grounded growth

On first-day-of-school-eve, I can’t sleep.

I suffer the tossing and turning and butterflies at the end of every single summer. This past summer was no different, except that the back-to-school jitters were coupled with new-to-India jitters and took over around noon instead of right as I lay down to sleep. I was at school twirling in the last minute craziness swirl and decided that an outing having nothing to do with school might be just the antidote I needed.  A new friend agreed to come along.

As we were leaving school to head into the maelstrom of traffic, we made a quick plan to head to one of Chennai’s largest and oldest temples. We cruised through the windy, dusty streets of Chennai in an auto-rickshaw, loudly sharing stories over the roar of the engine and the tireless honking.  We passed fruit stands, idli shops, storefronts with saris flowing in the breeze.  We dodged street dogs and motorcycles, large buses and lazy cows. And we arrived, in one piece, in Mylapore, at the Kapaleeswarar Temple.

The temple sits majestically in the middle of an old, bustling part of Chennai and dates back to the 7th Century. The entry way to the temple is a tall, intricately carved and painted tribute to one of the legends of Shiva.  Inside, we wandered by shrines to Karpagambal, Ganesha, Krishna. We ran into a local friend from school who circumambulated with us, whispering about each of the gods and goddesses and their relationships to each other. Together, we held our hands over the flame at Ganesha’s altar and were blessed in the pooja; ashes smeared on our foreheads, bells and horns, chanting and our reverent silence.

That August day seems like just yesterday and a lifetime ago.  It was a beautiful way to start this journey I’m on. I didn’t know it then, but good old Ganesha has been doing his thing for me ever since; placing obstacles and removing them and smiling all the way along…

Life has been kind of nuts. My back-to-school-new-to-India jitters have subsided and been replaced with LIFE. In all of the newness and excitement of change, it has been easy to get swept up and away in work and travel and visitors and friends and INDIA!  Since the moment I launched to be here, I have been flying.

And now it’s April and I can feel my body begging me to land.

I’m taking some time to just be still. To listen to the birds calling and the wind whistling through the palms. I am closing my eyes and spending time talking with my mom and remembering where I came from. I am conjuring up the feeling in my stomach I had when I was a shy, little curly-haired girl afraid to jump with the rope swing out into the water. I am remembering days when I was too reserved to say what I really needed, to say how I truly felt.

In this stillness, I am honoring those pieces of me; those pieces that remind me of how incredible it feels now to take the leap, to speak up, to show up just as I am. I have been holding on tightly to some old ideas for a long time. Now, in this new space, I open my hands and let those ideas drift off with love and compassion; they served me so well when I needed them.  They drift away from me, into the air, like ashes.

I’m thinking back to August when I stepped over the threshold into the temple. I remember the questions swirling through my head, the uncertainty, the newness of this chapter. I felt grateful that day to be in such a sacred space with someone who I knew, even then, saw me clearly.  I can smell the incense, taste the sweet pongal handed to me with love by Raji, feel the heat and dust of the ancient stones on the bottom of my bare feet.

That moment and all those before and since have led me to right now. And in this moment, as I slow down enough to just be still, I know everything is just right.

Flying is good. Landing is amazing.