Goodbyes

CLAP-- the program at work that has ruled my life for the last few weeks-- is finally over. I saw the last group off on Friday night, and since then, have been sleeping or reading, too exhausted to do much else. I think it went well (the workshop, at least), but don't ask me more about it just now because i am yet to absorb it all and still too fatigued to reflect!

Yesterday i said goodbye to one more friend who has just moved to South India because of some family and work issues. Now just one close friend remains in Delhi, everyone else has moved out. It's weird, realizing that. The last 18 months or so have been full of SO many goodbyes-- saying goodbye to my class at SUA, saying goodbye to all the amazing people and places i fell in love with in Mexico, saying goodbye to SUA and everyone there in December, saying goodbye to Mongolia after just those brief weeks, and then moving back home thinking that all those goodbyes were behind me only to find that, one by one, my close friends are all leaving Delhi for different reasons! It's weird, unsettling. Even though I am used to not seeing some of these people for lengths of time (thanks to my years away), it's strange to be in Delhi without them... Delhi feels incomplete. With each goodbye, I am more aware that the Delhi I left 5 years ago will never be here again. Not sure if that is good or bad, but it is.

That also makes me think about the last day of CLAP-- the goodbye day. These kdis had only been together for 3-4 days, but you would never have guessed that by the emotional outbursts at farewell time. One little girl, all of 11 years old, cried every time someone left to catch their train... given that she was in the last group to leave, that meant the poor thing broke down about 8 times that day! Watching her, watching them all, I wondered what these 4 days together would mean years from now... how would they look back? Given the way they are all from different parts of the country and may of them will possibly-- even probably-- never see one another again, what will this brief intersection of their life paths, or our life paths, mean? For many of the outstation particiapnts, this was their first time leaving their villages/ towns; for all the Delhi kids, this was the first time interacting with children from rural India. They started off polarized, but somewhere down the line they did become friends... they all hugged and kissed each other at goodbye time... what will these brief friendships mean years from now? Many of these kids have no internet access, won't be able to stay in touch as easily as I am used to with my friends... will the brevity of this encounter make it more important or less important? It's hard to say... only time can tell, and perhaps it won't tell either. But I can't help think now of all the people I met briefly, for a few moments or days or weeks, and wonder what those encounters did for me... even I am not sure, how could I expect anyone else to be?

writing about friendship

More than two years ago, when I was doing my "advanced writing" independent study with Jim, he offered me rather simple but hilarious advice: Don't write about God, love, or loss. And if you must, keep it in your journal for a few years, come back and look at it then and decide whether there's anything fresh there.

Haha, Jim, you were right as far as craft goes, too much has already been written about all that, and too much of it is cliched. But the fact is that, for me, writing about love and loss (God, not so much!) is the only way I know how to deal with either. So although the writing may be cheesy and cliched, the emotion is real; the piece may not be publication-worthy, but it might still be the most important thing I could write (like when I wrote about Nana's death and could share that poetry with Mom and masi... could anything have been more important than celebrating his life, together with the family, through my own life?).

On the same note, here I go about love. Or, more specifically, friendship (which is, after all, a kind of love). For many years now, and increasingly so each day, friendship has become one of the most important things in my life. I'm right now recovering from a hard few weeks, which i will not detail here, but which have really made me once again appreciate just how lucky i am to have the kinds of friends i have. I have also often been annoyed by how little is written about friendship as compared to how much is written about love.

So here is a first draft of a piece about friendship, dedicated of course to all of you, but written specifically to my closest friend of 8 years, who has seen me through madness i cannot recount and somehow (I don't think either of us knows how!) pulled me through... especially in this last week, that friendship has worked magic in my life. To my writerly friends, please don't bother with critique, because this is a draft and needs loads and loads of work before it is a poem. But the emotion i want to convey is in the now and can't wait for the editing process!

And you, I know you will be embarrassed to death by this, but what the heck, you're learning to deal with me, aren't you? ;)

The journey from "I know"
to "I admit to not knowing,"
from silent understanding
to the silence that says
I do not, cannot, understand,
but I am there for you anyway.

The journey from that first conversation,
you begging me to put down the phone
because 5 minutes was more than you could talk.
The journey to the most recent one,
3 hours and counting, and you didn't tire
(I never tire of talking anyway).

The journeys across time and space
and worlds that weren't big enough
to accommodate us both. And
the journey to stretch the universe,
despite the detours and the landslides
and the milestones that lied.

Simone Weil wrote "friendship is not
to be sought, not to be dreamed, not
to be desired; it is to be exercised (it
is a virtue)." And Marie Howe insists
"Love is action."

Simone also wrote that friendship
is "a miracle... And the miracle
consists simply in the fact
that it exists ."

I do not know enough
to contest, so i will believe
my poet friends, and let
this action, this friendship,
hang over me like a miracle
that
simply
exists.