Daily frustrations

Simple, stupid frustrations seem so much harder today than they should.

Today is weird and the weather is contributing a lot to this. I get a new Tornado warning message every few minutes and it’s raining so hard that the world around me is flooding. I like it. I’ve spent a good deal of this afternoon writing and it turns out I forgot how to. I really like new words and reading until my head hurts these days, but I cannot write. I forgot how to write creatively, how to write an email, and how to write a proposal.

I also realized today that I don’t really want to be here. It’s a reoccurring feeling and it’s never fun.

Overall, the first week back has been blurry, uncomfortable, and incredibly sad.

I’m adjusting poorly to being back and I’m ready to shake off the bad and move on. I have so very much to get excited about, but I’m not quite there. I can feel it coming though. . . .

I was thinking today about how I am a lot like my mother and I don’t really belong in any one group. I’d always thought I knew what I liked the most and the ways I should spend my days, but now I don’t even know! It turns out I just like far too many things and no matter how many lists I make, I’m just as clueless as ever!

That said, here’s to hazy Saturdays!

Here’s to being okay with feeling trapped (*like I did in this alley in Kathmandu) To listening to the same two songs on repeat, to making and revising lists, and to wild weather. . . And most of all, here’s to liking a lot and attempting to make sense of it all.

For the long days

These long days make me miss the days that weren’t so long. . . And were days that looked like this.

“If neurotic is wanting two mutually exclusive things at one and the same time, then I’m neurotic as hell. I’ll be flying back and forth between one mutually exclusive thing and another for the rest of my days.” – Sylvia Plath

Breathing//Surviving//Snacking\\Breathing\\Surviving\\Snacking . . .

Excited for sleep.

Bright blue sari

My Mom is a rockstar. She not only spent part of the summer with me in India, but she also looks stunning in a sari. The other night, I wore a sari and it had been a long time. As always, remembering exactly how it works was a challenge, but thankfully I had help.

While visiting Bapatla this past summer, I brought out the sari Niti gave me in Kathmandu. The girls had a field day playing dress-up with Mom and got on my case for not having nicer clothes. They kept wanting to brush out Mom’s hair (and against her better judgment, she let them) and paint on a lot of makeup. The outfit wasn’t complete without fresh jasmine in her hair and a handful of bright blue bangles around her wrists.

When they were finished with her, they couldn’t stop saying how lovely and Indian she looked. And I agree. My Mom can rock a sari.

Sundays are for:

Looking back at places once familiar to you (*like this place near Patan outside of Kathmandu) // drinking tea in bed with a stack of reading to keep you company // toast // morning light // making plans to clean you room // trying to stay warm under bed covers.

Plus, thinking about a future:

+ I dream of one day working and creating things with leather

+ I like thinking of Sarah’s food adventures in Paris

+ Words to live by

A lost day

Today is one of those days where you run around in circles//make messes//try to make connections. . . I feel inspired by more than I can handle, but I don’t know what to do with it. Or how to make sense of anything.
. . But, inspiration is out there and it is near.

Immigrant’s Song

Let us not speak of those days
when coffee beans filled the morning
with hope, when our mothers’ headscarves
hung like white flags on washing lines.
Let us not speak of the long arms of sky
that used to cradle us at dusk.
And the baobabs—let us not trace
the shape of their leaves in our dreams,
or yearn for the noise of those nameless birds
that sang and died in the church’s eaves.
Let us not speak of men,
stolen from their beds at night.
Let us not say the word
  disappeared.
Let us not remember the first smell of rain.
Instead, let us speak of our lives now—
the gates and bridges and stores.
And when we break bread
in cafés and at kitchen tables
with our new brothers,
let us not burden them with stories
of war or abandonment.
Let us not name our old friends
who are unravelling like fairy tales
in the forests of the dead.
Naming them will not bring them back.
Let us stay here, and wait for the future
to arrive, for grandchildren to speak
in forked tongues about the country
we once came from.
Tell us about it, they might ask.
And you might consider telling them
of the sky and the coffee beans,
the small white houses and dusty streets.
You might set your memory afloat
like a paper boat down a river.
You might pray that the paper
whispers your story to the water,
that the water sings it to the trees,
that the trees howl and howl
it to the leaves. If you keep still
and do not speak, you might hear
your whole life fill the world
until the wind is the only word.

– Tishani Doshi

Have an inspiring, productive, and memorable Monday.

[Photo: Getting lost in the rain in Patan, Nepal//Grace Farson]

A rainbow of thought

“You should always be taking pictures, if not with a camera then with your mind. Memories you capture on purpose are always more vivid than the ones you pick up by accident.”

– Isaac Marion

Happy Wednesday world.

[Photos: A bright view of Kathmandu on a dark day//Grace Farson]

It’s been real Nepal

Nepal, thanks for being good to me!

As always, thanks for moving me and for teaching me so many powerful life lessons. . . including, most important of all, a reminder of what is most important in life.

 

I’ll see you again in two years. Hopefully, next time I’ll be there to stay!

As I write this, it is so hard for me to believe that two months have already passed.
I’m sad to go and I’ve already cried twice – *leaving three lovelies back in Letang and leaving Kathmandu. . . but, for now, I’ve still got a lot to look forward to.

Starting with India.

Tomorrow, I’m heading back here. To even hotter heat and wilder days!

Peace and love from Chitwan.

[Photo: Durbar Square before a storm, Kathmandu//Grace Farson]