It's now 3:07 PM. This was suppose to have been published at 7am. I've always been an amazing procrastinator. I've told myself I work better under pressure in order to condone my severe 'but it's so nice outside' excuses. Here's the truth, yeah I just got lazy and postponed my own deadline. But that's what's amazing about doing things for yourself and on your own. I'm my own boss. "I'm my own boss." Say it.
I'm now giving myself around two hours to dedicate to only my second edition of Tuesday's Travel. Commitment just ain't my thing, I'm working on it.
So here is what I came up with....
I'm sitting outside on the first +60 degree day of the winter. It's winter still right? Least it use to be. I decided to use my excuse as a reason to go make myself write. A college psych major might say it's reverse psychology, but I wouldn't take his word as solid gold.
I'm just going to come out and say this... This is really awkward for me to do. To sit and and try to write about my experiences 'traveling' and 'living.' I want to be able to sit down at any moment and have the juice pour out. But it doesn't always work for me like that. It comes in spurts or not at all. And, honestly... sometimes language just doesn't suffice. It can't, it won't, and it shouldn't. Then there are times when memory turns to tears in our eyes and illuminate us from within.
When I was in India I met a man. He was from Munnar. His name was Vijay. I know exactly where you can find him. I was studying at Christ College and our group of westerners where on a very guided tour around the southern state of Kerala. I was in Karnataka, to the north, and Kerala is vastly different of a place. Everything from the terrain to the people changed. We'd taken an overnight train leaving the busy dusty city of Bangalore and woke up in the rural lust landscape of southern palm trees and scaffolding jungled hills. That's where Vijay lives. In the mountains, at the very top hill station surrounded by miles of tea, cardamon, and black pepper growing fields.1*
Vijay was hired to take a bunch of less than fit Americans on a trek (hiking excursion) down into a river basin.. The spring season dried up most of the valley and the seasonal rushing river in gave in, leaving a waterfall to hold its place until the coming monsoon season.
He loved his home. "So far from horns, crowds, biting dogs," he told me as others took off exploring and bouldering on the riverbed rocks. "He there is peace, community, and here there is mountains full of life that always give something new to be seen."
There is no way of explaining the sense of ease I had in that moment. There is no strum of words I can muster to convey how much that moment; standing in the middle of the Indian jungle, having a truly relatable and wholesome conversation about the mountains, with Vijay. It's just something I'll never forget; the sense of divine serendipity of that dreams and fantasized projections from my younger years were occurring before me.
...
You have to make decisions in your life. Whether to stay or to go. To stay in the same place or go wherever it is that you've seen yourself. It's a choice, but once you decide to go, you only have to make sure you get there.
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