The Yin and Yang of Nepal

I meander down the alleyway streets where markets pop out of cement walls of tall crumbling buildings. The smell of spices and dusty roads follow me for hours in every direction--each area of this sprawling city spilling into the next, each teetering on the edge of ancient and modern.

The towering stupas and temples scattered throughout Kathmandu a constant reminder of exactly how old this city is. One young boy rides by on his rickshaw passing another resting against a temple wall, eyes glued to his cell phone.

I follow the guys from Malta and their Sherpa around the city as they prepare for their trek and summit of Lobuche Peak that sits at a humbling 6100 meters (that's over 20,000 feet, by the way). They collect items like heavy coats and ice picks and crampons while temperatures outside the shops push 90 degrees (32 C). There aren't many places in the world this is your reality.

Despite the 24 hour buzz, there is an underlying bliss to Kathmandu--a calming energy that permeates the chaos and noise. I slip into a yoga class or cafe, and the world outside disappears. I sit for hours among the soft conversations and distant honk of the horns, and I forget where I am. And when I step outside, I'm again swept up in the sparkling energy and life that pulses down every street and over every rooftop.

Here in Pokhara, the second largest city in Nepal next to Kathmandu, the whole world is still. I walk from one end of the lakeside to the other and follow the footpath along the lake back home. Canoes and fishermen line the shore, and Nepalese children run along the bank splashing water around the shallow edge.

My new friends and I wake before dawn to watch the sunrise at Sarangkot. Like an apparition, the Annapurna Range materializes in the distance, and it lingers for just a moment before it vanishes into the light of the sun.

We hike back to town--down steep, stone stairs and paths that cut through tiny villages coming to life with morning chores--women tending to the chickens and goats and filling water jugs, children chasing each other from one shack down the road to another.

Can you image growing up here, this being the only life you know, these people being your only lifelong friends and family? Elena asks. We talk about what we must seem like to them--us traipsing through their world carrying next to nothing. They probably wonder: who are these people, where do they come from, and where in the world are they going? An outside foreign energy sweeping through their quiet lives.

Whereas everyone in Kathmandu was preparing for a trek or returning from one in the not so easily accessible Everest Region, here in Pokhara no one seems to be coming or going from anywhere. The Pokhara Valley hugs against the Annapurna Range making it some of the most accessible and well traveled Himalayan trekking territory, yet people linger here--their treks a distant memory or distant plan. Unlike Kathmandu, there is an urgency lacking here. I hear stories of local cults and murders and folks who dose on acid and wander off on a 15 day trek--a dark, invisible undercurrent that pulses through these peaceful streets.

I've come to see these two cities as the yin and yang of Nepal, swirling energies around each other linked by a single stretch of two lane road that winds though the countryside--mountain walls on one side and a steep cliff overlooking a deep river valley on the other. We pass long suspension bridges linking small villages on one side of the river with kilometers of rice fields etched into the hills on the other side. What would it be like to live here in the in-between, to grow up here not knowing any other world?

The bus slows down, and I make eye contact with a young teenage girl and her face lights up and she waves wildly. I turn and strain to see if she's chasing the bus, but I can't see anything except for the shrinking landscape behind me and dust blowing around in our wake.

Can you see the darkness in the most blissful places? Can you see the bliss in the most unpleasant places? Tell me about a place where you penetrated the surface and saw what was underneath. 

In Search of My Fortune and Glory

I got lost in Patan searching for my fortune and glory.

Let me start over. I got lost in Patan searching for a fictional tavern and a t-shirt I'm pretty sure was never actually sold in Patan, Nepal.

Let me start from the beginning. It all started when another girl from California at my guesthouse asked me what I was doing in Nepal. I told her that I was traveling, living here for the month, writing, and exploring. Oh, just hanging out, that's cool, I suppose, she said.

It wasn't so much what she said, but how she said it that got to me.

Turns out, everyone in Kathmandu has a purpose for being here--everyone is either starting a trek or finishing a trek, never around longer than 3 or 5 days, or they're here for school or a job or a volunteer opportunity. Whereas hanging out in India writing a novel and practicing yoga was a perfectly reasonable explanation for being there, folks here in Nepal seem a bit taken aback, like I've just told them I'm here searching for my fortune and glory, and they just don't know how to respond.

So, I decided to make my stay here one with a purpose. Why not search for my fortune and glory? Indiana Jones meets Murakami style.

I.

Happy New Year 2073! The guy shouted into the microphone at the cafe I found myself in on what appeared to be New Year's Eve. I had seen a couple signs hanging high over the city streets on my way to the cafe, but I had also just finished another Murakami novel so I wasn't too shocked.

The Scottish man sitting across the table from me who had just finished 20 days on the Annapurna Circuit, choked on his beer. "Good God," he managed to say. "How long have I been gone?" He seemed genuinely confused and a bit concerned.

"The Nepalese people live in the future," I told him. "Last month when I was in India, my yoga teacher told our class we were science fiction characters so it seems about right I'm here."

He furrowed his brow and crossed his arms. "What trek did you do?" He asked me.

"I've not done one yet," I said. "But I am thinking of trekking to Patan to look for a fictional tavern."

He sighed and finished the last gulp of his beer. "I'm really tired," he said. "Maybe I should get some sleep."

"That's probably a good idea," I told him. "You have about 58 years to catch up on."

He gave me an odd little laugh and waved goodbye leaving me forever wondering if he thought he was actually gone for 58 years. But then again, how did it get to be New Year's Eve 2073? I hadn't even gotten to the bottom of that mystery yet.

II.

What exactly are the odds of meeting two people from the island Malta (population 400,000) in Kathmandu, Nepal less than 2 months after I read a Murakami novel in which a character named herself Malta (after the island)? And since Nepal seems to be a vortex for all things extreme--extreme mountains, extreme trekkers, extreme earthquakes, extreme activity of every kind, who says it won't be a place of extreme coincidences as well?

The night I met the first guy from Malta we were hanging out on the rooftop of our house when a 4.5 earthquake hit. Everyone stopped talking as the world uncontrollably shook around us and the lights flickered on and off. What are the odds that nearly a year after a series of devastating earthquakes shake this country to the core, another one hits? It lasted about 5 seconds, and when it stopped, we all looked at each other, waiting. Then, as sudden as it happened, we all burst into uncontrollable laughter because, really, what else is there to do?

The next morning I and my new earthquake surviving friends--one of the guys from Malta and a girl from North Carolina--found ourselves on a high overlook in the countryside of Nagarkot watching as the sun rose directly behind Mount Everest. The Himalayan Range in the far distance popped out of the horizon until the sun rose too high and whitewashed them out of sight. The moment was fleeting and magical--a snapshot reminder of my time in India as well as here in Nepal.

Two days later I saw Everest again from the window of a small prop plane on a flyby. Seeing the highest peak in the world twice in one week can leave one feeling a little surreal--like living in the year 2073 and experiencing an earthquake from a rooftop in Kathmandu. Both unlikely, but as real as everything I've experienced so far on this journey.

What are the odds I'll find the Raven Tavern? I asked the guys from Malta later that night. They had no idea what I was talking about. You know, Marion Ravenwood's tavern from Raiders of the Lost Ark, I continued.

It didn't occur to me until that moment that Indiana Jones, whose travels and adventures took him to far flung regions of the world looking for his fortune and glory, is in fact a fictional character who doesn't really exist. A jarring fact for someone like me who lives in self constructed fictional worlds where Indiana Jones really does exist, and it really is possible to be a science fiction character and fall into Murakami wells of weirdness.

And because I am a believer in this world of magic and adventure, I'm going to live in it as much as I can.

III.

When I finally set out on my own adventure into Patan just south of Kathmandu, it was late in the day. The GPS on my phone said it would only take about an hour to walk there so I thought I had plenty of time. Little did I know the convoluted path I was following would take me through the strangest of winding alleyways where I suspect no tourist has ventured by the looks I got.

I did eventually make it to Patan where I found a quaint little brick cafe. I sipped on my coffee and asked the guys working if they knew where I could find the Raven Tavern.

"The Raven Tavern?" One of them asked.

"Yeah," I said with a sigh. "It might not actually exist. As the story goes, it burnt down in 1936 when one too many people were after their fortune and glory. That is, if it existed at all."

The boys looked at me as though I just told them the sun was purple.

By the time I decided to give up on finding the Raven Tavern, the sun was starting to set and my phone had died. I don't know how long it actually took me to get back home, but I had a map and the streets were full of helpful folks (who didn't speak English, but understood map).

I did not find my fortune and glory in Patan, Nepal, but what I did find was that I can navigate in a world where I am lost after dark, where not many folks can speak English, where I am always alone and never alone, where I can blend into any environment, where I am at peace where I am and where I've been and where I'm going as long as I continue to follow my curiosity into this world of magic and wonder.

How do you view yourself in the world--grounded in the reality that is around you or one in which magic is possible and fictional characters are as real as historical ones? And how does it affect your world and how you see it?

By the way, the Nepalese calendar was started in the year 56 BC by an Indian king who may or may not have existed--there doesn't seem to be a consensus on this issue. 

The Event Horizon Effect

It could have been the lack of oxygen at nearly 9500 ft (2900 m)...or it could have been the meditation I'd been doing every morning since my week training with Gurmukh...or it could have been all the writing and thinking I'd been doing for the past 3 months, but some sort of cumulative explosion happened in my brain when I reached Triund, and the world stood still.

Actually, the world has stood still in each and every moment of my experience in India. It would be easy to say time works differently here, but that's not it at all. Time no longer works in my life the way it once did--I simply experience it differently.

A friend wrote me recently about how these past 3 months have flown by. Well, yes, three months have gone by, but they have been so rich and full they feel like they were hardly moving at all as I was experiencing them. Each day would last a lifetime. Each moment would linger in an everlasting event horizon of sorts.

Whether I was practicing yoga as the sun came up over the backwaters of Kerala or listening to live music on a warm tropical night at a beach side shack in Arambol or white water rafting on the Ganges River in Rishikesh or scrambling up the side of a mountain in Dharamsala, I was fully present for each moment--not once living in the past or the future. And because I was so fully present, each experience never really ended.

After hiking for 5 hours of what felt like never ending vertical rocks to Triund, I found myself on a plateau that not only overlooked every village that makes up Dharamsala on one side, but I could turn around and clearly see snow capped Himalayan peaks right in front of me--so close I could almost touch them. And I do know from my past experience of hiking high elevations on a regular basis back when I lived in Yellowstone National Park that breathing thin, clean air can be one of the most magical and exhilarating experiences.

It was then, catching my breath, that I took note of the event horizon effect--standing on the edge of a precipice, witnessing not only that moment, but all my India moments--forever experiencing them as they move further and further away.

Three months, four different states, four different towns--each so incredibly distinct from each other, each surprising me in radically different ways that I could never have dreamed.

How do you experience time? Do you tend to mostly live in the past and future? Or do you take the time to fully experience the present moment? Experiment with time! How does your awareness of how you live in time change how you experience it? I'm so curious about this! Let me know what happens, what you experience!

From mountain climbing to theoretical physics in a single post...didn't something like this happen several posts back? Perhaps a side effect of what happens when time slows down.

In a few days, I will be not only in a whole new town (and by town, I mean big city!), but an entirely new country!

"Kathmandu, I'll soon be seein' you
And your strange bewinderin' time
Will hold me down"
~ (ahem) Cat Stevens

Catching Fireflies and the Wonders of Mountain Life

Following a trail out of Bhagsu Village in the far northern end of Dharamsala, I deviated from the rather crowded path and ended up fording a river and scrambling up the side of a hill along a thinly veiled rocky trail because I thought I saw some mountain goats and a tower peaking up over a ridge. I did see some mountain goats and a tower. The tower turned out to be part of a small meditation cave on the property of a guesthouse with a breathtaking view overlooking the entire Kangra Valley--complete with little tree stump tables and chairs and hammocks strung across the cliff side. How do people get up here who are staying? I asked the owner when he popped out of the house. I think you found the way, he said and smiled. 

This is my life in Dharamsala.

Nestled high in the Dhauladhar Range of the Himalayan Mountains, Dharamsala is not your typical Indian town (though I'm not sure there is such thing as a typical Indian town). Not only does the Dalai Lama, the entire Tibetan government-in-exile as well as thousands of Tibetan refugees live here, it is also a hub for Himalayan trekkers.

Far more crowded and noisy and colder than any place in India I've been so far, there is a coziness about it that you can't escape--because there is nothing cozier than hiding away in a cafe or coffee house reading and writing for hours when there is an early spring chill in the air and the sky is overcast with hanging clouds threatening rain. And like all the places I've called my home here in India, it is full of wonder and surprises.

I spend my afternoons as a volunteer in English conversation classes with Tibetan monks and refugees. The lead teacher gives us a topic and we talk. The subjects are vast and heavy--topics like: challenges you face and what are your greatest fears. Nothing can really prepare you for situations like this. Nothing can really prepare you for listening to a refugee talk about his flee over the Tibetan border into Nepal. Or listening to a monk tell me about how much he fears wild animals because of that time when he was 11 when his father got upset with him and locked him out of their house to spend the night in the woods with all the wild animals. Another monk tells me how he is learning English in this lifetime so maybe in his next life he'll be born a native English speaker. 

My job is to listen--listen and correct their pronunciation and sentence structure if needed. It is fascinating and educational and at times uncomfortable, but I can't imagine not showing up and looking these guys in the eyes and listening to their stories. Because I was never not meant to be here.

In the evenings I wander the busy streets of upper Dharamsala in the village of McLeod Ganj and watch people from rooftop restaurants and think about the 3 months I've spent here in India--all the people I've met and experiences I've had and the incredible things I've seen.

I sit here in this quaint little cafe looking out the window at the peak of Hanuman Ka Tibba towering at just under 19,000 feet (5800 m) over this bustling little mountain town etched into its mountainous foothills--knowing that each place I've been, each person I've met, each experience I've had was never not meant to be. And also knowing that everything that came before India is why I'm here.

On the bus traveling from Rishikesh to Dharamsala, I sat next to a girl who told me how each day she thanks all those people who pushed her out of her old life in New York into this one. You know, she told me, if it weren't for all those people who did so many terrible things to me, I wouldn't be sitting here next to you, traveling through the Himalayas. I told her all about Kundalini Yoga, and she told me all about Mooji--the reasons that drew us to Rishikesh. And then we shared the mysterious reasons as to why we are so drawn to this far flung little mountain town we are headed toward.

I savor each of these places and conversations and chance meetings and experiences, and like fireflies, I hold tight to each of them and watch them glow in wonder and then let them go because there are so many more out there waiting on me.

Do you see your life as a string of people and circumstances that were never not meant to be? Or do you think you'd be where you're at regardless of what came before? Tell me your stories, tell me about your fireflies. 

Moving through Magic (or How to Be a Science Fiction Character)

My transition into Rishikesh was not the most pleasant of experiences. By the time I arrived I was completely drained physically, emotionally, and mentally. Why had I left my nearly perfect life as an Arambol beach bum? Why was I in the much more crowded and noisier north? And why had I signed up for more hours of yoga teacher training when I'm not even a yoga teacher? All the magic that had unfolded over the past two months seemed to be fading with each passing moment that I was in Rishikesh, and it was literally draining every bit of energy I had left.

But because this is the year of magic, magic is bound to happen...right?

It could have been the woman who sat with me at breakfast my first morning and told me to watch for all the synchronicity, but it was the Indian man down by the river beach who looked more like a tourist from California than a wise Rishi who started it.

I must have looked a mess by the time I found the will to leave my room and go for a walk. Hey, he said as he walked by me. Hey, I said back. He stopped and turned around. Don't forget to just sit in silence at the end of everyday, he told me. In fact, he was so insistent on telling me this he took my hands into his and repeated himself. Don't burn yourself out on all the stimuli of being here--the secret is in the silence. I wasn't sure why he was telling me this--he had no idea who I was or why I was there, but I was grateful that some sort of message was coming through--and of course, from a most unlikely messenger.

I had no expectations when I got to India, and the most magical things happened. But the minute I started expecting magic around every corner, it just dissipated. Because you can't chase magic--I should know this. The magic that existed in Kerala and in Arambol simply wasn't going to exist here, and I had to accept that. I can't chase it; I can't let it go. Stalemate. Where do you draw the line between letting go and letting magic happen, and being proactive in creating magic in your life?

And then I met Howie and his wife from San Jose who not only know one of my best friends and her husband, but also one of my yoga teachers from Divinitree in Santa Cruz. And they have a really good friend teaching English in Chiang Mai they're going to connect me with. And sitting behind me in class there's a group of Russian girls and their translator who is translating the entire class as it's happening. Because that's normal, right? And then I met Hang, a Vietnamese girl who was born and raised in New York, but ended up moving to Vietnam several years ago through some very serendipitous events that a psychic monk once predicted. And the all the folks I keep meeting who've just come from or are headed to Dharamsala and are giving me great advice for my travel there. These are just a few of the small circumstances or encounters that keep adding up. But to what?

When you have a question about life just sit in the middle of the question, and one day soon you'll be living the answer, Gurmukh told us. Be okay not knowing and not having answers, and that is the only way you'll get the answers. Or you'll just be caught in the washing machine. Be silent. Whatever you do, don't get attached to the outcome. Let it go, let it go, let it go. Her calming voice and presence a complete contradiction to the intensity of my week with her and simply trying to exist here in this little town on the Ganges.

You know, it's just all the processing you're doing, a lady from my class told me, you'll come out the other side eventually. I kind of knew this already, but it was another nice reminder.

Each day I talk to someone new who reveals something to me that let's me know the magic isn't gone. One of the themes of this year is impermanence after all. The magic shifts and changes. I just need to learn to recognize it in each new environment.

You all are 500 years ahead of the times because of this work you are doing, Gurmukh told us on our last day. We're science fiction characters, someone from the class shouted. We're Jedi's in training, someone else shouted.

As soon as the training was over, as soon as I was able to start getting into my own natural rhythm again, my haziness subsided and my head felt clearer. Yesterday I went white water rafting on the Ganges with a group from my class which seemed to wipe out any residual ickiness I felt, and this morning Elizabeth Gilbert made a facebook post about Murakami--how they both share the same slow and steady system of writing. I did a double take. Gilbert writing about Murakami?! It can't get much more magical than that when I've been grasping for magic since I've gotten here.

Apparently, I'm just a science fiction character (and/or Jedi) moving through a magical world where sometimes I have to reboot for the magic to get through.

Do you have a tendency to chase magic or let it unfold? How do you find the balance between letting magic happen and cultivating it in your life?

Leaning Into Trust

I was having terrible anxiety the night I left Amritapuri. I was leaving the ashram during the night to catch a 2am train to my next home here in Arambol, and aside from a lady in my seva group who told me every nightmarish experience she'd had riding trains in India, I had no point of reference to how it worked.

How would I know which train is mine? How would I know which train car to get onto? How would I know when to get off if they don't announce the stops? What if the driver from the guesthouse can't find me? I accidentally dozed off thinking about these things while at the same time trusting that it would somehow work out, that I would be taken care of.

Exactly 30 minutes before I was to meet my taxi one the girls I shared the room with came in from a late night Amma darshan, inadvertantly waking me up.

I walked downstairs to my taxi and discovered I wasn't traveling alone. Another girl was leaving for the train station as well--taking the same train, in the train car next to mine, also headed to Arambol. Together, we were able to figure out where we needed to be. You are my angel, she told me as we were sitting on the platform waiting, I don't think I could have done this alone. You're my angel too, I told her. Together, each other's angel, we made our way to Arambol. I'm sure we'll run into each other, she said when we parted ways at her guesthouse. 

Though we were both staying for a month, I never saw her again.

Back before I left Santa Cruz, a friend who had traveled throughout India for 9 months the year before told me that if I was going to enjoy traveling, I needed to be able to lean into trust, that I couldn't constantly be fearful of everything--like getting lost or getting sick or being ripped off. In other words, I needed to believe that the Universe is always conspiring in my favor, that the world is out to help me no matter my circumstance. Of course, along with trust, having a keen sense of intuition goes a long ways too.

Leaning into trust is intuitively knowing where to go, where to eat, where to stay, and who to engage with. Trust the taxi driver with my life as he weaves in and out of all the oncoming traffic. Trust that I won't get hit by a motorbike while walking down edge of the streets. Learn to haggle and trust in my ability to get a fair price. Trust the people around me and talk to everyone, but keep boundaries. By keeping myself open, I have had some of the most interesting conversations and found some of the most unexpected friends.

Leaning into trust is not shutting down when getting harassed my a bunch of 12--year-old girls on the beach wanting you to buy scarves and anklets and trinkets. It can get kind of annoying after awhile--if you let it. I opened myself up to it, and I made it a game. Tell me a story and I'll think about it, I'd say.

Over the course of my weeks here in Arambol, I probably bought about $10 worth of things (that's a lot of scarves and anklets) from these girls if they kept me captivated long enough. My favorite has been Mira--mostly because the first time I bought something from her she kissed the rupee bill and held it to her heart and told me I was her best luck. Ever since that day, whenever she found me on the beach (and she always did), she called me her best luck. If another girl saw us and started to edge her way in and beg, I would just start quoting Bruce Willis from Moonrise Kingsom: "I can't argue against anything you're saying kid, but then again, I don't have to, cause you're 12 years-old." At that point, the new girl would either go away or really want to talk with me.

Leaning into trust is having the same faith in people that they have in you--like the bookshop guy who let me pay the next day when I didn't have enough for the two Murakami books or like the handful of cafes who couldn't make change and told me to just pay them next time I came in. The first couple times it happened I just stared at them dumbfounded. I trust you, they would always say.

Leaning into trust is sitting down to chai with the Indian guy who stopped you on the street or beach because you said hi back to him when he waved instead of ignoring him. Within the first five minutes of chatting, I always knew if it was a conversation I should stick with or back out of.

Leaning into trust is walking down the beach alone late at night, and instead of becoming fearful when a group of guys starts yelling, understand they probably aren't harassing at all, they are simply trying to communicate: Hey crazy girl, stop before you run into that volleyball net two feet in front of your face.

How trusting are you of the world around you? Do you tend to lean into trust or always sway more on the cautious side of things?

Signing off from the magical and enchanting Arambol, Goa. And just like when I left Amritapuri, I'm leaving Arambol during the night with complete trust that I will be taken care of on this journey to the north.

Breakfast with a Cannibal and Other Stories on Impermanence

I.

One minute I'm casually taking photos from the cliff side cafe where I stopped for coffee, the next minute I'm being propositioned to have my head eaten by a cannibal. Or at least that's what I thought was happening.

I noticed him first thing when I sat down for my coffee. Could have been the fact he looked a little like he just crawled out of a cave. Could have been the fact he kept blowing a whistle every time he needed something from the waiter. Who knows. By the time I stood up to take pictures and leave, he was blowing the whistle at me. I walked over to him, and he motioned for me to sit down. He tried to feed me a bite of his fruit salad and showed me his skull necklace. He then proceeded to run his finger across his throat and bite his arm. Then pointed at my head. I don't understand, I said. He made the motions again. About that time I was starting to get the feeling he was trying to tell me he was a cannibal and was perhaps asking if I'd like to give him my head.

At that point, he reached over and snatched the sunglasses off my head and grabbed my phone from my hand. He put the sunglasses on and poked at my phone taking a string of rather odd pictures of him smiling obliviously and me grabbing at my things. Once he got a few pictures, he gladly handed them back, but not without signing the eerie cannibal message to me again. I smiled and slowly backed away from him. I really wanted to ask him a few things--like: Are you a cannibal? Does your necklace represent how many folks you've eaten? Why are you eating fruit salad? Are you from Papua New Guinea, by chance?-- but I got the feeling he didn't speak so I made my quick escape.

Walking back down to the hidden little beach cove pressed against the cliff, I was left with the lingering feeling that maybe this was the start of a string of very strange stories I would be encountering. I am reading The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, after all. And if you've ever read Murakami, you already know where I'm going.

II.

To say I finally got to fulfill my lifelong dream of dancing barefoot at a beach side dive bar (twirly skirt and all) to two Irish ladies singing Nancy Sinatra would be an understatement.

Let me start over. I was walking by the bar headed home when I swear I heard Whiskey in the Jar. I did hear Whiskey in the Jar. Two Irish ladies were singing it traditional style. I wandered in to listen to them for a bit when I heard a voice.

"Hey, I know you."

"I was just in here two days ago," I said.

Next thing I know, my new buddy Leroy, a 20-something long term traveler from somewhere south England, shoved a drink at my face and started introducing me to everyone around us.

"You're a scientist too!" Exclaimed the Swedish scientist.

"No, I'm a writer," I said wondering how he could have possible gotten scientist out of writer.

"A science fiction writer," he shouted more enthusiastically.

"That's right," said Leroy. "And she's really into Star Trek."

"I've never seen Star Trek," I said.

"Spock is her absolute favorite," Leroy continued.

Then Mick, a retiree from Cambridge joined us.

"Mick, meet Sarah," Leroy said. "She a science fiction writer from Texas."

"I am not from Texas," I interjected.

"A real hardcore Trekie. Loves Spock."

"Nice to meet you," said Mick.

"How long are you here?" I asked.

"Only 4 months this year," he said. "I typically stay 6 months, but this place can make you a little kooky after a while." He shook his head. "This is my 16th year coming here."

I nearly choked.

When it came up that I was headed to Thailand to teach English, the Swedish scientist told me he had once taught English in Japan for a couple years. "Loved it," he said. "Had to have some papers forged in Canada to get the job though."

I waited for him to finish the story, but he didn't. He just stared off into space for a moment and finally said, "Canada" with a sigh and took a sip of his drink.

It was then Leroy pulled me off the barstool and out onto the floor where I kicked off my flip flops and twirled about wildly. The world a flip book around me.

Back at the bar, I noticed Leroy had the word PlayStation tattooed in big black letters down his inner arm.

"Why do you have PlayStation tattooed down your arm?" I asked.

"Himalayan spiritual pilgrimage," he mumbled then fell off his barstool.

It was getting late. I finished the last sip of my drink, gathered my things, and waved goodbye to all the characters I'd met that night. I walked slow back to my guesthouse along the edge of the water trying to come to terms with the fact this strange group of people will forever remember me as the science fiction writer from Texas who's really into Star Trek, especially Spock.

III.

I started dreaming in Russian. No, that's not entirely true. I wasn't asleep. I was half awake and hearing two folks talking loudly in Russian outside my door. It's an odd thing to wake up to really, especially while in India.

Later that night I was leaving my house to go on my nightly beach walk when I heard the most blissful thing in the world coming from the little beach shack at the end of my walkway. Cat Stevens. Well, not Cat Stevens, but it was a Cat Stevens song. I was lured in, and like a magic spell had been put on me, I couldn't leave.

Over the course of the next week, I kept finding this band. And I would always stop and listen and stay because I couldn't not stop and listen and stay. I eventually decided I needed to introduce myself because I was starting to feel a bit like a stalker (an accidental stalker, but still). Not too many days later, I am agreeing to be the singer's student so he can practice teaching music in English. Last month, back at Amritapuri, I read a book about a Russian musician so that seemed about right.

Again, at that little seaside dive bar, between the chaos of Russian conversations, making plans to meet for the music/English lesson, and trying not to lose track of my flip flops that I had carelessly tossed somewhere, I was suddenly struck with how strange and impermanent everything about my life is these days--how so very different my life is here in Arambol to what it was back at the ashram in Kerala and how so very different it will be once I move northward to Rishikesh.

When I left for this trip, I had no expectations for India. I assumed I'd be getting a lot of writing done and doing lots of yoga, but other than that, I left a blank slate for the Universe to fill in. And it has filled it in with the most unexpected and surreal things. It's like bits and pieces of my subconscious are manifesting--kind of like in Contact when Ellie Arroway takes that wormhole to meet the aliens and everything is shadowed by the images in her subconscious. Or like a Murakami book, where you're led down odd, twisting, surreal paths and plots that go nowhere. The point isn't where you're being led--it's getting sucked into the magic of that moment in time, one moment falling away to the next, impermanent and fleeting. Letting go of expectation and attachment to such isolated magical, fleeting moments, helps drive the magic.

Have you ever just let go expectation and let magic take over? What did you learn? Where did it lead you?