In which there’s more, but not much more… because I didn’t write it.
Most nights, I slept with my windows wide open and could hear the surf. It was glorious.
the sea at sunset
If I left the hall early at night, I could hear the bhajans slightly while lying in bed, and sometimes in the early mornings I could hear the archana. There was always traffic during the day, and some at night, and everybody honks while driving in India. Sometimes the horns sound like elephants.
The last week or so I’d figured out that if I kept the windows closed, the ceiling fan on, and the bathroom door closed (it had permanent openings and was always humid), my clothes would get slightly drier. I only bathed once a week because even though it’s the tropics and there are two taps, there’s no hot water. And no towels; I used a sheet or a dupatta. It’s cold to shower and it’s impossible to get dry.
The power goes out frequently, but rarely for more than ten seconds at a time. This is why not bringing a laptop was a good decision, apparently unshielded they get fried all the time.
(I started this the day I wrote the previous post, then saved it to come back to later.)
~+~+~+~
It turns out that after coming back to this post to finish it, I don’t want to finish it! Overall, the trip was utterly transformative: I thought thoughts, I had experiences, my spirituality deepened in ways that would sound ridiculous if put into language, so I won’t try.
Everything that exists is a metaphor for finding your real self, which is closer than close, and all the effort you do to ‘become’ whatever it is that your intellect thinks is enlightenment is more or less running around in circles, and only true Love can get any of us anywhere near understanding that, and that’s what my Sadguru gave me when I went to visit Her.
Plus I drank a cocktail with ice in it at the Delhi airport, which of course gave me Delhi Belly, which I suffered after I got all the way home, and it sucked REAL bad. So bad I even tried to go to the doctor about it after about five days, but gave up when the nearest clinic wouldn’t take my insurance. Nevertheless, I survived!
In which I use my passport! And spend eighty hours in airports and airplanes!
I’ve been thinking about writing this post for most of a month now, because I wasn’t sure how, since it wasn’t really a touristy trip. I went to see my Sadguru, an enlightened person, an avatar, for spiritual purposes, and most of what I have to observe was the ways my mind does what it does and how I reacted to that. It’s not like I went to any restaurants or shows or on any hikes or cruises.
view from the footbridge facing toward the Amritapuri ashram
The trip was Walla Walla to Seattle to Vancouver to Delhi to Trivandrum. I never left the airports, and it took a couple days each way. Absolutely exhausting. The shape of the trip was dictated primarily by politics; from what I’ve been told (by a Keralan living in Canada I met on a return flight) you’d typically rather go through Dubai.
The way over I was exhausted in every way: physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. My relationship has its struggles, I’ve been in the same entry-level job for six years with no promotions or recent raises, I’m older and fatter than I’ve ever been, and I live a life of, essentially, laziness and dissipation. I read a lot, I sleep a lot, I drink too much, I don’t bother to have a social life, and while I know the shape of my life would be perfect for sadhana I just don’t do as much as I wish. I was unhappy in every quarter. Which is why I wanted to go see Amma so bad. Get my priorities straight. You spend a lot of your evolution believing in doing things, but then comes the realization you’re not doing anything, you’re not the doer, and yet you have to do things to achieve states, and it’s all some bullshit Buddhist koan, and you need your guru.
After determining that I wanted to go and why, with literally no effort on my part, everything just fell into place. Suddenly there was money to go, and tickets, and a month off work with zero push back, and literally everything I needed was just… provided to me. (Thanks, dad!)
~+~+~
So one morning around three AM we got in the car and went to ALW, which is my favorite airport because you can go from the door all the way through security in literally four minutes. (I hate airport security for its waste, irritation, and ineffectiveness. It’s theatre and its tedious.)
Anyway, flight to Seattle. Few hours layover, I got a coffee but I don’t think I ate. Then flight to Vancouver, which is a really well-done airport. Nice to look at, immigration was a breeze, wifi, all the kiosks worked, nice art.
Flight to Delhi was either fourteen or sixteen hours, I can’t remember which, and by then my extremities were bloated and I was miserable because the seats are for takeoff and landing, not a dozen-plus hours of actual flight, and I’m too old and fat now to get my feet underneath me or curl up. I did sleep but it was terrible quality, weird and jittery.
Airplane food
The food was pretty good, though. They fed and watered us probably four times. I had a window seat and so had to bother my row mates twice to get out, walk, stretch, and pee. The bathrooms were still familiar plane-style weird little closets with toilet paper.
Weirdest part of the whole journey was that it never got dark. You’re just flying over the lid of the world with the sun. So, so many hours of bright daylight.
Then another few hours in Delhi, to get out through immigration and back in through security. The Delhi airport is a fucking people-moving disaster, the signage is either not there or useless, and both times I went through it I had no idea where I was supposed to be going in spite of being in possession of a reasonably high intelligence and a general concept of how to get through an airport. The airport employees I asked were contemptuous (which I do understand, I work customer service too, and being asked the same fucking question over and over does get annoying) and unforthcoming and rude.
The immigration guys were bored, grumpy, gruff, and slow. Yes, I had all my documents ready: passport, boarding pass, visa. Your job sucks, whatever, at least you’re sitting down for it, you huge baby.
Security in India is segregated by sex, so you give your bags to the machine for scanning and then have to hike way over to where the women are being screened, leaving all your belongings utterly unsupervised, to be wanded in private in a cubicle by a female soldier-slash-cop. (These were friendly and pleasant, and one even complimented me on my hair.) Then at peak disorientation, tired in a strange airport where you don’t understand the majority of the languages, you have to remember which carousel has your bags and figure out how to get back sans signage. It’s a trip.
In which I’m on vacation, as of Saturday at 6:10pm when I clocked off work.
I’m pretty much packed! Had to buy new luggage, because ours were a few inches too big for the new carry-on sizes and I don’t want to check anything. New suitcase is green, within parameters for cabin luggage on Air India, and came with a cute matching extra bag I’m using in place of the shitty old backpack I was gonna bring.
I have culture-appropriate clothing, shawls and wraps, new undies, compression socks for the planes, and a sweater. I have toiletries, jewelry, bug wipes, an eye mask, ear plugs, headphones, a rain poncho, and snack bars. I’ve decided not to take my contact lenses. I probably won’t take any makeup, or if I do it’ll just be the tiniest bit to wear in the airports. Can’t find my safety pins, but won’t really need them unless I buy a petticoat and choli at the ashram and wear a sari.
I have movies and music on my phone, and an external battery (or two, if I take his with me). Will finish loading up the Kindle with ebooks tomorrow. Have a keyboard to use with my phone if I want to type, and a journal to write in.
I have all my tickets and visas printed and neatly organized in a binder. I have all the travel apps anybody could ever want installed on my phone. I bought a roaming pass for my cell phone, so will hopefully have coverage outside the airport while finding my already-booked-and-confirmed ashram taxi.
Checked Kerala weather, and I don’t think it’ll be so awful—the highs are lower than here, and the lows are in the mid-70’s, which is actually cool enough to wear a sweater if you’re sitting. The things I’ve read made it sound like monsoon is sizzling, but 75-85 isn’t that bad; more like it’s the humidity travelers must be reacting to. And I love rain.
They assign you your housing when you visit Amritapuri; I can’t decide if I want a room alone or to be stuck into a dorm. As it’s monsoon and Amma’s been in residence for months, I can’t imagine the ashram will be full to the rafters, so I might get my own room. Do I want a room alone? I am pretty old and set in my ways; if I get stuck in with other devotees they’re gonna hear more farting than they probably want. I leave it to God, I guess, to stick me where I’ll be most challenged—and this is exactly why I expect to be put on kitchen duty and to spend my entire vacation doing dishes every day.
All that’s left on my to-do list is ‘get travel cash’ and a last load of laundry so I can take a clean nightgown. Then I’m out of the country for the rest of the month.
It’s an awfully long way to go to not do any sight-seeing, but really I just want to spend more than 2 days near Amma for once in my life. Three weeks will probably trigger a breakdown but hey, it’s what I’ve always wanted!
I’ve got the month of July off work, and I’m going to Amritapuri. I complained about the tedium of shopping for flights, so my dad offered to do it for me.
Today I’ve bought some items for the trip, including a rain poncho, bug repellent, and a little laundry line to use in my room. (I don’t intend to take much in the way of clothes so it’ll be handy to be able to rinse and hang stuff.)
I read what little I could find online about actually staying there, barely a handful of blog posts, and that’s where I got the laundry line idea. (The actual ashram site lets you register to visit but has almost no information beyond the fact that they provide linens and there’s a bank onsite.) Also grabbed a couple packets of Tide specifically for sink washing, a couple travel size toiletries like toothpaste and shampoo so I don’t have to check my suitcase, some talcum powder. A Bluetooth keyboard to use with my phone, since I’m not bothering to haul a laptop. I’m assuming I’ll take a pair or two of Crocs because they’re lightweight, waterproof, and bouncy for slogging through concrete airports. I already have compression socks for the flights, a Kindle to carry a few hundred books, and a phone I’ll probably stick some music and movies on for backup entertainment.
Actually, my phone broke in half last week but the new one is supposed to arrive tomorrow. It’ll be green! I’ve never had a green phone before. Pretty exciting. Anyway, it’ll have plenty of storage for some media.
Already got a passport neck purse (gift from dad, along with an eyemask for sleeping) and a power converter.
It’ll be monsoon season, so I expect to be moist the entire time, but apparently it doesn’t get much hotter than the 80’s so I think I’ll be okay since it’ll probably be in the high 90’s here.
I’m so excited to go, but I’m nervous about the long flights. Longest flight I’ve ever been on was SEA to DCA and it was so fucking boring and tedious; that was, what? Five hours? Fourteen hours on a plane sounds worse than a brief stint in jail, honestly, but I guess people do it all the time so it should be okay.
Anyway, flights should be booked in the next couple days, then I can apply for my visa and register with the ashram. Whoo!
In which I’m blogging because I feel obligated to do so. Happy holidays!
I logged in because it’s well past time to blog again, but, well. Eh. Not much going on. I work the same job, live in the same house, am in the same relationship, eat the same foods.
Since my last post one feral ditchcat left and another appeared, I did a cheese class at a winery, and I continue to feel guilty about not having better oral hygiene habits. I go on diets because I’m fat, but dieting sucks so I go back off again. I finally finished knitting a pair of socks I cast on when I still lived in Iowa (that is to say, in 2006) but I prefer to wear the wool ones my mom gave me for Christmas a year or two ago. They’re machine-made but they’re warm as fuck.
I spend far too much time scrolling Bluesky.
I used my typewriter to address our Christmas cards! It was at least as if not easier than using a computer and printer, and probably faster. Plus it sounds cool.
We went to Seattle so I could attend a retreat, but of course my better half is agnostic so he just wandered around on a mini-vacation while I got my God on.
I have Tuesdays off and have watered the plants, tidied the whole house, and scrubbed the bathroom (including the mirror). For lunch I had Turkish eggs, which are fucking delicious. Tomorrow I have to make two enormous cheese platters for a company party, which should be fun. (That’s a lie; I’m tired of making cheese platters. The rest of the staff “don’t know how” and it nearly always gets left to me, as if putting salami on a plate is somehow mysterious or onerous? I’ve shown everybody how to do it but it somehow remains “my” job, and the owner seems perpetually aggravated about them but never cancels them. It’s weird enough to take the fun out. Anyway.)
Now that work bottles heavy cream, I’m even more of a dairy snob. My favorite way to have coffee now is pour-over with a glug of the good stuff. I’d have some now except I’m out of cream and too lazy (read: it’s cold out) to go get more.
Living room has lights and our little fake tree is up. Looks very Christmassy! I’ve totally got Christmas spirit this year but have to work both Tuesday and Thursday that week so it won’t be much of a break.
The Yeti is off at Microsoft for a week-long tech conference, and I have a cold or something.
Started out yesterday feeling tired after a good night’s sleep, swollen glands, and a vaguely sore throat. Went to work, came home. Woke up today feeling so incredibly meh I don’t even have words for it; took the day off work and went back to sleep until the afternoon.
Now I’m vertical and outside a cup of pour-over coffee with fresh creamery cream, and about to finally do my morning meditation, once I’m done writing here. Then I’m planning to eat scrambled eggs, cheese grits, and sliced tomato.
I put in five tomato plants this year. Two are struggling and look pitiful, but one of them has given me three very nice and dearly won tomatoes. The other three plants are absolutely jubilant about their situation, and in a week I’ma have way too fucking many tomatoes.
I’ll probably freeze a bunch for cooking. (A thousand years ago, I stayed with a woman who was too busy to can one summer, so she just quartered her tomatoes, froze them on a sheet pan, and then stuck them in ziplocks. I cooked tons of chilis, soups, and curries with those frozen tomatoes over that winter, they were so handy and much more wonderful than canned tomatoes! [That woman later went on to move into my ex-house, bed my ex-husband, and hate me—there was some online bitchiness at some point—idk really, but they never returned any of my Christmas cards.] Point is, everybody has something to teach you, even if they later choose to weirdly betray you for mediocre dick.)
Just logged into my main credit card—the one with the awesome points that I use for absolutely everything—and there were two $16 charges from something called Maya Mobile, so I reported them as fraud… and now I’m cardless for five days, waiting for a replacement. All over barely thirty bucks. WTF.
Aaaaand I have to quit smoking again. About a year ago, I picked up a pack just to have one or two, for fun and nostalgia; of course that slowly, slowly escalated, until last week I was very nearly up to a pack a day again. So I very deliberately did not smoke one day, charged up my vape batteries, and am getting my head set to Quit Smoking yet again. Fucking pain in the ass, I dunno why I decided to do this to myself. Heh.
The Yeti bought himself a new computer, finally, after eight years, and I got the old one! It’s finicky, but to sweeten the deal he also bought me a second monitor, so it looks really cool and is far more computer than I need, considering I never compute and only use the browser these days.
After deciding I had to go to India to see my Sadguru because the inside of my head was totally full of shit, it was announced that She was coming here. (!!!) There were barely three weeks between the announcement and the Seattle programs, so I guess it was a fairly sudden decision. I went, and it was the cleansing, nourishing wonder I so desperately needed it to be. Five years without darshan fucking sucked.
I volunteered for greeter seva for the first program, and heard that we were only allowed one darshan per tour stop (I have no idea now if that was true or just a rumor), so I didn’t get a token the first day. After satsang I served lunch and then went to the kitchen and made a ton of puris.
My darshan was during Devi Bhava, and there’s no point in attempting to describe the interiority of it, but Her sari was gold, She said “My daughter, my daughter” in my ear, it was of typical length, and otherwise, externally, a completely average darshan. It was not like the time I got to be there in Her arms while she had a very long conversation with another devotee and some swamis; it was not like the time I was doing lap seva and suddenly the stage was mysteriously, impossibly, and incredibly empty for what felt like minutes while She made fun of Puffer’s awesome sari-fabric suit. It was just a normal darshan. And perfect. And seared into my mind for eternity. To know and be known, to love and be loved, to be grounded in That.
I kinda wish I’d just abandoned my job and my home and my life and just… gone on the rest of the U.S. tour, like so many others do, but I didn’t. I never do. I’m too shy of God to just blurt out “Let me COME WITH YOU, You’re the only thing that matters!” She’d probably send me home anyway. Go home and meditate, do your sadhana, silly.
I know most religion is political bullshit, that most people can’t tell the difference between politics and religion because of it, and that the majority of humans have yet to be able to want what it really is, but I no longer care. Most of my favorite people are atheist or agnostic, and that’s okay. I know an Avatar, I have seen God born into a human body and experienced what that is, and my gratitude is abject. Nobody else needs to care.
I used to find it much easier to post regularly when I both had things to bitch about and felt fine about bitching about things. But now I think it’s not that great a habit, and also whatever I might have to complain about is less a problem and more an incredibly trivial nothingburger. I mean, my habit is to login and complain (see my last few posts) and it’s a boring and dumb habit I’d like to break.
These days I don’t have much to bitch about. We have a house, we have each other, our jobs are nice, the weather’s comparatively mild (compared to Minneapolis). I finally bought myself a nice bicycle last year. Neither of us are unwell. All our bills are paid.
I do get annoyed by trivial shit, of course; I do have a mind, and it does decide to fixate on stupid shit from time to time. (Lately it tells me it’s unfair that my feet should hurt so much, that I hate hearing the neighborhood dogs bark, that my partner is stupid for not being able to read my mind, that I have to do so many dishes, and that work is exactly as it has always been which is suddenly somehow intolerable.
Minds are, if you really listen to them, quite stupidly invested in keeping you unhappy about shit.)
I’m excited about spring. Can’t wait to see the dogwoods in bloom! Somehow the tulips survived the landscaping and graveling of the backyard and came up through the rocks?! The first one has just bloomed, even! How the fuck did that even happen?
My aunt gave me two saplings, little ones that volunteered at her place, which I had planted last fall, a hardwood and a fast-growing shade tree, and I’m hoping they survived the winter. Those two extremely cold weeks last winter have me worried about them.
Looking forward to getting herbs and tomato starts out, too.
Not looking forward to the dog days, but they’re still months and months away. (I prefer the cold now, because you can layer up against it. But the heat in the desert at the end of summer is just relentless.)
Am so glad about the return of the light!
I think it might be time for me to finally go to India. Part of me feels like somehow I should have already been, and all of me feels like I’m certainly not getting any younger and travel’s certainly only going to get less comfortable as time goes by. And Amma doesn’t seem to be returning to world tours. And my job would almost certainly take me back after even a whole month’s absence. And I just got my passport renewed. So I’m really thinking about it, in earnest. And not thinking about how planes have begun to fall out the sky after decades of immoral stock buy-backs bullshit.
In unrelated, weird news, when I logged in to write this post I found three comments of the “go kill yourself you stupid fat bitch” variety waiting to be moderated, left on some old Covid-era posts. Some internet-poisoned, scientifically illiterate Rogan fanboi stranger has come back after literal years to follow up on his shitty comments on my blog!
Oh, well, I guess it’s my own fault for being a woman on the internet. My bad.
I’m not sure what I intended to do Tuesday, no doubt I’d had a mental list, but what I ended up doing was a list of things literally more than a decade in the making.
I bought my Amma doll in the late 90’s. I’ve had the face repaired by the dollmakers, and I’ve had to repair the body myself after a dog carried her around, but suddenly it’s 2023 and the doll’s dingy and dusty and her clothes are yellowing and she’s half falling apart.
So Tuesday I put on some satsang videos on YouTube and got out my Amma doll!
I soaked her white clothes in Oxyclean, then hung them out on the line to air dry in the sun. I put her mala, bracelets and anklets into jewelry cleaner, then rinsed and air dried them. I brushed her hair and cleaned dust off her body. I mended two holes, dressed her again, reapplied her gopi chandan tilak, and refreshed her perfumes. I even sewed the lid back on the basket I keep her clothes in, and that thing’s been broken since before I left Iowa!
Now she looks and smells and feels brand new!
It was a lovely, quiet, contemplative day. Something very much needed. Haven’t seen Amma in three years now because of the pandemic; used to see Her every single year.
With the world on varying levels of lock down, Amma’s stuck in Amritapuri for the time being, and Her tours, including the summer North American Tour, are postponed (if not cancelled). So She’s directed senior disciple talks and local satsang (“a spiritual discourse or sacred gathering”) meetings to move online.
The North American e-newsletter has sent out a massive calendar of online offerings. It’s so great!
The closest Oregon satsang is in Bend, and tonight I joined their live stream for chants, bhajans, and meditation. (Meant to join last week, but stayed at work doing cheese affinage stuff.) There is, of course, no local satsang here.
Tonight’s online virtual satsang was lovely!
I rarely ever live near an active satsang (there was one in Fairfield, but I lived in Batavia so never went; and there was one in greater Minneapolis but it moved every month and was never near me, so I only attended once in five years), so this online stuff is really wonderful for me. So many options I wouldn’t have otherwise! Silver linings and all that.
Anyway, if you want some spiritual nourishment, Amma’s talks are here and the senior disciples’ YouTube channel is here. It’s really good viewing.
Homeless chick rode up to me on her bike during my walk to work today, very conciliatory, sorry to bother, said she’d just woken up in the park, mid-afternoon (I assume she was awake most of the dark hours, perhaps to move on, perhaps to watch her stuff), only had three cents, was, so sorry, very hungry.
“Oh, you need some money? Cash?” I asked. She didn’t even respond coherently, really, was trying to speak but mostly there was a sort of wave of OH GOD YES SOME CASH WOULD BE SO, SO WONDERFUL vibe.
So I pulled up short (halted my rapid waddle down the sidewalk), pulled out my wallet, and gave her ten bucks.
It was tips from my job, free money for me anyway. She thanked me, obviously had only expected a dollar or two, at most, started to explain why she needed it, like desperate people do, to justify their need, our collective human need, but I said, “I’m a bit late, on my way to work, didn’t leave quite on time, can’t slow down. But you have a good lunch!” (Because I hadn’t. Left on time, that is.)
She said she’d eat WELL, SO well, gave me a “God BLESS you!” (which I’ll take, thank you, beloved Guru), and let me power walk on. “Thank you!” she called. “Be well!” I called back. “Eat something nice!”
Mentioned I’d done this when I arrived at work, gave a homeless woman ten bucks; co-worker said, predictably, “Ten bucks?! You shouldn’t give them money.”
(Them? THEM?! It’s a human, a person.)
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” I replied. “Adults, even the homeless, can safely decide what to do with ten bucks. She needs food, she’ll get food. She needs beer, she’ll get beer. Shampoo. Tampons. She knows far better than I do what she needs. Jesus.”
Maybe she’s an addict. FINE, she should BUY WHATEVER SHE NEEDS TO TREAT THAT. It’s a condition. It’s ten bucks.
Maybe she’s not homeless but has the balls to LOOK homeless and convincingly approach a total stranger in Uptown in broad daylight for money? FINE. TEN BUCKS for the performance, well done, good show, huge balls.
The whole “don’t give THEM money, THEY will hurt themselves with it, don’t know what THEY really need” thing is paternalistic, classist crap. Fuck the charities. Nobody knows better than the actual person what the fuck they need. I mean, can you even imagine being homeless and needing, for example, tampons? Or hemorrhoid cream? Or lice shampoo? You can’t beg for that, but you can beg for food.
Yes, on occasion you may get the vibe wrong, and give an asshole grifter ten bucks. SO THE FUCK WHAT. In the grand scheme, you give way more to professional grifters than you do to the homeless. Most of the time, you’re buying an actual human being lunch, beer, tampons, soap, pet food, or yourself a “God bless!”
Give the ten fucking bucks, if you have it, which, in this mostly cashless world, I actually did, today.
