Read.Eat.Listen: Bend

It's been a week of listening to the world news: to Lance & Oprah, President Obama's inauguration, Beyonce's lips, Hilary testifying about Benghazi... a lot to process. Above the din, a few things have caught my ear  to provide some inspiration
Read: I heard a review of this book on NPR and rushed to find out more. "Bend, Not Break: A Life in Two Worlds," is Ping Fu's story of surviving the hell that was the Chinese Cultural Revolution,  being exiled to America (for her research on female infanticide) and going on to become the influential CEO of Geomagic. Here's a story for crazy times!
Eat: Goa Fish Curry. A couple years ago, I tacked on a few weeks' time in Goa, India, after several months spent in Mysore. Kwame flew out for that part of the trip, which involved more beach time than yoga. As many of the best places to eat are in the beach shack restaurants that line the beach, and many a sunset dinner involved the local fish curry. Since a birthday is going on 'round here, a Goan curry is in the making (albeit without the beach shack dining room). I didn't do any cooking in Goa, so I'm happy to have a copy of Niloufer Ichaporia King's  'My Bombay Kitchen'. The book is a good foodie read period; I'm glad to finally cook something out of it!
Listen: Of Monsters and Men 'King & Lionheart'

Goan Goodbyes

It’s been hard to wrap my head around making the trip home to the US, but it’s time. My send off from Goa, and thus the conclusion of this visit to India, included eating dinner at a schmancy Thai restaurant attached to the hotel I landed at upon arrival, a morning pranyama class to herald the new moon (and thus day off from asana) and a beach shack breakfast with some other yogis. As I said my goodbyes on the sand, a man in a Speedo, also got up to bid me adieu. I’d never spoken to him before, but I’d certainly noticed this regular at the popular beach shack close to where many of we students were staying. I imagine he was in his 70s, deeply tanned, European, and exceedingly fit from daily swims in the sea. He reminded me of Jack Lalanne, the recently deceased fitness guru of my mother’s generation, whose visage I recalled from the TV program along with my mom had once conducted her leg lifts.

I exchanged pleasantries with the Goan Lalanne. And then he hugged me goodbye and enthusiastically smooched my cheek.

“That was unexpected,” my friend commented as we walked back and I had to agree.

But it was an appropriately Goan goodbye: warm, beach-clad and slightly over the top.

Goa, over the past two and a half weeks of my visit to the beachside state, had felt, to me, as far away from Mysore, my base for the nearly 4 months away as it was from the US. With its hordes of tourists, party atmosphere, beach and faster moving cars, sometimes the only clue you were in India was the fish curry on the menu.

“Oh, this is India,” a friend who lives in Goa most of the year gently reminded me, as I marveled at the seeming differences. “It’s just a different side of it.”

I’ve come to think the minimum visit to any foreign country should be a month. In that time, you’ll kind of get a clue to the place. I'd upped the ante in tripling that minimum on this trip to India...and I’d become that much more comfortable crossing crazily trafficked streets, haggling over prices, eating with my hands, getting clued into sari-tying, and even, yes, nodding my head Indian style (neither yes or no). Nonetheless, I’m perhaps even more aware that I’m still very much a visitor. Visiting only Mysore and Goa is kind of like someone coming to the US and ‘only’ staying in Texas and Los Angeles. Sure, you’d get a lot of cultural flavor…but could you claim to know the country? Hardly. But you could have some legitimate feelings about the place.

“Do you live here?” I’d asked the Lalanne look-alike.

“No,” he smiled and shook his head. “But I love it... like you.”

India: Gone Goa

I'm in Goa, transitioning from the Mysore bubble of Ashtanga community and practice to the states, California and my 'home.' It's beautiful here, I can walk barefoot from door to beach in less than five minutes, the sun and sand are warm and I'll get a week of practice with a Certified Ashtanga teacher, Rolf and his partner, Marci. Goa reminds me of Bolinas crossed with Nice crossed with the Cinque Terre of Italy. That is equal parts India, Europe and the grooviest parts of US. Three months in Mysore have touched me deeply and as much as I'm ready for the states, and as soothing a balm these beaches are, my heart is really tender here. Fortunately, right before I left I made a last trip up Chamundi Hill, visiting Swamiji, a well-spirited, seen-it-all saddhu who lives at the Shiva Cave Temple, to whom some of my first teachers introduced me, for a reminder that the divine is everywhere, inside and out, if you're willing to look. ...and that a sense of humor goes a long way on just about every front.