate a lot of bread that day and my thought process on decision making. The first four days I went to her, I drank an elixir of herbs mixed with ghee, which is clarified butter to unblock obstructed energy channels and got a massage and steam bath. Ghee is believed to have many healing properties. She also did a daily assessment of my tongue since the tongue is the "mirror of the body". The fifth day I had to drink warm water boiled with licorice root used to induce vomiting. She made me do this three separate times to prove to me how much mucous I had acquired in my lungs over a lifetime of pollution and smoking. I hacked up and dry heaved until I could endure no more. Dr. Rana was not completely satisfied and claims that I had much more to go but I had to put my foot down with this one. The sixth and seventh days I got the shirodhara and netra basti which look like this:


Shiro, meaning "head" and dhara meaning "flow", warm sesame oil pours down the scalp for about thirty minutes activating the third eye chackra followed by a scalp massage. It's a meditation of sorts, it sends me into a serious trance. The netra basti is an eye treatment where cold dough is placed around the eyes as a barrier and warm ghee and herbs are poured into the eye to nourish the skin around the eyes and improve eye sight. It takes some adjusting to wrap your head around eastern concepts. For panchakarma to have maximum results you must follow a diet for the week that omits dairy, sugar, meat, eggs, oil, nuts and anything spicy accompanied by two liters of water each day. At the end, you get the down low on your body type and the foods you need in your diet. Besides the forced vomiting and the grand finale of an enema it proved very effective and sure beat the master cleanse in respects of nourishing the body while detoxing as well as being an amusing process.
This country is corrupt in many ways but I am intrigued by the culture. I went to the post office to mail some things home and I stepped back in time. My packages were covered in a cloth that was hand sewn at the edges and sealed with wax. Much more exciting than what I usually do. For hello they say "namaste" which translates to the divinity within me perceives and adores the divinity with in you. The same word is used for yesterday and tomorrow, "kal", which sums up the Indian perspective on time and my personal favorite for goodbye is "fir milenge" that translates to until we meet again.
In total, I've taken three Indian cooking classes, two Tibetan and one French if you count when my friend Antoine rented Reeta's kitchen to show me how to make crepes and jam. Reeta also let me make four types of Tibetan bread in her kitchen so I could show her what I learned.
The end of season was nearing in Dharamsala, so it was time to move on before it got too cold and turned into a ghost town. Onto Rishikesh the "yoga capital of the world"(question mark)All my attempts to find a great class has been unsuccessful. The ashrams I went to were either too strange or you have to make a commitment for a length of time or I've shown up for a class that the teacher just decided he didn't want to teach that day, no yoga on Sundays and I even showed up to one class where someone brought their two year old son(wtf?). India has exceeded almost all of my dreams....except the yoga. I found the classes lacking flow and taught in a very mechanical manner. I finally surrendered to the fact that it just wasn't working out for me. The only ashram that impressed me was the Maharishi, where the Beatles wrote The White Album. The story is that Ringo left early because he was homesick and didn't like the vegetarian food. The ashram is no longer in use but still has a great energy about it. Rishikesh is located at the foothills of the Himalayas and is littered with wondering sadhus(holy men) in loin cloths and hippies and has the holy river, Ganges running through it. There is an ashram, temple or shrine at every turn. It was a great city but I'm pretty sure that everyone that loves Rishikesh so much is because they haven't experience heaven on earth in Dharamsala.
My energy has been crazy. I'm talking on a scientific level. In the past few months I've purchased four watches and replaced the battery in two of them. All have lasted less than a day or two. The last one, the second hand started moving counter clockwise. It's not just the watches, it's my ipod freezing up, and not being able to upload video or pictures anywhere. I googled it and this is a fairly common problem with people who have too much of certain types of metal in the body. I finally realized the problem was me when the last watch I bought wouldn't work when it was on my wrist but functions perfectly when in my bag, it just can't touch my body.
All I know is that I feel better than ever. I mean ever in my entire life. Is it the Ayurveda? The fresh mountain air? The great company? Yummy food and chai? Mediation? Vegetarianism? Seeing the Dalai Lama? It's hard to put a finger on it, perhaps it is best to question it no further.

Sangye, a Tibetan refugee teaching us how to make bread.In 1997 he walked for twenty eight days to get to India.

Dr. Rana in one of her many beautiful saris
Maharishi ashram, where the Beatles stayed in the sixties

handstitched wall hangings made from scraps of old saris

having my mail packaged

to look like this

this holy man was wearing a tail and blessed me while making feline sounds

and I walked away with one of these orange bindis

I am so hooking Juneaux up when I get back.....

Conducting An Experiment

Step 1: Form A Hypothesis- The world is a big place.

Step 2: Gather Information-
a. ambition overload
b. all of my efforts towards one goal all in vein
c. epic failure
d. refuse to accept the reality of a wrecking ball to dreams
d. milk everything in life to the bitter end until dead inside
e. surround one self with all the wrong people and trust them whole heartily
f. indulge epicuriously into unhealthy cravings

Step 3: Organize Materials-
a. break apartment lease with a very elaborate unnecessary Miami Vice scheme and drag innocent people into it
b. have a Sweet Escape Party in the West Village
c. put all belongings at Mother's
d. take Juneaux to Dad's
e. get inoculated
f. purchase a one way ticket to Spain

Step 4: Conduct Experiment In The Laboratory Of Life-
a. tell your boss that you just wanna dance
b. take the remaining money that was saved from more successful times(less than $10,000)
c. rely on blind faith
d. swan dive into the rabbit hole

Step 5: Results-
a. educate self on fine arts in Europe
b. work on a farm and realize how much of an indoorsy girl you are
c. tap into personal power and realize one's own strength
d. do things completely out of character
e. shed thirty years of layer after layer after corrupt layer from soul
f. eat a lot
g. meets lots of fascinating people
h. wear spectacles only
i. read far too many books
j. closely review the first thirty years of existence (the rough copy)
k. meditate for days
l. work in reversing family genetics in terms of mental and physical well being (I was raised by people who's forefathers philosophy on life is all that you need is duct tape and a butter knife to fix ANYTHING)
m. realize the people most dear to heart are no good for nothing, lose what little sanity remained
n. have many epiphanies,latest one being(#218 my lack of success in recent years due to my refusal to stroke egos to those of whom are undeserving)
o. get henna and put a bindi on forehead

Step 6: Conclusion-
the world is a small place (maybe a little too small sometimes) nama-f#*@ing-ste!

Wherever You Go, There You Are

And that is the truth. My habits good and bad have followed me around the world, which is why I decided to try Vipassana meditation in India that I have heard so much about. It's run on volunteering and donations only so I had nothing to lose and everything to gain. They have the Dhamma centers around the world and the technique has been around since 2500 years ago, so I knew it was legit. The course is ten days. No speaking, no eye contact, hand gestures, reading, writing, listening to music or eating a meal after lunch at eleven in the morning. I can't remember ever going a day in my life with out doing at least several of these. Oh yeah and no killing, which I wish I could say I was successful at. Not even an ant. While on my way to brush my teeth I heard a crunch and lifted my foot to reveal a snail with fragments of it's own shell protruding from its shapeless corpse. I looked up to see everyone staring back at the murderer with silent gasps. The no talking was great, after having a life with an excess amount of small talk, it was really a relief to become introverted. Waking up to the sound of a gong, two delicious Indian meals a day, watching a family of about fifty monkeys swing from tree to tree in the forest were the perks. Eleven hours a day of sitting in the same place was one of the most painful things I have ever put myself through mentally and physically. Moving meditation is usually how I calm my oh so scattered mind through yoga, knitting or walking. With this technique you don't use something that is outside of your body because everything that you need is within you. Which is true and like most things the best way to go about doing something or the correct decision is usually the hardest. Sometimes I was going strong with clearing my mind and other times I let the reel of thoughts go like bats in the belfry. One day I took a mental day off and decorated an apartment that I don't even have with wall hangings and lanterns that I made in my mind. I knitted things, had themed dinner parties, got singing lessons, played short films, met a knight with an English accent who wrote to me in calligraphy, lived in a castle and bestowed gifts upon me and songs? Try entire albums. Including Diana Ross and the Supremes anthology, Dark Side of the Moon, Ziggy Stardust and Beyonce. On day five, the physical pain became unbearable. So bad that I walked out of the dhamma hall back to my dorm and sat on my bed cross legged with a blanket over my head. I thought that my exit went unnoticed until a knock came to the door. I was told that I have to come back inside and that the physical pain of throbbing knees that felt as if they were whacked with a nine iron, the steak knife being plunged into my left hip sensation and the anvil falling from the sky and crushing my sacrum were all good things because it is my impurities being eradicated. I went back in and baby did I let-it-burn! I felt like I was breathing through labor. Either this was going to leave me crippled or relieved in the end. After about six hours the pain began to subside and I was glad that I had faith and took the advice. Repressed memories. Those are fun aren't they? Spring, 1988. My first holy communion. My white lacy dress with a necklace sewn on it(it was the reason I chose it) zipped up my back, my hair curled and the veil placed over it and a huge glass of cold milk before heading off to Saint Rose of Lima. While standing in line ready to take our place in the pews, I was poking my head around to find the closest bathroom when a repressed nun startles me by grabbing my arm and whispering in my ear with a clenched jaw, "Do I have to put you in a straight jacket to get you to stay still?" Defenseless and ashamed I stood in line with a lump in my throat. Standing in the pew, I hear nothing of what the priest has to say because of the nuisance of my full bladder. Shifting my knees back and forth and trying to build a dam with my little eight year old thighs was unsuccessful. I let it rain down my white nyloned legs and onto the kneeler before me. I'm almost positive the boy next to me saw but I wouldn't know because I didn't wear my glasses for the occasion. I quickly stooped down and mopped up the little puddle with the trim of my dress and proceeded to receive the body of Christ. I wore the same leggings all day at my party so that no one would suspect my misfortune. This was my deep dark secret for years to come. I had a complex about consuming beverages of any kind in fear of losing control. Anytime I was in public and passed a restroom, I had to go, which became a running joke with friends and family. I was envious of kids in school because they didn't take a whiz all over themselves at a religious ceremony. The boy that was next to me grew up to be a very nice looking gentleman. He was always so sweet, even if he did see, he wouldn't have said anything even back then. He approached me at my high school reunion in 2008 and asked me if I remembered him. I felt like I was in the third grade again just talking to him and wondering if he knew. Obviously I grinned at the absurdity and thinking that it was going to haunt me for the rest of my life. To this day, I can't even look at stained glass windows with out having to use the toilet.
Dharamsala- tranquility, peace, lush forests, breathtaking mountain views, ayurvedic doctor appointments, Indian cooking classes for $6, guesthouse $2.50 a night, yoga, home of the Dalai Lama. I'm going to be here for a while, but I suppose nature is just balancing things out to keep me connected to the real world before I enter this alternate reality never to return(my mom would kill me). I came to Dharamsala from Delhi in a filthy seventies volvo with an Indian guy to my left falling asleep with his head on my shoulder, the one in front of me had his seat back so far that I couldn't even cross my legs and the toothless one behind me with the Buddha garb on was trying to hock loogies out the window all night but I think most of them just landed on himself. Sleep was not an option for me through this fifteen hour freakshow. Every time I looked out the window we were getting closer and closer to the stars, it literally took my break away. Every hearbeat was telling me that I was going to a special place, and I was right. You could stay for years and there would still be something new to discover everyday.
If you need me, I'll be at the Krishna Cafe listening to music, drinking chai and hanging out with all my new friends from vipassana. I met Cheri, who is thirty three and from Utah who has been living here or four months. I am so fortunate to have someone who can introduce me to locals and give me some priceless advice. Daniel from Sydney had hair like Jesus until we decided to trek to a waterfall and chop it all off on the side of a mountain. Sukomar, a doctor from New York who volunteers his time in the Himalayas, Adina, an Australian kinesiologist, Mari, my roommate from vipassana who is a Japanese scuba diving instructor, and Antoine, a photographer from France just to name a few.
People from my former life are dropping like flies. Including extended family who ignore messages including birthday wishes. I try to see it their way, I mean legend does have it that if you swim out too far into the ocean at the Jersey shore that you will just fall right off the face of the earth so I don't blame them for their lack of interest in places that don't even exist and the people who are allegedly there.

Me about to cut off Daniels locks

Cheri buying feathers for her hair from Diana, a dreadlock specialist

Diana's work station


Rita giving me Indian cooking lessons


I can't get enough of these people

or their goats

or rolling hills


and enchanted forests


me and Beth Reilly on that fateful day

Thirty Six Hours In Delhi

is more then enough. On Sunday morning I woke up and forgot what country I was in. I hate it when that happens. Stretching my weary body and filling my lungs with my first breath of the day, I was promptly reminded. Nothing like the smell of mildew in the morning. Let me paint you a small picture of what the first step outside of my guesthouse was like:

feel- pouring rain, humidity that hits you like a brick wall, mud squishing under my feet, a film of sweat and pollution on my skin, mosquito bites all over my legs from the guesthouse the night before, tightness in my upper left chest

see- trash, tuk tuks, motorbikes, rickshaws, mangy dogs, cows, the steam of streetfood vendors, electrical wires tangled in a massive knot, western hippies, sikhs, monks, women in bright saris, lots of stares, children playing barefoot, shops selling wall hangings, pashminas, artwork, anything you can imagine, people begging for anything and everything

sound- horns of every kind,"where are you from?", "where are you going?", Bollywood music blaring from shops and cars

smell- incense, shit, vomit, streetfood, mold, strange, indescribable and hopefully forgettable

taste- this is where it gets good: chai, the breads, cholle, basmati rice, thali, dosas, samosas, lassis- this surpassed my imagination

It was almost midnight when I arrived the night before. I was anxious to rest my jetlagged bones. The first place made me throw up in my mouth a little bit. I walked up the stairs(a few stacked bricks) into a dark and narrow building. My though process was as so: what the hell is that splattered on the wall?,what is that smell? why is that skinny brown man naked laying in the hallway floor laughing?, a lot of buckets to catch the water from the dripping ceiling huh?, yeah, I'll think about it, thanks. I ran out the front door and back out on the street and did that a few more times before I finding a decent place. This blog would be ten pages long if I included all of the details of the next few hours of my night. The place I chose looked great from afar, shiny tile floors and neatly made bed but when I started getting comfortable I noticed a few odd features. The place was loaded with mosquitos, the sheets had peculiar stains on them, the bottled water was just an old bottle with tap water, the ceiling fan shook like a furious tempest when I turned it on and nothing but ice cold water in the shower. Something told me to take the blanket from the airplane and thank god I did because I wrapped myself inside it and slept in it like it was a cocoon. This is what you get when you are desperate in the middle of the night.
The next day, I met a tuk tuk driver, Amit, who drove me around all day for next to nothing to all of the temples,religious sights and markets. He even took me to the slums where everyone gathered around to see the real live white girl up close. A man even handed over his infant daughter for me to hold and wanted a picture. An adolescent boy also wanted a picture and begged me to have it developed so he could show his mom. He said she would never believe it. Amit had his heart broken by a Bengali girl and got really choked up when he talked about her. I told him, "Hey buddy, your preaching to the choir, I have scars all over this thing", pointing to my chest. He told me he was living his dream by being seen with a white girl. Making dreams come true is what I do but this was all too much for me so I went back to the guesthouse.
This all sounds chaotic and a bit mad and it was, but I wasn't afraid at all. If I wasn't afraid here, then I could make it through India for sure. I have heard stories that scared me to the core about getting parasite or deathly ill or dead dogs and babies floating in the Ganges. Perhaps my being raised Catholic prepared me for the worst?(Epiphany#163 The world is not scary, for I hath no fear.)

Amit at his favorite chai cafe

a beautiful temple, can't remember what religion

Buddist temple

Shiva temple

I'm no expert electritian but this looks scary in the rain...

what?it's perfectly sane to run up to a foreigner and hand over your baby

look ma! a white person!

I kept walking by this guy, he was such a professional!

Shanti, shanti, om shanti.........

Chiang Mai- Me Love You Long Time

From the moment the airplane touched Thai soil, I decided no more of this moping around Asia with a heavy heart and a bag of sticky rice. It was as if the fasten seat belt light turned off and my new life turned on. It took a little over a week to get my India visa from the consulate in Chiang Mai so I made the most of it and immersed myself in every activity I could get my hands on. Money is going fast at this point and it will significantly cut my travel time, but you can't put a price on this stuff. Worst case scenario is that I will come home sooner than planned. My first activity was a cooking class on an organic farm. They grow all of the essential ingredients for Thai cooking on the premises-lemongrass, kefir lime, different types of basil, eggplant, bananas, etcetera. Not only was the food stimulating but I befriended three lawyers that graduated from Harvard. I had a blast with these guys even though the physics and political conversations were a bit rough on me.(epiphany# 72 There are LOTS of good guys out there) I also took a workshop with a silversmith named Nugoon and made a pendant since I needed something to replace the key I was wearing. I designed, cut, sanded, sawed, soldered, polished and hammered all of the negative forces out of my life. I walked in to loads of temples with saffron robed monks, had three massages for less than four dollars each, went to yoga, meditation, cruised around on the back of a motorbike for a day with one of my Harvard buddies, went to the movies to see Salt, saw a cultural Thai dance show with traditional northern Thai food, played with monkeys, petted tigers(that made me miss my sweet little Juneaux), and spent hours at the markets and night bazaar with my roommate from London, Natalie and her friend Heather from Oregon. We walked around checking out all the jewelry, clothes, paintings, carvings and eating as much streetfood as possible. Papaya salad, mango sticky rice, roti bread, curries, soups, fried fish and Thai tea all less than fifty cents each. I even went to a fish spa where you soak your feet in a fish tank and let dozens of fish eat the dead skin off your feet. That will be the first and last time for that. It was strangest feeling and not nearly as effective as a salt scrub.
I get to eat pad Thai for breakfast, meet new people everyday, and stay in a beautiful guesthouse for about five dollars a day but my new enlightened life has not come without a price. I love Thai massage but it is quite an intense treatment. It is considered "yoga for lazy people" and is performed on the floor. The technique is designed to balance the meridians in the body using acupressure, stretching, pulling, kneading, kneeing, elbowing, arching, cracking, twisting and getting walked on. I was so relaxed and limber after the first one that I twisted my ankle on the curb as soon as I left the spa. So bad in fact, that I was in bed for the next two days keeping it raised and iced until the swelling went down. I thought for sure I would have to go to the hospital, I couldn't even wiggle my toes for the first day. I also got bit on the hand by a monkey, did guided meditation that is done with the eyes open while looking at a small white light that left me with nothing but nausea and a monk almost made me cry, but what would travel be without these things? I could literally write a blog this long for everyday if I took the time.
I had lots of epiphanies between getting walked on and fish removing my cuticles. I am not angry with the person I though was my friend. I realized that this was not a manipulative, conniving act as I originally thought. It was an act of pure desperation. I pity this horny divorcee with a kid who is merely trying to make up for lost time.(epiphany#101 I always win in the end.When are people going to learn?)Being mentally deficient, her future is bleak, where mine is limitless. Now if you'll excuse me, there is a plate of panang curry calling my name.