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Published: September 3rd 2007
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we decided yesterday to hire a driver to take us to Munnar, which is a hill station in kerala. It's been raining a lot and i thought it would be nice to feel some mountain air.
Feeling Blue:
As we climb slowly in elevation, things become that unspeakable smear of green that i so love. It's the green that only comes from the steady lick of rain.....the green that has a million hues from pale chartreuse to an almost blue. The earth is blood red. Striking really. The rain sort of subsides as we climb, and the sun is starting to sink in the distance. We pass through dense fog that turns all of the vegetation into black silhouettes, and then ascend above the clouds as the last light of the day pulls itself behind the hillsides. Everything turns a transcendent shade of blue. I can see the white outline of the clouds below us, and the soft hump of the mountains rising from the mist. The window of the car is open and the air is fantastic. It's not cold, but it is a wet feeling that sort of
seeps through me. There's something about being
above clouds that turns me to water. i feel formless and have an unspeakable need for movement, for space to carve out my own canyons, to remind the earth of my presence with the scars i leave behind. I imagine myself (much like the ending scene of crouching tiger hidden dragon) swan diving into the billows.......their cool whisps turning into hands that cusp around my body, and lower me gently into the mystic. I am blue. Not in a detrimental way......more in a picasso or matisse sort of way......a study of a color, and mood.
The strain of a new relationship:
Sometimes i love her. She has big dark eyes and a smile like hot
chocolate, and it warms me across the murmur of dinner conversation. I can see in her eyes that i am the type of person that she is dying to
become.......she wants to throw off her inhibitions and dance in the street as i do. She wants to write, and create, and speak her mind, and live a little dangerously....as i do. I wish i could give her that. It would be helpful for us both i think if i donated some
of my "free" spirit to her account.....she could use it and i could lose it. She talks to me about things she's never spoken about before. She's allowing herself to be vulnerable in my presence and that gives me a motherly sort of feeling.....like i should handle her carefully and guide her with caution. At night, here in Munnar it's cold. She snuggles behind me and we spoon in the way that close girlfriends do. It's nice to be held....maybe it's not by the clouds, but it's a warm hand and a kindred spirit.
Sometimes, i want to shake her. She loses herself in her britishisms....her need for comfort and efficiency. She gets nervous and impatient. I hear repeat phrases..."this is london weather" or "this is a proper english garden" or "it's not a nice tea." She stammers and tightens and becomes needy.....and suddenly i want the quietude of a good book or the emotion of pen against paper. She's teaching me about myself. There are times when i have so much to give....and i want to give it in the way of an open ear or a warm embrace, or some passed down good advice. but it switches
off so quickly. There is some trigger that turns her from a thing
to be nurtured to something that's a nuisance...and it makes me feel ugly inside......makes me doubt my capacity for ever commiting to a child, or husband, or anything that doesn't fit into my own self interest.
Relationships, especially on the road, are hard.
The tea pickers:
While Aman is inside taking a "tour" of the tea facility, i wander
outside to gaze over the patchwork green hillsides. Up the hill aways, i see a flurry of activity and a splash of color, and my feet move me towards it. I climb among the tea plants, past brilliant flowers and homes nestled into the hillsides with moss that grows on the roof tiles like fat squishy carpet. I approach a group of women. They are bent over tea plants, plastic bags covering their heads to shield them from the rain that is falling peacefully. They smile at me and i at them. Their faces are exhuberant....there is a real joy in their grins. I motion and ask if i can snap a photograph, and they willingly agree. They become art before my lens. Their
purple and blue saris, their dark skin, their red bindis, the electricity of the hillsides behind them.....it's like i've entered into a painting. They take my hands and speak to me in their language. Their fingers are wet with the dew drops of mountains, and stained with the green of the tea. I want badly to throw off my western dress, to wrap myself in a sari and the scent of the hillsides, to bend beside them and pull wet leaves
from the earth. I want to lose myself in the cacophony of their words, the belly laugh of their humor, the warmth of their movement. I want to be the red dirt under their bare feet, the mud that squishes up between their toes, the soft thud percussion of their steps. I want to be plucked from the branches, steeped in the water, and enjoyed.
Adios amigos.
lyndsey
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