9/15 morning thoughts

Sometimes I get caught up in the drama in my head and I forget where I am.

Sometimes I get engrossed in the book I am reading and I forget where I am.

And then sometimes it all clears, and I see where I am. I smell it, feel it, hear it, even taste it. And I am so grateful.

And just as I finished writing that, a monkey walked across the rooftop restaurant where I am sitting with this incredible view of the river and city below me. The monkey found something to eat, then scurried away. This is truly a remarkable place.

Returning from my last Vietnam student trip in May, I asked the students to reflect one last time on their experience. Their first trip reflection was in September, the first week of school, 8 months earlier and 7 months before they even departed on their journey, when I asked them to reflect on when the trip started for them. For that original trip reflection, many students wrote about the first time they went to the 8th grade "trip day," when the 8th graders shared with the whole school about their global studies experience. Many students remembered their first "trip day" ten years before. Some students wrote about how the Vietnam trip began for them the day it was official in their 7th grade year that the country of study was changing from China to Vietnam. But I am reminded of one student who wrote about how unreal the upcoming trip was, and it still hadn't started for her. On her final trip reflection in May, she wrote that the trip really didn't start for her until she returned to Seattle.

It seemed an odd thing to write, and almost impossible to imagine, but there is so much truth in those words. We carry so much with us, a weight far heavier than our backpacks. Of our six senses, the mind is by far the most powerful, for it can transport us to any place or time, or color everything that we are experiencing at the moment. My manta these last few days has been, "What am I seeing? What am I hearing? What am I smelling? What am I feeling? What am I tasting?" It has been useful in helping me get "lighter," carrying as little as my five senses.

pictures above:

one of the main ghats

my favorite food - aloo chat (potato, chick pea curry, yogurt, sweet and spicy sauces, all mixed together)

a vegetable market