November 22--one long thought...

Been a while since I last wrote anything—it’s been a series of presentations, some drama and just exhaustion now that I’m coming to the end of my project here. In a week my family arrives and I can hardly wait to hug wife and daughter. I have had an amazing time here in India, but I have some ambivalence about being a tourist for a month. I got so used to being part of the city—my routines and hangouts, the people I see each day. In a couple of days I’ll be just another western tourist enjoying the pretty parts of India and shuttling from 5 star accommodation to 5 star accomodation. I know we have homestays and farmstays planned, but instead of the human connection and relationships now it’s guest service. It’s not that I’m complaining—I’ve been dreaming of a trip like this with my family and we are going to some seriously gorgeous places (Kerala-“God’s Own Country”)—but it’s just different from what I’m used to. I feel like I made it past the first veneer of understanding and now I want more. I made it in a city of 7.2 million people on a different continent—I know how to get around, I can function and give directions, I have a social network, the city feels like home. So now I want to get a better handle on the culture and what it means like to really live here. I’m reading Being Indian by Pavan K. Varma and the Argumentative Indian by Amartya Sen and I also picked up Nine Lives by William Dalrymple. These are sort of scratching the itch, but I know the only way it will be satisfied is to return. I tried reading Holy Cow! by Sarah MacDonald and it just made me angry. I feel the same way when at an expat gathering and people just whine about how different India is from the US/UK/etc. I usually get myself to lighten up—these gatherings can be a "safe space” for folks to get a shot of home and share frustrations. I guess I just don’t share the views or find the griping cathartic. My existence has been pretty easy here. Sometimes wonder what my experience would have been like if I was living in a different apartment (what if I didn’t have wi-fi, soft sheets, new furniture and breakfast brought to me each day?) and without a good amount of walking around money? What if it had been a longer assignment? Not sure how productive this speculation is, but I do know that I had a very gentle introduction to India. I mean, I did have some pretty bad culture shock at the beginning, but I think a lot of this had to do with having my project fall apart right in front of me at several points and some housing issues. Besides these hiccups I’ve had it pretty soft—good place to live, great neighborhood, good co-workers, access to technology. I am of the firm belief that a huge part of my success here was due to my network of friends and colleagues. Without the people here to lend a hand (even if it was the simple act of listening or meeting for a meal) or help open doors I would not have had the same positive experience. I never really have to eat alone unless I want to (and even then at some of my favorite places the staff and management know me so I always have conversation). The neighbors down the street bring me movies to watch and I get to pet their dogs. One of my best friends has a car and he’s generous with it. I also think that southern India is easier to get along in despite the heat and language issues—not a lot of Tamil resources in the US. The people are friendly and easy-going (though that can be a catch-22 in some cases, but you just have to kind of accept it as part of the landscape and adjust). My neighborhood has green everywhere, relative quiet (despite having some firecracker lunatics next door and across the street during Diwali—and while it’s tough to find any quiet during the holiday, these people were hard core) and good places to eat within easy walking distance. I am grateful. I looked back at a blog post that I wrote when I was in the airport. I never posted it, too painful. I just said good-bye to my daughter at the airport. I can still see her pleading with me not to go, huge tears streaming down her reddened cheeks. Just the memory has me choking up—and I’m stuffing it back down because I know that I’ll be wrecked for the rest of the week if I think about it anymore. I wondered in the car and while I wandered around the sterile interior of MSP what about what it’s like to want something so bad and then when it finally comes you just want to run away from it. I thought about how close I was to jumping back in the car and saying screw it. I am glad that came to India—it’s changed me a lot and I am really happy now. Found some parts of me that had been gathering dust for a while, found some ways of being that are now part of me. My uncle Paul said that everyone should visit India once—I’m not sure if it is for everyone, and maybe I don’t want to fight the crowds, but it is beautiful and contradictory and confusing and wonderful and heart-wrenching and warm and brutal and overwhelming and like home. It’s a part of me, but not in the way that I’ll take to wearing a kurtha or eating only Indian food or becoming a proselytizing (and irritating) yoga devotee when I get home. I’ve fallen in love with a place and it’s under my skin, I’ve got it bad. Without leaving my couch I feel the warm sun on granite under my bare feet as I walk through the ashram, I smell the rain on palms and fresh mud, I hear the jingle of bharatanatyam dancers, the bell between classes, I can taste filter kappi, and I hear the cadence of speech. While all these senses and memories drift in and out I don’t want to even think about what it will mean to say good-bye. It’s coming but not right now. It will be marked by so much that is India—a warm reunion matched with a set of good-byes. 12,000 miles to come back to the beginning of understanding—pain and joy are both fleeting, they come and go. I chose to celebrate the joy. It is so good while it lasts, but it doesn’t last forever. Live in each moment. Be grateful for what you have and remember to share that gratitude with those who made the joy possible. Hang on to friendships and love for even when you have to say good-bye it’s worth far more than a life of cold preparation and distance.

Conversation with Ram

Sitting in the library trying to write a speech--glad I was interrupted...
We have a saying in the US: give a man a fish and he eats for a day, teach a man to fish and he'll eat for a lifetime. I think we can apply to education this way: teach a person to think, show them that their mind is hungry and you've enriched their being and the world for a lifetime. Today a student reaffirmed my commitment to teaching and showed me that this was true. We had a question posted to our discussion board--what does it mean to be an American? Indian? The students posted responses and one of my kids here found me today to share his experience. As he read the responses he reflected back to how little he felt that he knew about his own culture. He started to search for more information about his history, his government and society. He read comments by one of his classmates--she suggested that the American students should see a list of films she provided. The student responded that he felt that film was limited and began to search for other art forms. His search went on into the evening and into the next day when he found me sitting at a table in the library. He gushed about how his experience and what he found as well as how the questions had prompted so much thinking on his part--he did admit that he didn't think he'd ever be able to fully answer the question but that it would keep him thinking. He also stated that he was so happy to be in IB and that it was sort of silly that only the IB kids should be exposed to these ideas. The spark was there. Thanks, Ram.

This whole experience in India has been in someways so not about the project (sorry Lamese, Meredith and Maggie). It's been so intensely personal--spiritual in parts, lots of self-knowledge, all balanced by the intellectual and vocational insights. Today it finally hit me thought that in this process of reflection and introspection I realized that I am going to be gone in a few weeks. When I look at my students I feel a pang of sadness. As a teacher we say hello only to say good-bye in a few months. I should be better at it or at least I shouldn't be surprised or that it shouldn't affect me emotionally now. There was a more senior teacher at my school in Minnesota who commented that once I had been there longer I'd get over it. But it still does pull at my heartstrings. Perhaps this was like my experience in Edinburgh--another place where I cut my teeth, learned about myself and that makes all the relationships more intense and meaningful...I can wrap my mind around it but can't quite buy it. I'm going to miss Chennai and everyone I've met: Sudha and my Madras Mom, Lyola, Suyash and his family, Cheryl, Venkat, Br. Rishi, Vidya, Veena, Anil, Prema, Nivas, Praveen, Pratik, Angie, Naresh, Mohan, Boopity, Shiva, Padmila, Meena, Ashish, Kiti, Marcus, Bindu, Sajit, Nidhi, Santosh, my students.... Thanks for so much.

Thoughts about teaching and purpose...

Chennai night--back from dinner with friends, my mind is restless. Listening to Colin Hay and Ben Harper. Time to sort out some things.
I think this is the first picture of a person that I've included on this site. It was taken at a pooja and I am ridiculously, deliriously happy in that moment. The man seated next to me is the school's IB coordinator. We had just finished two intense days of meetings, class sessions, trainings and interviews--and I was electrified. Dancing at the pooja was unbelievable--just added to the whole experience. That night as I drove down from the hills and could smell the rain, lotus and jasmine I was physically exhausted and content. All of my senses and my mind felt awake and alive but settled, calm, at peace. Thought about this for some time--during the odd moments of quiet. Lots of incomplete thoughts, some ideas to test out, some dreams and plans potentially... Trying to make sense of all that's happened here, all the conversations, the relationships, the things I've seen.

Yesterday as I was being driven to school I passed a woman standing by the side of the road. She wasn't old but life and the years had taken a toll on her. You could see it in her face and posture--you could almost feel the weight of her cares. Across the street, children played in a school yard. I was struck by the woman's face in this moment of juxtaposition--in the lines the face of the young girl she once was could be seen. Maybe it was her features that jogged my memory--picturing someone from long ago--or maybe it was the longing I thought I saw in her eye as she gazed across the road to the kids running and laughing. In that moment it was pure compassion. Adult life catches us so quickly--and for some kids their childhood is awfully abbreviated--so who are we as teachers to so readily deal out the hard lessons? This woman certainly seemed to have had her share. What about the girl she was? Were people kind? Did anyone see her potential? Can we see the individual not as a mass of behaviors or a piece of our own task-list or fulfillment but as a human being, perhaps even at one point a child who needed to laugh and be accepted and feel competent? The world has so many hard edges, do we add to the number or provide solace? Are we really present in the moment and see the person in front of us as a human being or do we react from what we think we are, all of our concepts of our identities and defenses? Are our responses all about us and our egos as opposed to the situation and what needs to be done? Lots of questions--perhaps there is value in just asking them and reflecting on them without arriving at a set answer. Maybe it really is the question that enlightens and not the answer (paraphrasing Eugene Ionesco).

I know from my own experience that it is so easy to get wrapped up in the urgency of work and to lose sight of what really is important--I've left a swath of wrecked relationships due to my own shortsightedness. Maybe this is the change that India has brought? Finally some clarity--took 12,000 miles to break some cycles and look in the mirror. Picking up and leaving my family back in the states wasn't easy to do and adapting to new culture is both invigorating and frustrating. Living here is not as easy, and I see many people suffering and piecing together a pretty mean existence. However, I am so happy here. When I am with my students I feel exhilarated. It's like I had to leave in order to make contact with what I was really about. Get rid of the old patterns, the institutional routine and relationships to really examine what on earth is really important. Having some great feedback from schools, colleagues and kids hasn't hurt either. I don't really need to prove anything anymore. I found contentment and identity. I can be in this moment fully without attaching any of the baggage that I was carrying around before. I love to compete in triathlon, but I have wondered why I was driven so hard to place. Was it really about proving myself more than the adrenaline rush? Did any of my students care if I was in the top 10 or top 1000? Did it improve anything in my relationships with them as their teacher? Does my daughter care? Will she ever? Does it make me a better dad? My heart feels more at ease now. Krishnamutri wrote to the effect that once you find the true self then work is not work but a clear path of appropriate action. Once the narrative you build for yourself is tamed and you can be in the moment, then you can truly be at peace and do what is necessary with ease. I still want to get my doctorate, but it's not a defining drive or desire for status anymore. Never confuse the moment and what is about with what you think you are all about.