Starting to feel the pull of missing The Englishman. Especially when Joy Division or New Order comes to play on my iTunes. What do I call that constant feeling of seeing something my eyes have never seen, smelling something so lush warm, moist and overwhelming that it defines a moment, feeling the breeze through my hair and my soul being swept into the sea, all the while wanting just one solitary person to know exactly what it feels like to be me in this very moment. What is the name for this feeling? Is it LOVE?
And tomorrow I begin the journey of letting go and letting God. This feeling, this attachment, this constant need to share, should I embrace this journey authentically and surrender to the process, the unknown constant wanting will be eradicated from my being, and perhaps, just perhaps, I will know what it truly means to be free.
The idea of this overwhelms me. Mostly because it allows me to recognize how much of my pleasure is derived from pain. That longing that tugging at this place in my body that stems from throat to my heart and to the core of my stomach… this constant longing to be truly understood and witnessed by one person more than any other on this planet, when realized for that flash, is such pleasure. The union and that moment of getting everything you want. Then the inevitable realization that no one other person can ever bring about lasting happiness or peace. That it actually is all up to me and I am the only person who can place myself in a place of peace and contentment that is constant. What on earth will I do without my longing and my attachment? What on earth will I do when I realize true Freedom? The thought of it makes me want to burst into tears, because being a prisoner of my pain is a feeling I have come to know so well. It is so much a constant for me that I have no idea what emancipation will feel like.
How many of us live like this? With flashes of happiness? I’m not a gambling woman but I bet the odds are very high indeed. My life has been filled with a journey that has led me here. And how perfect that it comes to me through LOVE. A Love that is based in freedom and not in conditions, contracts and contradictions.
I have been handed the perfect hand to fulfill my destiny and become the woman I feel I was always meant to be and more importantly, the woman I want to be. One who is free of suffering and able to feel my pain and pleasure with a gratitude and not make it become who I am. I have come to Kovalam in Kerala to live along the Arabian sea in Monsoon season, to witness the death of my ego and the rebirth of my authentic self.
I am a lost being. Comfortable tip tapping on my computer. I don’t want to be pretentious and think I know that listening to a guided meditation or playing my Indiano classical music will eradicate the overwhelming missing of someone I love. Part of this journey is like being a junkie who has been placed into rehab. Having little to no contact. Studying, feeling all my feelings and focusing not on engaging or creating magic with a man with who I cannot be with or my family who is a constant source of comfort to me by virtue of familiarity. Whether it be through laughter or tears, there comes a knowingness when inside myself I know there is a group of heartbeats that I belong to. My friends, who through the world of email, facebook or bbm are moving further into the technological recesses of cyber space. I imagine what it would be like to walk through these mud puddle paths with my most well heeled gang of girls… who would giggle and who would gag. This is called the third world but no one here would ever think they are without. No one that I have met anyways… from the truly sincere souls that have chosen not to fall into the Kovalam version of the Douche Bag life of salacious scams along the sandy shores there is a wonderful witnessing of consciousness in humanity. The need to help a genuine desire to want to make life easier for a Mermaid like me along the shores of a foreign shore.
Then the inevitable happens, I watch the same men who have gone out of their way to assist me in obtaining my Indian sim card with local phone number, a restaurant to eat at which is safe and hygienic, find my way to the beachfront without getting lost in the backwater maze of Kovalam… I watch these same men in their gentle and patient way try and tell the latest foreigner to arrive her way to the beach. A foreigner who is heavier set, openly graying (unlike mine that are creeping to the surface but still well enough hidden under the home dye job pre Barcelona from a fortnight ago) and dressed like she’s been coming here for years, with the hippy slouch bag in bright purple over one shoulder that doesn’t lift but most definitely separates her well endowed bosom, hair pulled back in a messy stringy pony tail, Thai fisherman style pants and Birkenstocks. I witness from my top floor corner suite balcony how this woman, in need of the same guidance is shown the way around with hand gestures and left to find her own way through the windy muddy hot and sticky back roads of Kovalam. She looks like she can most definitely hold her own… but it begs to ask the question: Is Youth & Beauty a currency the world over?
It has long been proven beyond any shadow of a doubt that people like to help people who are more attractive in their eyes without hesitation. So then, what is the X Factor of Beauty? What is my X Factor in Kovalam?
In India, I am a foreigner to Indians and an Indian in the eyes of the foreigner. It’s like being in a slipstream. Of which I’m sure there are advantages, none of which I have identified, yet. So far, it’s been a bit like being an exotic bird on loan from one zoo to another. People look, some look pleased, some look confused, some curious to the point of wanting to make eye contact , and some, often men and at times children and always… dogs… to come up and touch me.
Of course when I find myself in this situation amongst unsavoury men along the boardwalk of the beachfront who seem to always use the same line, asking me whether I like Massage (inside voice YES!!!) outside voice “No, thank you” and then it’s followed with “Where are you staying? Why don’t you come up and have a look at my room? It’s very nice…” (inside voice “FUCK YOU, ASSHOLE!”) outside voice, “No, thank you”…
This is my first trip alone to India, so I won’t be Miss too-cool-for-school and say that having such intense attention every step I take of each day isn’t unnerving, but I will say that I realize now that it is up to me to decide how I react to this.
So, along with bringing demure not so attention grabbing clothing coupled with the most sensible stash of underthings I’ve ever packed in my entire adult life, I have equipped myself with an equal dose of grace and girl power. And so far, not much has happened. So much of our experience is in our attitude. When I first visited India at age 19 with a very white skinned blue eyed boyfriend, I was volatile and my experiences reflected as much. Much of my volatility came from my sheer disgust that an entire nation of people could actually choose to live in this manner of squalor and heat and what I saw as backward deprivation. It was a testament to my ignorance as I lived my life in the cozy suburb of Coquitlam with my birth family and the privileged existence of experiencing London and the UK with Aunty Sarla and the world she opened up to me. A world where I was encouraged to explore my personal tastes away from North American trends and encouraged to be independent and travel and pursue my education. All wonderful influences from two homes, but void of any contact with what it truly means to be impoverished or how people who have much less privilege of personal space, personal freedom, personal time could ever be happy being handed down choices that are more in line with lineage than living as an individual.
My first trip to India I desperately wanted to be viewed as an Indian. And was outraged that Indians in India were very forthright in telling me that although I had a very Indian name in “Sima Kumar” and that although I looked Indian, I most definitely was not an Indian. It was a lesson that took me YEARS to learn…
Now I arrive on a solitary journey, with the recognition that I am of Indian descent, but not an Indian in the eyes of India. This simple acceptance of who I am in this country has made my introduction to the place and its people very peaceful.
What’s the lesson? Be Yourself. I am Sima, a Canadian girl with an English heart and Indian blood.
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