Sometimes I forget that I'm in India. I forget to stand still and really, truly be surprised by where I am and what I'm doing.
I forget that what I see here day after day isn't, or wasn't, a part of my life a few months ago. In those moments that I remember, I see the rocky brown mountains occasionally interspersed with the dark green of trees. I see the craters left by development in the mountainsides, as if God was a three year old with a sledgehammer and a mission. I smell the dust kicked up by tires, hooves, and feet, the scent of deep earth and ash that permeates my clothes, hair, and lungs.
I remember that at home, I wear flannel and that I listen to my iPhone when I run. In the States, I didn't even wear a watch. Now, I don't leave my room without a kurta, mala beads, and my 10-rupee gold-foiled Ambedkar ring. I keep thinking that I've stayed the same throughout this trip, stayed "normal." Then I remember what normal was and how far from it I've gone.
Three months ago to the day, I was learning to read Devanagari script. The lines upon lines of scratched letters are still in my notebook, incontestable evidence that once upon a time, I knew nothing. My first word that I taught myself in Hindi was "phal," or "fruit." Although I'm still a few lifetimes from fluent, I can tell the difference between a street sign and a cave painting--and I call that a step up.
So, as all reflections must go, what does this mean for me, for my "normal"? What am I going back to, and who am I going back as? Those are big questions that might take more than a car ride to find out. But what I do know, or might know, is that there is no such thing as normal. When I go back to the land of flannel and fox squirrels, I will have at the very least an awareness of an Other. I will know that across the street and across the world, there are billions of equally valid and equally illusory "normals" that can change with a plane ticket and a pair of pyjamas. I left to see the world only to find out that there isn't one world to see. Yeah, I've been to India. But Thailand? Burma? the Congo? Europe? How many millions of experiences have I not had? How many normals have I never known as my own?
There is a giant looming mass of the Unknown that my visa doesn't cover, but it's not unknowable. At least, not completely. And maybe the knowledge that things can be different, that things already are different, is enough for now.
I forget that what I see here day after day isn't, or wasn't, a part of my life a few months ago. In those moments that I remember, I see the rocky brown mountains occasionally interspersed with the dark green of trees. I see the craters left by development in the mountainsides, as if God was a three year old with a sledgehammer and a mission. I smell the dust kicked up by tires, hooves, and feet, the scent of deep earth and ash that permeates my clothes, hair, and lungs.
I remember that at home, I wear flannel and that I listen to my iPhone when I run. In the States, I didn't even wear a watch. Now, I don't leave my room without a kurta, mala beads, and my 10-rupee gold-foiled Ambedkar ring. I keep thinking that I've stayed the same throughout this trip, stayed "normal." Then I remember what normal was and how far from it I've gone.
Three months ago to the day, I was learning to read Devanagari script. The lines upon lines of scratched letters are still in my notebook, incontestable evidence that once upon a time, I knew nothing. My first word that I taught myself in Hindi was "phal," or "fruit." Although I'm still a few lifetimes from fluent, I can tell the difference between a street sign and a cave painting--and I call that a step up.
So, as all reflections must go, what does this mean for me, for my "normal"? What am I going back to, and who am I going back as? Those are big questions that might take more than a car ride to find out. But what I do know, or might know, is that there is no such thing as normal. When I go back to the land of flannel and fox squirrels, I will have at the very least an awareness of an Other. I will know that across the street and across the world, there are billions of equally valid and equally illusory "normals" that can change with a plane ticket and a pair of pyjamas. I left to see the world only to find out that there isn't one world to see. Yeah, I've been to India. But Thailand? Burma? the Congo? Europe? How many millions of experiences have I not had? How many normals have I never known as my own?
There is a giant looming mass of the Unknown that my visa doesn't cover, but it's not unknowable. At least, not completely. And maybe the knowledge that things can be different, that things already are different, is enough for now.
No comments:
Post a Comment