The season is changing here. From winter to spring. From the equivalent of our June to August. Little babies are bundled up in sweaters and wool knit caps. Siddharth always has his coat on and John, his vest. Maybe I feel the chill as well because in the morning it is my brown sweater that covers most of my body.
But the breezes are refreshing. I awake every morning around 7 a.m., brush my teeth, tip toe around, wake Lauren up without fail... Our room is dark with the two big windows covered by curtains and just some yellow/grey light from the bathroom making marks on our floor.
When I open the door, I am Dorothy just arriving in Oz. Bright colors greet me, the earthy red of the veranda, the vibrant green of the trees, and there's that warm sun hitting my face. My water bottle in one hand and my other holding the railing, I come down the stairs. First, though, I always remember to turn off the lights outside our door and when I come to the first floor, the light outside the classroom. Pinky usually meets me at the bottom of the stairs or outside our building and walks me to the library. Then she gets excited and runs off to the driveway, waits for me for a heartbeat, and runs off. If she was cleaner I'd pet her all the time and would love having her near me. I must admit, I was pleasantly surprised when she barked outside my door this morning and I opened it to find her pacing back and forth waiting for me.
I was very sick and couldn't leave just then, but I sat with her for a couple of minutes and was about to pet her when she started biting herself because I think she has fleas.

There is more singing now and less dancing, but a lot more singing. I don't mind not dancing as much. Right now I'm looking up lyrics to songs I know fragments of because I think this is my hobby here.. my outlet. Belting out a couple of tunes after dinner, after a long day, after a trying/frustrating/homesick day, I imagine myself at home washing dishes and cleaning up the kitchen going through my repetoire; stopping mid-table wipe to reach a note. I've been asked if I've ever taken lessons and the thought hasn't occurred to me seriously. I don't want it to be something I'm told is right or wrong here or there, it's therapeutic to sing.. just sing.
I sit with the others after dinner on the ledge outside of the old meditation hall. Oamjie will be in front of us, I cannot see his face, just his silhouette, and the light from the edifice of the hall only reaches so far. On our ledge we are dressed in semi-darkness. There are three drums. Gopi has one. Oamjie will have another. And Hiro usually takes the third. There is a very small fourth one which Cheshee or Siddrham takes sometimes.
The guys from the kitchen will sit with us and I wonder if they think our songs are as beautiful or melodic as their own. I am not depreciating my own, but there is something about a classical Indian song in the middle of the night, under the Big Dipper and the clearest Orion's belt you'll ever see that breathes life into the body and convinces you there is a mysticism, a vitality in this place.
Perhaps it's nature. I get the same shivers sitting out in the backyard of my gramparents' house in the foothills of the Adirondack late at night and looking at the stars, singing to myself old miner songs, folk tunes, and little melodies I've made up here or there. I feel the ancestralness of the place, the currents of energy surging through my hand when Grampa and I visit the house he was born in, walk the property line which leads to his cabin in the woods he built awhile back; I feel it even when I hug my gramma and I feel her wisdom, I see the tears in her eyes when she looks at me. She is amazing.. no one has ever looked at me the way my grandmother does. I don't know what she is seeing, but her eyes tell me it's precious, amazing, and something to be nurtured. I have never detached myself like that from her stare, and now that I just have .. it makes me miss her very much.
I've been thinking about north new york for over two weeks now. I've been thinking of how in its own way, unique to my perceptions, this place reminds me of the Adirondacks. The wildlife, the simple living/good/hardworking people, the solitude, the communal feeling.
I am going in August. I will eat blackberries from the backyard, go to the county fair -see the demolition derby, hold my grandfather's rough/leathery/thick hand, play Rummy with Gramma and enjoy her laughter and watch her grey eyes twinkle.