Authenticity

A little over a week ago I attended a class at Gabrielle Roth's 5 Rhythm studio in New York City. It has taken until now to realize how much of an impact the class really had on me. I feel that it has helped me overcome a deep-rooted internal barrier that needed dismantling.

The 5 Rhythms:
Flowing
Staccato
Chaos
Lyrical
Stillness

"It's Friday night!" Apparently people my age are supposed to be cavorting around with other young lovelies, drinking and indulging. Why? Why why why? I've been desperate to find something that helps me blow off steam, let loose, and is also good for me. The "Night Waves" class if from 7 - 9 PM every Friday.

I walked into the classroom, sliding through a mass of independently dancing bodies, and started giggling as I told my friend that I had her water bottle. Persephone smiled at me, and put her finger to her lips - shhhh! No talking! So, like her, I started dancing.

First, loosening my shoulders, then onto the moves that my surface-level ego pushed out. On through moves from jazz class, Bollywood dance club, other hip-y and sway-y type moves, all superficial and standard, warming up.

There were at least 40 people swaying to their own rhythms. I was so aware at first, of them, my image, of the people that attended the class with me, especially my fiancee Puneet because he supposedly doesn't dance and is sometimes uncomfortable with "different" experiences.

After a half hour or so I found myself out of ideas. How could I possibly keep dancing for another hour and a half? Aiy. My standard moves were all used up. Through my precursory observation of others I noticed the dances my classmates were employing really weren't typical dances at all. Some people stretched low across the floor. Other jumped as if in a mosh pit. Still more looked as if they were dancing with an invisible partner, swaying to and fro to rhythms unheard.

I got into it. Further. I tried to move to reach muscles that ached to be used, but are neglected in urban, office, modern-day lifestyles. The back was the hardest place to loosen up. I danced vertical, horizontal, compelling my body to move in ways never done before.

The teacher, Tammy Burstein, created a pressure cooker environment, pushing us with music and a high vibration environment to become ourselves. The music pulsed, so did the people. She galloped through occasionally, never overtly observing, just checking in, reading the massive vibrating group of people who needed or craved the healing dance facilitates.

After an hour of this she stopped us. Time to sit together. It was here that the she imparted her theory to us. Dancing to her own intrinsic beat she explained that what's important about this class is that it provides a space where you can be the truest version of yourself. Diving into the unpredictability, the unknown of where our bodies will take us, can be a terrifying experience at first. We are scared of ourselves, spending all of our days, sometimes all of our lives, fitting into an external structure.

I mean, when has any teacher or healer in your life actually said, "Do what the truest, deepest part of you desires?" NEVER, to me at least. Maybe I was supposed to know how to be myself. After all, who's managing my life if not me? In truth, I feel that I am constantly compromising, forgetting that today can always be the best day of my life if I just follow where my heart and soul crave to go.


I accept the status quo of eating foods I dislike, and listening to the watery radio and media because it's easy, living just to get to tomorrow when everything is supposed to be, eternally tomorrow. I make decisions based on a convoluted, confusing notion of what I think I should want, what other people want, and what the general populace defines as proper.

There are so many ways I do a disservice to myself in this way.

WHY?

So the theory part of the dance urges you to really get into it, LET GO! Be yourself, follow the inner beat you crush by shaking hands and sitting at desks. Become yourself, grow and heal in the process.

Anyway, I'll keep this short for now, mostly so I can go stand and watch the rain.

I feel more myself. I am dancing everywhere. People in my life know I do this already, but not nearly enough! In grocery stores, kitchens, cars! But perhaps more important, I am for the first time really asking myself in responses, actions, words, "What feels the most authentic?" Actually, I'm just being more real. Like I said, it seems so obvious, but someone had to show me because I was programmed otherwise. This class has given me permission to be myself.

There is no reason for apathy or lethargy or depression. They are non-issues in a world of vibrant, truthful movement.


love, t

Birthday Weekend Wonderings

The sun wakens me, as well as the methodic yell of the men and boys walking through the train, selling cups of steaming hot, sugary milk tea. Having woken up somewhere between Varanasi and Delhi, I don’t worry too much about how far the train is from the city. I’ll know it when it comes because the sweeps of green and wheat-colored fields I see now will slowly become the crumbling walls and trash piles of the industrialized urban edge.

For my birthday weekend Puneet and I took a trip to Varanasi, south and east of Delhi - about a 12 hour train ride. One of my travel guides claims, “There is nothing that can prepare you for the beauty of Varanasi.” I don’t know what this travel writer was smoking, seriously. The city was built up on the side of the Ganges, India’s biggest river which is now polluted and unsafe to even bathe in, The eastern coast is empty as far as the eye can see, besides some trees and a few people. It is also empty because it is new land - the river has dried up significantly in the past couple years and left a strange marsh in its wake. Steps ascend from the western coast to a series of cramped buildings, temples, and cremation grounds that run together for miles. For Hindus, dying in Varanasi means escaping the bitter cycle of death and rebirth. Washing in the Ganges is a supposedly cleansing and purifying, physically and spiritually, and thousands go about it with fervor and ritual throughout the day. I saw swimmers taking the water into their mouths, completely immersed. Not sure if they know or care about the bacterial levels which are thousands of times higher than what is considered safe.

On land white skin signals money (but doesn’t it everywhere?!), and people aren’t shy about trying to get it from you. It is mostly men who approach you, follow you, and attempt to push you into taking a ride in their rickshaw or buying their wares. It is exhaustive and tiring, constantly fighting for space. What’s charming about the city in momentary doses, is overwhelming and wearisome if you stay for too long. After three days in Varanasi I think the writer of the travel guide I referenced must have been joking, or seriously exoticizing the entire city. People that serve you in restaurants are poor and thin. Rickshaw drivers look sick, and the last one who brought us to the train station didn’t even have shoes.

On water there are little boats that follow big boats, trying to sell trinkets to customers. One little dinghy I saw actually had a TV in it. The sea-side hawkers were playing Krishna Das (an American turned Indian devotional hymn singer) from their boat. It all felt like a joke - here we tourists are trying to spy on these intriguing spiritual customs and here everyone else is desperately trying to sell them to you - and of course the Westernized version that you prefer. I listen to Krishna Das at home - and there they are knowing exactly what people like me want. It felt too plastic, despite the dirt, and I was glad to leave.

Just as we were saying farewell and good riddance to the city, our train was delayed. We left, came back, and ended up waiting a couple hours longer. Seated amongst the mass of other people waiting, along with cockroaches, flies, rats, mosquitoes, and a strong stench of urine, I became appreciative that this was only one day of my life that I must endure these struggles against overt and confrontational ugliness. Laying my scarf on the sticky train station floor, and leaning against our luggage, I finished the book I have been reading, “Sea of Poppies,” by Amitav Ghosh. I was able to ignore most of the mania around me, and with Puneet pacing without sight, I wasn’t too worried for my safety.

Then something happened that was really destabilizing. I swear, having lived in the US most of my life, you have never seen old-age until you have been in this country. Never disability or hunger in these ways, so real and up close and prolonged. A beggar was moving around the station, using his hands and one of his legs to walk. He moved in the same way monkeys do. Thin and with a stump for a leg though I didn’t look too close at him. I see beggars every single day, dozens, and I am not moved or bothered by them as much as I used to be. The presence of this man terrified me. Seated on the ground with him hopping towards me, one hand extended and singing his beggar chant, I felt by temperature rise and my heartbeat quicken. I am so cut off from this world, even though I live in a normal neighborhood in Delhi. He stared at me for a while, palm extended, and then finally gave up. After he beggar left the area where I was sitting I was still scared, thinking I could feel his presence behind me. I would see a flash out of the corner of my eye as I was reading, and imagine it was him. I feel slightly ashamed for dehumanizing him with my fear. When something doesn’t seem like us, “The Other“, it’s scary. But all people are people. Once you talk to them it’s easy to relate. But the thing is, once you relate it becomes really hard to keep that distance which is essential to having a normal life without falling apart every time you see someone you wish you could help. I cannot change every beggar’s life, and I can give away all of the money I have (and don’t have!) and will ever make without making much of a difference in the wider problems of poverty.

That’s why I’m interested in economic policy so much. I see inequalities widening all over the world. The poor are, as so many have said, left behind. They are victims of our prosperity and a world that is preoccupied with pleasing and entertaining the rich (us!).

Again at the train station, I sat with a juice box next to me. Without looking up I saw there was someone standing next to me, arms outstretched. As a reader you might consider what you would have done in my position. You might additionally consider what you would do if this happened to you 20 times a day. I ignored the boy, noticed his stick thin legs but continued to read. He sat down next to me, and pointed to my juice box. I said no. After all, I had a 12 hour train journey ahead of me and felt like I needed that sustenance. I looked down, his tired finger still touching the juice box. The image of his thin hand flashed in my mind. I looked up - this little boy seriously looked like a walking skeleton. His bones were visible everywhere, back, arms, elbows. A bag of child bones was sitting next to me. I gave him the juice box. He sat, drank it, dropped the empty container, and then slowly lumbered away.

This weekend I found myself thinking as I sometimes do when I’m overwhelmed, “I am not from here. I do not belong here. This place is not meant for people like me.” What does that mean, “people like me“? The streets filled with trash, beggars searching for the next meal, these are people created out of circumstance. Remember. That could be me, it could be you, though it’s not. In the U.S., and among the privileged, there is this real belief in the meritocracy. Work hard at what you do and everything will turn out right. If I remember correctly, some have claimed this is the old Protestant work ethic that as used to justify exploiting the poor….need to re-research that. Anyway, there is this sense that the poor are not educated because they don’t want to be educated. Because they are lazy, because they do drugs, because they are inherently stupid. It’s like that strange argument I’ve heard fundamentalist, conservatives sayiny, “People choose to be gay. To beg. To work at McDonalds and not improve themselves etc.etc.etc.”

I think it’s important that we recognize how our choices affect other people. I was walking down the street with one of Puneet’s family friends. She is Indian-Australian, probably around 28. A lot of the Indian women I’ve met are obsessed with gold and jewelry. Her ears and fingers were dripping with diamonds, dozens of them, small and big alike. We passed an old woman begging. We ignored her. Then, the girl quietly confided in me, “It’s just not fair, is it?” Her tone implied that the world is just sad and unfair and her life or lifestyle has nothing to do with it. Later, talking to Puneet, I realized that it was her overwhelming conspicuous consumption that bothered me. One of her tiny diamonds could have fed that old woman for an entire year! Without judging too much externally, however, I realize I must criticize myself. I live an extravagant lifestyle, all things considered. I have been jet-setting around the world for years - this is my 7^th trip to Asia in the past three. I spend an average Indian’s daily salary on one cup of coffee just about every day. I am constantly pushing myself to be more aware of the impact I have on other people’s lives, but still maintain a sane level of functioning.

Is it, or is it not your personal responsibility to take care of the less fortunate? We need to first recognize that our lives are extensions of theirs. Our SUVs consume gas that we have taken from underneath other people’s soil, typically through some exploitative charade I.e. “The War on Terror.”

The world being the way it is, is ugly and dirty - poverty and power - but it all makes sense, actually. Unfettered capitalism creates class extremes, the rich then infiltrate the government (and in the US laughingly call it democracy) to serve their own means. Let that run for a while, governments retarding other governments, and see what happens!

Enough for now. Please encourage me that I may continue embracing learning the truth, whatever it may be.

Three months

It's been three months and I am missing home. I've been thinking a lot about my childhood in the country, missing how summer in Michigan feels, though I know it's just getting to be spring there! Delhi is wearing me down, pollution and traffic and a pervasive paranoid fear that everyone has about their neighbor. Even when I take a walk in the nicest city park I find myself feeling unsafe, and never completely refreshed as in the carefree way I used to feel at home.

That's probably any metro center though. Growing up in Allendale we never even locked the doors. I don't remember there even being keys...

My birthday is tomorrow. I'll be 23. I hope I can be more focused and energetic as I grow older. Right now I feel lost.

My internship at Amnesty International is ending today. I have finished my work and am simply at the office waiting for my award certificate.

Preparing for engagement!

Sleepy T

Thankfully, Puneet shakes me awake. I’m in the middle of a crazy dream where my supervisor from Amnesty is penniless and under attack from the mob, which is run by a vicious guru. WOAH. The madness isn’t too surprising. Firstly, I’m in India and see weird things. Secondly, I have a pretty vivid imagination, and fell asleep at 5 in the morning, jittery and on the way down from a evening coffee indulgence. There’s something about sitting in coffee shops for hours and doing work that is so much more rewarding than doing work anywhere else. A habit from the days I’m already missing at U of M, I don’t think it will change anytime soon. So I got a little carried away with the caffeine and the making plans and the writing poetry for my organic soap boxes. Now a few hours later, on my way to work, I am regretting it.
Last night Allix and I finally decided to move our Europe trip out. She is meeting me in Paris on my way home from India. We are supposed to go at the end of March, but for a variety of reasons I want to stay a little longer. She really wanted to go this month so we kept to our original plan, but the friend’s apartment we were going to borrow had been rented out. So now it looks like we’ll be meeting there mid-June. I think. I want to accomplish a lot more before I leave here, because I don’t plan on coming back to India for a long time after this trip.
I brought cotton to stuff my ears and the neck pillow Dad bought me on our first trip to China, thinking I could sleep on the couple hour commute. I still might. Puneet was really nice and let me have the car this morning, taking the metro instead. This form of public transportation is super amazing. I can’t say enough good things about Delhi metro. It is clean, fast, reliable, and safe. It is 5000x better than New York City’s, in case you are looking for a comparison.
In other news, one of my best friends, Esther, is flying to Delhi this week! She is helping with Lotus Odyssey, and more specifically our catalog photo shoo, so I am scrambling to get everything together.
Guess I better get to that…..
I have a camera on my new laptop and have installed google video chat - so if anyone wants to talk and SEE me add theresavm@gmail.com.
Love, Sleepy t

Love in the time of "Hindustani Bacteria"

Dear Friends and Family,

After much ado, Puneet and I are engaged! This is unlike what happens in the U.S. - there a guy pops the ring and then the question. Here we held a proper ceremony, and also had a lunch reception for friends and family. I’m a little difficult to please so finding suitable rings and outfits has been pretty stressful. I’m glad it’s behind us so we can move forward in our lives. We both got horribly sick directly afterwards. I am theorizing that it was an excess of sweets - it’s traditional for relatives to feed the boy and girl sweets during the ceremony. It had to have been something - our stomachs were positively gone after the Saturday event. We spent the next day and a half recovering.

My life has gotten easier: We have hired a driver, and Puneet has borrowed a relative’s car for the week, so it’s a lot easier for me to get around. Also, Puneet got me a cute lil netbook for Valentine’s Day, so now the few hour commute back and forth is productive and comfortable.

Robin Ji, my chosen godmother, is in India. She is an extraordinary person. Her daughter Esther, one of my best friend’s, is flying to India next week. She’s become involved with the work I’m doing for The Lotus Odyssey. We are participating in a sale at the Hyatt March 17 and plan on finishing the photo shoot for the catalog during her trip.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD!

Love,
t

T Being Crazy