Bus rides are times of deep introspection for me. Something about a long journey down twisting roads makes me very thoughtful. Riding the bus to Chitwan, I found myself looking out at the amazing scenery, mist-shrouded green hills, rice patties, rivers with no trash in them...A lot of people both here, and back home, have asked me, "So, why Nepal?" It's a decent question. One that is hard to answer. I've tried. I've given many different versions, all of which are true, but none of which really captures the essence of what drove me across several continents. Since I write better than I speak, I decided to attempt, once more, to put this into words.
I have spent the past several years of my life feeling a hardening creep into my heart. What was once youthful, joyful, eager and perpetually hopeful, has developed a crustiness that is slowly making my heart more brittle and less optimistic about life. I can see it happening. I can sense myself "getting old" and I'm only 28. I have tried superficial ways to battle the hardening, like yoga, church, gelatto, patting myself on the back for any remotely selfless thing I do...but I have known, for some time, that the element that was missing from my life was a truer expression of myself, a following of Divine leading, and an opportunity for adventure.
A week before I left for Kathmandu, I sat in the Teacup on Queen Anne Hill. Not far away, two women were being advised by a "life coach": a slim woman in wrinkled linen pants and disheveled hair who appeared totally comfortable in her own skin. The women she was working with however, sported bleached hair and collagen-enhanced mouths, designer track suits and a vague look of the lost and helpless beneath their clumps of mascara. She was talking to them about changing themselves through meditation, and coming back to life. They nodded and looked relieved. Yes, they were thinking, I can get that back. I can feel beautiful and vibrant again and then I can wear wrinkled linen pants and sit cross legged in a restaurant and everyone will love me and see how at peace I am with myself and the world. At least, this is what I believed them to be thinking, because it is essentially what I was thinking.
On the bus ride to Chitwan, I decided to probe the crusty, less joyful areas of myself a bit. What was happening within me? I knew that Kathmandu had been quite rough on my prissy side. I knew that my schedule had been fatiguing to my body. I knew I was loving the adventure. But had the hardness dissolved at all? Could I find my own pulse again? As I looked around inside my head, I was surprised at the peace I found there. And somehow, the crusty scabs seemed to be flaking off. Raw, new skin, that might one day be beautiful and supple, seemed to have been forming around my heart. I felt alive.
I have tried, time and again, to pinpoint what exactly is doing this inside me. Why am I at peace with myself? Why do I know that life is worthwhile? My eyes filled with tears and I felt like the burden of five years fell away from me. But I still don't know precisely why.
Here is what I do know: when I arrive at work to teach displaced Tibetans early every morning, they give me huge smiles and chant "Good morning, miss!" And I feel the hesitant fingers of souls reaching out to me, trying to figure out who I am. And I love to teach.
I know that when I eat lunch alone in Swoyambu cafe, reading books on spirituality, that I feel free and relieved and okay with not having all the answers.
I know that when I arrive at the AIDS orphanage at 1 PM, that at least thirteen pairs of arms will reach for me. I will receive thirty greetings in a language I don't understand. A twelve year old boy who is HIV positive and smaller than an American 6 year old will hug me around the waist and beam at me like I am the sunshine of his life. A little girl will tug at me, trying to get my exclusive attention because she has never had anyone to herself in all her life. I know that I will want to tell them that they are the ones ministering to an aching soul, and not the other way around. I don't have any way to say this, but I hug them back, and I say their names very poorly, and I pray for them all as they reach out just to touch me...just to contact someone from the outside world who doesn't care that they have an incurable disease.
I know that I will walk filthy streets home, and wear a mask to shield myself from the pollution but cough anyway. I know I might get hit by a bus or a scooter driving recklessly (it's a regular event!) I know that there will likely not be power when I arrive at the house. I know I will bat mosquitoes away all evening long. I know I will have to hand wash my laundry if it's not raining. I know I will take a cold shower in a bathroom that smells of sewage, and have to put iodine in my water, and I will sleep on a two-inch thick pallet, and pray for the street dogs to quit howling and taxis to quite honking so I can get some rest. I know I will feel lonely. I know I am supposed to be here.
I have not been able to identify if it is the stripping away of my creature comforts, which I think create a soft barrier between us and the raw truth of life. I do not know if it is the comfortable way that Nepalis think of life and death and safety and danger. I do not know if it is seeing joy in people who are born into a class which gives them no mobility for their entire life. I do not know if it's realizing how small and useless I am in a world of need. I do not know if it's the fact that I have removed the preoccupation of a career, a husband, a house, a Netflix queue, a Costco membership, daily exercise, or coupon clipping so I can afford to go out to eat.
I know, however, that I do not have to harden. I do not have to die as I age, but can rather find each day more vibrant than the last. When I do finally kick the bucket, it will be not because I am used up, but because I have too much life to be contained in this temporary shell any longer.
I am not happier. Not in the real meaning of "happy." How can I be? Hardship and injustice and sheer stupidity and futility surround me. And yet that raw, newborn heart is throbbing with so much more strength than it was only a few months ago. I know that I am living in the center of Divine will, that I am living what I was meant and built and yearning to be. I know that the shedding of safety nets and comfort is worth the adventure. I know.... sort of.... who I am.
Letitia this is amazing and I love this. It completely puts into words the many things I'm trying to process coming back from Africa.
ReplyDeletePlease make sure to enjoy it. Because coming back was the hardest thing ever. I love you my kindred spirit. And I'm praying for you and the rest of your time in Nepal.
Sounds like a nice experience; sound like feelings we all deal with as part of becoming an adult and accepting life responsibilities, but most of us plod on rather than asking our friends to pay for a self-indulgent escape halfway around the world. Think how the money for your trip could be used to help these people rather than fund your own need for "introspection." It's called growing up and dealing with the fact that life is hard and not always fun. How exactly is this something people should donate to???
ReplyDelete^^^ Whomever this is makes me angry.
ReplyDeleteRemoving one's self completely from one's comfort zone and truly seeing the need in the world first-hand often helps one gain perspective and the ability to see the need around them when one returns home.
There are many people who have a burden in their hearts toward people in different parts of the world. There's nothing wrong with that.
By your own standard there, Mother Teresa (who was from Albania) should never have gone to Calcutta, India and never should have started serving the orphans and the people there.
If you have a burden for your own town, great! Get off your ass and do something there, but don't attack this woman who is admittedly tearing away her self-centered attitude to allow compassion for other people's suffering to enter her heart.
We could use a little more perspective and compassion in this world if you ask me.
And, clearly, you do not know this particular woman, because she is not merely a person who is out to have introspective moments for her own benefit. This woman is someone who sees injustice and takes up arms against it.
Well, thanks for coming to my defense, T. I can see the argument anon2010 is making. However it is incomplete in its logic. As a qualified professional, there would be no way for a Nepali non-profit to pay me what my time is actually worth, so the donations make it possible for me to step away from my traditional job for a brief period in order to do some work here. I am not MAKING money I am simply offsetting some cost. I think it is also worth noting that some of the money will go directly to the non-profits I'm serving, which include an HIV orphanage and a society that educates Tibetan refugees.
ReplyDeleteWell said Tish. All of it. It takes sacrifice and some hard cash to get things done in this world. And if some personal health benefits can be gained for yourself on your journey of serving others, then all the better! -Shea
ReplyDeleteBeautiful. I do not believe that God gave us this life to "plod on" throughout... There are times, yes, that we have to press forward. But I don't think most of us, myself included, realize just how good God is. I also don't think many know how to really live life as God intended- I am still trying to figure out what that looks like, but certainly with a heart swelling with love and joy. I hope He gives you an abundance of both, Letitia. It is not an easy thing to examine the crusty parts, and even more difficult to muster the courage to do something about them. Life is epic. It has to be... and it's only the beginning. :)
ReplyDeleteOddly enough, I get where the anon poster (for some reason, in my head it's a "he", which I'm sure says more about me if anything) is coming from. That said, they don't have to donate. Period.
ReplyDeleteNext, I really appreciate the things you wrote. It's hard to put into words when one's paradigm shifts. It conjures up poetry and deep discussions with God. I like it. Anytime the veil gets lifted there is the chance for the extraordinary. I'm happy you got to experience that.
This Christina,by the way ;~)
Now that my wife has spoken up, I feel like I should add something.
ReplyDeleteI DESPISE anonymous posters. It's the biggest thing I hate about the internet. Because it's so easy to criticize others and pick apart their lives and motivations without ever having to turn the same scrutinizing eye upon ourselves.
Here's the deal. People in Nepal can't help people in Nepal. They need people from OUTSIDE Nepal to come into Nepal to help fix Nepal. That's how foreign aid works. That's why if Letitia hadn't gone herself, she would have sent money to Nepal, and that money would have paid for someone to do exactly what she's doing. Instead of doing that, and remaining safely inside of her own American comfort zone, she has actually journeyed there herself. She's there helping. She's also getting a deep, introspective experience out of it.
So here's the deal, "anon2010." Letitia isn't perfect, just like everybody else. But she's DOING something. Instead of sitting in her friendly little financial American bubble criticizing the REAL work that OTHER people are attempting to do, she's trying to be a part of the solution. That's laudable. OF COURSE she's not perfect, because gosh, you know, she's A HUMAN. How dare she.
Anonymous, critical postings that don't contribute solutions are part of the problem. You're sitting at you're computer, she's teaching in Nepal. That's the difference. If you'd had the stones to actually contribute to the conversation (by, oh I don't know, not being a COWARD and maybe signing your name), I would actually consider what you have to say. But you don't want to be a part of the solution. You just want other people to feel as bad as you do for being part of the problem. I have no patience for that sort of thing.
It may be you are someone I know. It may be you are a dear friend of mine. If so, all of my comments still stand. Perhaps you are a very good, active person in real life, but if that's true, what you posted here is FAR beneath who you really are. We all have an opportunity to get together and try to fix the world. And we all have to start somewhere. Maybe it happens in Nepal, maybe in Kansas City, maybe here in New York where I'm learning how to be a husband and an actor and a decent human being.
But we have to keep trying to fix it, and we can't give up on each other, and we can't knock each other down for trying.
I also want everybody to know that I wrote this, and then went back through and took out all the swearing. Even I can make progress.
Also, this is Ben, NOT his wife Christina this time...
-Ben
(not Christina)
Now that my wife has spoken up, I feel like I should add something.
ReplyDeleteI DESPISE anonymous posters. It's the biggest thing I hate about the internet. Because it's so easy to criticize others and pick apart their lives and motivations without ever having to turn the same scrutinizing eye upon ourselves.
Here's the deal. People in Nepal can't help people in Nepal. They need people from OUTSIDE Nepal to come into Nepal to help fix Nepal. That's how foreign aid works. That's why if Letitia hadn't gone herself, she would have sent money to Nepal, and that money would have paid for someone to do exactly what she's doing. Instead of doing that, and remaining safely inside of her own American comfort zone, she has actually journeyed there herself. She's there helping. She's also getting a deep, introspective experience out of it.
So here's the deal, "anon2010." Letitia isn't perfect, just like everybody else. But she's DOING something. Instead of sitting in her friendly little financial American bubble criticizing the REAL work that OTHER people are attempting to do, she's trying to be a part of the solution. That's laudable. OF COURSE she's not perfect, because gosh, you know, she's A HUMAN. How dare she.
Anonymous, critical postings that don't contribute solutions are part of the problem. You're sitting at you're computer, she's teaching in Nepal. That's the difference. If you'd had the stones to actually contribute to the conversation (by, oh I don't know, not being a COWARD and maybe signing your name), I would actually consider what you have to say. But you don't want to be a part of the solution. You just want other people to feel as bad as you do for being part of the problem. I have no patience for that sort of thing.
It may be you are someone I know. It may be you are a dear friend of mine. If so, all of my comments still stand. Perhaps you are a very good, active person in real life, but if that's true, what you posted here is FAR beneath who you really are. We all have an opportunity to get together and try to fix the world. And we all have to start somewhere. Maybe it happens in Nepal, maybe in Kansas City, maybe here in New York where I'm learning how to be a husband and an actor and a decent human being.
But we have to keep trying to fix it, and we can't give up on each other, and we can't knock each other down for trying.
I also want everybody to know that I wrote this, and then went back through and took out all the swearing. Even I can make progress.
Also, this is Ben, NOT his wife Christina this time...
-Ben
(not Christina)
Letitia, I'm so impressed by your words and what you are doing in Nepal. GOOD FOR YOU!! I am happy to make a donation to this worthy cause! You are making a difference and spreading compassion!
ReplyDelete