Saturation

October 10, 2010

My sandals have endured the rain and its puddles far more often than I would like.  No matter where I seem to set them, when it rains, they get significantly wet, such that the next day they are still not fully dry.  In Thanjavur I faced a terrific rainstorm as I made my way to the hotel one early evening.  Traversing two streets, a bus station and a main thoroughfare, I did fairly well avoiding any large pooling of water.  A half a block from the hotel, I wiggled my way through a few street vendors to end up at a curb facing an enormous gathering of rain water.  This diminutive pond seemed endless.  I attempted a jump, but landed in ankle deep muck.  The last couple of hundred steps were accompanied by a squelching sound and bubbles, actual bubbles, puffing up from my sandals. As I had a train trip scheduled for that evening, I worked in a frenzy to try and dry them before the journey.

The larger India sojourn that I have experienced for nearly six months have left me with that same saturated feeling.  The endless events and endeavors, people and programs, meetings and meanderings have filled me beyond my capacity to truly reflect on all that I have witnessed and felt.  I am, literally, saturated with India. And these last few weeks are bubbles bursting forth from an over-saturation that is speeding me toward the end of my multi-experiences. The pool of opportunities continues to expand, even as I am forced to exit the pool; time no longer allowing me to wallow in the water.  Its an extraordinary feeling to as though I actually need to leave this place in order to continue to gain from the rich experiences I have had.  Too much more, and I wouldn’t be able to appreciate it anymore, I think.

As I sat on the train one evening, staring out the window into a darkness punctuated by yellow-lit walls and the always present tubelights, I smiled.  Or rather, a smile crepped up on my, unawares, as I felt a moment, a deeply-seated moment of complete satisfaction.  A rare kind of moment for me, I needed to sit with the feeling to understand it.  The unfamiliar satisfaction stemmed from successful endeavors that reached out to and electrified the people I have been working with.  The satisfaction came from a sense of how much this has meant to me. The satisfaction reminded me that I will never lose these experiences, they cannot be taken away, they cannot be lost.  They are now firmly a part of who I am as an individual, both shaped by and having shaped these experiences.  The satisfaction overwhelmed all the various frustrations and obstacles, those little beasties that often are overwhelming in and of themselves, blocking the satisfaction from reaching its full potential.

A portion of the fulfillment stems from how—in recent moments—this endeavor has taken on the feeling of being a beginning and not an end.  Although I face just two weeks left in actual time, my friends continue to talk of how they will greet me and take care of me, ‘when you return in 2 or 3 years.’ Colleagues ask when I will be back to extend the workshops I led and of course the students wish that it would all resume again tomorrow.  Time will change some of that, of course.  I won’t be here to extend the relationships.  But since I have a professional connection as a performer with my colleagues theatre group and have become like family to at least two of my acquaintances here and I will continue as a consultant with one school in particular, I don’t see this 6 month journey fading into the horizon any time soon.

I am beginning to feel like the marketing director for the Fulbright, but suffice it to say that such a gift as a Fulbright is just that—a gift—when the experience is allowed to work on you, rather than you manipulate it to be as you want.  I could not have designed an experience such as I have had.  It has depended on the goodwill and interest of the many people I have encountered.  And with that thought, the end is coming but will be more of a transition with a promise: a return to this new home of mine which will build on the saturation of this current journey.