Scars

There is something beautiful about all scars of whatever nature. A scar means the hurt is over, the wound is closed and healed, done with. -Harry Crews

Today is the first day in a very long time where I feel back to myself. My morning started off with little sleep, an avocado, a yoga class, a seemingly endless but beautiful meal, meditation in a quiet space, and some poetry. It’s nice to have a new start, new perspective, and new found health.

Excited for this weekend and for discovering new and old things each and everyday (*like old photos of strange days in quiet places).

One. Two. Three.

Three faces I saw nearly everyday this past summer.

And three faces I miss today.

Cleanse

Last night after work, I went home, ate a cupcake and then started cleaning out my life. I’m not a particularly clean or organized person (*something I often blame on my artistic temperament or something), but I do go through phases when all I want to do is clean. I didn’t get to a good stopping point until this morning and already feel the need to do a second great cleanse.

Partially motivated by fear that I am hoarder, last night’s cleanse left me feeling a new wave of motivation and inspiration. Like all hoarders, I’m nostalgic as anything and in part I think that’s why I take pictures and keep extensive journals // lists.

“Memories mean more to me than dresses.” – Anne Frank

Last night, I even got around to organizing some of my messy photo files too.

Last week, I finally got around to developing the last of the film I have been curious about from the summer last week. As a result, I’ve been flooded with memories of just how different my life looks and feels now than it did then. But, it’s good and for the first time in a long time, I’m not entirely paralyzed by my missing another place. I’m just here and here isn’t so bad. . . especially when life is clean and organized.

Edge

 

“I want to stand as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all kinds of things you can’t see from the center.”

– Kurt Vonnegut, Player Piano 

[Photo: Friends down by the Chisang River, Nepal//Grace Farson]

One story

“The first story almost always evokes another, which summons another, until the answer to the question has become several stories long. A sequence of tales is thought to offer broader and deeper insight than a single story alone. So, in this old tradition, let us begin with a question: What constitutes ‘enough’?”

– Clarissa Pinkola Estes, The Gift of a Story

Thinking a lot these days about the importance of more than just one story. There is more than meets the eye and no one story can fully capture a person or group of person’s all. It’s true that while stereotypes are not always untrue, they sure as hell are incomplete and limiting.

+ Watch. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s talk -> The Danger of a Single Story.

[Photo: Chiya time under a big, blue tarp on the side of the highway, Nepal//Grace Farson]

Math thoughts

Oh how I wish I was good at math!

This summer, each of our team members took time reading Gladwell’s Outliers. The part that stood out the most to us was the discussion about rice paddies.

We were living in the world of muddy rice fields and it gave us an entirely new perspective.

“Rice paddies are ‘built,’ not ‘opened up’ the way a wheat field is. You don’t have to clear the trees, underbrush, and stones, and then plow. Rice fields are carved into mountain sides in an elaborate series of terraces, or painstakingly constructed from marshland and river plains. A rice paddy has be irrigated, so a complex system of dikes has to be built around the field. Channels must be dug from the nearest water source, and gates built into the dikes to the water flow can be adjusted precisely to cover the right amount of the plant . . .” – Malcolm Gladwell, Outliers: The Story of Success

[Photo: My favorite spot in Letang//Grace Farson]

Learning to say goodbye

Today is my last day in Letang.

I don’t really know how to come to terms with all of it. Four of us went back to Little Flowers boarding school this morning and we essentially just listened to Andrew share various Aesop’s Fables (*complete with illustrations) with class.

By eleven, we were done at the school and I asked to hear//record a Nepali story. Four of the older girls worked very hard and went above and beyond what I expected and prepared for me a beautiful story about kindness. They spoke in both Nepali and English and it made my entire being very happy. After, I spent some time alone, walking through the heat and into the woods. I love the woods. I love that they have become familiar to us over the past few weeks and I love that they are quiet.

I remember during my year off, the thing I never learned to deal with was constantly having to say goodbye. I still struggle with it and prefer not to say bye, but rather, “see you later” or “see you” as they like to abbreviate it here in Nepal. Even leaving NC this time around was bizarre, cut short, and anticlimactic in a way.

This time around, this goodbye, it is all different, although still very hard. This time around, I know that I will come back. I love this place and truly do consider this country my home away from home. I know that in time, I’ll come back. I’ll be different and older, but I doubt I will ever stop feeling what I feel for this place. . . It will always be a big part of who I am.

These past two days have seemed like a lifetime. I cannot even begin to wrap my head around all that I have seen and experienced. In part, I feel like a new person. I know it seems dramatic to say that, but in part it is true. It’s truly amazing that a simple day trip to a tea farm in Nepal can turn into a two-day trip in which you see and experience the Himalayas as well as a seven-hour drive that makes you realize the fragility of life. In two days I saw the world, felt more than I could handle, and saw my life flash before my eyes on more than one account. It was one of the biggest adventures and simultaneously hilarious//terrifying experiences of my life. *And much, much more on this is to come!

When we drove back into Letang yesterday after our unnecessarily long journey, I felt as if part of me was coming home. It felt so good to be back in town and to see friends and smiling faces. At the same time, I found it all to be terribly sad. It all served as a reminder to me that in two days time I would be gone. Away from Letang and the life we have established here. From here on out, the next few days will be filled with travel and more adventures both big and small. All things I am very excited about, although I am nowhere near ready to leave. . . but in a few days, whether I like it or not, I’ll be kicked out of the country thanks to an expired Visa.

For now, I’m enjoying this last day. I’m enjoying my commitment and my promise to return, for I know it is not an empty promise, but one filled with truth and sincerity.

And, I’m enjoying this last day for it is a day filled with sad “see you later“s and remembering how good this place has been to me. . .

[Photo: Beyond the bridge, Letang//Grace Farson]