I've been in India for a few weeks now...I've got my daily routine, I'm institutionalised under Pushpa's care and have a lot of time to think. After all, swirling a few clothes around in a bucket is as much domesticity that I have to undertake. I climb the hot stairs to the roof to hang out my dripping items which take about an hour to dry in the fierce heat up there. I take the dried clothes to the ironing boy and he uses the cast iron 'heated with hot coals' ironing method which leaves my clothes ironed paper flat and smelling faintly of coal fires. Which I, of course, love.
Apart from a few design commitments that I can cover whilst I am here, I am reading a lot which is luxurious...although my dreams of reading to my heart's content is not that viable in the heat and my eyes (even with glasses) get tired easily. I've doodled a bit in my diary/sketchbook but I'm not feeling it. Truth is, the visual stimulation I get here is totally overwhelming. Sights and sounds galloping by. I can't precis my thoughts or visions as there are so many and I am aware that I need to get 'it' down, record what 'is' here before I'm faced with two days left and an impending feeling of desperate creative panic.
And I keep thinking, my blog, my blog, I should at least be giving something away when I am receiving so much and could channel some of it your way, dear reader...
But I'm not bothered, not bovvered at all. I'm sitting and thinking and brewing and dozing and drifting and dreaming and it's wonderful. I keep getting gripped by 'it's lazy, I'm lazy' but I watch the phrase float on by like the heavy bee that lives in the bamboo blind by my balcony. The Truth is, everybody could do with this, this luxury of time and space and drifting, many much more than me and there it flares up again, the guilt...but I don't hold onto it, I just let it goooooooooo
And this goes on a lot...stopping only for meals and freshly prepared pineapple that arrives with a strangled cry by the pineapple cart man.
Piiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiinnnnnaaplllllle, pina pina pina piiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiinnnnnnnnnnaaaaapppllle.
Full on, full-time yoga, does funny things to a girl, opening spaces that was once a mind firmly made up, stretching a brain with possibilities of space and awareness to realise it's actually okay to just 'be'. Yes, it's indulgent and luxurious and most importantly, my choice. That's what I have to remind myself as I crank into another day beginning with the most strenuous physical & mental journey I ever thought I could tackle. (Giving birth was a breeze in comparison)
And as my feet span my mat I learn each day there is a new way to be, an additional millimetre to open my heart, an extra inch to scale in my search for happiness/contentment/existence/bliss and I see it's already there.
It was there all along.
