Travel notes… History repeats…

A recent trip to Germany was a sobering lesson in the history of the past, in the history of our times.

We do this to ourselves, I thought. History of the times. History of our times. Over and over again. In different parts of the world. 

Unbridled power-hungry individuals, operating on fear and terror, greed and prejudice… slaves to their own agenda, they let loose terror, often in the guise of protection, nationalism and even progress. 

History repeats, they say, we accept. I studied history in college. As an idealistic teenager, wanting to change the world, I could never fathom how we could nonchalantly accept that. As a jaded middle-aged person, I still don’t understand why we don’t want to learn from our past. After all, the signs are all there. Yes, history repeats, they say, we accept it. 

Unlike the idealistic teenager I once was, willing to change the world, I offer no solutions. I offer no hope.  What my age (and lack of maturity (?) sigh… according to what my mom said to me recently, sigh…), do offer is our ability to notice, to connect the dots, to see patterns. What my age does allow is to see history in shades of grey and not black and white. Of the motivations and backstories and even the best intentions (and oftentimes greed) of the perpetrators of terror in history.  To see them as human, knowing fully well, humans can simply be cruel and self-serving, even if their pretext (or disillusioned goal) is to serve a nation and the betterment of its people. 

And just perhaps, sitting with unsettling uncomfortable thoughts and occurrences in history, may somehow begin to stir something within us. Something that enables us to connect the dots from the past to our present, to an invisible line of the future.

And then perhaps, even if history repeats, we may be in a position, at least, once in a while... to notice it, to pause it, to change it.  

Holocaust memorial - Berlin

The book burning site in Bebelplatz, Berlin. The specific spot in the square is now poetically, "The Empty Library" where you stare in the ground, to see lines of bookshelves, in the cobblestoned square near Unter de Linden. (Not the best picture, sorry!)   

Mother with her dead son - a Pieta sculpture in Neue Wache serves as a memorial 

Remnants of the Berlin wall

East Side Gallery - art on the wall

According to our tour guide (a historian) below this spot lies the bunker where Hitler and his wife, Eva Braun (who he married a day before) they took their own lives, along with Goebbels (his propogandist) and his wife. As per our history tour guide, the Germans choose to not make any fuss over the location, or turn it into any kind of place of remembrance.  

Reading lists

I read a lot. But when asked to come up with a list of my favorite books, I falter. And yet, I find myself saying, “Oh! That’s one of my most favorite books. An all-time favorite.”  All the time. About many different books, of many different genres. I must be fickle. 

I find myself saying, “Oh! She/He is one of my favorite authors. I want to read everything they have written.” All the time. About many different authors, of many different genres. I must be fickle.

I never fail to closely peruse a reading list when I see one. I love it when it when people have the wide perspective to put together a list of their favorites. In a year. Or a lifetime. I will excitedly examine a reading list, looking for the ones that I may have missed, to add to my list of next books.

Books make us feel. Books make us think. Books bring us characters we love and hate, the ones we see in ourselves, the ones we want to learn from, the ones we want to stay far away from.

I may continue to read, but I am growingly aware that I may not immerse myself in a book, the way I did as a child or teenager. An odd thing to say, I suspect. For with age, comes perspective and experience and wisdom. So, do all these “good” things somehow stop us from plunging with abandon into a book, its characters, and its world?

Don’t get me wrong, I still immerse myself completely into a good book, and believe the make-believe characters to be my family and friends for a little while. So much so, that I’d rather stay with them, than cook dinner. Oh well…

And yet, just somewhere, the head rules over the heart. And that, right there is the distinction between the books I read as child and youth and the ones I read now. I now rationalize. I now think. I now analyze. I no longer simply feel, and leave it at that, as I did before.

An odd realization, I suspect. I may be writing this before I have processed it, or writing this is my processing.

I recently came across a reading list, in a book by the same name. It had a list of books that help and give perspective to a bunch of people who need it at the time. I was excited to read the list.

I had read all but one from that list. Of the ones I had read, I had read all but two as a teenager or younger. For the couple I had read more recently, I thought, “Oh those are good books, and I can see why they’re on the list”.

But for the ones I had read a long long time ago, I simply went,  “Sigh… how I loved that one.” I didn’t necessarily have any analysis of why they were on the list, but I simply felt the feelings I felt when I first read them. From my heart. And not so much from my head.

On this list, was Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier. I loved Daphne Du Maurier so much that when I was done reading all her books that I could lay my hands on, I started on her autobiography. I did the same with Agatha Christie. I wanted to know the writers hiding behind the words I had so hungrily devoured, behind the stories they had woven, the characters they had created, and the worlds I temporarily inhabited with them.   

Of Du Maurier’s book, Frenchman Creek, was an all time favorite. A bored and beautiful noblewoman, ahead of her time, confined and restless in the expectations of English society, finds adventure with a swashbuckling French pirate. I read it at 13 or 14 and loved her free-spirited sense of adventure and rooted for her to stay true to her spirit.

I read it again in my 30s, as a young mother and wondered, “what about her kids? Will she feel guilt and loss, and miss them?” I pondered these and other “grown-up” concerns that were mundane practical and related to her children, that might have a bearing on her emotions later.

Sigh… I simply could never read it the way I had read it at 14. My life experience and ideas of responsibility and correctness would no longer allow me to root only for her spirit, even when I did.

Perhaps, it’s a truth we accept. We can never go back to being the person, we once were, even when that person still lives inside us.

Funny that a reading list should make me see that.

Monastery notes

I had read about a nunnery in Dharamshala where the nuns have continued the art of making tormas and was eager to visit. Tormas, or Tibetan butter sculptures are an ancient tradition kept alive by Tibetan monks and nuns in monasteries in India.

Like the art of Mandala, intricate tormas are made patiently and painstakingly as offerings during religious rituals and ceremonies, among other purposes in traditional belief. Sacred tormas are made from the butter of dri, female yaks. Pictures of beautiful intricate creations made wondrously with yak butter and flour lead us to this nunnery.  

We walk into a nunnery in Dharamshala. Burgundy robes swish around us as the nuns go about their day. Work, study, prayers - a certain peace surrounds the place, a certain peace surrounds us. They are welcoming and friendly; smiles are abundant and handed out freely. Language is not a barrier where the language of smiles and peace speaks so loudly.

Amidst the peace is also the energy of youth. The nunnery has many kids, some as young as eight. They may have burgundy robes and shaved heads, but the unmistaken signs of the energy of children within is intact and palpable. Giggles and laughter fill the hallway as they walk to classes or prayers, from rooms they share, two or three kids to a room, minimalistic and neat. They are filled with sweetness and curiosity and love being photographed. Despite the outwardly seeming austerity and discipline of monkhood, the place seems filled with laughter and love, the kids all look so happy, there seems no reproach or harsh disciplining. The rules seem clear, but they also seem to be instilled with love and compassion by the older nuns.

The kids look wise with their shaved heads and robes but the child inside them is intact. We attend an evening prayer, where the monks sit cross legged on wooden benches in rows. We see a kid nun bend forward, still seated, her head dipping and arm reaching under the bench she’s on. I wonder if she will fall. She doesn’t. Instead her head reemerges, face victorious and trying to stifle giggles, a bead in her hands. Her prayer bead rope has broken and she is trying to retrieve the beads. The kids around her stifle giggles too. A lot of excitement surrounds the activity of her going down like a diver, while still seated on her bench, her head popping up, her beautiful face dazzling a victorious smile each time she finds a bead.

A few older nuns nearby watch. None try to reproach or discipline her. She is a child and she is allowed to be one, even when the apparent expectation in the prayer hall may be different. How I wish I had seen this when my child was still young.

I wish we would all raise our kids like this.

All images Copyright © Ruta Kale, 2024

 The Butter sculpture room in the monastery

Dipping down to retrieve her broken prayer beads

The gazebo where a thousand lamps were lit - notice the Himalayan range on the horizon

A thousand butter lamps lit - backdrop of the Himalayas 

and Tibetan prayers chants fill the air... the sheer magic of it all.

All images copyright © Ruta Kale, 2024 

Tests of endurance… of mindsets, emotions, and faith in one’s physical strength and self

This was a quick ten minute jotting with frozen fingers, as we waited for chai in the morning. Pictures of these notes attached - just for fun :)  

I set on a small Himalayan trek after decades. Treks that I had loved as a teenager, constituting some of my most favorite memories. The kind you turn to in difficult times, images of places of peace and beauty, that bring back peace and beauty in a trying moment.

This trek was neither too hard, nor too rustic in terms of hardship. We had a guide and porter and someone to make hot chai and food at a most incredible campsite in the Himalayan mountains. Such luxury. My jaw would have dropped in disbelief had I heard of this decades ago.

Yet, there was a small apprehension gnawing inside me. Would embarking on this “luxurious” trek cast a shadow or tarnish my old memories of treks in the Himalayas? Would it be too hard? Would my body, once spry like a mountain goat on these very mountains now feel heavy and burdened and incapable of completing the trek?

The excitement was real. More so because I was setting on this adventure with a best friend of over 30 years. One who loves these mountains and treks every year. Both were excited to be here, both were excited to be here together, both had demons of physical limitations to overcome. Time had been hard on our bodies. Illness, surgeries, physical limitations sometime do more than simply the physical aspect. They cause doubt and apprehension to creep in. Doubt in our own physical abilities, apprehensions of things that can go wrong.

These doubts and apprehensions, even if killjoys, are also real. And sometimes, it is hard to tell how real or how big they may be.

So what do you do when they cast a shadow on your sense of spirit and adventure, on everything you hope to do? Do you look at your spirit with a certain sense of dread and distrust? Play it safe and not venture out?

Moderation (as with everything as we age), is key. Understanding limitations (even if sometimes hard to estimate) may be key.

But as I sit here scribbling this with frozen fingers in the Himalayas, with eagles circling above the majestic mountains and my bestie taking in the views (or searching for possible network), I am glad we didn’t listen to our limitations. Or try to keep our old memories intact by not risking to taint them with possibly bad new ones filled with limitations.

#@$%#@ the weather

I seem to complain about the weather. Constantly. Always displeased, disgruntled, dissatisfied with what the weather Gods have to offer to me.

There are of course those occasions when I look at the skies above and smile, I thank nature and the weather gods for their bounty, but it seems less than my constant string of complaints. 

Let’s take this year for instance. Right at the start of 2024, we have the worst possible winter storm in Portland. Power outages, internet outages, trees down, damage to property and morale. We stay huddled by the fireplace, armed with flashlights, managing to communicate to our kid on the other coast that she may not be able to reach us, it seems like ancient times, albeit surrounded by modern things - many of them unusable. 

#@$%#@ the weather. We are at its mercy. 

The next few months are mostly gloomy and wet, many days when even the dog wants to hurry back home. She stops by our street, looking towards our home, then looking at me telling me that we need to go back home. She refuses to walk more. 

#@$%#@ the weather. We all dream of summer. 

I plan a trip to India. My hometown seems to be in the throes of the worst summer ever. My nose bleeds everyday. I remain in a self-inflicted home arrest, trying not to venture too far from areas of the home with air conditioning. I cancel meetups with friends due to nosebleeds. I do very little than hang around at home. Was I always such a delicate darling? Oh well… no need to answer that. 

#@$%#@ the weather. I miss the rain and gloom clouds of Portland. 

A bestie of over 30 years and I venture on a trip and trek in the Himalayas. I am excited to be in the Himalayas and the quaint towns in its foothills. We reach there. It rains. Every. Single. Day. From short little rain bursts, to hail storms in the mountains, to a torrential storm with thunder and lightening on the last day. It doesn’t stop us, but we have to be mindful of the weather and plan around it. 

#@$%#@ the weather. We’ve been talking everyday for the past month planning this trip. 

Clearly, I don’t seem to have the best luck with weather. I would quite understand if you weren’t exactly keen on going on a trip with me. Yet, when I look at pictures or think of these times (I have ranted above), none of it seems dreadful. At all. 

During the snowstorm, I see cozy pictures of us huddled by the fireplace. Of phone calls to check on others, inviting them over, or being invited over to homes with power. We have no internet and my husband treks to a friend’s place to e able to work. He makes him chai and lunch. The weather sucks, but the sense of community is strong. 

As for the long gloomy days, every time we have a break in weather, the dog and I rush out for a walk, appreciating the sun and elevated temperatures, whenever available. 

And even if I resolve to not visit India in April, and snort white ghee-based creams like a cocaine addict, to prevent nosebleeds, the pictures I see, tell a different story. I eat the best mangoes in the world (any self-respecting Maharashtrian will pridefully argue over their hapoos (Alphonso) mangoes), I see smiles, and laughter in meeting family and friends after long, I doubt I will remember the nosebleeds or house arrest in hindsight. 

As for the trip, the pictures speak for themselves. My friend assures me that she has good luck with treks and that it will not rain while we are trekking. She is right. There is a short hailstorm once we arrive at our campsite and we are safely under a shade. The mountains are glorious, even if the sunrise is in the clouds and we miss the golden peaks. But the beauty of the moment and our surroundings can chase away even the smallest shred of disappointment about weather. 

So glad for pictures and our mental capacity to cherish the good. We truly are a blessed species, for with the unfortunate, we remember the good with such ease. Even when things are not quite perfect, we revel in the joys that the moment has to offer. 

That does not go to say that I will not complain about the weather. Oh no, my fingers are swollen from the heat and a shopkeeper thought I was a Westerner a few days back, given how red my face was. But even when I gripe, I am aware of the resilience of our species able to find sunshine in  most situations.

The trick may be to remind ourselves of the sunshine even as we wallow in the discomfort of it all. 

Sounds of a place

 3:30 a.m. Pune. India. Jetlag. My eyes open. I stare at the ceiling. Since I can’t really see anything, I try to take in the sounds. A few dogs bark, then there is the loud ugly meowing. Peacocks. I remember where I am. I try to orient myself. I straddle zones of time and space, zones of physicality and emotion. 

What are they all doing up so early? How far or near are they in the fields and the hill behind my mother’s house? I try to make sense of the lay of the land and perhaps my emotions surrounding the different zones of time I exist in - all at ones. 

How can a creature so lovely make sounds so hideous? How can noises so ugly emerge from the insides of something so breathtakingly beautiful on the outside? Aaah… It must be a punishment, curse of sorts. 

Perhaps in a far ancient ancient past, a vain peacock was strutting about - too proud, too arrogant, so consumed by its own beauty that a God decided to teach him a lesson. Just as it was about to say something about its own beauty, strange and ugly sounds emerged from its throat. Confused, devastated, the peacock decided to shake it off. It danced its most beautiful dances, spreading its gorgeous feathers, swirling in its beauty. Swirling in futility, unable to rid itself of its new sounds of vanity. It’s beauty remained, its ugly sounds remained. 

Up until today as I hear the loud and ugly meowing in the dark, breaking the peace of an anticipated dawn. 

Does a fable or mythological tale like this, or similar, exist? Or did I simply fabricate it in my nebulous space of jetlag? Being in the place of our origin brings up our past, the stories from our past, our memories, with such fluidity and ease that I am simply able to conjure up fantastical tales, even while staring at a dark ceiling. Stories of fables and Gods and mythology, in tune with the ethos of this place of my childhood - stories that I loved as a child. 

Our existence may be more entwined to a place and the ethos of the place than we imagine. Memories from the past come tumbling, fast enough that a sound from the outside, navigates my mind into realms and imaginations I enjoyed as a child. I realize it will always be a part of who I am. Even when I have stories and memories and people in another zone of time and emotion, this one remains just as real, even when nebulous.  

As for the loud and noisy peacock outside, it will always be a part of me. I am in awe of its dance and its beauty, I am startled and even tad disappointed by its ugly meowing. Perhaps it is a metaphor. In its dichotomy of beauty and ugliness is a zone of time and space and emotion I dearly love. 

Qu'est ce que vous avez fait le weekend?

 Qu'est ce que vous avez fait le weekend?

I asked myself this question all weekend. And yes, in French, just like our professor at an Alliance Francaise class would ask the class, about three decades ago in Pune, India. We would go around in a circle, sharing fragments of our rather inconsequential, but busy weekends - maybe a party, a birthday celebration, goofing around with friends, cramming for an exam, hanging at the one of our “kattas” or a regular haunt or restaurants, perhaps a hobby or sport, perhaps a hike up the “tekdi” (hills in Pune). I honestly cannot remember noting with interest, anything anyone did. Up until someone asked our teacher, how she spent her weekend.

I should mention here that our teacher belonged to a family of notable artists, historians and theater personalities. She was an artist, writer, actor, singer, linguist, (and possibly more), in addition to the one thing apparent to us, our teacher.

She would nonchalantly recount how she finally finished a painting she had been working on, or had spent the weekend at a theater workshop, or had worked on a children’s book, or translated something from French to Marathi. She spoke with a certain simplicity, as if everything she had worked on was routine and normal and simple. To her, it was.  

If she saw a puzzled look, she would explain a word or expression she had used (in French). I realize, now, our expressions were probably of awe (in my case, for sure). We were not stumped by the nuances of the French language, but her prolific pursuits, her passion, her art, and her use of her time (in my case, for sure).

I felt happy when I had dance rehearsals for a show to report or a really good book I had devoured, or the artist guild I was member of. But I knew even then, that while these activities filled me up, I was simply joining a group, surrounding myself with talent and art, and timidly, to a small extent attempting my own. I knew even then, I was not creating art, or thought, with the intentionality and independent thought that my teacher clearly was and that her use of time was vastly different from mine.  

As college kids go, as we left the class, we forgot our awe, and re-immersed ourselves in our self-involved and fairly inconsequential existence.

******

This weekend is an open slate. No plans, no activities, my husband is travelling, just the dog and me.  

I should make some plans, be proactive, I tell myself. I watch TV, dog curled on my lap. Killers of the Flower Moon, takes up many hours and more so, since I decide to read up on Osage tribes and David Grann’s other books. My husband would not have the patience for it.

Qu'est ce que vous avez fait le weekend?   

I am becoming a hermit. My friend (from India) calls me morning and evening all four days that my husband is gone. On the first evening, I tell her how I keep thinking there is someone upstairs, especially since there is noise from the wind. “Are you scared”, she asks me. “No”, I reply. I’ve never been scared of staying home alone. She checks in on me, maybe she is a little concerned about my mental faculties. But ahem, that would be a topic for a separate essay.

“Make some plans”, she tells me. I should make some plans, I tell myself. I do nothing. I am becoming a hermit. I should be proactive. I think of the low-grade drama and politics of inclusion and exclusion I seem to find myself in, not in my youth, but in the last decade or so. I clearly don’t have the skills to navigate any of it. I am going to be a hermit, I sigh.  

Not entirely, I go for a group tai chi, and a short walk with a friend, we meet a lady in a neighboring street whose house has been destroyed by large trees falling on it in the recent storm. We chat with her, we empathize for her loss, and for those in neighboring houses, we are impressed by her positivity.

Qu'est ce que vous avez fait le weekend?

I go for several walks with the dog. I read part of Stephen King’s, On Writing. I’m inspired. Till the point where he says to spend six hours or so writing daily. I balk. I decide to do research on a book I am working on (supposedly). A trip to the library and online research later, it’s all interesting, just not sure, how relevant it is to the book. Unless the focus of the book has changed, which it just as may have. Sigh…

Qu'est ce que vous avez fait le weekend?

I go to the grocery store. I buy leeks and make a lamb and leek recipe. It is delicious. I have never cooked with them before. I wonder why.   

Qu'est ce que vous avez fait le weekend?

The question dogs me all weekend. I wonder why after all these years, it has come back to haunt me. Or straighten me, or inspire me? Maybe I don’t have the confidence or intentionality that I once found so inspiring in my teacher. And while she seemed “old” then, she was clearly a lot younger than I am right now. Sigh…Just great.

I write a blog, I try to straighten my thoughts, or at least air them. Maybe I have done a random scattering of things over “le weekend”. As we all do. And perhaps, I will learn to pick up the pieces that matter and add intentionality and vigor such that I won’t have to rack my brain when I ask myself,

Qu'est ce que vous avez fait le weekend?

New Year and Transitions…

Another year parceled with a bow, packed off and sent away into the annals of memory. How will you remember 2023?

I pause and think. A single word pops up. Transitions.

For me, it’s been a year of transitions - of packing a kid and sending her away to the other end of the country. Excited for new beginnings for her, figuring out why it feels like a gaping vacuum in my insides.

It’s been about allowing myself to slow down, to take stock of a few things, questioning a few others, at times evaluating, of approving and disapproving of choices. Ahem, at times approving and disapproving the very same choice at different movements. Only to realize the futility of engaging in that process.  

For all that remains is the transition. And even if I feel it more now, that’s all we’ve been doing, year after year, moment after moment.  

Perhaps, from where I stand right now, I can see the canvas of the past with a little more clarity. This canvas is bigger than it was before, it has more hues and shades of understanding. Events stand there now not simply as events, but with explanations of why they occurred in the first place. Opportunities, missed opportunities may be accompanied by personal traits, family histories, circumstances, life situations and all the things in between, that led to them.

The mosaic fills in. The colors saturate, the hues get brighter, at times the sensory overload feels like too much. Again, I question the purpose of this process.

For all that remains is the transition. And even if I feel it more now, that’s all we’ve been doing, year after year, moment after moment.  

I have spent moments this past year, wondering about paths and possibilities, new directions, and activities. I have been both optimistic and pessimistic, excited and overwhelmed. At times, this process has ended with me simply vegging in front of the TV, with or without junk food.  Again, I question the purpose of this process.

For all that remains is the transition. And even if I feel it more now, that’s all we’ve been doing, year after year, moment after moment.  

Transitions are good, transitions are challenging, transitions are needed. Perhaps in my youth, I was simply able to straddle the transition and keep running. They seem to have youth and energy and lightness, apprehension certainly, but a certain excitement, one that infuses vitality and a certain welcoming of change.

But even if I may no longer have the vitality and lightness of the transitions of youth, I have an awareness of their being and the necessity of their being. Of what it does to us and how it affects our lives.

Not just my life, I think of others in my life. I spot the transitions in their lives. I am aware of how they are dealing, coping, adapting, learning to be, with these transitions. I relate to them, I learn from them.

For all that remains is the transition. And even if I feel it more now, that’s all we’ve been doing, year after year, moment after moment.  

Perhaps, this awareness of transitions is our strength as we age. And it goes to show why this single word popped up this year, and not in the years before.

Happy New Year my beautiful friends! Wishing you love and light!