one earth-bound minute

(Krista and my feet, one early morning with art deadlines and other endings impending)

Turning - W.S. Merwin

Going too fast for myself I missed
more than I think I can remember

almost everything it seems sometimes
and yet there are chances that come back

that I did not notice where they stood
where I could have reached out and touched them

this morning the black shepherd dog
still young looking up and saying

Are you ready this time

pack my suitcase with myself

(my first year room at muwci, in celebration of finally having (kind of) finished clearing up my room here in holland)

ambiguity, experience-expectation-experience.

meeting coyears who too recall the application procedure with the smiling yet modest fondness of a successfully operated patient, the strange and stilted nature of memory comes to the fore again as we dig and sum up our two years to each other, marveling at the immensity of likenesses and odd areas which sometimes undermine the unity of a twelve-school-experience.
i'm not sure where my over-description of something i don't consciously understand, future or even interpretation of some past is going, but my trains of thought reach their destinations infrequently and are prone to (m)any sort(s) of disturbances, so tracks are lost and found and i can't achieve more than a paragraph right now. life is good and busy, and my to-do list still has 'write about india' on it.

sun rays as fierce as toddler tantrums

(Chris and Gita, analogue of a picnic pre-India)

Still sifting through heaps and piles, I'm glad to have found the sun returned to me from across the oceans, and have thus taken several breaks to bask in its glory. With picnics and biscuit-baking being the order of the day, it's still amazingly busy (I have managed, against all odds perhaps, to even find a job) and I'm kept away from desk-sitting introspection and (sadly) typed-India-rehashings.

Thinking back though, I'm surprised at how much happened within the two year framework, and to use a cliche; it felt like forever, yet like absolutely no time at all. I can still vividly recall how sticky and dense my first gasp of Mumbai air was, how long the jeep ride felt, how large campus initially seemed. We wrestled in the mud of the monsoon-drenched lawns, kept our eyes and mouths perpetually open and grappled with foreign languages, cultures and food, both in and outside of school. And then, we were back on a plane, back in a jeep, and back in a familiar landscape that never got dull, only, at points, too intense.
Before I knew it, the photo above became two years old, the rooms cleared and monsoon beginnings seen for the last time for the near future. Although I have learnt a lot, listened a lot and obtained a lot of good music, it seems I'm still not quite so great at writing all of this down. 'Bad girls don't keep diaries' doesn't feel like the most appropriate phrase to borrow here, so I'll leave you once again with extensions of long-overdue promises and the side-note that home is happy and my first autumn in a while is slowly dissolving the greens of summer in a most lovely manner.

see the cities rust

(analogue cafe table shots from two years of catching up over coffees)

Whilst I delicately step over piles of assorted clothing, books and items of no apparent use, painting my walls white and generally cleaning up a room long overdue a clear-out, familiar stone houses on the other side of the world are filling up with familiar faces. Back into the monsoon of memories, to refurbish and paint over and around last year's events and relationships; I guess we're all doing it. Although it does feel rather odd not to be on a flight and far-too-warm jeep on the road to a trusty hill, excitedly singled out by tired eyes at a specific turning on the Paud road, lunchtime with a fridge full of dairy products, loud music and the lack of heat averted my inward gaze from the darks of nostalgia - I've still got several coffee dates to go before university starts in October.

and at once i knew i was not magnificent

(details of Cycle of Six Parts by Sigmar Polke, seen in Munchengladbach museum last Sunday)

On some levels, the futility of my many endeavours and lost to-do lists can only be covered up with viewing/sharing art like this; I'm still processing, unpacking, catching up, and these paintings, made of a mix of silver leaf, silver oxide and a amalgam of other chemicals, are far more meaningful than my current state of lethargy.

occident out on the weekend

Some analogue photos of the gorgeous scenery of the Himalayas of Ladakh, taken on a collective camera between my travelmates, which I've finally gotten around to digitalising. It's somehow become a bit of a busy summer, and, as usual, I've not managed to surpass the stage of promising updates and travel-anecdotes. Perhaps it is a little daunting a task to attempt to pick out moments to write about from two years that felt like nothing and yet, in some ways, everything. So many things were different, so much has changed, although I'm (disappointingly?) consistent in my lack of filling in those "coming soon!" updates.

Starting over, starting small though - here's a brief recount of two days instead. Specifically, two spent at Pangong Lake, about which Wikipedia tells us:
"Pangong Tso (or Pangong Lake; Tso: Ladakhi for lake) is an endorheic lake in the Himalayas situated at a height of about 4,350 m (14,270 ft). It is 134 km (83 mi) long and extends from India to Tibet. 60% of the length of the lake lies in Tibet, which is today under China's rule. The lake is 5 km (3.1 mi) wide at its broadest point. During winter the lake freezes completely, despite being saline water."

To add to the bare bones of fact and measurement some human sensations, the lake and area around it are also bitterly cold, meriting the wearing of recently-acquired vintage jumpers and a curling-up-in-sleeping-bags instinct that was speedily indulged when we arrived at our home-stay of choice. Having spent five hours winding up a mountain road to the soundtrack of our nineties youth and Ladakhi chants (a strange playlist our driver apparently enjoyed), naturally with the occasional (and varyingly enthousiastic) sing-alongs, we quickly got back to reading and further enjoying the stunning scenery. Whilst we had been hounded by Indian tourists earlier on in our drive, the final stretch of road to the tiny settlement of campsite and home-stays was blissfully unadorned, empty and almost lonely in its isolation.
We stayed overnight with a lovely trio of elderly Ladakhis, eating by candlelight and conversing with the aid of our hostess throughout; the first-year roommate of my co-travellers. In the morning, we managed to force ourselves out of the warmth of our layers of blankets and sleeping bags with the thought of seeing the lake at sunrise. Goading each other on and grumbling and stumbling down a grassy lane, we found the sun already risen at five, but sat still and watched the light grow and time change by the lakeside nevertheless. There was a certain silence about the moment, the setting; refreshing, chilling, calming. The later revelation that Three Idiots had been shot by the same lake was a little at odds with the experience we'd had there, but I suppose the emptiness is sometimes just waiting to be filled.
Soon we got cold and hungry, and a brief cup of tea and a gifting of our paperbag-wrapped fruits to the wrinkled and smiling three later, we set off back onto the winding road to Leh. Accompanied once again by the sound of Shakira, bad disco and poetic string instruments, we quickly rejoining the Indian contingent in the race to reach the next restaurant/toilet stop at the half-way point.