India in a nutshell. The contrast between the ugliness and the beauty

It was an ongoing joke while I was in India that I purged.

I purged a whole lot of negative thoughts that have continuously consumed my mind for over 10 years and I let go of a whole lot of old ways of thinking. I said good bye to things and people that I have been holding on to for far too long and I burned (literally) ideas that were no longer serving me.
Then, in life’s perfect mockery of me, being the only person on the trip without cancer, I puked and I shit and I sweat like I was dying (good ole Dehli belly). I coughed, snorted and hoarked out all the thick grief I have around Logan’s cancer, as well as a few big black snot balls of Indian pollution, and somewhere along the way I also purged all of my blogs I wrote overseas.

True to apple’s promise of hardcore security, the only way to protect myself, from myself, and restore my disabled iPad was to purge it too. So all my notes, and thoughts and words written in the life altering experience that was India will forever stay there. Just as it was always meant to be I assume.

Now, you will only get the second-hand version of this incredible trip. I laugh as I type these words because I was so devastated about losing my blogs yet, it is clear, you were always getting the second- hand version. Today, all I can do is my best to share with you the version of India I suppose you were always to hear.

Here it goes. Chapter one- Arriving.

I stepped off the plane in India tired, anxious and ready for a shower. The long flight via Calgary and Frankfurt was uneventful and I arrived in Dehli grateful that I had a familiar face guiding me through the first few steps of this new country. Harj, a work colleague of Jared’s, was ironically spending a few weeks in India with his family at the same time I was and even though I didn’t know him before we left, I attached myself to him like a small child as soon we touched down in this foreign land.

World traveler/slash/chickenshit.

Saying goodbye to my own tribe at YVR

Harj and his family getting ready to leave me at the Delhi airport

As I followed Harj, who followed the herd of people through the arrivals corridor, I was in a daze. The Delhi airport is humongous and the arrivals process was long and confusing. My first introduction to India as I reflect, pretty much sums up all of India, long and confusing.
It was two o’clock in the morning and I was scared shitless, about to be alone, and feeling like I had made the biggest mistake of my life (why the hell did I ask for donations to fund?) when suddenly my passport was stamped and I was officially let in the country. I got the green light which meant no further searches were necessary, just a strict reminder that my visa was only valid for 30 days. “Get me the hell out of here” I thought. A 30 minute visa would have been fine.
My eyes were scanned and finger prints were taken and I did not crack a smile in what seemed like a very secure process but I wondered, “Was it even possible to track anyone down in a country of 1.26 billion people. What if I got lost in India? How would anyone find me?” And just as quickly as the thought entered my mind I was told I was free to go.
India or bust!
I was on my way about to walk all the way outside of the baggage claim to the Costa coffee shop at the main entrance….. all by myself.

Me alone with backpack on my way to meet my new tribe.

With my large back pack in tow I arrived at the spot where I was to meet the rest of my tribe. They too were touching down at god awful times in the middle of the night but I was reassured. I would know who they were by the matching T-shirts they would be wearing.

Shit!!! My T-shirt didn’t arrive in the mail.
I started to panic, couple that thought with the fact I suddenly remembered I was also the only one on this trip (facilitators included) that personally didn’t have/had cancer and I suddenly felt like the black sheep of a group I hadn’t even met yet.

I looked around suddenly feeling desperate. Yep, only one coffee shop just as the email stated. I couldn’t possibly get lost. Perfect, I thought, only one lonely coffee shop in the middle of this hallway and NO fucking lounge to get a glass of wine.  My anxiety flared up. This was already a long trip and I still had 17 days to go.

I sat at the coffee shop until around 4 am. Finally, 3 matching T-shirts caught my eye. Keeners.
It was time to go.
Our driver ushered us outside and immediately Delhi hit me like a ton of bricks. It was a total assault on my senses. Unexpectedly warm, with a faint smell of incense and urine. Dust so thick that the air I breathed immediately made my lungs tighten and SO many sounds my head started to spin. Horns, voices and a language I couldn’t understand made me feel very unsettled.

Still, I tried to be rational. Time was not on my side, that was all, I was just tired. I tried to reassure myself and quickly decided that instead of becoming completely unglued I just needed to put one foot in front of the other and follow the matching T-shirts to the large jeep parked outside the front doors. Once I could see things through a fresh set of eyes everything would be fine. Instead of making small talk, I intended to doze off on the way to the flat but as we drove through the streets of Delhi in the wee hours of morning I was immediately struck at how alive the city was. It baffled me to see how many cars were on the road. Traffic inched in a chaotic yet harmonious way and just like an organism, the process of six cars, 4 rickshaws and a garbage truck in three lanes of traffic made perfect sense. There were people literally EVERY WHERE. My head darted from side to side trying to catch a glimpse of all the sights. Everything was covered in dust, and it was almost like viewing a picture in sepia tone while at the same time colors popped and were vibrant and alive with beauty.  I felt awake and alert. I looked over at my new tribe members, their eyes as wide as saucers. A calm fell over me. Thank god they too were in shock. I was no longer alone.

Small Hindu temple close to our apartment

Our neighborhood

The rest of the group of 14 arrived throughout the following day and we spent the first few hours of our time in India in a small flat with a tiny kitchen. This tiny apartment/office/bed and breakfast would be the place we ate our meals and participated in volunteer and cultural activities throughout our stay but for now it was simply the meeting point before we moved to our own private guest house.

In years past we were told the flat is where all the fresh chapter groups have stayed. How on earth they survived I don’t know. The place is not only tiny, but really warm and has no windows. The overcrowded rooms consist of miniature bunk beds (which even my feet hung over) and bathrooms with toilets labeled slimeline that don’t flush properly. There is no personal space (which is pretty much India in a nutshell) and only two small torn love seats to unwind on. For any group, this confined space would be a challenge but for 14 people who had been through cancer the flat seemed like an  impossible place to live.

I mean, I get the whole point of this experience is about getting out of our comfort zones, connecting with each other and being vulnerable, but let me tell you- I did one heck of an internal happy dance when I heard that we would be the first group to ever be upgraded to much better accommodations.

World traveler/slash/chicken shit/slash/princess.

The new apartment was about a 10- 15 minute walk away from the dinner flat (depending on traffic) and once the entire group arrived, the fourteen of us, eleven women and three men were packed up and moved in to our new and improved quarters.

Communal living room at the guest house.

Upon arrival at home base we were assigned our rooms, and our roommates. This is new digs, just minutes down the road felt clean and fresh and although it was still quite small it was a definite improvement. Things were looking up. I could handle this. This place felt welcoming and although it didn’t happen immediately, the guest house quickly became a home and fourteen strangers who started out as a tribe also grew into a family.

In a tiny bedroom, with 2 twin beds and a cot I spent the next two weeks getting to know, and fall in love with, my roommates. My now obvious soul sisters Kristen and Katrina were the names of the gals I bunked with.

Kristen a lifelong New Yorker, with no accent, a love of wine, art, and everyone she meets, spent most of her life working at famous magazines and took the bed closest to the shitter (her first mistake).
She is likely one of the most kindhearted and beautiful people I have ever met. She is doing a great job living an amazing life and inspiring others albeit with stage 4 breast cancer which, I have to add, does NOT define her. Today in between chemo treatments she is taking time to finally rediscover herself all the while developing a pretty cool app, doing yoga, and traveling the world. I immediately identified with her uplifting spirit and her life motto that cancer was not a gift, but rather a reset button.

Katrina and I too had an instant connection. We both arrived in India from the west coast at the same time via different routes and from the very moment I met her it felt like I had connected with a long-lost relative. Our sense of humor is interchangeable and she is totally hilarious. In some ways I feel like we’ve lived parallel lives or as we decided we were the ‘Same, Same but different’ (common Asian quote). She is a single mom with two beautiful children. A lymphoma survivor who, now, only two years post treatment, is struggling with the reality that her ex-husband and the father of her kids is dying of stage 4 colon cancer. She is a stand up comedian from Vancouver and I am completely in awe of her. She doesn’t see herself as strong but she is tough as nails and has a gift of finding all the reasons to laugh at a time when most people with her life would just break down and cry.
She took the bed closest to the closet because she is also no dummy. Although she forgot to pack most of what she needed (blame it on chemo brain) her bed was placed perfectly so each morning she could just reach in and grab first dibs on my entire wardrobe.

And as for me, well, I took the cot underneath the TV at the feet of both of these beauties.

We lived on the main floor of the guest house with Terri and Pasha, the leaders of our program, while everyone else in the group occupied the top floor of the apartment.
It was probably very smart of Terri to separate us from the group, because basically, we never shut up.
Our nights were spent (until, I, always the first to pass out) acting like teenage girls, giggling, chatting, crying and of course talking about boys. We even snuck out (OK we were allowed out but given a strict 11pm curfew) to share a couple of glasses two hundred dollar wine.
I have no doubt after meeting each one of us personally, and hand picking this tribe, Terri knew that we’d do just fine bunking together. It was perfect. We were the three Amigos of India.

The two K’s and I had one bathroom, one towel each, and in the beginning we were very courteous by making sure we were always covered up, taking quick bucket showers and folding away all of our things. That hoopla lasted about 2 days.
Before long, we were planning who got the hot water, sharing our clothes, comparing the fullness of our natural and reconstructed breasts and of course throwing all of our shit around the entire room. For me personally, there were days I was literally throwing my shit (and puke) all over the room. Sick as a dog, poor Kristen forced to listened to my heaving in the bed beside the bathroom no doubt wishing she had chosen the cot.

They were great roommates and despite such cramped quarters, I never once felt like I wanted them out of my space. It was the first glimpse at acceptance that I would feel in India.

Kristen from New York

Katrina from Vancouver

The three amigos in a rickshaw

Instant friends for life.

Speaking of acceptance, upon arriving in India each of us were to choose a word that we wanted to leave with, acceptance was the word I chose and let me tell you, it is a big f’ing word.

If you have read any of my other blogs, or know me personally, I am sure you know that I have struggled with acceptance for a very long time, maybe even all my life.

I mean how on earth does one truly accept the reality that your child has brain cancer and it could flare up at any second? How do you accept the fear that now lingers just below your surface but consumes your entire life? How do you accept that you’ve had no choice but to give up your career, your identity, and ultimately your own self. And that despite this new direction life has taken, despite the friends and family you’ve lost this was always the path you were supposed to walk.

How do you accept that somewhere inside you, you are still ‘enough’ and that your life ‘according to’ (which you were perfectly happy with I might add) suddenly has to become a life ‘in search of’.
And to top it all off, how in the world do you even begin to wrap your head around and accept that your whole entire journey has now lead you to some tiny apartment in India with 14 strangers on some sort of self-imposed wake up call. Toss in fact that I was about to be thrown into extreme poverty, unspeakable injustice and filth while trying to find some resemblance of my former self or inner light, or whatever you want to call it.

It was almost too much.

Almost.

I could barely follow any of the chatter around me and to be honest the only words I could think about were the ones stuck on repeat in my head. “What the fuck was I thinking?”

“Who am I kidding?”

“Get me the hell out of here!”

I had no idea what to do. I had no wine to numb me, no comforts of home to hide away in. I had no friends to call so I could contemplate this insanity, and no family to cuddle me and tell me it was all going to be alright.

But, my biggest challenge was that I, personally, also knew I had no god damn idea how on earth I was going to find any bit of acceptance in this huge pile of bullshit I had piled up in front of me.

But it didn’t matter. Tomorrow morning would inevidently come and when I woke up I would be handed a  shovel -one I apparently asked for. The ‘shovel’ would come in the form of a bag full of crayons and colored paper and like it or not I’d be heading out into the slums to volunteer and give what little of myself I had to share.

Apparently, I was about to find out if I could somehow muster up the courage to look at things through a new set of eyes.
Then, at the end of each day I was going to report back to this group. Listen to their experiences and contemplate if I had any better luck with personal growth than they did. We would do this together, but we would also do it alone, and somehow, I was told, that if I found the very elusive acceptance it would be through spreading kindness and humanity. It would be because of a very basic understanding of human struggle that somehow my own life’s journey would like start to make sense. There would be a deep connection, with others, but more so with myself, and this is how my fresh chapter would begin.

Apparently, I just needed to get curious, I just needed to breathe, I just needed to honor, and I just needed trust the process.

Like a deer in headlights I listened. It all seemed like A LOT of unreasonable nonsense, to be honest.

I had no idea if it was possible, but I was going to try.

It was too early on in the program to cop-out or to say I didn’t buy in. Plus I had traveled all the way to India to do this. I asked for support, I wrote a big long sob story on how I truly wanted this experience, an opportunity just for me, and now here it was. I questioned myself. Was I really strong enough for this? Then I shook my head, “Shit, if these people can do it, despite their cancers, than I need to pull my head out of my ass and believe I can too.”

And just like that I decided to stop being a wimp. I chose the word acceptance and I knew deep down in my heart that now was my time to try and find it.

Terri hugged me, knowing I yearned for comfort.

She told me that India had a funny way of giving everyone what they needed, so I decided to go with it. Trust, be open, Thank you universe.

I nodded. Silently I was myself proud of my revelation and felt lighter as I stumbled to bed with my new kurta in hand

I even caught myself thinking one last time that I wish I’d picked a different word.

“You really need to stop trying to be such an overachiever.” I said quietly to myself as I closed my eyes.
It would be fine.  Thank god it was now after midnight and I only 16 days until I was back home where miraculously already everything seemed so much easier to accept.

I began to drift off…

And then…… NOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!  just like that, the sound of a freight train.
WHAT??? My perfect roommate Kristen snores?

I sat up looking at Katrina who simply raised an eyebrow. She was wide awake and looked like some sort of nocturnal hamster.

I rolled over now fully aware.

Shit was about to get real.

EVERY SINGLE THING about this trip was going to be about leading me to my path to acceptance.

Oh Great.

There was no way I was getting off the hook easily. I asked for acceptance, and I now I knew, I had just over two weeks to cram my way through one hell of a crash course on the path to enlightenment.

Bring it on, India.

I was ready.