Driving Again.

I'm not much of a believer in state or national boundaries, but when you descend off the Tibetan plateau, you know you're somewhere else. Crossing from Ladakh into Himachal Pradesh, the changes that take root in an hour are enough to make your hair curl. Literally. You drop from a high altitude desert into semi-tropical foot-hills, and the people around you reflect the changes, and the animals do, too, and the architecture, and even the snacks for sale at road-side Dhaba's tell you that you're back in a world you know. And even your stomach grumbles and then threatens you in that old familiar way and you think, oh right: India.

This isn't new to me. My life in South Asia takes place in a strange circle around Tibet (and almost never in it), so I'm familiar with the Himalayas' varied forms. Himachal's mountains are my favorite. When I get here, I feel like I'm home--and not in the "I was born to love this land" sense, but in the, "Oh yeah, here I am," sense; in the "Am I getting old?" sense; in the "How the hell did this happen; I'm from rural New Hampshire and here's this other place that stirs up some of the same feelings" sense. Ladakh does none of that to me. Up there, the land is an alien or I am. Hard to say. Down here, I am so disgustingly human and everything is so lushly, thickly real, that I almost get dizzy. Or maybe that's just the red blood cells returning after their stint of high-altitude exile.

Driving down out of Ladakh (driving is really getting to me lately), I was sharing an ipod with my colleague Kristin. We were listening to early Bob Dyan. We were wondernig how a 22 year old ever wrote songs like that. My foot was up on the window ledge. Ladakh was turning into Himachal. We slowed to take a hair-pin turn, and there on the green embankment was a solid, shaggy, almost-black pony. We made eye contact. (We actually did). And I was washed, suddenly, in an understanding that I love Bob Dylan and I love Himachal Pradesh and I love ponies all in the same way. I can't tell you why I love them and I don't think it's my life purpose to love them, but it's in my body--I grew it there myself--and I can stifle it or fan it, but these are loves I can't kill or get bored of. Which is a reflief, really. I don't have to devote my life to my dad's favorite song writer or to Dharamsala or to horses. I can just love them because I do.

I need to set up a lecture for my students now. Otherwise they'll just drink cappuccinos all day, and we can't have that.
Love,
Emma