last day in Pokhara

The morning is foggy in Pokhara.
I woman wrapped in the traditional Nepali red colour is talking gently to her young yak as she coaxes him down a rocky path. Women talking to yaks, guys singing to dogs…. What IS this place?
The town seems still asleep, even though it is almost 11, it feels like 6. The fog slows us down.

I spent a good first night in my sparse room at the Buddhist centre. It reminds me a lot of the summer camp I went to when I was a kid. Gavin Lake.

Not much is going on around there at the centre. Indeed I barely knew there were any other inhabitants except for an odd door creaking somewhere or a figure padding off to the communal bathroom.

The path down from the centre has power lines drooping dangerously low overhead. I could reach up my hand and easily touch them. If I was 6 foot tall I would be ducking to walk beneath them. But Nepali’s are not all that tall…so I guess it’s not an issue.

Last night there was no power as I sat on the terrace reading so, as the sky darkened, I gave up and went to my room. It was only 7 so I lit a candle and read by that for awhile before nodding off to sleep. I think the reading by candlelight at night is starting to strain my eyes so I will try to limit how much I do it. Perhaps MORE candles would produce MORE light. It has got me to thinking that I would really like to have laser surgery on my eyes and be done with wearing glasses.

My body feels like it needs a massage but I am more than reluctant to pull my clothes off in this chill that hangs over the valley. Perhaps I will tell my body to wait for a warmer month.

I have discovered here in Pokhara, a small enclave of paragliders. An intrepid bunch, mostly men, from many different countries all over the world, holed up in Pokhara for its favourable flying conditions and congregating at “My Beautiful” Café watching Monty Pythonesque British comedy on somebody’s laptop. You see the craziest things when you’re traveling.
Anyhow.
I was inspecting my shoes this morning. They are wearing pretty thin. They are starting to feel like moccasins on the pavement. Hope they last until I get back on Canadian soil. I am not excited about Indian sneakers.
Just biding my time on this visa run.
Tomorrow I head back to Kathmandu. I would like to stay an extra day here but have decided to give myself that extra day in Kathmandu instead, in case of any foul ups with the visa. Pretty responsible and foresightful of me, I thought.
Although I am not practicing any yoga or meditation these past few days, I am preparing myself mentally and psychologically for the teacher training that will start at the end of this month.
One thing that has been transforming is the way I look at my life. I don’t feel as much the pressure or expectation that I have to BE somebody, DO something, or GO somewhere, that I have felt my whole adult life. This is a pressure I have placed on myself. No one else ever put it on me. Perhaps I picked it up from society. But this pressure or expectation I placed on myself was stressing me out, robbing me of my peace of mind and making it so I was unable to enjoy the moment, for what it was..... perfect. Always looking to the future, looking to someplace other than where I was…..it was a sickness.

So I don’t feel that pressure so much. Something is shifted.
I mean, that’s not to say that one shouldn’t have ambitions or goals. Certainly we should. But at the same time, we should have complete and utter acceptance of ourselves and love ourselves like we are perfect, inherently, not based in measuring ourselves by external conditions: our degree of success in a career or how much money we make or how we dress or how many people wish they were us or what they think of us or any of those silly things. It is a jail to live like that. Isn’t it.