Shout Out #32

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  Darjeeling, India
Thursday, March 13, 2008

Just past noon the jeep stopped somewhere in Darjeeling near the main taxi stand. By train, cyclo, and truck the trip from Kolkata took about 16 hours. The overnight train landed in New Jaipalguri that morning. A cyclo took me 8 kilometers to the Jeep stand, and the 4-hour Jeep ride into the mountains completed the trip.
It was the one-year anniversary of being on the road and I was tired. A contemplative mood settled in for the last couple weeks in India. Time to kick my feet up, not get too involved, and reflect on whatever came to mind.
Finding a place to stay proved a trying task. The city was full of Indian tourists escaping the heat of the south. All the hotels and guestrooms were full. An hour of wandering door-to-door, up and down hilly streets and alleys with a 25 kg pack on my back turned up very few options. I'd checked over 20 places, almost all were full. A few had rooms costing over 1000 rupees (about $30), and one guy had the nerve to charge 300 for a place with no running water.
"No shower or toilet?"
"No."
"Not even shared?"
"No."
"300 rupees you said?" (You've got to be kidding me. I wouldn't pay $8 for that even in the United States.)
I hit the jackpot just as I was considering going back to a pricey spot. A friendly couple rented a few rooms out of a converted home. Their master suite was available for 500 rupees, not cheap but perfect. One full wall of windows looked over the steep, green mountains. The bed was soft, the floor was clean, the shower was hot, and I wanted all three.
The culture's different in the north. Darjeeling is closer to Nepal, Tibet, Bhutan, and Sikkim though it's still a part of West Bengal. The local culture was more Buddhist , the tourists were more Hindu. The options for thali and curry were limited to upscale restaurants. For cheap eats Tibetan momos were the choice.
A quiet little restaurant off a busy road served up a good plate of cheap momos. Two backpackers walked in while I was eating- an Asian woman with a European man. Andreas introduced himself with a smile. He was from Sweden and had an English question for me. I answered as best I could then introduced myself to the woman he was with. Mayuko (from Japan) instantly captured my attention. Some people move through the world with an exceptional radiance. Regardless of circumstance, they clearly have something the majority of us fail to express or emanate. Mayuko is one of those people.
I offer no explanation for what I saw in her eyes or how it impacted me. I only hope to grasp a piece of something innately intangible. When our eyes met I saw a flash of light in her retina for the briefest of moments. It was like looking into the spark before a match ignites. In that almost imperceptible length of time I knew she was a person I could bare my soul to. She could know and understand without the need to possess. It could just be, existing without idealizing or trying to make it different or culturally correct. I saw something full and complete...and it freaked me out.
I don't subscribe to the American measure of success. School→career→spouse→kids→empty nest→buy a Harley and a toupee→retire→die. Something happened somewhere between career and spouse. From a purely informational/intellectual perspective I see having a girlfriend or getting married as a fundamentally flawed arrangement. The culturally standard list of shoulds and shouldn'ts distorts love. What then for intimacy? How does a person who doesn't call when he's late and makes no guarantees about even arriving have intimacy with someone? Freedom and intimacy are not mutually exclusive. They are mutually binding. The standard list of shoulds and shouldn'ts only creates a barrier to intimacy. Rather than simply being with someone while with them we often take concern over issues of yesterday or tomorrow. "Where did that come from? This just isn't going anywhere?" It's possible to have both freedom and intimacy in relating to someone, it just takes much clarity and modesty. I've only seen it in glimpses.
With intimacy, my hang-up stems from a lack of both clarity and modesty. From a distance it would be easy to attribute my ideas to a fear of being hurt. Opening up to someone can lead to hurt. At a macro-scale there's probably some truth to that statement. A more accurate truth lies closer to the core. At a deeper level my fear has little to do with being exposed to someone else. Letting go and being fully open with someone means giving up control. It's myself I fear. 'Can I give up control without going off the deep-end?' I would most likely go off the deep-end and it would most likely be fabulous.
And there's an even deeper level of truth. Yes, I am more afraid of losing control and crushing myself than I am of being crushed by someone else, but the only way to truly know one's essence is in letting go- dissolving the sense of identity or self. I'm afraid of crushing myself- my identity- because I'm afraid of seeing who I really am. I shy away from being intimate with someone from a fear of intimately knowing myself. The dilemma is that it takes energy to pretend. I could pick up a girlfriend, play by society's rules though I don't agree with them, and hide behind the relationship do's and don'ts. However, it wears me out. Since my ideas differ from the way of the culture I'm in, I could choose to spend my days alone. If it's not done through introspection solitude takes energy too. Whether alone or with someone, what's the point if it's not done honestly? Really, there is no difference between a true relationship with self and a true relationship with someone else. Both are intimate and free. I saw myself in Mayuko's eyes.

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