Just sitting. Just sweating.

I'm back in Benares, I'm no longer sick, I am in love and I am having the time of my life! My meditation practice has dropped backed into place, I can cook my own meals in my apartment, and my taekwondo is slowly improving. This city breathes life and passion into my lungs, right down to the deep and dark troughs of residual stagnant air, filling this often underused swamp of carbon dioxide with light and life. Beaming, I am beaming!

I am learning how to propel myself forwards, throw my centre into the epicentre of life. I am alone in Benares, though I have made many friends here. If you remain open it is impossible not to make friends. My social life is buzzing I feel like a beautiful butterfly, fluttering through the atmosphere, noticing the beauty of the world, and seeing this reflected back in myself. What a treat! Though I am noticing how my tendancy has been quite the opposite in the past, and this still flickers over my experience. 

The familiar feeling of crippling self conciousness, anxiety, fear, still live with me, but I have seen something. It's like the victim part of my conciousness has shrunk, and the strong, assertive part of myself has grown. It's that simple, more balance, more confidence. Perhaps from realising that I am a strong women I can get myself around India alone, and I also managed to get here in the first place. In fact when Lloyd was here with me, I quite brusquely shoed him away whenever he tried to help me with my bags, "I can do it myself, thank you!" I would grumpily and rudely snap at him! When my mum thanked him for looking after me he replied "oh don't worry she can look after herself" which made me laugh, because I know exactly how he would've said that, and that's why I love him so much. I am a strong woman, I can always get through the most trying situations and come out the other side with myself all in tact, but i think I could now foster a bit of softness and willingness to let others help me. But this new assertiveness is integral to my growth, I now find myself asking others "shall we take chai?" Rather than waiting to be asked all the time. I love this place, I love this country, I love the constant flow of social interactions and chai sipping. People are important. Relationships are important. I feel the most connected with humanity than I have ever felt, and I feel myself naturally moving outwards. Wanting more and more to share with people, and less and less to try and hold onto to what I need to do to feel like I am having a "good" day. My social awkwardness and anxiety is lifting, though still present, and I am feeling more at home with a sense of community and sharing in my life. 

I have been mediating every morning since I arrived in Benares, and feeling an ease in my practice. I have put down the beating stick. Or at least I think I have, there is perhaps still a beating stick disguised as something else, but for now, I feel I have let go of this cane, put it down, and started to experience the present moment just a bit more, amongst all the fantastizing about getting married and having beautiful little chocolate coloured children! But that's another story! So I have moved into a regular practice of the mindfulness of breathing and the Mettabhavana, and a spot of just sitting, only I am not just sitting, I am also just sweating! I am drinking 8 litres of water a day and a continuos flow electrolyte sachets. This heat is something else, but I am enjoying the slow pace it brings about, the absolute nescetiy to rise at 5am every morning and catch the sunrise and cool air, and the bikram style sweat it brings about during taekwondo class. I feel healthy, revived, hot, tired and alive. I am content to just sit, and just sweat. 

There is so much to say and I can't quite manage to channel it. I have seen, experienced, felt so much, just as we all do. Just this morning I Was watching the sunrise on the Ganga, at 6:36 am it was already about 26 degrees possibly hotter, and I let the sun beam onto my face and chest as I sat in my new salwaar kameez, feeling very smart, comfortable and satisfied. Then three young girls came and sat on the steps in the shade, 3 sisters, with an obvious pecking order, and they started working away, slicing and splitting some soft bamboo type stripes. They were beautiful, slightly scruffy, slightly dirty, but all with salwaar suits on. This is the thing about India, no matter how poor people are they make sure they are dressed well. A lot of the children I have taught so far are dressed well with smart hair, then you shake their hand and you feel the grit and grain of dirt, and you look at their feet to see dark matted leather like feet, that have a constant relationship with the hot tarmaced floor of the streets. These three young girls are from a lower caste, I assume, and they work, they don't go to school, they spend their days peeling this soft bamboo material, sitting together, limbs draped over one another, staring curiously at foreigners like myself, slowly building up the courage to smile back as I smile at them. They are beautiful girls, so beautiful, yet they are trapped in a system that doesn't enable them to move forwards, to propel themselves into the epicentre of life. I want to help them, they are not begging, so I think I should give them money. I think twice, and I don't give them any money. A constant challenge in this country, a constant source of dis ease for myself, especially if I am being asked for money whilst I am with my local indian friends. I feel a pierce of shame as I ignore their advances for the rupees in my purse. I resolve that I need to find a way to connect with these people, a boundaried, yet friendly interaction, which acknowledges their humanness without giving them money. 

Appearance and social status is all so entwined and of great importance here. I am constantly trying to figure things out, see who's who, what's what, and how this has all come about, but I never quite manage. I think it would take years of living here to understand the complex structures that envelop this country and all the people within it. For now I am slowly adopting the fashion, the pride in what the Indians wear and I am absolutely loving it. I have two sari's, bindis, bangles, two salwaar suits and many man scarves, and at a fraction of the price than you would pay in England. I feel beautiful, I feel smart, I feel comfortable. It makes a change from the constant track suits I wear at home in London. I feel like a woman, and just last night the man I am so passionately in love with told me "you are beautiful". He never fails to share his appreciation of me. It is a lesson in how to be open with our feelings, generous with our speech. I see, if we don't tell other people how we see them, how we feel about them, then how do they know? They just don't and I am learning to express these positive kind of feelings without needing anything back. If I manage this, I experience freedom and joy. The joy of giving. My lack of self esteem has always needed a response in the past. Now I feel the groundedness  of simple giving. my self belief is growing and I fantasize about returning to London and constantly asking people to go for tea, spontaneously and randomly. Though I am sure the reality of the "London schedules" we are all so tied up in will challenge this fantasy. 

I have made so many friends here, we have been sharing our lives, our hearts, our beings. I will never forget this trip. I am often overwhelmed by the thought of leaving, by returning to London to this.....

Where car parks inside those designated white lines! My indian friends saw this photo and pointed at the white lines and cars and muttered something in Hindi in a confused manner. Oh my gaaaaaad, it even looks odd to me, just after four months of being here. So sterile, so ordered. I am not quite sure how I am going to manage the return, but I will, as we do, we just manage don't we. For now, I will try and stay int he present and i will continue my practice of just sitting, just sweating!