Everything makes me smile. Somehow I have my doubts that it would make you, the reader, smile, but I catch myself smiling to myself about the thick spider that dwells in my toilet paper roll with its monolithic size and very visible pincers.

This delayed post regards the events between August 11th and September 11th, 2021. They take place in Dharamshala and later Parvati Valley, both situated in India’s mountainous Himachal Pradesh state.

Monthly Mood: Stop

Said arachnid and I met at the start of September when I was moving my bowels, blissfully oblivious to any intruders to the sacrality of my privacy. I tugged the TP and suddenly four dark limbs materialized, wrapping themselves around the roll, as if to meet me half way, to shake my hand.

In reality it was terror-struck and moved speedily out of the way. I would say it’s got a wingspan (diameter?) of a good five inches.

I smile at the minuscule, flat spider that lives behind the sink faucet. I’ve grown accustomed to his harmless company.

I don’t kill them because the words of S.N. Goenka, a popular modern teacher of Vipassana meditation,¹ still ring in my ears. My heart is also still so full of the Dalai Lama’s autobiography I read last month. Both preachify profusely on nonviolence, or ahimsa. They ask that we kill no beings and ask forgiveness of any life we may have unintentionally taken.

The 10-day course was ridden with silver centipedes flashing “danger” while wriggling through our meditation cushions, as well as spiders, scorpions, and mosquitoes so large that they must be mutants.

I didn’t see any scorpions but I had to pull my first leech ever that had lodged between my left big and second toes. While it stretched with admirable elasticity, it didn’t budge its grip. I pulled again. And again. Somehow using the metal cup I was holding and letting out a high-pitched “whatthefuck!” despite having pledged 10 days of Noble Silence it suddenly wasn’t there any more.

However. Scorpions do happen in the bathroom I am using today.

Day 1294

23 August 2021

Macleod Ganj → Dharamshala → Palampur → Mandi → Bhuntar → Parvati Valley

The first night back in P Valley, shattered from eleven hours of local buses and mountain dust, my body has not even the power to lift its arms. I had left Dharamshala behind after completing the Vipassana course (and another ten days to enjoy its after effects).

In the shower I want to hurry so I can jump in bed, but I am so filthy that I have to keep scrubbing. In comes the largest scorpion I’ve ever interacted with, wielding both claws vertically like a touchdown post poised over an American football field, stinger flexed with such conviction that it’s less pointing up and more spiraling back on itself like a freaking cinnamon roll.

I here admit that my basic bitch ass maybe ate too many cinny buns in Dharamshala.

Scorp is semi-drowning but I cannot stop scrubbing. Life itself becomes nothing but scrub scrub, splash splash to get it to change its course. I gingerly step around it to grab the soap, repeating the delicate choreography to put the soap back. Scrub scrub splash splash scrub. Despite its fatigue my brain is hyperaware of the enormous spider that hid itself behind the trash can.

Finally I am done. I exit with caution. I wrap myself in a towel and go outside and say “Raju” out into the night because the guesthouse staff have already gone to bed. Luckily a “yes?” comes back at me. Must’ve been the desperate plea in my voice.

Raju comes over with a broom and pan. He proclaims it dead. I hope he is wrong because I had seen it moving just a minute before. I insist that he locates the spider as well. He doesn’t believe me, but upon further prodding the size of the thing makes him say,

“Oh, yeah.”

Which, for a Himachali who speaks little English and hardly bats an eye at scorpions and spiders, translates to,

“Holy fucking shit you were right that thing is large enough to swallow a cow.”

A week later another scorpion of the same proportions sprints across the bathroom tiles. Of course it is past bed time and I am pushed to summon Raju from the depths of darkness once more.

I truly am at a loss for where these leggy guests are entering from. I don’t take action unless the offender is a scorpion. I continue to find new dead corpses of spiders strewn about.

Back to smiling shall we?

I smile at the dried sparrow shits that sprinkle not the tops of the balcony railings, but the horizontal bars directly below the top bars. This is where I have to hang my blankets, towels, and washed clothes. It means I temporarily envelope the tiny poo in a tent of fresh laundry. While I was highly irritated because it was so unavoidable, all I have left now is a smile.

August was about stillness

and coffees and pastries. In Dharamshala I didn’t have my laptop. I lived off of my notebook and my parantha-on-a-cold-bench ritual.

Vipassana continued to course through my veins and I managed to meditate at the start and end of each day. Power hours, I called them, after the drinking game.

Freedom in Exile became on of the most influential books I’ve read. I walked on hilly trails and didn’t get assaulted by monkeys and home-cooked with Nepalis. I chatted with Tibetans in exile about their 30-day escapes from the claws China, through all those mountains, on foot.

Sunday home brunching and whole wheat momos with stuffed with fresh mutton and chives.

I chased a lot of calories.

Herbal teas, catching a ride (representing three continents but choosing to communicate in Spanish) to Kamal and his famous Parantha House (Dal Lake), sunset lattes, hot pump pie, farewell selfie after a final parantha-on-a-bench, bus stand siddu.

Relevant read: The World’s Best Parantha

Wonders all around us
And life is all we’ve got
If you wait for mountains then you’re
Gonna miss a lot

—Van Morrison

September in my quaint village

has me scanning the dirt paths for fallen apples and I often find undamaged red orbs. Some are the size of tennis balls, others comparable to a fist. One delicious snack adorned itself in a vibrant shade of granny smith.

In my cozy room I love to fill (and sometimes sketch) my fruit bowl with different colors and shapes. Together they complete the summer-fall palate. Other luxuries include sunshine and breeze filtering in through two big windows and a full! length! mirror!!

On walks I pause and marvel at how the apples garland their trees, reminding me of Christmas ornaments in an American December. The fruits flourish in unison, poised so tightly together that I know I’m watching God’s work itself. Nobody takes the apples that aren’t theirs. Even the most plucked trees still have one or two hangers, a ball of brightness in barren brown.

Every day I watch the crimson sunbirds battle it out over the honeysuckles. Tight clusters of tangerine blooms climb in clusters against my window. Dark mosquito screens don’t allow the feathered warriors to see me as I spy on them. They try to fend off the chubby, softly peeping Oriental white-eyes but alas, they are outnumbered and met with little luck.

The frequency of these beauties has desensitized me to the miracle of their existence.

Often I forget how rural I am. Then an acquaintance might say they’ve had no more than five years of schooling.

I remember that I likely write better Hindi than most of the people in the community (Hindi is not the language in the homes), but that my speaking skills are still largely useless (albeit a little less useless with each new day).

Chinese taught me that a language doesn’t need conjugation, or any grammar for that matter. English taught me that a language doesn’t need gendered nouns. One word for “the” and one word for “you” suffice—having two or three is extra.

Hindi taught me that a language doesn’t need capital letters, or the word “the,” and that “tomorrow” and “yesterday” can be the same word.

Then Hindi taught me that “the day after tomorrow” and “the day before yesterday” can also be the same bloody word.

The past month continuously and vehemently reminds me to stop. There is *actually* no where to go and nothing to do. The present is the greatest gift. I rush myself toward website improvements without remembering to give myself holidays for the digestive ailments of a food traveler.

So I stop.

Rather than react to how cold or prideful some community members appear to be, I’m better off smelling the crimson roses on the way out of the front gate of my guesthouse. I chose to be here and as a new face, I don’t need to take anything personally.

I can decide to eat in town where Nepalis heap hot food onto my plate and charge next to nothing. I can shop for unpackaged radishes and fresh bunches of cilantro at the vegetable walla who waves his hand when I ask how much to pay.

I encourage myself to join my friends at the waterfall pools of a stream in our village. The torrential current offers a frigid back massage with a mountain view. I stop here a while.

These moments are all life is. And mighty moments they are.

obsessions:

tsampa
raw almonds, soaked overnight and peeled
stinging nettle lemongrass tea
tibetan herbal teas
tibetan medicinal incense
chickpeas
foamy tops of black coffees
peanut butter
olive oil
lavender
sandalwood
tamanu oil
blood orange lip balm
solid shampoo
handmade body bars
juicy chemistry
anapana breathing
hour-long meditations
compassion
yoga mudrasana
surya namaskar
honeysuckles
crimson sunbirds
white-browed fantails
oriental white-eyes
sour red apples

Bird of the month: Oriental white-eye

Common but special as of late. Also known as the Indian white-eye. Ever since they came to my window and started feeding on honeysuckles from the stem end, defying their oral anatomy and boggling my mind, causing the flowers to drop dead from the bush and the crimson sunbirds to flip a shit, I’ve been low-key obsessed.

White-eyes chitter softly to each other as they nibble in social groups. Such honeysuckle havoc wreaked by such innocent little chubs.

Wikipedia states they go for the little insects living inside nectarous flowers while drinking the nectar itself is under speculation. Indian articles say they like the nectar. Which will it be? I’ll say I saw the latter with my own two brown eyes.

“Umesh Mani, an avid bird watcher, describes them as ‘Tiny, colourful, hyper-active, goggle-eyed, naughty, and always looking like they’re planning their next adventure. Oriental White-eyes, to me, are the Calvin of Calvin & Hobbes!'”

—The bird with the white spectacles, The Hindu

Other bird of the month: White-throated fantail

Yep. Another BOTM. Only because it’s my 128th identification in India and happened during this month.

Now I recognize these fantails from afar, but the first time I was scanning my yard with my binoculars and suddenly picked up on this drab little guy. Before I could fret over how hard it was going to be to identify, out goes that tail. I gasped out loud “fantail” and the rest is history.

Playing with Tibetan tsampa. Last ice creams of the summer. Only in India can you find a still-asleep dog stumbling confidently out of a Gurudwara temple.

Relevant read: 24 Hours In A Tibetan Tent

 

My kind of jawbreaker. Tea from bark of endemic rakhal tree, found at 3,000m elevation; while my cup was ethically sourced and served by a local, the endangered rakhal is often exploited for medicinal benefits and anti-cancer rumors. One of my 3-7 pets. Town food.

 

These are the days of the endless summer
These are the days, the time is now
…

These are the days by the sparkling river
His timely grace and our treasured find
This is the love of the one great magician
Turned water into wine

These are the days now that we must savour
And we must enjoy as we can
These are the days that will last forever
You’ve got to hold them in your heart.

—Van Morrison

1- For the sake of prolonging the effects of Vipassana, I have denied myself access to any social media or news outlets. Free time is used to work further on a runaway mind, or to feel what is actually happening in front of me. For that reason I cannot comment on the tragic events taking place around the world as I type, or even on the Olympic games. This ignorance has been purposely maintained for months.

Explore my full archive of India and Monthly Moods.

Learn more about this round-the-world solo trip.