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The time of your life

I wake up to the silence of an early Sunday morning. None of the usual hawking of wares or groans of pregnant milk cows fill the street below our balcony door - now permanently open to allow for as much air movement as possible in the growing heat. I use this blessed silence to my best advantage, going through a quick set of yoga poses before I even get out of bed.
I've learned to accept these small pockets of tranquility as a gift from the universe - just a little something to stave off the insanity of what has got to be the noisiest society I've ever lived in.
My apartment in the middle of downtown Seattle, near a busy fire and medic station, was dreamy compared to this place where the noise seems to start every day at sunup with the sound of laundry being done; a singular heavy smack of something wet attacking stone heralds a new day - smack, rinse, repeat. That smack gives rise to a honk as an autorickshaw comes to life and speeds off - startling a group of lumbering water buffalo, two large adults and two adolescents voice their grievances against the busy machine that sideswipes their casual lope down the road. And then the neighbors are playing Green Day as loud as they can possibly manage, followed by the perplexing choice of Bon Jovi circa 1985. It's as if someone somewhere had pushed a giant 'mute' button on the world around me for that blissful quarter of an hour.

As the city springs back to life I look out the window and stare at my favorite palm tree, the one just outside our house, the only one on our entire street. They've cut the rest down in the mad dash to build over what was probably once nothing more than a field with a little river through it. This is their version of progress. There is no such thing as conservation. I sit and love my little tree and thank it for doing double duty; being gorgeous and windblown while carrying the cable, internet, and electric wires into our house for us. It's stupid to fall in love with a tree, but I have anyway. The tree has it's own life, it's own drama - crashing the dead and falling-away branches through our neighbor's roof during each and every storm; throwing it's coconuts through windows and into the freshly gouged holes in the house next door.
It's silly, maybe, to fixate on a tree as something to be missed once we leave here but the truth is, that tree represents everything I loved about India in the first place.

When I returned to India three years ago after ditching my study abroad program, I was travelling alone. I was absolutely and completely free and unfetted by the rest of the world for the first time. I can still remember sitting in the veloured back seat of a huge white Ambassador (very quintessential to Southern India), with the windows open the breeze in my hair and a million possible experiences on the horizon. My thoughts nicely framed in the endless border of palm tree jungles along the roads. The knowledge that the small amount of money in my pocket at the time was enough to keep me moving, fed and comfortable for at least the next few months felt like all I'd ever needed. It was like medicine, that freedom; and yes, it was the best thing I've ever done for myself - leaving the world behind like that to marvel at palm trees.

I've lived here for quite a long time at this point and have mixed feelings about the leaving we are preparing to do. On the one hand India represents probably the most important era of my adult life thus far. The people, places, and things I've experienced here are absolutely unmatched by any other at any time in my life. But it no longer really feels like I'm even in India anymore. My life here has merged with or turned into something one can only classify as 'everyday'.

This place is such an interesting (sometimes maddening) mix of ancient culture crashing against and trying to mesh with whatever idea of the West has planted itself here. Even in the middle of the city there are women to be found walking down the street with bundles of firewood atop their heads, scavenged from city parks and sidestreets to be carried back home for the day's cooking. They stroll past McDonald's in bare mendhi'd feet, uninterested in the hoardes of India's generation-now gobbling down supersized Maharaja McChickens to the overused beat of Fifty Cent. While I've been here, India has not succeeded in reconciling itself to one direction or the other and seems doomed to continue on in this zig zag path toward the future; piling it's garbage and it's poor in broader and wider mounds than ever before.

In the end it doesn't matter what I think or feel about India. I was a guest, at best. At worst, an intruder; spying on a culture that kept me always on the outside simply for my own inability to find the balance in it's confounded reality.
It is what it is and it's time for us to go. With Nepal on the horizon I've got one foot out the door already anyway.

It's like *right there*! How can we not go?!

The world is brilliantly massive, yes - but also excitingly small...while scoping out a map to better direct my inquiring father as to the precise geographic surroundings of our next stop (something I am notoriously bad at off the cuff) I realized that we have the opportunity to eat Chinese food (an all-time favorite since I was old enough to chew) in China...how fabulous is that?

While once on a trip to Spain my friend Alana and I realized North Africa was literally just across the water. I mean we could see it from where we were, and it's Africa, and how could we not go?! Of course we couldn't resist a quick jaunt to Morocco. The same is true for this scenario as well...I mean, it's China for goodness sake. Not a chance to be missed with Hong Kong, Macau, and the amazing mountainous village regions near Nepal's border all within easy reach.

A quick check of visa requirements brings fantastic results with a high likelihood we could quite easily acquire the tourist visas we'd need to travel at will for any number of days. Hong Kong apparently needs it's own visa, by the way - so if we leave China-proper to enter Hong Kong, we will need another visa to get back out into the rest of China again - but this is the kind of thing I live for...travel planning. In any case, I'd be happy with a week, let alone the 30 to 90 days any tourist can apply for.

So, China is now on the list, as well as the horizon - and I'm all about wonton soup.



The problem comes though, with this 'eyes bigger than the stomach' affliction I am plagued by. I can also see Russia, Mongolia, Vietnam, Laos...the list of possibilities is endless and the only thing keeping me from putting Afghanistan and Pakistan in there as well is the daily reports of gunfire. The truth is though, when all is said and done, I'd go there too, given the opportunity. But since we're not looking to end up on the six o'clock news we'll play it cool.
I'm just saying....

These lines we draw on the world, they're just lines, just borders...a tiny little figment of human invention to be crossed (albeit most with sub-machine gun armed guards but that's just part of the deal these days) to reach another country, another culture, another way of life - and I quite seriously want to experience each and every one - at least those that are handing out visas.

You are so not funny

As if there was any question...but now it's doubly clear who I'm not voting for.
From CNN, a brief report on and video of McCain making up his own little ditty about the possibility of bombing Iran.
Anyone who finds it appropriate to joke about killing people, an entire nation - Iran or otherwise, is a bad choice for leadership in my book. I generally think of death and destruction as a 'bad thing'. But hey, that's just me.

Antisocial

I've had this issue lately with random whoevers linking directly to images on my site, which wouldn't bother me quite so much if they'd at least hyperlink back to me, but alas chivalry and common courtesy are dead (or dying) in the internet age. Or worse, people just up and snagging whatever they want for whatever they want it for. I'm all about sharing and even espouse a bit of the 'not locking the door to the house because we trust the neighbors' kind of thing, but it's all starting to annoy me. I guess I'm becoming antisocial in my old age...

Google is on my hit list as well since they seem to feed the most thieving kind of traffic - something for which I'd ordinarily be grateful (minus the thieving part).

So, my brilliant darling has devised a fabulously bratty plan, and now everyone in every forum, web page, and whatnot that has linked directly to an image on my site will see not what was intended but this little number sticking his tongue out:



Now if only I could do something about the websites that serve as nothing short of a diaper for web gunk, publishing a random mess of congealed hodge-podge information - via RSS feed. All of it not-quite-stolen but certainly not having asked permission. However, it's late and we've real work to do tomorrow (as usual), so my Trojan horses will just have to wait.

Foxy LuLu

Not only was Amanda an exceptionally fabulous and fun client, but I got to sample some of her gorgeous designs in the process - her work is mostly one of a kind, so if you see something you like you'd better snap it up! Check back often for new designs.
And...she named a necklace after lil' moi which is probably the sweetest compliment any client has ever given at the birth of a new website.

R.K. Charity Foundation, Bangalore

We learned recently of a group of 45 children in Bangalore, all epileptic, all without easy access to the proper care and treatment they need because they are among the millions of poor and afflicted in India. They live togther in one small facility, and they all sleep curled together on the floor at night.

Life is pretty damn hard in India already; I mean, God, it's hard for us and we're in the top five percentile of wealthy residents in this sprawling city. Even I struggle with the dirt, the heat, the stench of streets with overflowing gutters, the lack of civil service; I can hardly imagine what it is to live here and try to deal with all the human discomforts with literally nothing to speak of in the way of food, clothing, education, support - the programs and services for poor people, particularly disadvantaged children, are few and far between.

We recently visited one of the charities we will be donating our housethings and extra clothes to when we leave the country in less than two months (the other is CUPA - one of a very few animal rights/no kill shelters/medical facilities in Bangalore, let alone India.)

We spoke with Sumathi, the woman who runs the entire show at the R.K. Foundation, covering a list a mile long that must be managed solely on donations.

Sumathi is a simple woman; we found her sitting behind her desk dressed in a t shirt and jeans. She was surrounded by a gaggle of teenage boys, all originally from the street. She told us how these boys help run the office; four of them sat kneeling on the floor sorting clothes for the clothing bank, our own initial donations added to a colorful pile. I was redfaced with a mix of severely overheated joy and shame as one of them brought us each a glass bottle of cold Maaza (mango drink) to sip as we took a lesson from Sumathi and her project.

I have lived in India for over three years and fully intend to leave the place better than I found it - the R.K. Foundation and it's mission for 'Energizing Progress' is the perfect place to invest that intention.

We have already made arrangements for those 45 afflicted children to each have a new mattress to sleep on but the list of needs and the programs that are serviced is endless. A dollar in India equals 45 rupees - and it can go a ridiculously long way toward a ten kg bag of rice or ragi (a local, indigenous grain), a pair of shoes, a mattress, a school book, a vial of insulin....but it is of course, not nearly enough.

India has been something of a nemesis for me, but it has also given me the most precious things in my life: my darling Iranian husband and our little Indian street dog. It is from within India that the concept of karma arises, and keeps tabs on our good deeds and mistakes - this, at least, is one way to help even something out; the incredible disparity between the haves and have nots - a cliche, maybe, but a very real, very sad reality.

It begins and ends with each of us, and I am reminded yet again of the true meaning of gratitude.

These [are] were a few of my favorite things...

On the phone with Miss Jess working out the details of our impending arrival to Nepal, the more permanent one, where we get to be neighbors in Kathmandu for a few months - and the conversation shifts to discussion of whether or not to buy a washing machine once we get there.
I'm recalling the first three months in Bangalore, having left behind the amazing housekeeping and laundry ammas of Tamil Nadu I was faced with managing my dirty clothes on my own.
As the little (that's an understatement) house I was renting had no room for either kitchen supplies or laundry facilities I did what I'd learned to do on my earlier backpacking treks to Goa: buy a bucket and little sachets of Tide and wash things myself, by hand.
This became tedious after a few weeks and the detergent was murder on my hands, so I contracted a young mother from the village literally right across the street from my house to handle the laundry for me.

She charged less than two dollars U.S. to wash whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted - but I insisted on seven (a little over 300 rupees) hoping it would ensure the safe passage of my gear through whatever system she would use to get them clean.
I felt free the day I handed her a load of my brand new handmade bedsheets, Abercrombie pants and tank tops, and whatever else had been languishing in a now heaping pile of things needing to be washed, and I thanked her and paid her in advance (again hoping it would mean some kind of insurance against the possible destruction of my precious things).

Three days later she returned to me a pile of sun-dried, clean smelling laundry that made my heart sing. I'd found the solution to my problem (laziness coupled with a dislike of detergent-hands) and I vowed to plunk an equally desperate load on her the following day.

As I unfolded the laundry to place the crisp sheets on the bed and clean clothes on hangers the corner of one of my new embroidered bedsheets caught my eye - it was torn, badly. I quickly opened everything else to discover bizarre black stains on more than one of my favorite tee shirts, numerous inexplicable gaping holes in both the bedsheets, and the drawstring missing from my favorite cargo pants.

Raging, I marched over to the village, children clamboring at my heels; a foreigner in the village was big news and they raced ahead, leading the way to my victim.

When she opened the door I was close to tears and showed her each damaged item, one by one - expressing my disdain and explaining that I'd just paid her to literally ruin my things.

"What did you do!?" I demanded of her "Did you wash them with stones!!??"

She looked at me and smiled sincerely innocent, "Yes, of course, madam. And a special washing mixture that gets them extra clean."

She reached behind her, producing a plastic milk jug with the top cut off, full of a black oily looking liquid with a distinct sheen of soap bubble across the top. She pointed to a pile of large round rocks, just outside the door of her meager house - as if to explain away my misery with proof that she had in fact pounded my clothes to death. To more clearly make her point she plucked a small wire brush (something I'd have used to clean a charred grill) from her pocket and demonstrated in a violent swishing motion how she had 'scrubbed' the laundry.

Needless to say, we have a washing machine (dryers are essentially out of the question here as anything will air dry in about two seconds in the hot Indian sun). I'm thinking an investment in the same direction will be a good idea in Nepal as well.

About thesuperheavy.com...er, I mean me

I'm going through the scraps of paper, loose pictures, and random letters and whatnots of the past few years in an attempt at getting organized before I shift my global locae yet again and I realize I'm having a hard time keeping track of myself - the self I've lived and been these past few years.
I know that the self I was before is safely tucked away in boxes somewhere in eastern Washington where my darling mother stored them for me...the dregs of the pre third world me.

When I left the States it was easier somehow...or at least there was a place to put what I didn't want to part with so I could let it be, return to it later (much, much later I realize now) and figure out then what's important and necessary to keep of my historical self. But this time, there is nowhere to store anything at all and the box marked for shipping back to the States is crammed full of all the lovely touristy things I've bought to help keep this era alive at least on shelves and walls in the form of artwork and tiny beaded boxes...all that junky shiny stuff that makes me feel like a crow it's so natural for me to pick them up, want them, need them.

Anyway, among the wrinkled papers and images are parts of my life I can barely remember, and that's kind of scary considering everything I'm looking at is maximum three and a half years old. So, I'm going to keep this habit of writing up a little bio every once in a while - based on nothing in particular other than the desire to be able to look back and remember.

I'm grateful for this messy adventure that is my life - I mean, it's so chock full of experience and strangeness. It's wonderful, but I just can't possibly be expected to remember all of it on my own.
Thank God for the technology that is internet blogging - I tend to throw away my paper-posts..and that's exactly what I'm about to do, in favor of extra room for shoes and hair products.

So....

Age: 33 (scorpio)

Mass: 52kg

Hometown: the 206

Previous locae: Tehran, Iran

Current locae: Bangalore, India

Next stop: Kathmandu, Nepal

In high school voted: most likely to be seen out of class

Cohabitate with: the brilliant and talented Hamidof, Mooshy (a furry shark masquerading as a mouse), some cockroaches, lots of dirt and noise

In love with: the aforementioned brilliant and talented, furry and incognito entities

Not so much liking: meat, sun, some cockroaches, lots of dirt and noise

Wishing for: a tiny diapered girl-version of Hamid, no need of suitcases, better hotels, more shoes - always more shoes, truly white whites

Working on: being the rich dad, moving from vegan to veg and back again, not cutting my hair

Reading: Starting Your Own Corporation, Nitzsche: Thus Spake Zarathustra (I have been reading this book for two years, over and over again), Hafez, Postsecret

Missing: Miss Jess, walk in closets, proper bathrooms, sushi, Whole Foods market, playing Chutes and Ladders with Sophia and Nathaniel

Not so much missing: the club scene, credit cards (yes, really...I don't have a single one), alarm clocks

Passionate about: our marriage, our business (in that order)

Things I've learned to do: drive a motorcycle, crash a motorcycle, leave it all behind, have more fun with a party of two than ten, be completely alone in the middle of the planet and like it, ride a horse, talk to my parents, grow a business from literally nothing, be myself