Coming back (to life?)

Hello!

I am very recently back from a 2 week trip to Nepal, a decision I made within about a week of taking off, and one that I feel was meant to happen at exactly the time that it did. I always come back from Nepal (by always I mean the two times in my life that I have come back from this country I have declared as my second home) a little more spiritually inclined and grounded in myself than I was before. This feeling I want to keep close, but I know that life happens and memories fade and one must deal with what one is to deal with on a moment-to-moment basis. I have been practicing letting go, without really intending to, but learning in each moment of practice how necessary it is to living, accepting, transforming. And we love transformation.

I don’t know what to say; on trips small and big I am always blown away by the sheer possibility inherent in a 24 hour timeframe, the stretching of time and the traversing of space. I can be in a mountain-hostel in the morning and in a lowland-jungle by 4 pm. I can be unpacking my things at 6pm and in love by 11pm. I never understood or grasped theories about time, and I still don’t. But I most definitely think I have started to view it differently.

I have met people with whom my interaction at that very moment felt destined to take place. That there is no other way things could have transpired. I met a girl of Pakistani origin with the same name as me with no siblings who moved to Nepal six years ago and never met another Pakistani woman until she met me. It was by accident; I wandered into a cafe I had never been to one Thursday afternoon after getting a bee tattooed on my right arm. Her Spanish friend asked me where I was from and the rest makes no sense at all - but really it makes perfect sense.

I journaled often on my trip, almost everyday. I made it a point to do my best to narrate the events of the previous day or however many days I missed, but even while doing so I felt a sense of restlessness and agitation, that I could never do it justice, and that I was rushing through events to get a point across. Maybe the point was not in the literal telling of the story?

And yet in many ways I’m glad, upon flipping through the 30 or so pages I’ve filled, because I’ll read back and recall chronologies that will without fail blur over time. So yes, I’m glad I recounted it all while it was fresh. And now, everything is everywhere (of course it is).

I wasn’t looking forward to coming back; not only did I not feel ready for the trip to end, I also dreaded the idea of Karachi and the people and the falling into habit and the life ahead (school and thesis). But now that I’m here, all I feel is neutral. No disdain for my people, my feelings towards whom are not the same as they were before I left. No disgust towards this problematic land. I do feel like I’m floating, as I often do when I return from another place, but this time it’s with a stronger sense of purpose. I don’t know if I want to spell out that purpose just yet. But it’s there, and I feel trusting and hopeful for whatever is to come.