slump

The transition back to my life in the USA has been surprisingly easy. I found my beloved apartment mostly like we left it, aside from a light covering of dust. And yesterday, I went out to the farm, where I was welcomed back with open arms by everyone...aside

Horse hug

from the horses who, if they remembered that I’d been gone for nearly four months, didn’t let on. But then, they also don’t have arms. 

So, maybe it’s post-India blues, but since I got back, I’ve been just...slumped. Sometimes I’m sad, but mostly I just feel uninterested and unmotivated. There are more than enough exciting options I could pour myself into right now, but I’m lacking
the desire.

Needless to say, I was drawing a blank for this week’s post. So while I wait for what writer Julia Cameron calls ‘marching orders,’ I’ve decided to post a fitting essay I wrote at another slumpy juncture...  

Where do we go from here? 

I turned 28 last month, which means, according to plan, I should be a) Just returning from a three year ex-patriot adventure in India, b) Falling in love with a sexy Latin man who believes dancing is just an everyday activity, and c) Have everything about life pretty much figured out so I don’t waste any more time with the circular philosophical questions that plague me constantly.

Things aren’t looking good. I never imagined that somewhere in my mid 20s, suddenly and out of nowhere, I’d spend about a year (OK, maybe two or three) in an existential crisis, and then get plopped down not far from where I left off, but feeling completely lost,

In transit

without a clue what to do next. A year or so into my crisis, I met my friend Colleen at Wendy’s for a salad. I was telling her my tale of woe and lostness between bites of lettuce, turkey, and bacon bits when she said this: “I don’t think anyone our age really knows what they want to do.” I sat there sullenly. “But I did know,” I wanted to tell her. “I had it all figured out and now it’s all gone.”

But not only have I not accomplished the goals I dreamed up six years ago, I think my goals are actually changing (pause for shocked gasp). Disturbingly, in the past three years, not all at once, but slowly I’ve been changing my mind about things. I’m starting to understand some things that I didn’t know in my early 20s, like that rest and health are the foundation of anything that might follow; that sometimes your life’s passion is right under your nose and you don’t even know it; and that travel is way overrated. I’ve also been thinking more about getting married and having babies, which scares me so badly, sometimes I have to go sit in a closet and breathe slow, deep breaths until I settle down. I also have to promise myself that if I have babies, they will be miniature clones of Antonio Banderas.

The thing is, instead of dreaming about backpacking through Europe, I’m starting to feel more and more like wanting to contribute something important, right where I am. I feel a need to create, to produce something that might outlive me. I’m hoping it’s not just my

Laundry out to dry in Greece

biological clock ticking.

But lately, I’ve been lying in bed, unable to fall asleep, just thinking and thinking about what I want to do with my life. Thinking really isn’t the correct term; obsessing is more accurate. Just after repeating to myself the long list of helpful things I’ve learned about life in the past few years, like how true satisfaction comes from simply appreciating things like a great cup of coffee on a cool morning, something inside immediately begins to cry out, “But, but, I never got to live with orphans in Guatemala or traverse the Sahara on a camel.” What will I tell my children for heaven’s sake, that Mommy was going to live

A favorite pastime

abroad for a while, maybe start a school for blind Russians or learn to speak Italian while drinking cappuccinos in outdoor cafes . . . but then, she changed her mind and decided to stay home?

When my cousin Lynell stopped wanting to play Barbies with me, I told her reproachfully, “I will never stop playing with Barbies.” I just can’t let go of some dreams. Like my dog, Chi Chi, who used to lock her jaws onto a sock and refuse to let go even when we’d lift the sock so high, she’d dangle in the air. I’m passionate and driven, and when I want something, I have a hard time letting go. I’m willing to risk everything; I want it so bad, it seems impossible to start un-wanting it.

But now, nearing 30, the barbies are packed away in a box in storage (I don’t have the heart to get rid of them) and I have to acknowledge that people do change and some desires will eventually wane and change into new, different desires. I guess I just wish the change was less painful, less drawn out, and a little more clear cut. I’ve told God several times that if he just came down in all his shining splendor and told me what I should do with my life, I could go any direction, no problem, no questions asked. But then I have to

Morning chai in India

remind myself that I always have questions. I would throw out some hypotheticals. I would want God to really consider all my options.

But there seems a fine line between shooting for the stars and jumping into a black hole. I’m starting to accept that having it all figured out, at 28 or any other age, is not a realistic goal: that asking, “Where do we go from here?” may be a monthly, if not weekly or daily question. 

And sometimes it’s a question that just has to get lost for a while.

OneArmGirl

the claw

While at my parents’ house, I took the opportunity to reacquaint myself with an old friend.

I’ve been telling people for years now that my fake arm lives in a closet at my parents’ home…and there I found it, somewhere near the back, in a bag, where I’d left it since they moved into that house five years ago.

Calling my prosthetic arm a ‘friend’ is somewhat of a stretch. It’s heavy and hot to wear, and it requires a rubber strap to go over my chest, under my arm, and snap in the back, to stay in place. I basically have to bathe my small arm and left shoulder in baby powder to deal with the humidity inside. At best, it’s overrated; at worst, it’s a beast.

Here’s some likely useless information to tuck away: innovation in prosthetic arms is not so great in comparison to legs because, overall, more people need legs than arms. The market just isn’t there. And strangely, more funding comes in for NASA.

My very first prosthetic arm was archaic, if not scary, but we’re talking early 80s here. The ‘hand’ was what you might call ‘utilitarian'—though what one is expected to accomplish with a small cleated rubber claw is still a mystery to me. My parents took me to special classes to learn what I could do with it, like pick up small blocks or…honestly, I can’t think of what else it did. Obviously, I wasn’t being groomed for beauty pageants: “Please welcome to the stage, Little Miss Reptile Arm, who will be sharing with us an audition monologue for Alien 2.”  

The original claw

When I first got my current arm, maybe ten years ago, it was state-of-the-art as fake arms go; custom designed for me by a very kind, very patient man called Jon. I was no easy client. I’d been down that road of tears and slurpies too many times to harbor any Luke Skywalker fantasies. I came to Jon from the throngs of the post-prosthetically disillusioned.

But Jon was, as I mentioned, patient. He was big and tall and soft-spoken with a deep voice. He wrapped the cool, damp plaster casting around my small arm slowly, his huge hands deliberately smoothing out any bumps or roughness as he went…

Break. I’m not sure that was headed in the direction I intended when I decided to write about prosthetic arms. Maybe I’ve just been wrapped in one too many plaster castes; but that’s a story for another time.

Anyhew…Jon really listened to me and made some key adjustments that greatly enhanced my prosthetic-arm-wearing-experience. We even flew to Texas where I modeled for a lovely blond woman who spray-painted the rubber ‘skin’ to match my own skin tone, freckles included. I remember how she used almost every primary color to create my personal hue, slightly tanned white girl. And I only had a small decision-making crisis when I had to choose the length of the nails that would remain the same for the rest of all time; I decided against the can’t-type-on-this-keyboard-but-I-don’t-care-cause-my-nails-are-fabulous look, and went with something more conservative.

So considering the tightrope we were walking between aesthetics and functionality, the end result looked good, really the best it could. Finneas could operate the hand with a rocker switch from inside the hollowed out arm, like a tiny man behind the curtain. Unfortunately the forearm was still the size of a male lumberjack’s because it had to hold the motor inside.

Would have been perfect for Jon.

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Considering I’ve spent most my life learning to do things without it, I have considerable difficulty delegating tasks to my prosthetic arm. Currently, it is proficient in crushing soda cans, styrofoam cups, and most other temporary liquid holders which you would rather not smash whilst holding said liquid in its mechanized fingers. It is also perfect at scaring the bajeebers out of people while lying inanimate on my bed, or being carried around the office, peaking disembodied around corners and tapping unsuspecting victims on the shoulder, as Joey once proved. And I imagine it might serve as an effective weapon should I find myself in a position requiring hand to hand combat. Sorry.

I’ve worn the arm regularly by times—I have to admit, primarily so that I could make use of the long-sleeved section of my wardrobe. Consistency is the key: I once wore it every day to a class in college, then one day went without. No one said anything, but I could see their confused eyebrows reviewing the laws of nature as I took my seat. 

Pimped out arm

But considering the hassle, I’m pressed to decide if prosthetic limbs are an asset or an additional handicap. I know the more I get comfortable in my own skin, the less patience I have for the arm.

There are new developments, of course. The legs they have for runners are pretty kick ass; and I once saw a prototype for an arm with a mechanized elbow that could allegedly throw a baseball—helpful if you’re a pitcher, I guess, but I’d just like to be able to pick up a plate of food. And what happens when your mechanical elbow goes on the fritz and you find yourself in the middle of an involuntary prosthetic seizure? That can’t be good in a business meeting.

I recently saw a news story on a scheme to connect electrodes from the prosthetic arm to your muscles, allowing your brain to dictate movement. I still have my doubts. No electrical wiring is gonna keep up with the speed of a brain. What happens when you forget what you were gonna do with it by the time your arm gets there. It’s amazing the ingenuity it takes to come nowhere close to the original design.

And who needs arms anyway? I think my artificial appendage will remain in the closet, aside from the occasional show-and-tell or practical joke engagement. It’s perfectly capable of living a meaningful existence detached from my person.

Plus, another arm isn’t good for my job security. 

OneArmGirl

see you

This blogging business ain't easy, I tell you.

I just got off an airplane yesterday, where I existed in limbo for fifteen hours of a threatening headache, prior to which I'd already travelled by plane, a bus, and a taxi, after a teary morning meltdown and Carnival paint smeared on my arm, forehead, and left boob a la Tony; as if I don't smear enough things on that boob by myself.

Dinha's crew on my last day. Joe couldn't even fire me.

And today, I have to write a post. Thursdays can be so demanding, though I imagine much of my international audience is now reading this on Friday. But I promised you a weekly post. I think it might be the biggest commitment I've ever made, actually. It's been a joyous, terrifying, wonderfully strange journey, but I really wouldn't have it any other way; though my obsession with consistent timely posting often leaves my friends looking confused at my dedication to something that pays nothing. Welcome to being a writer.

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So, let me prop my jet-lagged eyes open because the show must go on...


Leaving India was hard. I feel so loved and happy in Benaulim, I'm tempted to cut my losses, accept Tony's marriage proposal(s), and go native. But nearing the Newark airport, Springsteen's American buttocks album seemed like a fitting way to welcome myself back. And I really did start feeling happy to have been "born in the USA." Writing "American" under nationality on the customs form and stepping to the end of the line for citizens, I felt a growing giddy sense of identity. I'm no staunch patriot, but the familiarity feels good, reminds me who I am and will continue to be no matter what part of the world I traverse. Home is home, and I love being an American. It's nice to be reminded once in a while.

Then I passed a couple taxi drivers looking to negotiate fares in the Jersey airport and wondered if I had actually brought India home with me. Sandy jeans and colorfully packaged teas are reminders scattered across the wood floor of my old bedroom. I'm trying to reclaim sleep I've missed for several weeks while steady rain patters on the rooftop. Listening to one of Pascal's favorite Indian mystic CDs, I feel happy and quiet. Experience has a way of organizing itself in memories over time. The next thing can wait.

Farewell flower petals left outside my door.

And the flying carpet? I don't think any explanation, even if there was one, could rival whatever you can imagine.


Now back to sleep. Sweet dreams.


OneArmGirl      

now we take over

"Normality is the Great Neurosis of civilization."

 from Even Cowgirls Get the Blues 

I’m an even greater curiosity in India. Regardless of averted eyes or speed of step, I’m greeted every day walking to the village center by stares of shopkeepers, taxi drivers, bicycle vendors and pedestrians; when I’m passed, I feel their eyes on my back. 

Indians stare without shame. Sometimes six, ten eyes wide, faces blank, necks twisting, arms and legs suddenly in slow motion. Waiting for Little Gen to squeeze the scooter into a parking slot at the market, I take three watchers on, attempting to outstare them, to limited avail. This is a place where you should never be surprised to see anything: twenty people in a rickshaw, someone peeing in the street, an establishment called Baby Jesus Coffee Shop; and I’m a freak. 

Anonymity is simply not an option here for a blondish curly-haired white girl, without mentioning the miniature left arm. The bubble gum pink nail polish and single-handed bicycle riding nearly bumps me up to circus performer status.

I’m not certain why I currently wear a hot pink bathing suit. Though I've been familiar with pool attention since I was wearing floaties, the left one bobbing helplessly on the surface of the water like a buoyed dingy. I might drown, but that arm wasn't getting anywhere near the water.

Now striding round the pool, I pray nothing trips me before I can get in the water. I’m more comfortable after submerged, but I’m still on stage. I can almost hear a collective intake of breath as I push away from the edge and disappear under the water. The eyes of three portly men on reclining chairs travel back and forth with me from pool end to end. I pretend not to notice, feigning the indifference of an astronaut at space camp, but I wonder what they’re thinking.

After two months, the abundance of onlookers is making me feel far more important than I’m sure is healthy. I’m exhausted. Self-importance can be so tiring. The novelty is wearing thin.

--------------------------------------

An older woman watches me poolside as I give the froggy breast stroke my best shot.

But her gaze is different. More knowing than curious, she holds an unabashed smile on her lips. She seems to revel in my swim. It’s disconcerting. This is the second day I’ve noticed her watching me, and when I meet her eye from a neighboring pool chair, she walks over to me and looks down warmly.

“I have to tell you, I just think you’re wonderful,” she beams. She tells me she has a grandson who was born with only one ear. She says the other kids at school are doing their part to confirm his abnormality.

“I know I’m his grandmother, but he is really very smart and very handsome,” she continues, regaling several scholastic and athletic accolades.

I picture fortune-cookie-colored skin and dark eyes from an Egyptian mother and English father, and smile, agreeing that he must be very special. And I know he is. But I can feel her burden. I want to give her something more to give him, to relieve his pain, to let him know that what seems loss is likely gain. A serum for immunity to conformity, now that’s the kind of vaccination I could get behind.

I recognize this woman’s story, but I’m suddenly humbled, because it’s not about me. When I can muster the generosity to meet stares with a wave of my tiny arm, it’s like a magic wand, turning blank faces into smiles. Works every time.

I was told this week of two blind men who used to visit this village. During a soccer match at a local sports bar, a power outage suddenly cut the television and the lights. 

Out of the silent darkness, one of the men said with conviction, “Now we take over!” 

OneArmGirl

creature of comfort

Scratch the elephant and scooter, I just want to go to the spa.

In celebration of my slowly returning health, Little Gen and I decided to splurge and have both a manicure and pedicure, something unheard of in my usual existence. So we motored down to the newly opened Ocean salon, which had an oddly Japanese feel inside. Apparently, even Asian décor in other parts of Asia means Zen gardens. Finneas got the whole treatment and seemed to enjoy himself thoroughly; though I’ve decided Barbie doll pink may not be his color. 

Why two colors, you ask? Because I can. But now I’m hooked...I want the facial, deep hair conditioning, head massage, and whatever else I can fit into the next week. Some come to the third world to experience poverty; I come for the bikini wax. Actually, in that particular department, I find the gain not worth the pain. I’m really not a spa junkie, but highlights for $20 ain’t bad. I might even go for the ‘Body Souffle with Green Clay’ because if you add ‘souffle’ to any title, it must be good. They should never have let me take the menu home. 

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Alas, my stay in India is coming to an end, which, of course, leaves me contemplating the meaning and purpose of my visit in the greater context of my life’s journey. So far, I got nothing. I’ve worked a little for no wage, become ill in every way possible, and barely managed to post to this blog once a week. I haven’t even rested successfully.

I have spent a great deal of time absorbing information and thinking too much, as per my usual routine; and, as per usual, have not arrived at any conclusions except that I should spend less time thinking. In fact, my time would be better spent learning the rules of cricket, so I can hold my own in current World Cup conversations. PS, call me American, but I still think baseball is better; our pitchers don’t need a running start.

In the two months that I’ve been here, I’ve hardly been out of the village. I’ve seen a lot of backpackers coming and going, little Benaulim but a tiny dot on their mapped pilgrimage, but all I need is an iced coffee at Dinha’s to convince me to stay. Here are a few other reasons:

Accessibility to this, my toilet, where I know I will not be disturbed and there will always be toilet paper. Next to the ceiling fan, this is my lifeblood.

And...

Sharing my hair with Mikey Man.

OneArmGirl

  

nirvana lost

The handicapped lifestyle is not all fun and popsicles, as one might suppose. It is the best of adventures, to be sure, one for which I’d hate to be left behind, but adventure rarely comes easily; otherwise we’d have a misnomer on our hands.

Just when I thought the Thursday regularity of my posts from India might be giving the oh-so-false impression that I write to you easily from a seaside cabana, whilst sipping Bacardi Breezers, pausing here and there to look wistfully toward the horizon for poetic inspiration, I got sick to prove the point. 

Take-a-way lunch from Dinha's

I write to you now through a haze of flu medication, three days separated from any reality outside the bounds of bed and tissues. Or has it been four days; not sure. Apparently, while I was busy soaking up India and trying to condense it into 600 words of weekly post, my brain and my body held a caucus, where they conspired against me, ultimately voting across the board for a time out. And no, I am not that picky about word count, I just feel like a failure with anything under 850.

In fact, this is my second illness in the last month, but tales of simultaneous vomiting and diarrhea in India are cliché, and I couldn’t stomach regaling it. Having survived my first stay in India without the ever-popular ten-pounds-in-two-days weight loss program, I naively considered my stomach to be in the front guard of superior spice tolerance. Pride goeth…

And so, as if the variability of internet connection, temporarily unavailable websites (Blogger, I’d be talking to corporate right now if you weren’t so obnoxiously free), HTML error codes, and unrelenting mosquito raids at the internet café weren’t obstacle enough, add sore throat and head congestion to the dragons I must slay to bring you this post. Can someone please get me a mosquito net to innocently hang from my ceiling fan, having forgotten the power is out, and not off? True story, but not mine.

And now I’d like to tell you how dirty India is…

Ok, I’m not that vindictive. And I kind of like it that way.

India, have I told you lately that I love you? Stay cool, ok? And never change. Really.

Ahem…did I mention I’m on cold tablets and can’t hear myself speak? It’s interesting how sickness narrows your priorities. Instead of where will I go today, what work will I do, who will I talk to, it becomes how can I find a quiet place to lie down, with easy access to ginger lemon honey…Tea?, you ask. No, that would insinuate the inclusion of a tea bag, which is an entirely different drink, so I’ve learned. So ‘ginger lemon honey’ it is, and will continue to be, if this keeps up much longer.

My digs

I find being ill an inconvenience, mostly to all the well people who want you back at the party. After two days of it, I start to feel like a real pooper, reducing my public appearances to avoid bringing down the high.

Asking for help is not something I do well; and helping is not something many people really know how to do. Joe, Pascal, and Tony turn up from time to time at my room to make sure I'm still alive. Conveniently my mobile phone stops working.

“I just need someone to hold my hand,” I squeak to Little Gen, “figuratively speaking," I add between tears. But I reach the little arm out to rest on her two extended fingers.

I go to the pharmacy and point to my throat. I’m handed some whitish horse pills without the outside wrapping, no indication of dosage or desired affect; but mostly I just want to exchange my consciousness for another one. I take one, desperately trusting wherever it takes me.

It takes me to Little Gen’s apartment, where the next twenty-four hours observe me watching back-to-back episodes of Ricky Gervais’ An Idiot Abroad, wherein reluctant traveler Karl Pilkington visits the Seven Wonders of the World, while leaving the rest of us feeling glad we stayed home.

Balcony at Savio's Guesthouse

But this morning, I wobble my way to German Bakery, desperate for contact with the outside world. I find myself sitting across from a bearded professor who tells me, according to Zen, enlightenment is the sound of one hand clapping.

Apparently, I’m closer than I thought.

OneArmGirl      

free love and german baked goods

At least once a day, I make a pilgrimage to the German Bakery. How does there come to be a German bakery in a small village in India? I don’t know, but if there was ever a people group capable of such a feat, it’s the Germans. My family tree is full of them, and they won’t be shaken out.

Savio’s Guesthouse, or Benaulim Hippie Central, is accumulating more and more every day. Soon, it will be Savio’s German Guesthouse, clean and organized, which will completely ruin its shabby reputation.

My next-door neighbor, Michael, is a German hippie, if that’s possible. He wasn’t at Woodstock, but he laments a world without free love. “It’s a shit,” he says. His red bicycle with a pink flower on the handlebars winks at me. 

But why is the German Bakery operated by a bunch of Asian guys from Nepal is, perhaps, a more obvious question. I don’t know, but they are adorable and I love them. They also make a decent latte, though it bears an almost exact resemblance to the cappuccino.

I sit with Michael at the bakery while he smokes a homemade cigarette and drinks a cappuccino; alcohol and other drugs are left to the past. He explains why east Germany is better than west and teaches me to ask for a rolled cigarette in Deutche. I add this to my repertoire of 'gesundheit.' Michael’s never been to the States, but he dreams about surfing in the Pacific. 

We sit quietly at the outdoor tables, but this is anything but a Parisian café. Rickshaws and taxis tilt around the main village intersection. All the new tourists of the week turn up curbside, looking confused.

“Ack, too many Indians here,” Michael complains, indicating the out-of-towners from Mumbai or Delhi. “It’s a shit.”

I smile.

The bakery, with its enticing case of bread, shaped into various pastries, offers a beacon of comfort to newcomers. It is a rare spot in the world where I can watch as much as I am usually watched.

Tuk tuk a la Michael

Last evening, Michael finds he has less mint leaves in his tea than his west German friend. I propose this could be intentional discrimination against east Germans. Then we discuss the silliness of dread-locked westerners who feel superior in rarely-washed clothing.

Life without Michael would be a shit. 

OneArmGirl