A Confession of Love: Saying Goodbye to India, 2011

I can't imagine it any other way really. Difficult and relieving. Difficult to leave it all behind. But relieving as soon as I sat in another airport that resembled a shopping mall. Now that I am comfortably at home, I reflect on my time in India and think about the intensity of it all. It was terrible at times. But more, it was wonderful. And I think that is the most important part to remember. I will analyze and breakdown the pain later.

Let me try my hand at one of those stream of consciousness pieces and say it in one fail swoop. An unrealistic expectation considering all of the magic I experienced in India.

I slipped on a monsoon season and fell in love in that place.

I love the silhouettes of drunken Bombay tourists posing for cameras in front of Curlie's sunsets. I love political conversations across cultures and between friends. I love the way curry smells, especially when it's partnered with raw red onions and lime juice. I love an optimist with self-depreciating humor and the uncanny ability to make me feel better. I love a damaged dog with a limp leg, cloudy eyes and flies swarming about her head like Pig-Pen from Charlie Brown. I love a woman with brilliantly dry humor who knows how to use her eyebrows.

I love oxen pulling old farmers on rickety wooden carts. I love chattering bangles stacked up my arm. I love markets brimming with bargains. I love a French woman who talks about how much she loves food. I love a ridiculously long bike ride to say goodbye. I love silly conversations about sex that make some people feel uncomfortable. I love lavish parties in old, beautifully renovated Portuguese houses. I love candles burning during power outages. I love clotheslines in odd places. I love people on the "margins" exposing injustices. I love working for a good cause. I love Indian sweet shops.

I love the cows who lay in the road and the friends who broadside them doing 45 on a scooter in the pitch black of Indian night. I love the sound of cheesy hip hop bouncing off of cheesier pick up lines against the backdrop of supportive laughter. I love sipping Sangria with just the right amount of nutmeg and cinnamon, sitting on a balcony above an empty village. I love tattoos and polished silver on dark skin and black eyeliner on big brown eyes. I love houses and store fronts painted the day-glo shades of socks I wore when I was a kid and was in love with Cindy Lauper and Boy George. I love the sea.

I love having a maid who is my friend and my confidant; a woman who has forever marked my life with a mischievous brand of thoughtfulness. I love the children who yell up to my window from the street only to giggle and scatter when I appear. I love a good film connoisseur with a click in his speech and a vocabulary to contend with. I love rice patty fields protected by sad scarecrows that wake from the rain and shine emerald in the sun. I love a green omelette sandwich. I love a great haircut by an old Goan man who knows a hell of a lot about the Rolling Stones. I love red dirt. I love unique lampshades.

I love a long motorcycle ride on a cloudless night for a cold beer on a hilltop overlooking the sea. I love always wearing flip flops and always having filthy feet. I love learning about this country of 28 countries; each distinct in so many ways. I love smelling like citronella and making it an entire day without a single mosquito bite. I love ordering food off a menu and having no idea what will be served. I love the sweat after intense yoga that won't dry in the humidity. I love working in an office in the jungle. I love the tension between tradition and modernity; new and old colliding. I love crowded round-abouts.

I love eccentric theatre actors. I love churches at the top of crumbling staircases overgrown with vines. I love fresh mango juice. I love a troop of mangy dogs with protective tendencies, especially when the are looking out for me. I love zipping around on a cheap scooter on roads freckled with potholes and puddles. I love my Poncho. I love dark bars on dirty streets. I love the smell of incense dancing with folklore in Hindu temples. I love fearless and frolicking walks on the beach in the middle of the night. I love smiles and headwags.

I love waking at dawn to a thundering rain storm and drifting back to sleep. I love dancing as hard as I can. I love okra and onion pakora with Touborg. I love a dingy room filled with hard working activists. I love a film about Goan history. I love a riverside city bustling with shops and traffic; especially at night. I love patterns on damp and moldy clothing in roadside shops. I love papaya with chili powder. I love getting lost in the middle of the day. I love dark features juxtaposed to yellow cloth in orange doorways. I love snakes.

I loved so much; too much to mention here. But in parting, as I finally empty the last of my bags and remember, I can say this: I love that those who loved me in India gifted me scarves and books and T-shirts to bid me farewell; it means I was myself and they know me well.