Unfold your own myth

We're starting to develop a few good story lines on this adventure. Some of them have a decidedly comic tone: the collection of hijacked garage door openers [Shalini and Naresh, if you're reading this we're sorry, but we don't know which one is yours!] the highway driving courses, the invisible stop signs and more. Others have human interest potential: raising children, taking care of others, values that continue from one generation to the next.

But what strikes me in this moment is the number of times our friends have said "I wish I could do what you're doing."  It's reminiscent of what I hear when I tell people I retired 5 years ago, at the ripe old age of 47.  I've long since stopped telling people that they can do anything they want to. I never believed it. Until I did. But telling doesn't help. Then I started feeling a bit burdened -- I'm actually doing things others would be doing if they only knew they could; I should really make the most of this amazingly lucky situation for all of us!

I opened a page at random to begin this blog and saw Rumi's line jump off the page: Unfold your own myth. The relevant stanza reads: "But don't be satisfied with stories, how things/have gone with others. Unfold/ your own myth, without complicated explanation,/so everyone will understand the passage,/We have opened you."

So, this one's for me. 

Curry Hooks and The House That Traveled

Yesterday, official Day 2 at Glen Ellyn. Having recovered the Stomach, I was ready to meet Race Car Dave. What a delightful family! Ka-de-ka Road, Bliss Woods, Sugar Grove - All part of their address that is part of old Indian lands. 'Ka-de-ka' in the native tongue means sugar grove. And a sweeter family I haven't met.

I was again in the lovely circle of love flowing and catching up as memories were revived and jokes were laughed at and the warmth of coming home touched me. As we were leaving, Joe asked us "Have you found the curry hook in your car?" Our mean, macho, slightly over packed LandRover Discovery had a curry hook? What is that? The story according to Joe goes that when the car was being designed they attached a hook, left of the glove compartment that people could hang their take away packets on - it is believed that Land Rover owners ordered a lot of Indian food and before the curry hook came into existence the curry just sloshed around and soon there was a car that smelled perpetually like curry. Solution: Curry Hook.

It was a cute going away story that Carol and I giggled about as we drove through rolling gold fields of corn that await plowing under. The classic midwest picture - wide blue sky thick with cloud, vast golden abundant land that has borne fruit, open, inviting, silent and endless.

Onward to Geneva, Illinois. Like the others around here, it is a little city that contiguously flows from and into another. Looking for Dave Scatterday's house we passed the historic streets with Queen Anne and other ancient houses. Pretty, colorful, scalloped and date-labelled.

Then we saw it. A purple and grey-blue house - Dave Scatterday, a beer in one hand and the cell phone to direct us on one end of a creatively done yard. A lamp post with a number of different signs on it. On closer inspection we found tincan Maynard the Moose, draped with a Homecoming blanket - Homecoming is a time honored high school tradition that is honored also by Maynard!

Now here is the unique part - this house was actually a left corner house a few streets away. And it was moved... Yes, the whole house was bodily moved to this corner. Now it is a different direction so the front door which is supposed to open into the street is now a side/back entrance, with Maynard in full glory in a bowling ball patch, looking happy in its new habitat far away from its creator's workshop in Mexico.

Martha and Dave have an adorable house - a sun room that is from the Carribean - flamingos and all. A kitchen that is so inviting and eclectic that you want to dance in it, be in it - do something other than just cook in it. And then there is the moose theme bathroom. I haven't met a more creative and lively house. We sang, strummed and hummed. I felt alive, happy and delighted shaking to old songs and belting them out loud in a voice that was uninhibited and large in a space that could have been anywhere in the world where there are friends and guitars.

With love

Glen Ellyn, Chicago

Sitting in Barb and Ray Klein's kitchen. Surrounded by photographs, Lucy the Escape Artist Cat and the crisp exchanges between Barb and Carol, Barb and Ray, interspersed with fond pats on the head and the river flow of remembrances... oh it's just so beautiful.

We arrived here in the heart of Carol's childhood. She went to high school here and got into trouble for not handing in assignments. Cycled and went oh-a-adventuring in the forest, had and still has such great friends. We met Dave, Martha and Martha, Dan for lunch - great potato and corned beef soup at Shannon's - met Joe's elder brother at the corner of the street. We walked a windy block or two in the warmth of catching up conversation and a soft soothing sun.

My impressions of America from movies and books are coming to life especially here. There is a part of me that keeps asking me: "Why do you want to associate the real thing to movies or books or something that you heard of? What's wrong with letting this whole experience be new and fresh?"

I don't have an answer. Except that it is! All new and all amazing. I guess I'm still not out of the amazement of actually being here!

So, how did we arrive here? The last I posted was a forgotten late post in Noblesville, Indianapolis, Indiana. It's been a whirlwind - we sure did choose a fitting name! So, yes, it's been a whirlwind of places, distances, cities, towns, districts and villages. The grounding and centering points have been people. Aunt Jeannie and Uncle Flip in Ann Arbor. Alok, Anjali, Rishi and Rohan in Cincinnati. Aunt Mary Ann, Nolene, Andy, Bruce and Pam in Noblesville. Emily in Purdue, W Lafayette and now this whole bunch of great people in Glen Ellyn. Today we go to meet Race Car Uncle Dave and definitely sometime in these 4 days, Cyrus and family.

I am also discovering the different kinds of food - the absolute abundance and deliciousness of food. So let's see Indian, GREAT home food at Manna-Rahul's snazzily outfitted kitchen, Chinese - brown chicken at Sammy's, shrimp and lobster chowder - Boston, Lebanese at Taza, Cleveland, Daughters' Homecoming Goulash, hamburgers, corn on the cob, yummilicious pie and yoghurt icecream, decaf coffee at Aunt Jeanie's, all American Football Game Hotdogs at the Michigan Game - GO BLUE!!

IHOP brunch on arrival at Cincinnati. Wholesome, sensorially delightful large salads prepared in Anjali's french farm kitchen, Thai and then our own home grown prep of Goan fish curry, rava fry prawns and garlic butter prawns and PUMPKIN PIE!!! Nolene's high power horseradish, mustard and sausage sandwich and Mexican at Noblesville. And finally Irish food at Glen Ellyn. And I was done for!!! My stomach understands what happens to friends and family when they arrive in India and FEED!! Thanks to Barb's and Carol's timely intervention - good ol' Tumms, I was saved. Lots of sleep and reiki helped too.

We are ready now to meet Chicago. The greatest thing about our trip is that there is so much that is possible. 'How will we do this trip? Where are we going to stay? How much time will it take to get there?' are questions that floated around vaguely in my consciousness when we were planning it. Cell phones and GPS are actually helping convert these into reality. We have connected and re connected with people - old friends and family. Old haunts - driving on I 80 W to Chicago, Carol remembered the Dunes. I checked it out on the Rand McNally and we programmed Pocahontas to take us there. She told us it's only 11.5 miles from where we were. We turned into the next exit and hey presto we arrived at Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore - the bluest waters I have seen. This was one of the Great Lakes that I had only seen as one of the petals of a flower formation of water on the map of North America. Lake Michigan - blue, cold, flecked with sea gulls, surrounded by sand, the Chicago skyline and the smoke of industrial Gary. We took pictures of a wind surfer who scoffed the seeming gale force wind as nothing and was out there flying, sailing, surfing into the deep deep blue of my imagination.

So with a few detours, some late arrivals and golden sunrises in pink blue skies as they fold over brilliant moons, we are on our way.

Who's joining us?

Love,
Komal

Catching up on the heart space

In the last post, I caught up on the physical -- who what when where -- but didn't have much to share about where I've been. This trip is  hard to describe: is it a homecoming or a visit to a new place? Who is traveling: the person who left the US 30 years ago as a 23 year old Peace Corps Volunteer or the one who has those 30 years of experience under her belt (unfortunate turn of phrase, that)? The photo on the right is of my old neighbor and high school buddy, Jeff Davin, who seemed happy to get my call in his clinic near Cincinnati where I'd tracked him down through Google. He invited Komal and I over for dinner with his girls and his girlfriend that very night. That's Komal and Rosa with him in the other picture. What does it feel like to meet an old friend after so many years? Good. He seems happy and healthy and just as easy to talk to as he was all those years ago.We shared the broadest outlines of our respective journeys, our eyes acknowledging that while life is good, it's not always easy and rarely painless.

What's the biggest question right now? What happened to the captions that I put on those pictures? I was pretty proud that I'd figured out how to get pics from my new camera captioned and into this blog in the first place. Clearly my pride was premature. One step at a time.

Now that I've begun, I will write more often. Now it's time to bake pumpkin pie and pack up for the next leg of our adventure tomorrow morning. Indianapolis, here we come!

Catching up

So much for the plan to write something every day. Fortunately, my fellow traveler is more disciplined than I. First a quick geographic highlights review:

Started in Stamford, CT with Komal's brother Rahul's family. It quickly became home, and not only for our GPS program. We got our driving legs (literally with 4 new tires on Rahul and Manna's Land Rover Discovery) and got over jetlag.

Our first adventure was to visit Mattie in Boston and help her set up her room in a new apartment. Since she was sick, we kidnapped her to Komal's friends, Naresh and Shalini, both doctors and adoring parents of adorable 2 yr old Krishna. In the process we learned the car's color and license plate number from the company that towed it away from the Rite Aid across the street from Mat's place. 

We went back home to Stamford and Manna's food to lick our wounds and lips overnight and headed out, heads again high, to Cleveland. Pocohontas, our adventure-inspiring GPS, has removed the last traces of my fabled directionally-challenged angst and getting around on the highways and byways is a breeze. But Poco can't read addresses very well and I didn't have my glasses on as we passed my cousin Martha's place in a sudden blinding downpour. But Craig was out with a big golfing (no surprise there) umbrella when we finally backtracked to their place.

Next we went to Ann Arbor where my Aunt Jeannie and Uncle Flip treated us to a University of Michigan football game. Mind-blowing to be back with 110,000 like-minded crazies doing waves and belting out 'Hail to the Victors'.

For the last 4 days we've been hanging out in Cincinnati with Komal's other US-based brother, Alok, Anjali and their boys Rohan and Rishi. Pure free-child heaven for me: music, laughter, jokes, books, yard-work and more laughter.

That's the bare-bones account. More when we return from lunch....

17th, 18th, 19th September 2010 and Today

This is Part B of the Boston, Stamford, Cleveland stretch. To which I am adding Ann Arbor and Cincinnati too.

Boston - is the capital of Massachusetts. What I knew of Boston, in India came from vague memory of Henry James' book and the historical Tea Party. Somewhere was also information that it is north of New York and therefore would be turning Fall colors even as we drove. That did not happen. The foliage was very green. But the stretches of sea as we drove up, and names on signs like Cape Cod and Providence Rhode Island gave me a sense of warmth and familiarity.

A pretty entrance into the city and a slow passage to Allston and Quint Avenue to Mattie's place and then the apartment itself. Five college girls sharing the apartment - interesting posters - Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany's, Bob Marley on a silk wall hanging with the possibility of being changed into a rug, acetone fragranced bathroom and an eclectic collection of furniture and drinking glasses - clothes, bags, shoes spilling in feminine abundance and a lovely sense of running this house together. However, I was grateful that Carol and I decided we would drive to Raynham to stay with friends.

Raynham - a satellite town/village, 45 minutes from Boston downtown. Pretty, suburban America. Beautiful houses, pumpkins on porchsteps and harvest wreaths adorning doors. Gardens with statues of boys, girls, bonnets and geese - quintessential, I guess. Definitely ubiquitous!

Lovely feeling of being at home with old friends - Naresh and Shalini and the adorable Krishan. Shopping trips to Walmart, Ikea, the Apple Store. Lunch - shrimp and lobster chowder - my first chowder. Driving a packed and then some, Landrover to Quint Avenue, carefully parking the car - no more towaway risks! - and then the act of patience - Watching While Someone Assembles An Ikea Desk. It's mind boggling to think that the features, fixtures and furniture of an entire house and more can be boxed in cardboard, separated into plastic bags of screws, nuts, bolts and strange shapes and forms, and then be put together without as much as a wave of a wand and the assistance of mechanic or male - all you need is the instruction manual and the willingness to put your physical center into action. Ofcourse it does take 4 hours when you might think it'll be only an hour!

I decided that I could do something different and infinitely better - a walk in Boston. Past pasta shops and Indian, Nepali and Thai kitchens, past houses with bicycle skeletons chained to the fences, past the Boston Marine Health Center and the Children's hospital, past Boston High School and various colleges, I reached the T stop. Hopped on. Got off two rolling stops later. Met Pia. Walked back, found the Father and Son Market, bought bananas and ate one as I walked, past stores, restaurants and apartments, past the Brazilian fashion store. Stopped at the corner store to get my bearing and wondered if I was going the correct way. Remembered that most of urban America is measured in blocks which are pretty much rectangular or square and therefore the chance of having meandered way off course was not very high.

Very pleased myself I found myself at the Ritual Arts store. Met Abra, Rilke, Martin and Alyssa and very pretty Mexican silver jewelery sharing counter space with Indian skirts and gods and goddesses. I was pleased. Each place that I went to and every person that I met, made me very happy and I shared the story of our journey and invited them to catch our blog.

LEft Boston at 8 pm - having fixed the chair and persuaded Mattie to rearrange her room. Driving in the night was less harrowing than daytime driving. The darkness is comforting. I did not think I was the cynosure of every driver's eye and 3 hours later, reached Stamford - a conscious choice to come back and go to Cleveland the next morning from there rather than do the same stretch in more time from Boston.

It was comforting to be in the comfortable and gorgeous guest room in Rahul Manna's house.
It was a little disturbing to think that both of us wanted the comfort of a familiar stop rather than the adventure of looking for a place the next day mid route at Finger Lakes, Rochester.
We justified it by saying that it was only the beginning and we are breaking ourselves in.

The drive to Cleveland was the beginning of the journey out and away. Through New Jersey and Pennsylvania, through scenic overlooks and Native Indian and 'known' names - Tappan Z Bridge, Chesapeake Bay watershed, I-80 West, Akron. Through hilltops covered with the magically colored trees, stopping at gas stations and coffee spots to tank up. Meeting a Newfoundland huge Teddy of a dog and a poster of a man who destroys chips and cola vending machines. Running in pelting rain to exercise our backs and legs, tuning into the radio to hear the weather information - and before we knew it we were on Chagrin Boulevard, Cleveland.

Pouring rain, rush hour and a new driver - huge challenges. But we made it safely to Martha's and Craig's house. Carol's family.

Boston, Stamford again, yes! Cleveland - Part A

If you have driven in America, anywhere in the north and east, you may understand the craziness that takes over the Fall-feasting eyes. My eyeballs sort of rolled and ran left right center up and beyond trying to go into the depth of each tree that was turning into fire and red... russet, orange, peach, gold-peach, maroon, a solitary blood red in a field of green. It's a sort of madness that I entered - I kept exclaiming, oohing and wowing, driving Carol nuts as she drove. Luckily Pocahontas told us that our next active move had to be made only 220 miles later, so we were good.

Right now we are sitting in a Wendy's, eating a great Spicy Ceaser's Salad and sharing a cup of ice cream that is disguised as a milk shake!

So this little post is a forerunner to the highlights of this leg of travel. Manna reminded me that I have to close my open dropped jaw and start filling in the blog as she is waiting to read.

There are two cats named Abra and Rilke and other people in Boston, lovely helpful friendly people in Boston that I met in the T, and in interesting stores who might be looking out for our stories. So here it is. - Part A.

We are on our way to Ann Arbor, driving through industrial Ohio. Meeting roadsigns to Toledo and streets called Detroit and Carnegie Ave. The day is sunny dotted by dark grey clouds and promise of lightening. Channel 1640 AM is around to give weather information. It's all good and it's all here, in the America in my heart and mind and the real thing!

Part B will emerge at the next stop.

Love to all.

Resistance

While I am still surfing the net, occasionally looking up and out the windows at the trees, wind and sun I would like to put down for the record that both of us out on this adventure are feeling the force of NO. This voice is saying, "I'm not sure I am cut out for this kind of adventure. It's a lot of driving and I dont know if I am up for it. I need my nap. It's too cold. Camping in this season?...."

We continue to plan courses and routes and call up people and fix dates. It's good to acknowledge the resistant voice in the system and let her know that We Are.

Stamford to Boston

It's been a beautiful space - entering the life of this land. Stamford - I kept saying this over and over again: "Wow! this country is so beautiful!... Rahul, you live in a beautiful place!" It's true! America is physically and naturally so well endowed. There are trees of all texture, leaf and color. There are geese that suddenly appear in the corner of a market. The vegetables and fruit look good, taste good. There is water gushing in the taps and stilling forest clearings. Silent suburbs and country residences are scattered across woods and lake lands. A tiny little airport, just perfect for domestic flights, serendipitously opens the sky soon after a golf course and flag adorned city office.

There have been cold days and magnificent sunny ones. We partially weeded a garden and cleared a garage. Hung out in a hammock, a delicious, decadently restful hammock on the porch with access to cool wind and a wild wild dog named Coco who thinks fine dining is all about the variety of paper and polyfill he can consume. No book, pillow, toy, pen, hairbrush, container or pouch is safe! Along with the fragrance of flora, the sun motes and cottonwood seeds, high pitched blood curdling yells of "NO OOO C O O CO OOO" filled the Stamford air.

And four days later we left.
For Boston.

Meine Damen und Herren, the Drive began. As a precursor to that we drove to various stores and tyre shops and GPS purchases - the two India residents, Carol and Komal, getting their Left Hand Drive limbs back into action. I constantly heard "you're way too to the right". Also went to Sonja and Gullu's gorgeous, absolutely gorgeous place. I drove there and back and thought, "Hmmm! I can do this. It's not so difficult."

However, once on the highway, the whole business of 'Speed Limit 65' freaked me out. I am not supposed to go below 65 miles per hour. Deep breaths kept me going. My Fellow Traveller and Fellow Blogger was helping but often helplessly lapsed into "You're not supposed to do that!... NO, not there!....". and ofcourse, "Do you want some beef jerky?" in the middle of zipping traffic, three possible roads to turn into, with perfectly angled and positioned signs saying 'WRONG WAY'!!!

At that point all I wanted was to go back home to the land of illogical signs, cows and a million cars honking horns and complete chaos that was so part of the life that I knew where my actions did not matter. No matter which turn I took I would get somewhere and no matter what the sign or the light said, I would get away with whatever choice I made.

Anyway, we reached Boston..... with the help of Pocahontas.... that's the name we have given the efficient, exceedingly brilliant voice of our new GPS. She told us how to find Mattie's (Carol's daughter) place.

Quint Ave slopes down to a parking place surrounded by shops and restaurants and possibilities. We came out to go to Naresh and Shalini's place in Raynham and Carol says: "Where's the car?"

A great answer would have been, "There!". However it wasn't there! It had been towed away.
Rainfall, no taxis and night, a sick Mattie, no knowledge of the registration number of the car we were driving and relief..... relief that it had been towed, not stolen.

We reached it. We found it. Paid $113 with gratitude that at 7.30 pm there was still someone there to give it back to us. Drove to Naresh's and here we are the next day - a sunny morning and shopping possibilites.

With love.

Landed

Yes! I am here!
Many hours of excitement before the take off. Including a lost blog post - which I have just found and posted. So here I am in Rahul's - my brother - kitchen, enjoying fruit, great coffee, the sound of wind, the sun streaming in and lighting the hood and handles. Very pretty! A sense of wonder - I am here. The immigration officer who welcomed me in. Said my visa picture was nice. I said his smile was nice. He said "we try!"... it's all part of this beautiful montage of arrival.

Getting to know this land - there are no fences and boundary walls in Stamford neighborhoods. The trees are tall and every cluster of leaves dances in the wind in its own rhythm. The silence is new - roads exist without the sound of honking horns. Rosh Hoshana for Eesha my neice, is a school holiday. And now we go to the mall to get a sim card

THEN WE CHECK OUT THE CAR

The clock says 00:55. For the last two hours I have lived many life times - in a nice way. Connected with Sanah, painted, danced, copied CDs into itunes, passed out into a faux nap, had many ideas to say bye to each room in my house and each inner space in my being that is about the daily in delhi. And then, a moment of STOP. What did I want to say bye to? Is a journey like this something that is a beginning after an end? A dying to the old and being born to the new? I found a new meaning for this - there is no end and no beginning - all that I was trying to say bye to was all that I was trying to hold on to. So I found myself in another moment of continuity.

And so, I pack my bags, weigh them and touch them, one more time, enjoy the sight of this wonderfully red luggage now on the ground, at the door, waiting to fulfill each dream that it has been dreaming sitting on top of my closet counting the days to this moment of departure for AMERICA!!

"So you wanna be starting something" (courtesy MJ)

Beginning. A new beginning. Today I begin a new journey. How is it new? Is it really the beginning? What is actually beginning? If I or anyone reading this blog thought to find answers here, let this serve to clarify that misconception. This space can do no more than reflect the state of its authors. Maybe my fellow traveler will proffer some wisdom. Maybe our readers will suggest solutions. I would be grateful!

From me I predict paradox and anticipate ambiguity -- musings, favorite lines from favorite poets, snatches of partially captured moments, steps along this path with no beginning. A new journey starts with each step, with every breath.  Bismillah.

We're packed (mostly) and ready to nap before heading to the airport for our 3 am check-in. Delhi to Abu Dhabi to JFK. 'Homeward' bound. And that's another question for another day.