LAMBRI DAY 2

surprisingly, I wasn't at all tired when I arrived at the campsite. Himmat made a wonderful dinner of daal and chawal and we crawled into our tent to sleep. I had thought I would go out like a light after the  exhausting climb, but no, I couldn't sleep. The tent was on an incline and though i kept pushing myself up, I kept sliding down to the bottom of the tent. The next morning after breakfast Payson and I went off for another hike up the meadow carpeted with buttercups and tiny flowers I did not know the names of, to the edge of the forest where yet another meadow began. There were two stone huts made by gujjars who come seasonally to graze their horses, sheep and cows. I could go no further and sat down surrounded by dwarf bearded irises so lovely that just to see them was reason enough to climb the peak.  when P sends me the photos he took I shall post them for you to see.  

A PEAK EXPERIENCE

Lambri Peak (12,5000 feet), visible from our mountain home, is a place that has beckoned to me for 10 years. I still recall my first vision of it: the sun had set in our village and all was dark except the peak, like Parvati's two breasts, lit up brightly, glowing warmly in the cool night air. Payson has been up there eight times, almost yearly, and this year, yes, last week in fact, I went up there, too.

It was the most challenging thing i have done in my life. At almost 65 I doubted I could do it. But on an impulse, the weather being good, I said, let's do it. We packed for two days -- Himmat, our all around man, master hiker, cook, guide, packed all the tents and food and on Wednesday the 22nd of May, we started up.

the first hour was the hardest, and when we got to a steeply rocky incline past the village of Sajwaad, I was so tired i was beginning to lose my balance. we stopped for half an hour and ate our breakfast of aloo ka paranthaas and karelas which Raju had made for everyone the night before. Four people took up our gear of tents, sleeping bags, food, and there was enough food to go around. I ate and drank my sweet tea, sugar flavored with tea leaves, in silence and we started again. My left arm started to hurt and I said to myself "f----, I'm going to have a heart attack and then they are all going to have to carry me down!" But I persevered, resting frequently. I was so grateful I had brought both my hiking poles and that my boots, though old, were comfortable and solid. Though I was told by Payson that we would come to a place that wasn't a climb but an easy zig zag, we never came to it. it was straight up and up through no distinct path in the forest. I lay down at one point but was uncomfortable, my whole body sliding down the incline. there was no level ground to rest. a few times I thought, I'm not going to be able to do this, but I persevered. when the oak forest began there was some respite in the heat but none in the climbing. we climbed for seven hours straight, and towards the end I was groaning in pain and was certain that Himmat and Payson had lied to me about how far it was. Just when I thought we had arrived there was another hill to climb -- and no gentle, rolling hill, these. When Himmat told me we had arrived I didn't believe him. But there, over a peak and down the mountain were our two tents, all pitched by the party that had preceded us. Our campsite was by a tiny little rivulet flowing in its stone basin.

More to follow.  

THE WORRY ROOM

I have come up with a trick about worrying that works for me and which I want to share with you, whoever you are. I want to give gifts to those who take the trouble to visit this site. I like to think they are gifts and I hope you do, too. Ultimately, of course, whether you think so or not doesn't matter. What does is my own desire to give them and the consequent sense of satisfaction.

I don't like to worry -- who does? It gnaws away at our energy and our peace like little rats. My worries lately have been about relationships. Being a direct sort of person, living from the inside out, and jealous of my space and solitude, I worry about offending people and losing friendships that are dear to me. I have constructed a worry room in the vast, endless spaces of my mind and when a thought worries me, I first try to do something about it, like call up those people and make amends, and if that doesn't work, banish the sources of my worry to the WORRY ROOM and lock the door! I say, stay here, please, for a while. I respect you, respect the information about myself that you are giving me, but I don't need you now. Goodbye!

Most often the worry vanishes or resolves itself one way or another. These tricks of the mind are very helpful for survival, peace and joy.

ON BOREDOM

I seldom get bored but I am thinking about it because a friend of mine said to me yesterday, I am bored. On those rare occasions I do get bored, I think of what a friend of mine said to me once thirty years ago when I told him I was bored: BE GRATEFUL FOR IT. I didn't understand him at that time but the words kept coming back to me at moments and I realized that boredom only happens when you are deeply rested. So whenever boredom comes visiting, I thank it and it invariably passes, like those clouds I talked about several entries ago. If it doesn't pass this way, don't just thank it, hug it, accept it fully and it will become sweet.
 

GLORIOUS LAZINESS #2

No posts lately, no nothing lately. The last post on this title still had some doing, but for five days nows all I do is breathe! I have been stricken with a sleep akin to death, a coma at night and almost a coma during the day. I can wake up and fall asleep again. I can scare myself with words like 'narcolepsy', I could worry about it but I refuse to. I allow myself to be this way because it is so rare a thing and it feels so good that I trust it. If it continues for, say, two weeks, I might worry about it, or rather, not worry about it but goad myself to work in small ways, get back, gradually, into my habitual swing. I have been writing and earning my keep since I was 14 and 21 respectively, and my body and brain deserve this dull and glorious laziness. I am not bored, I am not suffering, I am not sick. I am simply, slothfully, sluggishly lazy, for laziness has a important if not essential function.  

JOURNALING VERSUS BLOGGING

I had said earlier on this blog that it was a mistake to blog at the expense of journaling. Here is why.

The truth that can be communicated is a lesser truth than the one you can express when there is no audience. 

Journaling is for your eyes only, while blogging is for others’. Journaling is communication with your own soul.

In communicating with others there is always the danger of shamming.

The truth that can be communicated is a very limited truth. It is cleaned at the edges, or cut and made to fit so as to be presentable. It isn’t rough edged, raw, incoherent the way truth can be. I am saying something about appearances and what is behind them. 

Though what it communicated can often be true, it can never be Truth, which is inexpressible.

That communication is best that skirts the edges of the soul and borders on that self-communion that happens in journaling.

To prove I believe the last sentence I shall try and implement it in my blog through which I communicate.  

PARTS OF OUR YOUTH ARE PRESERVED IN OTHERS’ MEMORIES

 Recently I had the opportunity to reconnect with two of my classmates

 from university days, some 43 years ago – Gurjit Cheema and Dod, whose first name I still don’t know. Though they have both aged, like me, I can see continuity from then to now, a thread, and physical similarities to them then. I can see them in my mind’s eye the way they cannot see themselves. Dod, for example, has a memory of me riding a bicycle to campus that I have no memory of at all. I remember him with a moustache and he denies ever having one. Though Gurjit has maintained his slight figure, Dod is not the lithe figure I recall. My memory, superimposed on him now, makes quite a contrast. But the spirit remains unchanged. Yes, the body changes, sometimes drastically, but the spirit doesn’t. What does this tell us? Something highly essential, I think, and very comforting.