They were snuggled close up together on a chilly night, sleeping. The previous evening had been happy and tiring, hosting a dinner party for friends which evolved into a huge scrabble match.
Mentally stimulated, physically tired, they’d brushed their teeth together, kissed sweetly, and feel asleep in each other’s arms. At 3 am, her phone started blinking, her silent alarm that it was time to wake up, time to wake him as well.
They’d been staying in her family’s home, which meant they were pretty far off the beaten track, so when she finally woke him with gentle nudges and murmurings in his ear, he was shocked when she insisted he get on warm sock, pants, and a sweatshirt — they were headed into the car
He couldn’t believe it: “the roads are so dark at this hour! Where could we possibly need to go?”
She grabbed the scarves, hats and mittens she’d hidden beneath her purse earlier the evening before, and took his hand, leading him to the garage. They drove to a place she’d brought him before, a place he’d been afraid one summer day to jump into the water. But this time, they were not going into the water
The plan was, instead, to skim along it. After she’s parked the car she amazed him yet again by undoing the bungee cords on the two person kayak attached to the roof rack, which he hadn’t noticed atop the car as they left. He was intrigued as they lowered the vessel from the car into the channel.
She smiled, held his face and kissed his left eyebrow
They got in and started paddling.
They didn’t move along very far when she held her hand aloft to signal it was time to rest. He tried to ask what was going on but she turned around, smiling, and held her finger to her lips.
The moon was half full above them, the sky was cloudy but not overcast.
Soon he became aware of movement in the water below…
She started to giggle.
The herring were running! She’d brought him into the channel for one of the first nights of the annual herring run. Her hopes that the surprises would continue proved true, soon, darker, larger sea creatures began sliding along and below the surface around them. Mother seals and their juvenile pups were following the herring – these pups’ first few nights of herring tastings had begun. She’d brought him to the middle of a fantastic annual occurrence, in the middle of it all, in the middle of nowhere.
The End.
The feeling!
Knowing and seeing!
I have recently arrived in the Bay Area and found myself yesterday amongst friends from different parts of my life at a cafe in San Francisco which allows the smoking of spliffs on its outside deck. I went inside to use the bathroom and one of the men who works at the cafe, who I’d noticed as handsome and thought to myself, will I be dating a barman in SF?, was blocking the door so we had a quick, smiling, awkward encounter on my way to the loo.
An hour or so later he’s off work looking for a cigarette and in the jovial, free love atmosphere of the locale, sits down next to me. He looks incredibly tired and I say to him: “welcome, take a load off.” My friend Susan says: “you look like you need a massage,” to which he replies: “bring it over.” A quick little back rub ensues and I’m already thinking about how tall and handsome this seated neighbor is.
Turns out he’s a jazz and folk musician who recently had his underground speakeasy raided by the powers that be and now that he, Joe, is back from touring all over the USA on his tour buses (yes tour buses), he’s broke and trying to regain a leg in the city. He’s off to work his next gig at a well known small music spot, but he doesn’t leave without telling me I’m pretty.
We go to this musical joint, Amnesia, and the music is very loud. Joe makes me ear plugs from a paper napkin. We can’t speak so we draw out a story on the flyer he is supposed to be handing out as he checks IDs and accepts cover charge money at the door. His story includes the two of us leaving the bar to find his tour bus and hold hands. It’s already late and I’m a bit stoned so I decide best not take the full plunge tonight. He asks me to come outside with him and kisses me while holding my face. Joe says he likes how I kiss. I feel butterflies.
I say goodnight and write down my number…
My feelings about feminism have always been there, but just slightly lukewarm. I am beginning to realize that this stems merely from the fact that my rights have never been questioned, I have hardly ever felt unsafe in my female body. But now, being in Northern India for an extended stay, my feminism is bubbling. I am not ‘supposed’ to leave my house alone after dark. Not just because I may get taunted…but as the linked article explains, because I may be taunted, harassed, brutalized, raped, or even killed. And not just because I’m a white foreigner (which attracts a lot of attention). No, just because I am a woman. And so, I feel slightly ashamed that my safe, free life has surfaced only slight feminist qualities in me; I shouldn’t have to feel the loss of my safety and freedom to rally for the cause of female safety everywhere. I will thank this experience in Delhi for allowing my true feminism to shine through.
This New York Time article on the Gulabi Gang helps to paint the picture of female status in India.
Two stories that touch on my experience here exactly:
New York Times: Delhi Police Use Facebook – very apropros: today as I was leaving the airport one taxi backed into my taxi and the two taxi-wallas had a nice spat with stealing of keys and name calling before they both just left, having done nothing about the actual ‘crash’.
Poppy Auntie, Akshay’s mom has been house hunting for a new apartment for the Sharma family. But, it’s not easy. She compares the housing market in Bombay to New York. This article from GlobalPost affirms the predicament…plus it’s the suburb I spent the most time in while visiting Akshay…
And, just because it’s nice: NPR streams Arcade Fire’s newest album: Suburbs.
The project is a vulnerability assessment of the impact of climate change (fully multi-sectoral: water, health, agriculture, energy, climate itself) on the coast line of West Bengal. Due to its focus on integrating all these different sectors, it will be the first vulnerability assessment if its kind in India. When I arrived, Sreeja had me read a whole bunch of reports that some of the others working on the project had written, mainly their theses from their masters. She wanted me to get a feel for which sector I’d be most interested in devoting my time to. I was initially drawn to the agricultural component, but Suruchi, the area convener for the project, switched me to the health sector since they have yet to collect any true agricultural data. However, in my few days focusing on agriculture I reached out to one of the post-docs at Lamont who works with the climate/agriculture models and asked a bunch of questions/received recommendations on papers to read. I will compile a lit review of those sources to leave with the agriculture folk.
That said, I’ve focused my work from then on on the health impacts of climate variability in the region, specifically malaria and diarrheal diseases. I created a decently comprehensive lit review focusing on 4 sectors: climate change and health, malaria, diarrhea, and the West Bengal/Sundarbans regions specifically. After that I sorted through the data we have, and was able to create a time series of weekly diarrheal cases for two of the districts from June 2007-June 2010. One of the climate modelers then created a time series for rainfall during that same time period and did a wavelet analysis; we took a look at the output today. I forget what those graphs are called…spectragrams? Today we also did our best to track down temperature data. The TERI folks thought they’d retrieved this data already, but their temp data only goes up to 2006 and our health numbers begin in 2007. We called all around India on a wild goose chase (IMD here in Delhi, Pune, then a couple offices in Bengal), but finally after a lucky google stroke, I found a number and the contact gave us 3 fax numbers and the exact information we need to ask for in order to get the prices for the station data from the Kolkata Regional Meteorological Centre.
It’s going to be interesting to see what our correlations show/tell us. Everything I read about the interaction between climate and health is that the more research that’s done, the more complex the relationship is found to be. I’ve been talking to some of my professors about the challenge of dealing with a truly complex issue but needing to simplify it so that governments and ministers can understand/apply it. This project will definitely not be completed by the time I leave….it’s due in December and they’ve been working on it for almost 2 years already. My teammates though are super smart, and I know they’ll keep me filled in as much as possible after I leave India.
1. the dupatta.
so here in india, especially here in delhi, women wear ‘suits.’ their suits are actually called a ‘salwar-kameez,’ and consist of long shirt which can have all sorts of design or can remain simple. then there are two types of pants…billowy aladdin type pants or tighter pants that gather at the ankles. the tighter ones look cool, but i’m all for the billowy pants in this heat. the less fabric that touches my skin, the better. BUT, all of this brings me to the DUPATTA! now to me, a scarf means keeping your neck warm, or your shoulders, or even your upper body if you have a big enough scarf. but here in this country, a scarf is a necessary part of any outfit. so, in the spirit of indian dress, i’ve tried to wear one a few times. these lovely indian women make them look great, just draped over their shoulders with the ends of the dupatta hanging down their backs. doesn’t work for me. it falls off or makes my neck all sweaty. i will say…it is a good guard against the amazing temperature changes as you walk inside to a nice ac building from the scorcher that is the outdoors here.
this is NOT a foto of a dupatta, but it's lovely nonethless...
Account of my second weekend in India!
I am the luckiest. My dear friend Akshay came to Delhi last Thursday night. He was late, his flight was late. You get to learn to deal with lateness. It’s kind of refreshing to not have to be so uptight and worried about the timing all the time. Things come when they come.
SO: the weekend was Sharma and Sharma family and Sharma friends focused. I couldn’t have had better hosts/guides. I was actually re-meeting everyone for a second time, since I’d met the entire extension of Sharma friends and relatives at Ishita’s wedding in April 2009. Food was great (can you say MANGOS?), only topped by the conversation. Debates and commentary and jokes and thought-provocation. And also swimming! Thanks to Arvind and Poppy Sharma my wish for the 4th to swim came true. And in true regal spirit, our pool was housed by none other than Delhi’s Taj Palace Hotel.
The biggest shoutout has to go to Akshay, who put up with my whining tiredness (we didn’t make it out to watch the second World Cup game on Saturday) and need to go ‘shopping.’ Thanks to him I finally have a few outfits I can wear which allow me to ‘blend’ in (somewhat).
All in all:
Swimming? Check. Delicious meals with best friends and their family? Check. Flight to Bombay (oh yes i’ll be in Alibaug for the monsoon party in 2 weeks!)? Check. Happy second weekend? Check.
Here’s an excerpt from my latest strange dream in Delhi.
This dream included all sorts of people from all parts of my life, but everything about them was flipped out of whack. To explain…
My mother decided we must collect puddles to create small ponds. Using shovels and large clear plastic bags, we were supposed to move water from driveway puddles into better-planned artificial ponds to be arranged around my grandmother’s house. As well, these new ‘ponds’ would not be complete without fish stocked from the lake. So, Debbie (who hates swimming because it makes her cold) donned three sweaters and two hats, then dove into the lake, wearing sunglasses, to catch fish. My father took underwater photos of the events from huge boulders along the banks of the lake (which do not in fact exist along the lake in real-life).
Weekend 1: Sunday June 27th, 2010.
I did. I always seem to forget, or at least to prepare, for that ultra-tired state that takes over once I begin settling into a new foreign location. For example, in the last 60 hours, I’ve slept about 33. Which is a lot more than the ususal 6-7 hours I’d been used to during the past 9 months. So maybe that’s the reason? My brain was just dead-tired from a year of graduate school? Yet – I had almost a full 2 weeks on the Cape to recover from that…though perhaps mornings with Rubin cut into those sleep-regain hours a bit…
To be honest, I have been sick this first weekend in Delhi, so that too has contributed to my tiredness. Another thing I’d forgotten: the horridness of a really ill stomach. When toast and tea are the only things Jeanie Kirk wants to/can eat, know something’s wrong.
But getting PAST that. Here I am. If I was worried about a year in New York and if I could ‘make it’ in that ‘harsh’ city I have another thing coming entering the Indian capital. Thus far, the highs and lows of being far from home are all here. High upon entering a new place….the glittering nighttime highway (seriously, the highway ‘glitters’ as the street level lights alternate positions and on and off), the people EVERYWHERE, the traffic, and the thousand questions that entered my stream of consciousness as the TERI (The Energy and Resources Institute: teriin.org) driver brought me from the Indira Gandhi International Airport to my new (air conditioned!) ‘home’ in Defence Colony, successfully navigating and haggling my way through a day of bureaucratic affairs to get my visa registered, and finding my way home again, safely. Lows when realizing the overwhelming heat is in fact overwhelming, adjusting to being all by myself, being forced to relinquish my abilities to wander around wherever I choose at any hour of the day or night, coming to grips with the fact (again) that some people are out to take advantage so I best start working on my resounding NO and bitch-face. I think I can do it.
freckle dreams 