“Sabaidee, hello! Teacher Nadia and Teacher Alice didn’t come? Only you by yourself?” the novice monk stood across from me, smiling and adjusting his orange robes. Neon garments fluttered around me, as exuberant eight-year-old novices raced around cleaning the pagoda. 

The other older volunteers had remained in the hotel, sending puffs of suffocating cigarette smoke across the patio. I’d escaped them to observe Laos’s classic Buddhist chanting, eager to adventure alone, the archetypal teenager fleeing expectations but developing self-reliance.

“Sorry! Only me today. Teacher Nadia and Teacher Alice are actually at the hotel right now,” I answered, the reverie of my independent outing fading. 

During chanting, my thirty minutes of peace had been hopelessly interrupted – the temple’s adopted puppy had nestled against me after a three-legged dog lurking in the pagoda’s shadows lunged at her. Ten shaved heads had turned together to identify the commotion, twenty staring eyes had landed on the gaping falang, or foreigner, in the back, and one exhausted boy had shooed the barking dog off the tiled floor. All the while, chanting had continued. 

“Thank you for coming. It’s better if you go now; the head monk would like to say a few words to just us.”

Bowing, I slipped on my sandals and walked briskly through the green fields separating the temple from the main road. Alone at 8 P.M. No one else. Just me. I inhaled deeply, the cool air expanding my lungs. I still had the familiar walk back to the hotel to re-ground myself. A slight breeze brushed against me, as my eyes danced over the endless road, the fleeing sun, and the towering peaks. 

But the spell of the mountains’ enchanting silhouettes broke as my vision snapped to the intense barking coming from a frayed fence up ahead. Through a gaping hole in the mesh wires, I glimpsed a pair of bloodshot eyes and a flash pearly-white teeth bared in more malice than the three-legged dog only an hour before. Two steps, three steps, four steps, I passed the fence – 

Don’t stop. Don’t trip. Don’t fear.

 – but it was already out, in a vicious barking fit spraying saliva against my heels. Keep walking. It’ll go away. 

Five steps. Ten steps. Neither of us turned back. I, the intruder, was foreign and hostile, a threat that had to disappear. An acute awareness consumed me, and every inch of my body pulsed with adrenaline. Each limb felt flushed and heated, plastered against my damp polyester shirt and thick traditional Lao skirt. The formal scarf, which I had neglected to pin, fell to my shoulder, but I didn’t stop to adjust it. Instead, I feigned relaxation, swinging my hands, attempting to hide the guttural fear that had materialized in the writhing within my chest. My pace quickened, my every step a battle against the width of my skirt to distance myself from the dog’s accusatory growling; the ear-splitting barking crescendoed, drowning out the fatigued voice whimpering, “help.”

The confidence that had inspired the adventure had evaporated; there I was, naked to the world in all my fear, vulnerable and insecure. 

Forty steps. Fifty steps. My eyes latched onto the dry mud road hiding the rocks that I had tripped on earlier that day. I knew that silent, dry dirt road like I knew the hallways of my house – to my right would be a stall with lychees, dragonfruit, and mangosteens, and to my left would be the soccer field of a Chinese-owned mansion; just a few meters ahead would be my hotel’s jaundice-colored sign. Sixty-seven steps. 

The barking pierced my ears, my head throbbing from the anxiety. I risked a glance up, and like magnets, my eyes connected with a man on a motorcycle staring at me wide-eyed through a pale dusty blue helmet. Before my voice could reach my throat, the roar of his bike faded, leaving a silence interrupted only by my hiccuping breaths.

The motorcyclist’s passing sent waves of dust flying around me, and I felt a maddening desire for the swirls of smoke and the smell of cigarettes that accompanied the other volunteers. 

#nonfiction #fiction #whichone?

Sailing, but sinking in shallow waters.

Hair undone, Shallow concerns? Still sinking.

The reason, unidentifiable.

Little did I know, shallow waters flood.

Thoughts, flooding behind stormy eyes, underneath stormy skies.

Alas!

The sail is ripped, take cover! called Reason

A defeaning silence replaced her cries, a blinding Hate, is it mine?

For me? From me? Indistinguishable.

Fear for survival, of survival? Will I survive?

The waves keep coming, the ship keeps sinking.

Inching forward, but pulled downward.

Frozen, vulnerable, I stand wide-eyed on the bow of the ship

Roaring Nature, entrancing, magnetic madness

As the waves of doubt, incessant,

slaughter the people, crying, screaming words, superficial expressions

Of the gnawing fear, but captivating awe – clouds of emotions

That strike like lightning: electrifying in one moment, electrocuting in the next

Subsiding waves, smooth sailing once again.

I stand below deck. Gone is the awe at catastrophic nature.

The fear remains.

Do I sail again?

Tripping over myself, I scrambled to keep up with the tour guide. I was huffing, sweat lining my neck in the humid weather of Kamakura, Japan. Winded by each taxing step up the incline, I scanned the area for a distraction, settling for the back of my tour guide’s head. She was tall and striking, with black flowing hair and a straight, commandeering posture. Her hair flipped across her shoulders as she turned to face our group, walking up the slope with large, graceful skips backwards. I took in her face; her high cheekbones accentuated her petite nose. Exhausted, my eyes skipped from her face to her flourishing hands as she directed the group’s attention to a massive copper green statue. The Buddha.

As she described Buddhism, arbitrary terms and foreign names seeped into one ear and out the other, until she stressed a rather peculiar tenant of the religion. Liberation from desire.

Catching my breath, I stopped and tossed my head back as I took in the magnificent Buddha, the Enlightened one, who had supposedly freed himself from attachment. To desire nothing – doesn’t that mean he desired something? Puzzled with this paradox, I pictured the ascetic lifestyle depicted in the legend. To not Control, to not Grasp, to not Cling, to not Need. A Willing Ascetism.

As you know, to have nothing and need nothing are profoundly different states; the Buddha plunged himself in the former before attaining the latter. Interesting.

I tore my eyes of the ginormous, yet intricate figure to take in the smaller, more humble buildings surrounding the statue.

Gift stores.

Capture spirituality while you can! You know you want it! Buy a mini-Buddha, get Enlightenment free!

I almost snorted. rude, I know. American, that I am. The way down the hill, I was grasping three scrolls in one hand, and balancing 2 mini-buddhas in the other.

Consumerism, attachment, and desire. The three musketeers.

Air beneath their wings, the mother and daughter bird fly through the sky, swerving past clouds and over trees. They seem joyous, enjoying the freedom this world has given them and the blessing of having one another. However, one day that mother bird will die, her feathers withered, her bones weak and frail, and she will leave that poor daughter bird alone. We were sitting on the carpet, in my grand-aunt’s house in Pennsylvania, eating desserts that we had bought from a new Indian store. Playing a card game, the happiness and laughter of my grand-uncle boomed through the room while he slapped the deck, placing three kings on the pile. Grinning, I placed down my four aces, winning the game. Out the window, leaves swirled with the delicate falling snow, as a gentle wind blew against the trees. From the corner of my eye, I saw a graceful figure enter the room; she had a smile which reached her eyes, eyes seemed young for such an old face. She was my grand-aunt. The moment she sat down, I jumped into her lap, feeling content and blissful.

That was the last time that I saw her. We were in California waiting for my dad by his office, when we received a phone call from my uncle. Picking up the phone, my mother greeted him in Hindi, a language foreign to me at the time. Curious, I looked at her questioningly. Putting down the phone, she looked at me as a tear fell down her cheek and told me that my grand-aunt had passed away. Thoughts raced through my mind; to a seven year old living in an extremely privileged environment, death was an obstacle that seemed too large to overcome. Slowly, it occurred to me that I would never get the chance to say goodbye to her kind smile and wise eyes, never get the chance to tackle her in a bear hug, or never get the chance to laugh with her or play with her again.

Slumping in my seat, I whispered a hoarse plea to my mother, wanting her to tell me that my grand-aunt was not “gone”. That she was still living happily in Pennsylvania, doing whatever she did out there. Not taken from the world with a phone call. Later, my grand-uncle moved out; he felt that the house was becoming too empty and lonely. As I thought about the yellow colored house with a purple carpet, suddenly without my grand-aunt, the bright, vibrant colors seemed to become depressing in memory. Angry red spots would cloud my vision, and my head would throb as each memory of my grand-aunt washed over me, each wave bringing greater and greater anguish. At school, I walked around the border of the playground, refusing to talk to my friends. Coming home, I would lay in my bed at night, secretly listening to my father and mother calling other family members to exchange apologies.

There was only one place I could turn to where my grand-aunt would still be with me. Sneaking out late to the night sky, I would lay on the cold, concrete ground, staring with wide eyes at the diamonds twinkling in the vast darkness above. I dedicated the brightest one to my grand-aunt and would imagine that she was lying by my side, watching the stars with me. With no rational excuse for her death in my mind, the fantasy of her lying next to me was a false hope and attempt to bring things back to a state of normality. Days passed, until we got a call inviting us to the cremation of my grand-aunt’s body. Traveling to Pennsylvania, we stayed at a hotel, and the tears that came made the world look as if it had been submerged in water.

The next day, we drove to the river where we were going to leave her ashes. Logs upon logs were stacked, and on top of all was a body covered with a white sheet. As the man poured gasoline over the logs and lit the match, I braced myself for the streams of tears. Inch by inch, the man moved the fiery match towards my grand-aunt’s body. He dropped the match and leaped backwards. Fire jumped, devouring the gasoline, causing me to stumble back, in confusion. How could the world take her life with such a ravenous hunger and ease? Moving across the logs, the fire reached the white sheet, as the black smoke rose and grayed out the sky. Her body gradually turned into black ash. My eyes followed the smoke to the drifting clouds, as I realized that the world is still moving, despite the fact that my grand-aunt was not here anymore. Looking around, I saw that flowers were still growing, and that the wind was still blowing. Pain stabbed at my heart, and my throat tightened strangling me to the point where I could not breathe. In an effort to let go of the pain, I embraced the glowing memories I had of her.

On the plane back, thoughts swirled around me about the pain caused by life and death. After the death of my grand-aunt, I realized that life is a cycle, and it is hard to accept at times. When I came back to school, my friends surrounded me and pleaded me to play a game of tag with them, like old times. This time, letting go completely, I agreed, and I felt a feeling I had never felt before. I had expected to feel empty and hollow for leaving the pain behind, almost as if I had betrayed my grand-aunt, but I was surprised with a feeling of normality and contentment. Life simply moved on. That night, while eating dinner, I came to realize that I had the power to commemorate her, to honor her life, by doing simple actions of showing the same affection to others day by day - the same way as she did. As for the mother and daughter bird, I began to understand that it was not important that the mother bird will die as we all will one day. However, flying together in the sky, daughter and mother, wing by wing, was what truly made life worth living.

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Written as a personal essay for an Expository writing class in 7th grade. This was the first literary piece that made me realize the power of writing to push my thoughts forward. When you write, you draw upon a string connected to hundreds of other thoughts; this essay liberated me in a way I had never considered before.

#walks #dogs #mindfulness

Impressionism: a literary or artistic style that seeks to capture a feeling or experience rather than to achieve accurate depiction.

I open the door, and a draft of refreshingly cold air bites at my face. I swallow, throat a little soar, hinting to the beginnings of a slight cold. I grab my warmest sweatshirt, a gray Under Armour hoodie, and take a deep breath. I whistle for my dog, calling out Raisin in the sing-song voice he always perks up to. Raisin, a peculiar, yet apt name for the 12-year-old dog, whose puppy face happened to resemble a squished raisin. I hear his nails clink against the wooden floor as he trots towards me, his ears slightly lifted, his protruding black jaw slack with his bright pink tongue flopping wildly. His piercing brown eyes dart across the room from me to the green leash in my hand, slowly absorbing the scene. Suddenly, he breaks out in a mad dash, sprinting excitedly to my feet. I hook the leash onto his collar and step into the cold. Sure, I think, there are quite a few things I have to do: study, write, read, program, work, study, study, study. My heart sinks, as creeping anxiety paralyzes me. Quite a few things. Panic grows as my mental to-do list grows, and a suffocating heat crawls up my neck, my body threatening to break a sweat. But I shiver instead. A chilling wind slips under my hoodie. The edges of my mouth turn up into an appreciative smile; this moment was too fascinating to let go. The day was somewhat bright, a little wet from the night before, and I experimented with a quick jog to test my stamina in the new weather conditions. Then, gradually, as I fall into a steady running rhythm, the leash in my hand fades from my vision. I’m in the now.

What a moment.

If only Monet were here to catch it.

For my every step, Raisin’s four light ones follow. For my every step, my heartbeat drums against my chest. For my every step, a sharp inhale follows a quick exhale. For my every step, my body relaxes into the repeated motion, until it feels as if I’m jogging on air.

My vision of other people passing dulls, but my focus narrows.

The hum of the life around me fills my brain.

Stress is my own creation. Anxiety is my own creation.

But the hum consuming my usually buzzing brain is more than “me.” Universal, but profoundly liberating for myself as an individual. Visceral, but completely connected to nature outside of my mind.

Calm.

Grounded.

A satisfied sigh escaped me, and I soon found myself back in my room, surrounded by my books and my list(s) of things to do. I clear my mind once more and focus.