visa applications and temple

Will it be the same? Writing this time? I suppose we shall see.

I am sort of looking forward to the journey. Sort of is an understatement. I am doing all I can to stay in the present and resist the temptation to project myself off into the future, into some idealized time 2 months from now, when I am in India. I know I will be there soon enough. To just be where I am and appreciating this moment, here and now, is the challenge, but i feel it is of the utmost importance.

I am wondering if the creative urge to write will well up inside me again. I am not sure what at all is going to happen. Lots has changed in the last 2 years since I was last in India. ... when was that? i came back to Canada April 30th, 2009. I was just looking back in my passport the other day. So that means it has not even been 2 years since I was there. Time flies. No, it will have been only 1 and a half years between trips. that is so cool. Of course I couldn't have done it without the loving support of my parents. Thank you.

Actually, I've been very busy in those 1 and a half years.

I am looking forward to being over there and not having to do anything but sit on a rock and watch the Ganga flow by. Does that sound like a waste of time to any one out there? Believe me, I am looking forward to it.

So I was perusing my passport the other day, as I said. I was preparing my application for my Indian visa and they want to know all about your past trips to India. So I was hunting around in the pages of my passport, trying to decode all the stamps and stickers and read the smudge entry and exit dates in languages I can't read. luckily numbers are universal to all languages. well, i mean, the actual form of the numbers.

I had to get my visa pictures redone because the first batch was totally the wrong size. duh. The second batch turned out waaay better anyhow. I was in some kind of funk the first time I went for pictures. The second time I was feeling a little bit mischevious and made a bit of a silly face.... but it is still a serious face, as is required for all passport photos now. You are not allowed to smile. and of course i forgot and was grinning like a fool, until i remembered not to smile, so I think I reeled in my mouth, but my eyes are still clearly smiling... there is nothing they can do about that, is there. Goofy picture.

The visa application is a hoot too. Typical Indian document. It makes me a little eager for my trip and nostalgic for the country that I call my second home. What am I eager for? I think I am most eager to go back to a place where money is not the main pre-occupation with the people. I am eager to be amongst a people who know how to pray, who consider the destiny of their soul almost every day. Maybe I am idealizing it. Many would say I am, and I guess that is why I don't want to think about it too much. I don't want to romanticize it before I get there and then feel let down because I've built it up so much in my mind or something.

It is very difficult to explain, because our society is so... ambitious, so driven, so obsessed with collecting nuts for the winter. And I know many will think this is naive and silly, but I just want to sit on the sand and look out over the ocean.... eat a mango, take a nap in my hammock. When did life become so complicated? This is what my friends and I were just asking ourselves tonight as we picnicked on the studio floor by candlelight.... When did it all get so complicated? We just want to sit on the water's edge somewhere with our toes dangling in the water.

Today my friend Steph took me to temple. We had 20 minutes to kill while we were waiting for our pakoras and chaat from Spice on the north shore. It was so peaceful in there. We went in, removed our shoes, washed our hands and covered our heads (how is it that i just happened to be wearing a sort of dupatta or scarf that day around my neck). No one was in the temple, which was carpeted in a typical Indian bright red and blue carpet. There is a large Punjabi population in Kamloops. Steph is... 2nd or 3rd generation? Her dad was raised in Canada and although he is Indian, he is as Canadian as my dad is.

Temple was quiet. We offered our prayers and prostrations. It felt good to press my head to the floor. And then we sat quietly without speaking and just absorbed the peace of the room. Quietly a recording of chanting was playing. It was utterly peaceful and soothing. The feeling that something greater was at play than our silly day to day worries and concerns that we get so caught up in like they actually MEAN something. So calm, so very relaxing and nurturing. It was wonderful. What an oasis. As we nibbled our prasad, Steph told me stories about her childhood and her mother. After we left I continued to feel so calm and just an overall sense of wellbeing and relaxation and ease that I did not have going in. All these tensions and worries just melted away. It was heaven.

Thank you Steph!