Things Carried, Things Brought Back.

I spent a significant chunk of time on the Fourth of July at Heathrow airport which, combined with the slightly obscene number of pounds I dropped at duty free, seems more than a bit unpatriotic.   Coming back through immigration at Dulles and having Homeland Security look me in the eye and say “welcome home,” though, bought it all back.  It was a surreal week like that.

Waking in a canopy bed draped in the sheer veil of mosquito net, and the sea of colors at every turn; saried women and barefoot children dancing an eastern tarantella through streets filled with honking cars and crossing cattle.  A faith that is open and pure, and trust that is unhesitating and hungry. Extreme hospitality.  Flower garlands at every turn, and hands eager for a shake, a hug, a touch. Wide-eyed children with so little, and yet so much.  The best Indian food in the world, and a table where even the bishop eats with his hands; the giggle of school children at this foreigner’s sloppy imitation of the same.  A space where time, where calendars and clocks, are low on the list of priorities.  Utter lack of e-mail, internet, phones.  Things I already miss.

No hot water.  Showers that turned out to be but taps at floor-level with two buckets and a sponge.  Consistent power failures, and a roommate who feigned illness to go clubbing with her Indian cousins. Speaking in front of large masses of robed people, and having the team notice my hands shaking; dripping sweat onto lecture notes and worrying I’m disappointing everyone.  Delivering a by-the-seat-of-my-pants talk to an attentive and interested sea of probably two hundred women through a translator, all while knowing that my relayed troubles of control, of relationships, of daily life are so very American that they mayn’t actually translate at all.  The unsettling feeling of being treated as royalty at every turn merely because of the way I look, and the responsibility that seems to impart.  Things I can do without.

The unexpected, yet unfailing nature of grace.  Lessons on how to live faith, rather than just hold it.  Confessing to a priest in a car passing through treacherous mountain roads that the two of us, we’ve found true love; receiving his blessing, and his counsel on how to make the relationship work despite the distance.  A PhD who arranges with the local host to go to a jeweler and buy two toe rings, an honor reserved for married women. An Indian engagement; “until I can talk to your parents,” he said as he knelt at the driver’s side of my car yesterday morning and slid them onto my feet.  He’s back in New York, but it’s his heart beating in my chest.

Things I took home.