Transition Days

Jon sitting on our meditation bench with Red.

I didn’t have jet lag in India.  Not that I noticed anyway.  I guess I was running on adrenaline.  I was on the move  from the moment I got there.  I  woke up at 3am almost every morning, blogged and got very little sleep, but never felt the way I have the past two days.

Which is like I have a bad hangover.  Yesterday was worse than today.  I slept most of it.

Today I feel like my body is adjusting to the time change (a ten-hour difference) and my head is still partly in India.   I’ve never traveled like this before, so it’s a new and strange sensation for me.

I unpacked and did the chores around the house and farm.  But the idea of going to my studio to work is unfathomable to me still.

I picked up some of the dog poop in the back yard that had been frozen under the snow.  It may sound strange, but it was actually a grounding thing to do.

I spent time with Chloe and the donkeys.  I brushed them and cleaned their hooves, then took them out to the back pasture.  Chloe and Fanny got right to grazing, but Lulu spent time with me.  I squatted on the ground and she stood by me.  Nuzzling me from time to time.

In the afternoon Jon and I visited the Mansion.  I gave Connie a gift from India and she gave me a pair of mittens that she knitted.  Next Friday, I’ll bring some photos and give a talk about my trip at the Mansion.

Jon and I walked in the woods with the dogs.   We sat on the meditation bench and listened to the water.

I still have images of India running through my head.  And it’s hard to reconcile them with what I’m actually seeing.  There seems to be so much space here, and the colors are so even and gentle.  It’s like  being plunged  into a sensory deprivation tank.

With Jon’s help I keep reminding myself this is a normal adjustment period.  I’m just realizing how visually stimulating  and how intense and emotional the trip actually was.

Tomorrow I’ll bring the fabrics that I bought in India,  into my studio.  That’s as far as I can go in my mind.

I’m thinking about the order of 100 potholders that will be coming from the women in Soma’s village and how I’ll sell them.  Jon and I are talking about how I can make my relationship with them a  long term one.

I also have the tote bags that the girls at the Women’s Interlink Foundation made.  I’ll be selling them on my blog in the next couple of days.

And I haven’t forgotten about my Show Your Soul Posters.  It seems so long ago that I made them and posted them around Cambridge.  But they seem to me to have more relevance than ever.  Later this week, I’ll have more printed up.

There’s so much more about India that I want to write about.  And I have so many photos that I still want to post.  I guess these stories will evolve naturally over time.

I imagine they’ll be integrated in my work too.  That’s going to need some space though.  It’s not something that will happen before it’s ready to.

 

 

 

6 thoughts on “Transition Days

  1. I know I invited you to post one of your Show Your Soul posters at Tractor Supply in Greenwich, but don’t. They have no soul. They fired me.

    So it goes.

    1. Oh I’m sorry to hear that Mary Jean. You’re right, they have no soul! I’ll be thinking of you and know you’ll find the place for you, soul and all.

  2. Welcome back, Maria! I can’t imagine two more different places than India and upstate New York, but I can also imagine that you will find a way to synthesize your experience there with your reality here. I would be interested in purchasing a potholder or two, and I look forward to hearing more about your long term projects with the women you met in India. For now…sleep!

  3. Welcome home Maria. I too share your experience with travel. I moved from the green hills of Canada to Mexican dessert many years ago. (Im back home now). It struck me as strange as well, that I handled the change of culture and diet, landscape and language like a champ, when I arrived there. When I came home was when I experienced culture shock. I would stop a car to look at flowers (i was starving for colour coming out of the dessert). Everything seemed incredibly expensive it made me wonder how people could afford to live! The people seemed less grateful and more entitled somehow then when I left……It seemed upside down to me at the time but listening to your story, it would seem we are cut of the same clothe (no pun intended lol). I know you will do what is right for you to find your balancing point again. I am thinking of you my long distance friend.

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