to be home

Happy Chinese New Year and Happy Valentines Day and Hello from California!

Writing to you from home after a twelve hour sleep and it’s so good to be back. I left India early because I got sick.

I started getting sick on my last night in Varanasi. So did Liz. We were supposed to catch an overnight train from Varanasi to Delhi the next day and a bus to Rishikesh but we woke up that morning in no shape to take on a 12 hour train ride but really wanting to get out of Varanasi so we booked a flight out. We took a dusty 2 hour rickshaw ride to the tiny and chaotic Varanasi airport, flew to Delhi, and checked into a decent hotel. We collapsed on comfortable and beds and took a hot shower and felt clean for the first time in four days. We got a good sleep and woke up for a nice big breakfast and thought we were all better for our next move.

So we went to a travel agent to book a train ticket to Haridwar and got our laundry done, but after this it was all downhill for me. By the afternoon I had a fever and completely emptied my stomach and just felt totally miserable. Liz was not well either and we spent most of the day in our nice hotel room watching TV movies. We did have to go out to pick up our laundry and get our train tickets and when we went back to the travel agency the agent told us we were waitlisted for the train the next day but that he could get it confirmed in a few hours and we would just have to wait, and of course asked for money even though we did not agree to pay for a waitlisted ticket. It turned into an ordeal with Liz, quite the feisty girl, yelling at this guy in his office and took everything out on him venting about how tired she is of getting taken advantage of as a tourist, how hard it is to travel there, how its even harder being a female and trying to do this. (Poor guy felt sooo bad after he apologized a million times and before we left gave me his personal copy of the Dalai Lama’s autobiography).

There is a lot to deal with in India. You have to go there psychologically prepared to do so and it’s ok knowing that is part of why you choose to go there. Normally I’m fine with it... the constant honking horns, the hard bargaining, the touts, the pollution, the litter, the crowds, the poverty. But I lost my ability to tollerate this once my health declined and was unable to eat anything. My stomach refused the smallest amount of spice and I could only drink water and salty lime sodas. And with India anything is possible in good and bad ways. Last time I was there I recorded an album and a thousand doors opened. But this time I was sick and not sure how or what it was and I didn’t let my head get into the possibilities of what this could be but I knew I did not want to deal with it there. A discussion of going home actually came up in Varanasi, and as Liz and I tried to figure out what we were going to do we decided that if the travel agent could get our train ticket to Rishikesh confirmed we would go there with the option of coming back whenever we wanted, and if the ticket didn’t get confirmed we would go home the next day. The tickets did not get confirmed. I spent a little more time battling things out in my head, trying not to feel like a quitter, trying to listen to my heart.....which told me it’s ok, go home.

So I flew out the next night at 3:30 am and got into Los Angeles at 3:30 pm. February 12th was literally the longest day I have ever lived and lasted 36 hours for me. I felt like some kind of time traveller by being able to fit 24 hours of experienced time into 12 hours of clock time. It was a 9 hour flight from New Delhi to London. I had 5 hours at London’s super posh Heathrow airport. I thought about taking the Tube and visit Abbey Road or Notting Hill but it was 1 degree Celcius and rainy outside so instead I found some miso soup (finally something to eat!!) and Nick Hornby’s new book and tried to wrap my brain around the fact that I was now in England. It was a 10 hour flight from London to Los Angeles and I felt my fever coming back so I covered myself with a blanket, inflated my portable pillow, took a tylenol pm, and watched part of a reeally cool music movie called It Might Get Loud till I fell asleep. And before I knew it I was through the United States immigration and customs and in a car with Nancy and Laura...and home.

I’m still recovering and slowly building up my ability to eat but I am ok and happy to be be back. I’m not even that bummed I’m missing out on Rishikesh and Dharamsala (the two places I really wanted to go to on this trip) cause I’m in no shape to be doing yoga and and though I won’t be able to see the Dalai Lama in his hometown it turns out I’ll get to see him in mine cause he’ll be in LA next weekend giving a lecture! And even better it’s the same time Risa is here and we now have front row balcony seats for a week from today. And I know I'll go back to India someday, I still carry a big affection for her.

So I made a complete circle around the world in three weeks. This trip may be have been half as short as I planned, but my last one was twice as long. And even though I had to come back in an undesirable circumstance it gave me an immense appreciation for my life here and I am looking forward to being healthy enough to get it started. The biggest difference with this trip is that I am returning without the need to go jump out of America as soon as I can and it is a relief to not feel that restlessness. A palm reader I met in Bali told me that on my travels I would find what I’m looking for on this trip. At the time I wasn’t even sure what I was looking for but now I know that it is love for what I already have.