My Letter to 2014

Dear 2014,

At the beginning, you've bought me to the height of what I thought to be my happiest only to extinguish that warmth I called happiness. 

You destroyed me. You hurt me. You stole what I once believed to be a precious part of my heart. 

You slapped and kicked me. You led me to the darkest and deepest corners within my soul that I was afraid to visit. 

That was when I saw the dust in these corners. That was when you whispered to me, urging me to claim and love these dirty corners inside me. That was when you encouraged me to re-examine the definition of happiness. 

You taught me that finding peace is what I truly want, not happiness. 

Happiness is fleeting, fickle, and found only in moments I choose to believe in it.

Peace is eternal, visible only when I call upon it and invisible only when I obscure it. But it is there, deep within me, always warm with love and always calm and patient with my leaps and jumps in different directions.

At the end, you were a mother's tight embrace. You were like a blanket that warmed my soul. 

Dear 2014,

You have quite literally changed me. 

I changed my mind about the kind of life I am creating. I changed my mind about the kind of friendship I am seeking out. I changed my mind about the kind of dream I am dreaming. 

Most importantly, I changed my mind about the kind of perspective I wish to adopt about myself. 

You gave me the courage to live out my wildest dream: traveling until I drop. 

You pushed me to do what I never imagined I'd do in that year: growing by leaps, jumps, and even flights. 

You surprised me again and again.

You have so severely tested me only to reveal that I am stronger, far more stronger, than I ever dared to imagine. Only to point out that I am capable to love this deep and to be loved this much. Only to reassure that I am younger in my soul, wiser in my mind, and gentler in my heart than before. 

You toughened my mind and my heart up to soften the edges of my soul. 

You shaped and are shaping me into being more myself than ever, more trusting of myself, and more loving of myself.

Dear 2014,

You shall live on in my memory as one of these intense years. I've learned so much from you. 

At the beginning, the very beginning, I thought that you would be the best year ever.

Then you proved me wrong.

Then I thought that you had to be the worst year ever.

Then you proved me wrong.

Every time I changed my mind about you, you proved me wrong. 

You kept on proving me wrong about so many things that I have to name you The Year I Learned To Let Go. 

What a silly, extraordinary, and memorable year you have been. 

Dear 2014,

Thank you for spending time with me.

Thank you for giving me 365 days to make mistakes, to learn from them, to repeat them, to laugh about them, to make better mistakes, and to love them. 

Thank you for giving me the most agonizing times and the most joyful times.

Thank you for giving me better tools to embrace life, to accept myself, and to love. 

Thank you especially for allowing me to greet 2015 with more joy and less fear for the other 365 days of life around the Sun. 

Dear 2014, dearest The Year I Learned To Let Go, 

At the beginning of you, I was celebrating in Washington, DC, in the room filled with familiar faces. I was happy, wise, and excited then.

At the end of you, I am celebrating in the streets of Hanoi, Vietnam, among new faces. I am happier, wiser, and even more excited now. 

You are the perfect year to put my greatest lesson from you in use.

I am letting you go. 

Good-bye, The Year I Learned To Let Go!

Now, my dears, here are the collection of memories (and thoughts) made toward the end of 2014. Enjoy!

Sometimes life is good. Sometimes life is bad. All in all, life is life, just like a field is a field. It all depends on how you wish to perceive it. 

[village near Kalaw, Shan State, Myanmar/Burma]

Once in a while, you discover inside yourself a capacity to sail through life like you've always meant to do so. 

[Shan village near Hsipaw, Shan State, Myanmar/Burma] 

However you should ride life out, it never hurts to have company along to rock it out as well. [Hsipaw, Shan State, Myanmar/Burma]

© Elizabeth A. Steyer*

There is no harm in inventing a new way. After all, there is no harm in doing reverse Photobombing. You take a photo of yourself interrupting the beauty of the elephant ride, and nobody can complain because it is your fuckin' own photo. 

[Bam Xieng Lom village, Luang Prabang, Laos]

Indulge yourself in a way that makes you feel so beloved. You are your greatest love affair of life. 

[mulberry organic farm, Vang Vieng, Laos]

You are the sum of many gifts. Spend them all on life. 

[strawberry farm, Pai, Mae Hong Son Province, Thailand]

Every year defines you. Allow everything influence, shake, and mold you. They all have a story in addition to yours. 

[Doi Inthanon National Park, Chiang Mai, Chiang Mai Province, Thailand]

Forgive yourself when you fail. Life has many charms, and some of them are too irresistible to ignore. 

[Bam Xieng Lom, Luang Prabang, Laos]

Small, simple pleasures brings relief to the soul that goes through the wildness of life. 

[village near Inle Lake, Shan State Myanmar/Burma]

So many pictures. So many memories. So many days. All overflowing with pleas to tell you stories. Stories inhale and exhale. So many words. So many ideas. So many beginnings.

Many beginnings. Many endings.

Your choice. 

May you all greet 2015 well. 

* That's right. My fuckin' own photo. 

Dead Like Me

"You are Death...and the first one I met during traveling," the Spaniard told Violet at the bus station, where we were waiting for our ride to Kalaw (only to end up in Inle Lake instead . . . #deaftravelerproblems). 

Death. Deaf.

I had to laugh. A very common mistake. However, the way he said it got me thinking . . .

What he said was quite a metaphor. By meeting us two Deaf (aka Death) travelers, his ideas regarding so-called disabled travelers changed. We brought the end, or the death, to his old ideas. 

In a very small way, he was a changed man simply because he had discovered an idea that allowed him to readjust his view of how the world is working. 

We as the Deaf people are quite a paradox within this world, forever representing the humankind's potential for leading a fulfilling, happy life while frequently being perceived as sadly lacking something that is often thought as being fundamental to our identity. 

We are constantly surprising the world simply by breathing. Many travelers we encountered on the road were in awe of us, calling us "brave" for daring to venture out to see the world, even though they were doing the very same thing.* 

I wonder, maybe by calling us brave, they do not mean we are brave in spite of our deafness. Rather, from their perspective, we are brave for walking among people who could not understand us, among people who do not always communicate with us, and among people who are many worlds away from us.

They are amazed that we are willing to take the risk of placing our trust in strangers' hands. They are watching us, perhaps incredulous by the way we converse in this beautiful, strange language that nearly nobody around us speaks, nod, and then turn to strangers, conceding to their insistence to help us. 

They are gasping over our willingness to go with the flow without totally understanding what is going on. They are shouting out in surprise over our horror tales of a mission gone awry, of a request gone misinterpreted, and of a plea gone ignored. Perhaps they are imagining how the hell can we remain so willing, so trusting, so excited about our journey in spite of everything. 

Ah, courage, they thought, it must take courage. It has to be courage. We are brave enough to travel. We travel because we are brave. 

Maybe they do not know that it does not take courage for us to travel. We are as brave as they are to go far away from our country, to replace comfort with the unknown, and to always feel so small in this big, big world. 

They perhaps do not realize that, to us, placing trust in strangers' hands isn't risky for us. We have been spending all our lives doing this kind of thing: allowing strangers to do things for us simply because it is easier, faster and more convenient.

Being Deaf in this world has trained us since birth or early age to determine how much we should allow a stranger to help us. We are rather gifted in that way: we are able to distinguish the difference between total takeover and simple trust. 

We are also very conscious by how we are perceived by the "non-disabled." They are pitying us. Their hearts bleed for our so-called misfortune. They want to help.

And, as bad as it sounds, we are taking advantage of their pity. 

Our smiles widen as they promise to guide us straight to our seats, knowing it'd mean skipping the hassle of communication breakdown, confusion about how things are managed, and sometimes even security screening that other travelers have to put up with.

Our eyes flutter as we look down to calm down our desire to laugh out aloud as they run around, pointing at us and demanding that we are to be helped to our next destination. That would mean less money to lose, less time to waste, and easier traveling for us. 

Doesn't the world know that because we are Deaf, we get disability discounts and sometimes even free admission into famous places? 

Doesn't the world know that because we are Deaf, we gesture better and understand others' body language faster than the average individual? 

Doesn't the world know that because we are Deaf, we receive more protection, support, and kindness from foreign strangers than other tourists would normally receive? 

Doesn't the world know that because we are Deaf, we are experiencing the world at a level so utterly foreign to others that our apparent bravery probably stems from our comfort with the idea of being a foreigner since we are already foreigners in this world? 

It is very possible that we don't travel because we are brave. We travel simply because we want to, just like many other travelers. 

We are smart. We are adaptable. We are experienced. We know how to adjust to different situations. We know how to get along with hearing people. We know how to live. 

Hmm.

Wait a second. 

I am wandering away from the entire point behind this post. There is one reason why I am saying all this stuff . . . 

To the woman in Bangkok who advised us against traveling in Myanmar/Burma, implying that our deafness will probably fuck things up and we will turn up dead somehow: 

Hello. 

Look at us. 

We've made it.

We are not dead. 

We are Deaf. 

*The late comedian and disability rights advocate, Stella Young, coined a fantastic term: "inspiration porn." This term refers to the "non-disabled" people's inclination to view the disabled as the source of inspiration, failing to recognize that the disabled is not here to inspire the world and that like the non-disabled, they simply live their lives out. "Disability doesn't make you exceptional, but questioning what you know about it does," Young said during one of her presentations.

Measuring Me

A good friend asked me the other day, curious about how my traveling has treated me, "Have you felt like you discovered yourself more?"

I hesitated before typing out a succinct answer (yes, we were texting). 

It was hard to answer this question. I do not even know whether I am discovering more about myself. 

OK, let's ignore what I just said so I can change my previous answer into this:

I do know I am discovering more about myself, but I don't know what I am discovering exactly. 

There. Shit. I should have said that instead to her, dammit! 

But really, I usually don't find out what I've learned until years later, looking back to where I used to be and counting the number of steps I took from that point up to now. That's when I can measure how much I've grown since then and what lessons I've chosen to carry within my heart, within my mind and within my soul.

When I was living in Mendoza, Argentina for a month, depression began to rise inside me. At first, I was somewhat pertified and very, very embarrassed by this soul-sucking emotion. How could I feel that way when I was living out one of my many dreams?

I was not fluent in Argentinean Sign Language (LSA) and was often mocked for this and for the fact I never mastered the art of lip-reading. I was constantly exhausted from trying desperately to fit in and from cultural shock, especially Deaf cultural shock. I beat myself up quite a lot for what I initially saw as my epic failure as a decent global citizen. I felt alone and lonely in my own experience.

Three months later, I was beyond grateful and even ecstatic for this lonely time in Argentina. 

This experience fed the fire within me that prompted me to become even more determined about forming my experience in Chile, where I spent a month after Argentina. I threw myself completely into the Deaf Chilean culture. I insisted on using Chilean Sign Language all the time. I demanded for respect towards my background (especially the fact that I suck at reading lips). 

Because of Argentina, I learned to adjust better to life in Chile. Because of Argentina, I grew stronger in spirit and hungrier for more challenges. 

Five years later, I am thinking of Argentina with great love and admiration. I long to return to Argentina simply to appreciate its culture more with my wiser, happier and more experienced self. 

I saw my twenty-year-old self as very young, very naive and full of wild imagination. I applauded her courage to live in a different country without even a thought about how difficult it might be. I understood her despair when she realized that the world out there is not exactly what she had imagined. I was proud of her willingness to see more of the world and to find a way to love Argentina. 

It took me months and years to measure my growth from the time spent in Argentina. Even now, I am still overwhelmed by the sheer power my experiences in Argentina has over me and am still measuring its influence over me.

Billions of experiences, some as small as a second and some as big as a decade, had passed in my life, and I could measure my growth based on a very small number of them. As for the rest, it is taking other experiences to give me a way to better measure, to better understand, and to better see the discoveries I am making about myself. These other experiences have not happened yet and I am still waiting to find out how every experience in my life is connected to every other experience. 

Sometimes I wonder perhaps I am not actually trying to discover more about myself. 

Maybe I don't really care what I will find out about myself. 

Maybe I care more about giving up on myself, as in coming to terms with myself and simply accepting whoever I am. 

That is what I want, all I ever want, from myself: unconditional self-love. 

Maybe I believe that when I can fully and totally love myself without criticizing myself, annoying the hell out of myself, putting myself on guilt trips, and all the other conditions that make my love seems so undeserving for myself, I can too love others fully and totally. 

Maybe I will learn how to love anybody and everybody in this world without criticizing them, annoying the hell out of them, putting them on guilt trips, and all the other conditions that make my love seems so undeserving for them. 

It is possible that love has no price and that I alone fooled myself into believing that I must pay the non-existent price to love myself and others by insisting upon perfection and other specific conditions from myself and others. 

These maybes are the thoughts that are coming more and more often to me after years of mining gems from life experiences. 

For now, I am thinking that through discovering more about myself, I am unlocking a part inside me that has imprisoned me from loving myself and others freely. 

Perhaps the more I discover, the freer I will be to love.

Or maybe I am just fooling myself. 

Who knows? I am still measuring that--or still trying to give up. 

Oh, man. 

      What's life without a bit of play?

Twenty Six

Twenty six.

Twenty six years.

Or as I like to think, twenty six gold stars for making this far in life. 

I earned every gold star for the lessons I learned, for the achievements I took pride in, for the failures I bemoaned over, and for the stories I made during the journey I took around the Sun.  

I am growing older in the form, but my soul is growing lighter and I am feeling younger. 

Looking back to the twenty-six years I've spent on this earth, I am incredulous to see how my life has turned out. 

As a child, I dreamt of traveling the world, of growing up into a kind of woman who is madly in love with her life, and particularly a lifetime filled with unimaginable adventures. 

And whoa. I am now living out my childhood dreams. I am living a life that would astonish and delight the child I once was.

What a relief to have managed to live up to this little child's high expectations! 

However, of course, my life is not beyond perfection. I have not found peace in my life. I am still being too hard on myself for desiring so many things and for not getting everything I thought I wanted. 

I am still learning. I am still living. I am still searching.

Yet, the longer I am alive, the more excited I am to recognize that I am indeed growing wiser, more accepting and even more peaceful. Life begins to feel more right and more aligned to the deepest parts within myself. 

Now I am turning my attention to you, my reader, my supporter, and my friend.

Without you, a piece inside me will not be made. Without you, a thought will not occur to me. Without you, an emotion will not inhale and exhale within me. 

You, every one of you, taught me something about life.

Some of you slowed me down and slapped me in the face to humble me, giving me new insight about the true meaning of love. 

Some of you stirred me up into discovering my inner gifts and then nurtured these gifts to allow me to share them with the world. 

Some of you blessed me with your kindness and wisdom and gave me the courage to face life. 

Some of you held my hand tightly, holding my heart in your hands, guiding me to trust and love more than I thought I could. 

My teachers. My guides. My friends. My loves. 

You, you, you, and you, you all inspired me. 

Without you, I will not be what I am at this very moment. 

I am very proud, very honored and very blessed to have the opportunity to connect my life with yours and to allow this connection to awaken something within me. 

Today is my birthday, but it is also the day  I celebrate your contribution to the making of my life, the making of me.

I thank you for partaking a role during my twenty-fifth year around the Sun.

You, each one of you, have changed a part within me that makes all the difference in the world I am seeing before my own eyes. Each of you deserves my gratitude. Each of you played your role wonderfully and I am delighted to be blessed by your presence. 

All of you have brought me this far in this life.

All of you gave me many reasons to celebrate my existence and to be so excited about my upcoming twenty-sixth journey around the Sun.

Thank you. 

Coincidence, Fate, or Just Life

Three years ago, I was in Las Vegas for Deaf Nation Expo when I made a new friend from France. 

We exchanged numbers and made many promises to meet up, like, very soon.

And it did not happen. So I decided he was among countless significant yet random encounters and that I will never see him again. I deleted his number. 

Three or four months later, of all the places in the world, I bumped onto him at Starbucks in Washington, DC. We both exclaimed over this surprising reunion, exchanged numbers again, and made many promises to meet up, like, really very soon. 

It did not happen. I sighed, deciding that, while it was very strange to find him again, it was still a random encounter. No point in keeping his number if I was not to see him ever again. 

Seven months later, I changed plans at the very last minute and joined a friend in Toulouse, France to attend her deaf association meeting. And, of all the places in the world, I found him again. We were absolutely shocked to recognize each other and warily agreed to meet up for dinner that evening along with other friends. 

Instead of exchanging numbers, we became Facebook friends. Instead of making many promises of meeting up, we nodded good-bye and parted ways, wondering if we will manage to find each other. 

Indeed, I saw him again in Bulgaria weeks later. 

The whole point behind this bizarre tale is that I often wonder if these such encounters could be constituted as mere coincidences, tru biz fate or just . . . life? 

Years ago, during the tarot reading in New Mexico, a psychic blurted out something about India only to change the subject as soon as I scoffed, "India and me, we have nothing to do with each other!"

Well, look at me now, tumbling out of India after two months. How should I explain that connection between the tarot reading and the life fact? Am I overthinking this connection? 

Coincidence? Fate? Or just life? 

At the Nepal-India border, Violet pointed at a young woman, whispering, "I will never dare to wear sneakers like that!" 

I nodded, discreetly studying the woman's fashion choice. 

Two days later, Violet pointed at the same woman, whispering, "Hey, look at that woman with the sneakers from the border!"

I nodded, discreetly studying the same woman as our rowboats passed each other on the Holy River.

Should we name this encounter a crazy coincidence? Fate? Or just life? 

In Jaipur, a friend caught up with Violet and me. It was an one in a million chance that he managed to find us in the right coach on the train of over forty coaches and hundreds of passengers. We were stunned to see him running as our train began to move. I had trouble focusing on his words of warning about the train's unusual course, feeling so distorted to process the fact that he found us and that we were at the very right place to see him. 

Fortunately, his astonishingly timed warning saved us from completely missing our next destination, which could have led us to totally mess up our carefully planned itinerary. 

Should we call his timeliness a coincidence? Fate? Or just life? 

Recently, in Krabi, Thailand, I was amazed to encounter a familiar face along with other familiar faces we've planned to see. 

This time, this friend was from the United Kingdom. I've met him during Deaflympics (our Deaf answer to Olympics) and thought I will never see him again. 

Obviously, I was very much mistaken. 

However, this little surprise brought me back to this thought about how life works with these kinds of things. 

I am hesitant to debate about coincidences, fate and life in general, mainly because I have gotten myself so confused lately with sorting life out. I have long since decided to merely call these kinds of things synchronic--or a series of connections in life that serve only to prove that life is life.

However, I could not help thinking that, with these surprising encounters, the world is a small place after all. 

It could be a Deaf thing. We Deafies belong to a very small minority and are zealous about protecting our communities around the world. We passionately value our impenetrably powerful experience as Deaf individuals and feel deeply connected to others around the world, all of whom represent every shade, every color, and every meaning of this rich experience that unites us all as the Deaf people. 

This kind of community is very tiny, which makes the chance of encounting the same people very likely to happen. 

Yet, I have met the same random non-Deaf people again and again around the world. The chance of that kind of encounter is--or should be--insanely impossible. 

Furthermore, I could not forget that psychic's mention about India. 

It is very, very debatable to absolutely insist that these incidents above are just coincidences or even fate.

It is very, very easy to just smile and say everything that happens is just a part of life.

However, I've come to really enjoy the idea that the world, this lovely, lovely place we all reside in, is much smaller that we would've anticipated. 

So small that we sometimes see people we thought we would never see again. So small that we are sometimes surprised by how life works things out in our favor. So small that our lives are sometimes predictable. 

Yet the world is overflowing with so many things to see, to experience, and to predict. In this respect, the world is far bigger than we could even dare to imagine.

It is such a pleasant though as it is connected to the idea that we all were born somewhat connected to each other in this grand scheme of life. We all are in this life together. 

For now, at this moment of wondering about life, I am enjoying seeing the world as this tiny snowglobe so easy to shake up, so easy to calm, and so easy to watch. 

To be alive is to wonder. 

    Monkey Beach, Koh Phi Phi, Krabi,        

                        Thailand 

India and I: Surrender

Firstly, let me take you down the lane of memories:

The Arabic Sea near the Bandra-Worli      

Bridge and the Bandra Fort in Mumbai. It is one of my favorite parts in the big city. Interesting fact: with a bit walking, we ended up in Bollywood, India's answer to Hollywood.

 The valley in the ruddy mountains in     Ooty. Ooty is one of the most "local" towns Violet and I had ever visited in India. Very small, not quite alike other towns in India, and a gorgeous spot to visit. 

Varkala Beach is my favorite beach in India. During our stay there, the storm came. Lightening thundered and rolled very nearby. Rain poured, soaking the small trail that connects all the hotels, restaurants and massage centers. We spent hours in the dark at a bar, chatting over candles and enjoying our drinks, before we decided to run to our hotel, treading carefully on the wet trail atop the cliff.  

We were the bumbling idiots in Kanniyakurai. We missed the real sunrise because we thought we already saw the rising of the Sun. We did not see the perfect sunset due to the evening fog. However, we comforted ourselves by eating parotta. A lot of parotta. Our all-time favorite meal in India. 

Behold the god of parotta. This man cooked the best food in India for us. Twice. He remembered our order at our second visit. It's magical to watch him cooking; he had two of the fastest hands I ever saw and was so extraordinarily effortless in slapping the dough, stirring up the mixture, and sweeping up the parotta. He is the god of parotta. 

Nepal, Nepal, Nepal. My heart sings at the very thought of you. Mountains everywhere. A place to find adventures, adventurers and to be adventurous. Many went to Nepal only to return with magic to remember and peace to feel. Nepal is in my future.

We walked to Nepal. We walked to India. International border security fascinates me in general, and I feel it is my duty to report that it is very possible to reach Nepal via India by foot and to India via Nepal by foot. Just don't forget your passport and be sure to find a place to get your departure and arrival stamps.

The Ganges River in Varanasi is holy indeed. While I am not a big believer in viewing something holier than other things, I can understand why they consider this river holy. It certainly has a mystic touch. If you observe the river as a whole, you'll see buildings surrounding it. On the right, there was darkness, blackness, and ashes, where bodies were blessed in the holy water and burned in the fire. On the left, there was light, brightness and music, where monks perform their sacred rituals to honor the holiness of life and death. 

Ah, one of the Seven Wonders of the World, India's Taj Mahal. From afar, it was white. Up close, there were beautifully delicate details on the place, little paintings and tiny carvings. Taj Mahal's ivory coloring was actually designed to reflect the changes of the day. As the sun set, the ivory Taj Mahal began to blush with a pink tint. That's when we left to catch our train to Jaipur. 

We ended our trip with a three-day camel safari in Jaisalmer. A very glorious experience to bond with my camel (Ahmed, I call him), to watch the sun fading into the night, to look up to the stars, and to sleep in the desert, feeling as if I had been enveloped by peace. Life is wonderful.

Okay, now back to my thoughts . . .

           Facing myself. Literally.

So.

My seven-week adventure in India had finally reached the finish line.

What do I think of India? 

Hmm.

Let's be honest. 

It is a simple question to which I have a complex answer.

The best answer I can offer is that I feel about India the same way I feel about my brothers. 

My brothers and me, we are three very different people. One is getting married to his girlfriend of three years, whom I haven't met and whose wedding I will miss. One is a math wizard working on his Ph.D in a field I barely understand. 

As for me, well, I got my nose pierced in the same year I got my Master's in Linguistics and left the United States (hope you'd still love me, mom). 

While growing up with two brothers so distinct from me in personality and way of life, it was quite a struggle to love them completely when I did not understand how the fuck we all managed to be born into the same family. 

We fought all the time and spent a lot of time avoiding each other. 

It took our father's death to bring us back together, really together, as in being an actual trio of siblings. We got along fantastically and loved each other fiercely during our most painful time and came to recognize each other's strengths. We really saw how each of us contributed to our family. We came to truly respect each other. 

We haven't perfected the fine art of being siblings, but I think we're finding comfort in being a dysfunctional trio. 

We are surrendering to our differences and are granting each other permission to live differently from each other. 

That is how I feel about India.

I did not fall in love with India.

I had my moments of thoroughly despising everything related to India.

India annoyed me. It pissed me off at times. At other times, India was very affectionate towards me. It warmed me. 

To be fair to India, I can be such a bratty bitch sometimes. My brothers knew how I was (I hope they also remember how utterly adorable I can be sometimes). 

India tugged on and nudged against my heart like my brothers had done, proving both its challenge and its worth to be loved.

It is only when I gave up resisting India's differences and surrendered to its uniqueness did I learn to love India in the same way I love my brothers. 

It is not an easy love, a happy fondness, a sweet affection. 

It is an emotional love filled with memories of ancient grudges, familiar joys, and hard-earned respect. 

I wanted to love India like others professed to love. I wanted to adore India like my Indian friends have. I wanted to dream pleasant dreams every time I think of India.

But I am me, whoever I happen to be, and India is as familiar as my brothers are to me and I love them--India and my brothers. It takes effort, but my brothers are two unique beings, just like India.

India, thank you for all the lessons you've taught me. The memories you brought into my life are the jewels I will never find anywhere else. You've certainly left footsteps on my heart. I hope you liked the way I punched and embraced you. 

That's what I did to my brothers, with love and all. 

                   Cheeky love to all.

In Trying Times, In Jolly Times

           Holy River, Varanasi, India 

It has been over six weeks in India--along with a blessed respite in Nepal. 

That's it, if you trust my feeble awareness of how much time has truly passed.

It feels like five months to me.

I am currently typing this post with an arm still sore for a minor train accident (in which I lamely fell off the bunker and crashed into a gentleman's arms) and with the body and mind somewhat frail from several intense days of being painfully ill from food poisoning.

In one sense, I am a hot mess. 

In other sense, I am having the adventure of a lifetime. 

So, because I am not in my best condition of reflecting on what have been happening to Violet and me during our time in India and Nepal, I'll give you the snapshots of tales here and there to carry you with us as we go to our next adventure after India: Thailand.

Without much ado, here are the short tales:

Food Poisoning

Well, this illness is the shit. 

After hearing so many horror tales from friends about food/water poisoning in India, I told myself that, clearly, I was doomed to suffer the same fate while in India. 

However, after nearly six weeks in India, I started to imagine myself coming back to the United States bragging about making this far without succumbing to this dreaded illness.

Ha. 

I was wrong. Absolutely, stupidly, thoroughly wrong. Six weeks abroad were long enough to shake up my health.

I might be exaggerating, especially as my memories of other illnesses had sunk into near oblivion, but it must be the worst illness ever in my existence thus far. 

Okay, now that I'm really thinking about it, no, it's not the worst. It's terrible, horrifying, painful, and discomfortable, made worse by the fact that we were in a foreign land, arriving in a town we had only two minutes to become acquainted with before we rushed to find a hotel.

Violet began to feel it on the train and had to endure it overnight in the crowded coach.

I began to feel it as we went on a desperate search for a hotel that will offer Violet--and eventually me--some degree of comfort while we succumb completely to food poisoning.

We were very, very lucky in a way that our friend from Mumbai happened to be accompanying us at the time of our sudden illness. I shuddered just to imagine what it will take us to recover without his devoted nursing. 

On the other hand, he's not too lucky in a way that he's alone in being aware that we were recuperating next to the room where the British couple had been found dead from a drug overdose and that the police were swarming (yes, I totally turned this noun into a verb) outside our door for hours. 

Food poisoning or knowing what's out there? 

Your pick. 

Post-food poisoning life with my nurse

Gawkers

Eyes filled with pity. Eyes filled with lust. Eyes filled with curiosity.

Oceans of eyes. Seas of eyes. Worlds of eyes.

Eyes, eyes, eyes. 

I do not think I'll ever gawk at an animal in the zoo in the same way again.

Because I feel like an animal stuck in a zoo, my every single movement watched with fascination from Indians.

At first, I tried to shrug it off, pretending that I am a celebrity. 

But even celebrities have their limits with the paparazzi. I reached mine after returning from Nepal. 

I eat with a crowd peeking in. I talk with a crowd laughing. I read with a crowd pointing fingers. 

I lost my precious physical space, something I was prepared for when I first arrived in India, but my visual space?

NO. 

It is difficult not to assign too much value on their eyes and facial expressions, especially when my native cultural roots (RE: American Deaf Culture) have instilled in me this profound sensitivity to this sort of thing.  

It is exhausting to go through the day, bargaining with drivers, exploring the city, or even resting for five minutes, just to know that you will not have your desired space. You get what you get, period.

If you do not like it, well, too bad because you ask for it.

Like me, asking to go to India* to see what they can do to my precious limits. 

Ah, life do take your wishes so seriously sometimes. 

      Whisper your wishes into his ear

Blessed Respite

       No photo can truly capture the         

                essence of Nepal

Nepal.

A tiny birthland of Lord Buddha. Home to the world's highest peak, Mount Everest. 

And the place that calmed and claimed our hearts as soon as we arrived in Kathmandu.

Kathmandu in particular dazed us with its delicate yet powerful beauty, its cozy plazas and, for me, its comforting coldness. 

In our short time in Kathmandu, we met several wonderful and intriguing people whose tales, thoughts, and lives delighted us, surprised us and made us think.

In a small way, we felt like we were home just in time for autumn.

Yeah, that ode to homesickness.

And Nepal responded warmly to our ode, comforting our hearts and sending us back to the ever-changing India.

Small Victories

         Taj Mahal, Agra, India

Hey, hey, India is beautiful. Electrifying, unpredictable, and beautiful. This country has challenged me, frustrated me, tossed me around, and embraced me tighter than I was prepared for.

I've noticed that the more I force myself to mentally adjust my old perspective about what I am seeing right front of me (no easy task--it's like telling yourself that an apple in your hand is now an orange), the better I respond to it--and the better responses I get from others. 

There are numerous small victories throughout our journey that seem to suggest that Violet and I did something right somehow in our attempts to respond to situations and people around us. 

One small victory: Shutting down The Witch** in the coach with a series of Indian gestures I've picked up on the streets.

The coach was overcrowded to the point where we all had to squeeze in together on the floor. In spite of this obvious fact, The Witch demanded extra space to what was already large enough for herself. The man spoke up for her, probably wanting to stop listening to her complaints by resolving the matter on her behalf. He gestured to me to move further, which would mean I have to push dozens of children and their mothers into even tinier spots for themselves. 

No, I gestured to the man, hoping that my blue eyes would drive terror into his heart, no, no more space for her. We all are overcrowded over here and are already oversharing our space for her sake. No more space for her. No!

The matter was immediately dropped. Apparently, I did the Indian gestures right. 

The other small victory: Every time Violet and I manage to scare gawkers' eyes off by assertively challenging their eyes with our own eyes along with sharp gestures. We treasure every victory we earn. One of our most delightful victories occurred while we were returning to India from Nepal. 

Five young people sat themselves on a bus in a way that they can easily see us. Their mouths literally gapped open as they whispered and looked down and up at us for good ten minutes. 

Violet and I were exhausted from our sleepless night along with our long journey around the mountains. We were also getting impatient with the stares we were receiving. 

I snapped. 

Raising my sunglasses, I shot them the hardest glare I can muster as I gestured, "What?!?"

The result: for the entire ride, they carefully averted their eyes from us.

 

It was a rare occasion for us, and we were enthusiastic that we finally discovered a little trick to assert a bit of our space.

It is certainly a challenge to be a white female foreigner in India. I admire those who roam across India with perhaps more patience and better strategies than I have. 

However, I am also proud by how far Violet and I had gone in our journey: we have been to places unknown to many tourists, we have been riding on trains with so many individuals who tested our patience and who taught us tolerance, and especially that we are now surviving food poisoning in a country that will forever be a place to remember and to tell tales about. 

India is a place to see and to experience.

Well, that's it, folks. Tales will continue on as Violet and I fly to Bangkok, Thailand to head Far East. 

See you in Thailand! 

 Blessed in Thamel, Kathmandu, Nepal

*Note: I was told it will continue on in Southeast Asia, so it's definitely not an Indian thing. Furthermore, based on my experiences last year while backpacking across Eastern Europe with one of my best friends, who's Black, Europeans do gawk at those who don't appear European-like. Theory: the less racially diverse a nation is, the larger number of gawkers exist. Any contribution/debate to this theory pertaining to the existence of gawkers are eagerly welcomed. 

**That's just a nickname based on her appearance. No time to get friendly with her. We have Tobacco, Long Beard, and other nicknames for memorable strangers and acquaintances we've encountered. No intention to provoke anyone. It's just easier to remember them when we have something to describe them. 

Hello and Bye

I wish I could take more time yakking away about how crazy, fantastic, cruel, inspirational, wild, simple, rough and beautiful life can be. 

Yet, as I've said in previous posts, time is constantly eluding me as I embrace every moment of exploring.

And wi-fi sucks in India. Hard to marvel or to rant about my journey when you have only two choices: more time online or more time offline.

And I found myself increasingly choosing to be offline and enjoying myself even more living off on the adrenaline of adventure. 

However, I am also constantly writing down my thoughts, many of them unfinished because I have so, so much to say and so, so much to think more about these thoughts. 

Isn't it funny how your thoughts are always in a process, forever endless and frequently changing? The very second a thought comes to pass, you immediately jump to the next thought that thinks about the previous thought and other thoughts that instanteously join in with this thought. 

Anyways, I am saving those thoughts until I find the right moment to finish them out.

Now, here is the summary of what's up with Violet and me lately:

We saw the sun rising and setting while visiting the very tip of India. The sun was like a fiery ball, looming above three seas that meet, as it rose. When it fell, it descended into the fog of the evening, unfortunately depriving us of the opportunity to witness its farewell. 

We survived a gruesome 30-hour train trip to Bangalore. I got into a public battle with an older woman over the seat I had claimed hours earlier; my claim to this seat remained firm after an hour of enduring her attempts to bully me out of my seat. The ride was a rather unnerving experience, especially as it was exacerbated by men's not-so discreet attempts to caress Violet and me. Fortunately, we learned to guard our bodies well and to straightforwardly slap their hands away while giving them furious glares. 

We slept on the shore of the world's second longest beach, Marina Beach. The moon was large and full and it was our lullaby until we closed our eyes and slept peacefully (okay, okay, I was vigilant enough to hold pepper spray close to myself as I dreamt pleasant dreams). 

And now we are in Calcutta (Kolkata) for a day, exploring reasons behind the city's nickname, "Paris of the East."

Calcutta, along with Gangtok in the northern state of Sikkim, will be our last two cities before we take a brief break from India by crossing the border into the mountainous nation of Nepal.

In meanwhile, here are the photos to make up for this rushy post: 

                    Varkala Beach

                     The sunrise 

                     The sunset

      Can I call this moonrise? Please? 

Ciao for now!