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On our 4th Anniversary

Where we first met: Holder Hall

Freshman year

Terrace Houseparties (maybe junior year?)

Our wedding day

Dosas in Mysore

The joys of photobooth

At home in Penryn
At the lake in Maine

At Dash's with Iddli & Squiggles

I can't believe I'm posting this one...Terrace Houseparties again :)

Wedding

Dosas at Hilltop. Who's the mountain man?

Graduation day

Wait...what? Golden KIS Awards

At the beach in Malibu: sea urchins are cool

Yosemite National Park for our first anniversary

In DC

The 'Mini Taj' in Aurangabad

The Taj Mahal in Agra

Santa Barbara

The 80 mile hike to the Ibex Cliffs

Will and I got married four years ago today. It was a beautiful summer afternoon in Upstate New York, and we could hardly have been happier. The ceremony, a brief exchange of words and a kiss, was held outside among black-eyed susans on the lawn of a retirement community. Elders of the community held impromptu viewing parties from their balconies and critiqued my dress--too creamy, too short, not enough like a bride of yore. They were happy, though, to witness the first and only wedding on their premises. A splash of youth among the elders. A party. Music--a band! And what good food. The cooks in the retirement community had never heard of baba ganoush. They looked up recipes for hummus and pita bread, put in orders for pounds of tahini.

The days prior to the wedding were utter chaos, but the villages that raised us pooled their collective energy and everything came together. Life. Balance. Union. Drama. People came together. Jars of wild flowers were amassed and arranged. The corset to go under my gorgeous Liz-made dress was accidentally left in New York City. A search party went out to find a new one. On the lawn in Forest Home, a true home to many, myself included, a friend whose wedding I was in as a flower girl long ago and not so far away tried on my corset. This man is well over six feet tall. A crisis was averted with hilarity.

Snippets: Will’s mom, Margi, reading a poem she wrote about us while wearing tiger-striped sunglasses in honor of our alma mater. My father raises his glass to toast us, sharing an embarrassing but sweet story from my youth. A total surreality to everything. Everything hazy but such happiness to see these friends and family members all in one place. A village that had always hitherto been scattered across this country and several more. How was it possible that we were all together? But we were.

My brother gave me my favorite gift at the rehearsal dinner. He read us a beautiful story of childhood and growing up, and it was just perfect. I wept with pride for Aaron, and with sheer happiness to see him standing there, reading something beautiful he wrote for us, strong and happy and good. Will is my best friend, and so is my brother.

Since that day, four years ago, Will and I have lived in two very different places. For the first two years we lived in Los Angeles, that crazy city of driving and my family and a hodgepodge of jobs. Will and Aaron became brothers during that time, and for that I will always be grateful. My parents’ home there has become a home I know and love, and my parents have gotten to know Will and I as we are together, and for that I will always be grateful. During college, during the first four years that Will and I were together, my family lived on two continents with me in North America and the rest of them in Asia. At times during those first two years of our marriage all of us, plus Will, my new family, were under one roof.

Then, one evening in late spring (our second in LA), Will and I had a phone interview to a land far away. We came back outside to where my parents and a couple of friends were sitting among the flowers at a white table covered in delicious beautiful food, and we glowed because we almost certainly had the job. We had started our journey to India.

Now, having lived here for two years, it’s hard to imagine a time without India. This hill station has become our home. Here, where the bison roam, we have grown into our marriage together, far away from most of the village that saw us married four years ago. Now our village has grown to include many more friends who are like family. Our immediate family has grown to include our intrepid hiking-wagging-barking-but-not-so-much-swimming dog, Iddli, and two kittens, Mango and Tikka. We live in a house surrounded not by boulevards and avenues, taquerias and nail salons, but by tall trees full of cicadas chirping in waves of rattling noise, by bison the size of your car who munch audibly outside our living room windows as our potbellied stove radiates warmth throughout the house. We have grown to love a life without television, but with DVDs and books galore. Our power is cut every afternoon for a couple of hours, and quite frequently in the evenings, and we are grateful for candles, board games, our guitar, and the laptop battery.

Four years into our marriage we are happy together. Our wedding seems like a very long time ago, but in even deeper recesses of my memory sit thoughts of our meeting at school almost nine years ago, wandering around campus late at night getting to know each other, being kids together not much older than the students Will teaches now. When we met I made sure Will knew that my future, with or without him, would include adventures and lots of travel. Little did I know that Will would cope even better than I with the stresses and complications that come with a life abroad. This man who spent the great majority of his childhood in the US can now eat thalis with his hands like a South Indian, can ride a Royal Enfield from the 1970s, can look a bison or a wild elephant square in the face without flinching. This man survived the glacier at the source of the Ganges crashing down upon him. With this man, I’m pretty sure I could go anywhere.

a few photos

The road to our house

Tikka the phantom

Rolling out homemade noodles

They sure do love shoulders

Iddli getting beaten up

Our house

Eucy trees at dusk

lazy
but spurred
by the twang of a guitar string
the thought of a cello
the tart taste of a mango
the turn of a story of a character on a page of a frivolous
story
the turn of phrase
the change in perspective
beat
shuffle
torc
listless but brought back by the purr of a kitten
the unembarassed pleasure of a creature little more than prickly claws
soft fur whiskers extravagant as feather boas
the life returns to blood when stirred upside down
quick--inversion
must be fast with so much to read
so much to do
recipes to try
places to see experience taste smell
photograph
but come back to slow
and live the day now
not lazy but with purpose
full but thought soul wist -ful
go on, amaze me day

One Voice

When speaking, N's voice twists out of her mouth like curly pasta, all scalloped edges. You know she's Russian from the minute she talks, but you probably suspected it just by looking at her. Petite like a ballerina, high strong forehead, she wears amazing Indian jewelry all made from heavy interlacing silver. N always has a story to tell, and you can never resist listening. Her voice draws you in, and the tale turns in and over itself just as the syllables do.

We were celebrating a friend's birthday last night, and N said she would sing for us. She stood across the room and arranged her feet as if to pirouette. People were still chatting, nibbling food, shuffling their feet into comfortable positions. But then. A voice ripped out from across the room like thunder across the sky. The room disappeared but for a small Russian woman and the vibrations of her voice.

There is something about listening to someone sing in a language you don't know. The words become sounds, the sounds meld together, and the notes hit you harder because your mind doesn't have to be present--you don't need to assign meaning to what you are hearing. N was singing old Russian folk songs, but to my ears they could have been Maori, or African, or Native American...All I knew was the power there, the strength in what was being conveyed, the feeling of the thing.

When she finished singing, she paused, and then with a perfect sense of timing switched from her diaphragm to her throat and lung voice and said, "so. A little explanation. This song is about war." We laughed because of the amazing contrast. Here was the N we all know. But a moment ago, she had been someone else. Someone from long ago who has learned the secrets of the world in her voice.

She told us of how she learned the songs she sang for us, the words she belted out from her soul. "If you want to learn these songs from the people who know them, you have to bring vodka. When I was in conservatory they told us this. You take the alcohol, and you go to where these men are sitting, and you put the vodka on the table." N twisted her face and body into that of an old man. I could almost see the hat on his head, the beard growing from his chin, the cane he used to walk. She told us of how these men would perk up at the sight of the drink. And after a few, the music students would ask them to sing for them. "But they would sing what they thought would please us, something from the TV." Because the other ingredient, it seems, in order to get folk songs out of an old Russian, is time. You had to wait until the next night, "same story," when you would go back and the same thing would happen again. "'This is very nice,' we said to the men, 'but maybe could you sing for us what your grandparents would sing for you?' But still they would sing something from the TV. Until finally, at one point, you hear what they can sing. Even your hair shivers. And you hope that you have your tape recorder on."

N described a transformation in the men when they sang these folk songs. Suddenly they became young, handsome, sexy, strong. And those listening were the slumped ones with their mouths hanging open. N gestured to the space above her head. "They were up here."

I understand what she meant by this because when she was singing, N was up there, and the rest of us sat here on earth with our mouths ajar, just feeling the amazing notes of her voice.

Subramanya Festival: Kerala

It was a picture in yellow and orange, everything bright and flaming. The fluorescent tube lights cast their ghostly glow on us all. The drums announced the arrival of the trucks, which were large and rigged up with metal poles from which chains hung. At the end of the chains, hooks, and attached to the hooks were the backs of young men. The skin that had been pierced was stretched, like a lobe adorned with too large an earring.

In front of the first truck was a very small man with a long spear pierced through both cheeks. The spear must have been at least three feet long, and on one end was a small yellow lime. The man was dancing as though drunk, his eyes glazed over and wild. The drums were getting more powerful, and the man was infused with their beats. He moved faster and faster, he moved as though weighted from behind; his center was off, his keel was askew. Another man, enormous in comparison, stepped forward when the dancer threatened to fall. The smaller man leaned back, relieved, into the ample belly of the helper. He was like a boxer in the ring, having been socked in the jaw a few times, leaning against the ropes.

There were six men suspended side by side from the front of each truck. I watched, aghast, as they hung there, but everyone else seemed unfazed. Amid chanting and drumming, arms reaching up to the men, and the men’s arms reaching down to the crowd, a baby appeared. The mother was smiling wide as she passed her young infant up to the arms of one of the hanging men. The dazed look was common to the men and the baby—nobody looked entirely sure of what was happening. The man holding on to the baby danced him around a bit, while the crowd got louder. Then, just when the baby had reached the end of his tether, Mom reached up and took him back. He was whisked away.

The air grew thick with smoke and the smells of too many people in a small place. We were crowded together, and there was too much happening to take in. We were next to the dam, but none of the freshness of water permeated the festival. Every molecule was pungent and heady.

A crude wooden stretcher was brought in, carried over the heads of the crowd. Several men worked together to get the hanging men down from their suspension. One was positioned atop the truck, and was in charge of unhooking. Another two or three dealt with the wooden stretcher, and carrying the weight of the unhooked man. The skin of their backs stayed stretched skyward.

A few feet away stood a priest. Out of seemingly nowhere came a long line of men with spears through their mouths. The spears were of different lengths, but all had a lime at one end. Many men held on to either side of their spears, pulling the sides down toward their bodies. No one met my eye. The priest stood, pot-bellied and matter of fact, pulling out the spears. Ash flew around. Powder was applied to the holes. I moved out of the way as the men recently suspended from the truck walked by me, unscathed and nonchalant, eyes still glassy and impermeable.

The smells and sounds became overwhelming. People were everywhere, pushing and moving. I felt like, and of course was, a complete outsider. I moved to join a group of familiars near a cordoned off area, and by the time I made it twenty feet to the right the energy around me had completely changed. Here I was Other. Men and women were divided here, long spans of rope separating the groups. The women were on the far side of the area, beyond the hot coals. I was on the men’s side, and I clearly did not belong there. I felt uncomfortable even before I knew why; I felt disrespectful and disrespected. I left to get air, to find a space of my own, before the coal-walking even began. The relief I felt after leaving the festival was immense. It was like I had been underwater too long and finally came up to breathe.

Subramanya (otherwise known as Murugan, or Kartikeya, among other names) is an important Hindu deity, particularly in South India. He is the brother of Ganesha, another son of Shiva and Parvati. It was for Subramanya that this festival was held, for him that these many men were pierced and suspended in the air. It was for him that they walked on coals.

For me, for this Other, it is difficult to fathom, this devotion, this form of worship. Now that I’m home and feel quite far away from the intensity of the festival, I see it through a slightly different filter, one not so clouded with incense and white ash. Devotees, I have since read, “pierce their tongues and cheeks to impede speech and thereby attain full concentration on the Lord.” (http://hinduism.about.com/od/pongal/a/thaipusam) The spear, or ‘vel’, itself is a symbol of Subramanya. The vel is his weapon, given to him by his mother, Parvati. As I look back on my experience there, I see that everyone there who was not a devotee of Subramanya was Other, was outside. Those of us focusing on the smells, the drumming, the initial gut reaction to the piercing, we were not concentrating on what the festival was supposed to be about. The glassy eyes, the trance state the men were in, the dancing and hanging by hooks, it was all for something more than a human experience.


In our town, I have seen processions with men suspended from hooks in their backs. Here they often swing like great human pendulums while being paraded up the main road of our town. My amazement, and yes, shock, when I first saw this will never fade completely, I’m sure. I will never be like one of the women at the festival in Kerala, nonchalantly regarding the coal walking, or passing my baby to a man hung from hooks. Intellectually, because of a small amount of internet research and talking to people with more of an understanding of Hindu customs and rituals, I can understand perhaps a fragment of what this festival meant, why all these young men would chose this as a form of devotion. Really, though, I’ll never really get it.

But I shouldn’t wax romantic. I can’t be let off the hook (so to speak) with an easy “oh, now I get it, now I’m more connected to Hinduism, to India…” I have to admit it: this festival was an uncomfortable experience. I found it kind of barbaric. Did all the young men performing the ritual do it for the “right” reasons? Were they all focused on God or did they feel forced into the piercing by peer pressure? Does it matter? Who am I to judge?



When I try to get my head around what I saw there I see that it is still foreign, still exotic, still somewhat horrifying to my Upstate New York eyes. Yes, I feel more at home in India every day, but there are things that happen here that will always mystify me, always shock me, always leave me upset or filled up to my ears amazed and overjoyed. As someone who is always an outsider to this culture, always a stranger to custom, I get to be someone who is always learning. I can seek to understand through my experiences, my intellect, my gut, without the pressure of knowing anything absolute. I am given the liberty to be the one asking the questions, staring agog with eyes wide open, searching for meaning.

Monsoon at the beach

We are in Kerala, a province of lush, green beauty. We are here during monsoon, which means that it is greener than ever, crawling with life in the form of long bright red creepies with tiny cartoon faces, a bug that scooches like an inchworm, momentum from the butt, and of course the mosquitos are here in full force.

When we were in the Ashram we had morning asana practice in a large hall, arches to the outside all around us. From a headstand I looked backward and focused on the coconuts dangling tantalizing and precarious behind me, the backdrop bright blue. Nearby, jack fruits jutted from trunks and branches, spiky and smelling ripe. Mangoes dropped heavily from trees and we picked them up to slice, grateful for a snack anytime--benevolent bombs of flavor in an otherwise simple diet. Once, as class started, so did the rains. The weighty drops pelted in horizontally, drenching our mats and backs as we tried to focus on the pranayama breathing exercises. The teacher had to yell her instructions, and I strained still to hear her, glad I knew the gist of what she was saying and didn't just have to rely on my piddly ears to follow along. There was such power there, just falling around us and on us, pushing us further and waking us up. My mind felt clear and focused after the rains fell. The calm after a storm.

We left the Ashram after two weeks to come to Varkala, a seaside town built on cliffs above the ocean. Last night after dinner, our new Ashram friends and Will and I went down to the beach in the dark. We started chanting 'Jaya Ganesha', a salutation to myriad teachers, saints, and Gods that we sang twice daily in the Ashram. At the end of the chant, the rains came. "Anandoham, anandoham, anandam brahm, anandam..." ("I am bliss, I am bliss, bliss absolute, bliss I am.")

Will and I, hand in hand, took off sprinting down the beach. I am not a runner, as anyone who knows me knows, but with the rain and wind on my back, I ran fast and felt strong. We were laughing and flying along the sand, gliding really, and came back closer to the sea, splashing through the shallow but powerful currents. Drenched and spent, we all squelched our way back to the hotel and gave thanks for the rare commodity of the hot shower.

As I type this I am resoaked in monsoon rain once more, this time it was showered upon me after breakfast. The heat I feared before coming down the hill is present on a daily basis here, but so is the mighty reset button, which sets into motion the rains.