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Wednesday, September 26, 2007 ( 7:46 PM ) shut up christine thought of the day: what part of me needs to grow stronger? # Tuesday, September 25, 2007 ( 10:11 AM ) shut up christine please read: i bow to the paint on my walls; it will give you an idea of the kind of person he is, and the kind of place it was. last night was the very last night at the Garage Tim and I helped Sukh pack his stuff into boxes i jokingly brought him a paper bag lunch as homeless outreach. i know we shouldn't be attached to material things, but i'll miss that place, and everything it stood for. Sukh doesn't read this, but i love him like family, and he is one of the few that i would drop everything for. if he asked me to drive to Timbuktu at three o'clock in the morning to drink the milk of a unicorn from a sapphire-encrusted goblet, dude, i would do it, no questions asked. on a lighter note, this movie gives me goosebumps. # Sunday, September 23, 2007 ( 11:45 PM ) shut up christine the Walk was awesome possum. the night before, a group of us cut up mountains of onions for lunch i love seeing people wipe their onion tears on their sleeves it reminds me of one of my favorite India memories the day of we met at 5am to set up and then it started pouring, monsoon style. we were huddled underneath a canopy for a couple hours and for a second i thought the Walk might not happen, then the sun came out and it was beeeautiful. at 1pm exactly when the walk ended, it started pouring again. how lucky are we? pretty freakin lucky i'd say. Manav Sadhna did a Walk for Hope of their own to coincide with ours, Jet Airways sponsored 100 kids from the Tekra a free plane ride where they got to meet Sushmita Sen, a famous Bollywood Actress. All MS staff members walked to the airport, at 4 o'clock in the morning, for us. i also learned that they dedicated a special prathna (prayer) for my dad, which i am convinced played a huge part in his health recovery. The quote I chose to decorate for the Walk is: We are all longing to go home to some place we have never been—a place half-remembered and half-envisioned we can only catch glimpses the effects of which will pan out in the next few months.of from time to time: Community. Somewhere, there are people to whom we can speak with passion without the words catch in our throats. Somewhere a circle of hands will open to receive us, eyes will light up as we enter, and voices will celebrate with us whenever we come into our own power. Community means strength that joins our strength to do the work that needs to be done. Arms to hold us when we falter. A circle of healing. A circle of friends. Someplace where we can be free. - Starhawk These words are particularly meaningful to me, and encompass how I felt in India. I don't have a picture of the finished quote, but there are two traced hands - one is mine, the other is Pinalben's. One represents America and one represents India, and they're reaching for each other. Pinal drew mehndi on them, and the cool thing is that one of the mehndi designs decorated my own hands while I was in India :) today i made a fairly large decision, my mom worries about me she wants to know what i'm doing with my life i don't blame her, i do too. my head is saying are you sure?? but my heart is saying do it yo. i'm glad i'm not a practical person. # Thursday, September 20, 2007 ( 7:20 AM ) shut up christine are you the person others have engineered you into being? # Tuesday, September 18, 2007 ( 2:47 AM ) shut up christine my dad had surgery, the good news is that he'll be coming home tomorrow. my sister taught him a secret "don't-die handshake," which we do like fifty times when we visit him in the hospital. he and i are going to be vegetarian together, which i am excited about. anyway, i know it's only been two days since i came back but i've found it's so easy and convenient to forget, its so easy that you don't even realize its happening. what i mean is, when i came home i immediately put a load of laundry into the washing machine. it takes ten seconds to load a washing machine, and then you can walk away and forget about it my challenge in coming home is to try to keep that mindfulness with me, to remember that it would to take me two and a half sweaty hours to wash one load of laundry by hand so, tomorrow is trash day, someone is going to come to my home and conveniently carry off my trash for me things like this i can use as reminders, so that i don't forget to use my own hands to pick up the trash that other people have thrown away. also i've been thinking of something Nirali told me while we were having lunch (rice), she told me the story of a monk who was given a bowl of rice, and he started crying because he was overwhelmed with gratitude -- gratitude to the farmers who sowed the seeds, the earth and water for the nutrients to nourish the rice plant, the sun for providing energy and light, the people who harvested the rice, the workers who packed the rice, the driver who brought the rice to the warehouse, the person who stacked the bags of rice on the store shelf, the person who sold the rice, the person who bought the rice, the person who prepared the meal, and the person who served it - gratitude to the whole universe, in a grain of rice. beautiful, yeah? i love nirali. last but not least, if you're free this saturday...  The Walk for Hope is a reminder of the things that matter most in life. The purpose of the entire event is to spread more love in the world. The entire 5 kilometer route (3 miles) is decorated with hundreds of inspiring quotes, all of them hand-made. The Walk for Hope is a reflective journey that leads the walker along a park path decorated with handmade expressions of love and famous quotes, all selected with care for their insight and inspiration. In addition, there are several activity stations set-up along the beautiful path to give each walker the opportunity to pause, interact, reflect and sow new seeds of change. What's more is that it is entirely free with free snacks, free T-shirt, and live entertainment. The Walk for Hope is our gift to you. The Walk for Hope can optionally be used as an opportunity to raise funds for your favorite charity. 9am-1pm Saturday, Sept. 22 El Dorado Park, Long Beach # Sunday, September 16, 2007 ( 7:34 AM ) shut up christine a few pictures...           hiiiiii i'm home. nanet, aldy, sukh, sri, tim, and madhavi met me at the airport i told them to be careful because i have lice, but they hugged me anyway, which i thought was really sweet. the last week has been the best, saddest, happy week. we had a goodbye party practically every day since i didn't know when i'd be going home and He went with me to the airport it went by too fast i was running late. he bought me a kurti, he had gone to four different khadi shops to find it. i turned around in time to see his waving hand disappear behind a wall of heads... and that was it. it was kind of... whack. dang it. you should've kissed him, dummy. coming home has been kind of overwhelming already my dad had a heart attack yesterday. we drove to the hospital straight from the airport he's doing good the house is different so much has changed now that the remodeling is complete. i almost don't want to touch things have you heard of roombas? they're robots. we have two of them, one for vacuuming, one for mopping. gahh soooo bizarre where am i heff, i don't even have to say it. i'm sure you already know what i'm thinking one week before the Walk for Hope can you come? i miss you # Monday, September 10, 2007 ( 11:03 PM ) shut up christine experiencing some difficulties with the confirmation of my return flight will figure it out soon i hope but part of me is sooooooooooo relieved kya bat hai! # Wednesday, September 05, 2007 ( 11:33 PM ) shut up christine quoted from brian's xanga: i fawkin swear, britney spears, you are CRAZY. you cant sing for shit. go back to the crazy hospital! i miss you brian. after kolkata i met up with Arti and Deepa in Delhi and from there we spent a week in the Himalayas for a Jeevan Vidya workshop, which i think could translate as truth and life, or, the opposite of illusion. our facilitor was this intriguing enigma of a man, who after getting his doctorate from the most prestigious university in india became a buddhist monk for eleven years, then left the order and now lives in the mountains. he leaves practically no environmental footprint (ie he recycles everything, his existence is completely organic, it seems every choice he makes as a consumer is either neutral or beneficial to the environment in some way). and he kind of reminds me of a chipmunk. adorable. if i tried to explain what we discussed i'd mess it up. for all i know we spent six days in the himalayas smoking crack arti summed it up best - oh shit. but i did take good notes, so one afternoon we should read them over coffee and ponder our Self and shit our pants. i'll be home september 11th i think. anyhow a few weeks ago i developed a big looks-like-an-infected-spider-bite-bump on my shoulder in the place where my little bump is, the one i've had for two years and the one loralei squeezed and puss squirted in her face. over the next few weeks the bump morphed into a hard ball hump thingy about 2 inches across, and it got so painful that i couldn't raise my arm or even rest my bra strap on it. after the himalayas, the hump and the pain are gone and a weight has literally been lifted off my shoulders. coincidence maybe. interesting though i stopped counting after a while but i've done my 100 Acts. i think i'll keep going for people back at home who are free on saturday nights, a mesage from Supun: For those of you that don't know about the Lights On Program: A few months ago Be The Cause took over running lights on during saturday night into sunday morning. We are there from 10pm to 4am. The best time to come to service is between midnight and 3am. But you can come and go as you like. We serve out of a donated RV. All the food, clothes, and supplies are donated and the program in entirely volunteer run. We give people that are being released from Orange County Jail coffee, food, a place to sit and talk, use of a free cell phone call, etc. All of the people that we have helped are extremely grateful. Alot of them are released at times when there is no one to pick them up. In fact one of the reasons the program was started was because a young lady was assaulted and killed after being released from jail and not knowing the area. Her parents now donate alot to the Lights On Program so that people being released can have someone to meet them as they come out. Please tell your friends that might be interested. You don't need to commit to every weekend but having a few people that are down to come help out on a rotating basis would be cool. thanks more info on Lights On # |
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