i'm thinking about the books other people were reading in when i stayed in the himalayas in rishikesh. As they trekked back and forth to their yoga classes, people were talking about meditation, about the Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, about Buddhism. Conversations about love and loss, letting go, seeking peace, releasing one's self from fear... they flowed right around me because i was just so calm; after 1.5 years away, it all seemed simple. I was self sufficient and in control. I was aware of the unbearable pain of loss and also of its inevitability.

and then i came back here and lost all perspective and forgot my priorities and my hard-won equilibrium slipped away.

It was easy to be accepting and happy and to live in the moment when i was in india and everyone i cared about was 6000 miles away. It sounds odd, but it is true. Maybe I could just indulge in a little Wishful Thinking Syndrome and remember everyone and everything here through rose coloured glasses (to mix my metaphors). Maybe the idea of loss seemed just a little easier from the other side of the world.

I need to pull back and regroup.

*

The biggest lesson I learned in India was simple and cliched and obvious and impossible: happiness comes from within.

It's not that I'm about to go new-age on you... but maybe I should.

3:01 p.m. - 2005-05-19