Pictures

Okay. I will try to put some pictures in. Happy Birthday to Auroville.

the numbers

the number of degrees the temperature has
gone up this week: 15

the number of gallons of sweat I sweated today: 100

the number of showers I took in the last ten days: 0

the number of days I went without food: 2

the number of times I was hungry: 0

the number of new people of great amazingness
I will know in Seattle now: 14

the number of pairs of clean underwear I have: 0

the number of smiles in the last ten days: a million

the number of tears: a million

the number of nights I slept outside way
up on some rocks under some stars: 10

the number of sunsets and sunrises I saw: 20

the number of mosquito bites on me: a million and one

the number of years I have now: 20

the number of people in the world who can say
they emerged from two days of solitude in a tree-
cave on their 20th birhtday: 1

the number of days I have left in this place: 18

the number of times I wish to thank the universe
for all this: infinite

School

I am a teacher at a school in India and it is crazy. School is loud. There is always shouting in a mix of English and Tamil and Tamglish and a general confusion. But so much life. So little boredom. This week we went on a field trip to Sahdana Forest, a farm 5 km away from New Creation Bilingual School. The 17 children in our class borrowed bikes from the some of the teachers and made a raggedy line down the dirt road, spread out over almost a kilometer. Their teacher, Parumal, rode with two kids on the back of his moped up and down the line of us, checking on and cajoling everyone. Each bike had one kid pedaling and one sitting precariously over the back wheel. When we got onto the main road with all the cars zipping by, and I looked down the long line of children in their purple uniforms and slow, wobbly riding and complete lack of helmets and attention to the traffic, I had a passing thought of how no American mother would ever sign a permission slip for such a field trip. We got to the farm and learned how to put mulch around trees in preparation for the hotter months. Ravi and Iyappan, the class wiseguys, stole my camera and went wild taking pictures of each other and me and the trees and the sky and everything else. We all went and had a green banana for breakfast, and then some of us found the mud hole and hopped in in our clothes to cool off. The water was completely opaque, the color and thickness of milk tea. The mud at the bottom was slick and smooth and jelly-like. It was glorious. The ride home was as disorganized as our previous journey, with the addition of some sopping clothes and a flat tire for me. It was the good kind of day.

Dearest everyone. From the 16^th to the 26^th I will be in Hampi. I will live outside on some rocks. Sometimes I will live in a cave. I will go on a 40 hour water fast called a sacred solo where I won’t talk to anyone or see anyone or hear anyone. I will not have any internet or telephone whilst I am there. Please do not be disturbed when you don’t hear from me during this time.

my feet

i know that when i get back i will find it difficult to remember not to remove my shoes before coming into a house or going in to a class. i love being barefoot. i love my dirt orange toenails. i love how the fish nibble at my skin when i dip my feet in the pond here. i love how sometimes my feet trip over the ant moat on my way up the ladder to my capsule. i love how i still have to take off my shoes to enter the capsule, which is pretty much just some elevated outsideness made of sticks and rope. i love how i kick at the mosquito net with my feet from the inside to get the bugs off and to scare the rat in the ceiling into shutting up for a while. i love how my feet are started to get wider from doing yoga.

i miss you.