I got back to Ahmedabad on Monday and back from the toilet three minutes ago. It feels good to be back, refreshed after a nice break, and that, just the third time on the shitter this morning, is a vast improvement from the record-setting shits-in-a-day pace I’d been on since Monday night. On Wednesday I went to the doctor, shat in a film canister which presented lots of logistical difficulties, at one point the initial blast almost knocking the container into the abyss, peed in a film canister (why do they give you two containers, the same size, for two jobs that are very different… different angles, pressure releases, smells, colors. One of those lab techs should try managing explosive diarrhea into a small plastic container and they would soon learn to provide a receptacle that is better suited for the work), had my blood pulled and thanks be to the lord I don’t have Typhoid or Malaria. Instead, I’ve got some other creature, or colony of millions of creatures, living in my body in a place that survived the nuclear Cipro attack. The doctor called in for back-ups, air cover, ground fire, two new types of antibiotics, 4 days in bed – these suckers don’t stand a chance. Forget world peace, I just hope I stop peeing out of my butt. It’s the small things in life.
My mind is in a good place. Leaving and returning lets you see things more clearly, realize what you do and do not have. I don’t like Ahmedabad, work is not good, and this is not the life I want. But, it doesn’t matter. Somehow, with your help (thank you for the packages, letters, emails, calls, comments), I made it through the most lonely, confusing five months of my life and here I sit (near the toilet), refreshed, just back from a 10-day gallivant to Mumbai, Bangkok (it was very weird to be reading magazines in the international airport terminals of the most famous cities in the world, waiting for my flight, and not be on my way home) and Goa, looking at February, my parents’ arrival in three weeks, and then three short months beyond that. This year has been good for me and taught me a lot about how I want to be in the world, what is important, what is annoying and stupid, etc, and I am still trying to understand all those lessons, there are many more still to come and I will be working to understand this period of time for many months and years after it concludes. But, the labor of getting through simple tasks, the burden of communicating is gone; now, instead of frustration and confused confusion, I laugh. Go ahead and state; I don’t care. I ride my bike in peace, joke at work, able to manage the little things and the larger thoughts in an engaged and healthy way.
My mind is in a good place. Leaving and returning lets you see things more clearly, realize what you do and do not have. I don’t like Ahmedabad, work is not good, and this is not the life I want. But, it doesn’t matter. Somehow, with your help (thank you for the packages, letters, emails, calls, comments), I made it through the most lonely, confusing five months of my life and here I sit (near the toilet), refreshed, just back from a 10-day gallivant to Mumbai, Bangkok (it was very weird to be reading magazines in the international airport terminals of the most famous cities in the world, waiting for my flight, and not be on my way home) and Goa, looking at February, my parents’ arrival in three weeks, and then three short months beyond that. This year has been good for me and taught me a lot about how I want to be in the world, what is important, what is annoying and stupid, etc, and I am still trying to understand all those lessons, there are many more still to come and I will be working to understand this period of time for many months and years after it concludes. But, the labor of getting through simple tasks, the burden of communicating is gone; now, instead of frustration and confused confusion, I laugh. Go ahead and state; I don’t care. I ride my bike in peace, joke at work, able to manage the little things and the larger thoughts in an engaged and healthy way.
No comments:
Post a Comment