Hey
Dinner Date
We had a dinner engagement the other night. The email in my inbox suggested a restaurant in Jaisalmer, The Trio, at 7:00 pm.
We'd met Michiel and Karen, a blonde-haired-blue-eyed Dutch couple, on the train platform in Kolkata, a few days after arriving in India. We were all headed to Darjeeling and met each other wandering around the station in search of our coach. We shared a jeep to Darjeeling, stayed at the same hotel, and continued on together 6 days later, as a foursome, to Varanasi. Traveling as a group, all of us 'babes' in the nascent phase of our voyage in the subcontinent, bound us together in a net of safety, shared expenses, and companionship.
After 3 nights in Varanasi, we parted ways in mid March -- they to the West and us to the South. After splitting off, Benjamin and I spent the rest of the month with little contact with other Westerners. In fact, aside from the occasional greeting here and there, we didn't speak to a single 'foreigner' until reaching Rajasthan at the beginning of April. We were sole companions thrown into the chaos of India -- one leaning on the other in times of distress, forever hoping that at least one of us was always capable to quell the anxieties of the other... for if neither of us were capable, we'd become paralyzed, immobile... 'lambs for the slaughter' so to speak. Of course it never came to that... and leaning upon each other, sharing the roles of the strong and the weak, is what makes us so compatible as a couple and as travel companions.
Having arrived in Northern India, to Rajasthan, a destination our Dutch friends had headed towards, we sent an email to check on their progress and were happy to find that our paths would again cross. Sole companionship has its perks: often sentences can be finished before they're even spoken, which saves on the effort it takes to form a thought in the mind and force it from your lips with words... But a reunion with friends -- old, yet new -- represented alternate conversation paths, new jokes, a different point of view, fresh stories... It's not that Benjamin and I have run out of things to talk about (India provides plenty of fodder), but the prospect of socializing with other people who speak succint English, who share a similar cultural understanding -- people who are friends, was exciting.
It was kismet that we should all find ourselves in Jaisalmer at the same time, after what seemed like eons since our parting. As they say, all things happen for a reason and perhaps the sickness that held them up in Jaipur and then train fiascos that drove us to air travel, brought us all together one more time.
All day, in anticipation of our dinner date, I would tap on Benjamin's arm and with a wink of the eye, I'd say, "Tonight, we have plans!" It was an odd feeling, to be excited about having plans. At home, the concept of plans felt restrictive, or so commonplace that having plans meant nothing special, in and of themselves. Plans are like silent vowels -- their existence, though necessary, always overshadowed by something more interesting to pay attention to. At home, it wasn't the plans I got excited about, it was the people I was going to see or the places I was going to go.
On this occasion, however, not only was I excited about reconnecting with Michiel and Karen, but I was also excited about having plans in the first place. For the first time since leaving San Francisco, time had meaning... we had a purpose.
It sounds strange, I know, as our purpose for traveling was, to a large extent, to shed the structures of time -- our purpose was to explore the foreign places of our world. But once here, once doing it, purpose lost its meaning... because when you travel, time and purpose have no meaning... you are just a person in the world, sometimes here, other times there.
The day, the date are soon things of mystery -- unless there is a train or bus to catch, a clock and a schedule are of little use. Time becomes endless. Existence is measured only by the rising and setting of the sun and grumbles of the stomach that alert you to 'breakfast time' or 'dinner time'. Life becomes a series of impromptu decisions about where to go, what to do, when to do it. Purpose is lost in spontaneity. Ironically, the longer this goes on -- living life 'off the cuff' -- spontaneity becomes routine... and having a 'plan', like our dinner date, becomes something to look forward to. It's concrete. It breaks up the routine of not having a routine. An ironic twist I had not expected...
Contemplating this, I've resolved that living from one moment to the next without a clear idea of how the days, weeks, months will unfold creates a kind of inertia.
Questions are asked half-heartedly, "What should we do tomorrow?" or, "When should we move on?"
The answer, an indifferent, "I dunno. Let's figure it out later." In this manner, a decision can take days to make.
Without having a time frame or purpose, life moves slowly and the answers to the questions are not really even necessary. There is always 'time' to do something, if not today then the next, or possibly the day after. This isn't to suggest there is anything wrong with this. The pace is beautiful... but it all just makes having a 'plan' so remarkable.
At home in San Francisco, I would occasionally take a different way to work just to break up the monotony of my daily routine. When the other passengers on the J Church -- strangers -- became familiar faces, I would walk to Market Street and take the F. It made the rest of the day feel less ordinary.
Oddly, here it is the opposite. Instead of seeking the unusual to break up the usual, the usual has become the unusual... travel has made 'plans' and 'purpose' exotic.
We'd met Michiel and Karen, a blonde-haired-blue-eyed Dutch couple, on the train platform in Kolkata, a few days after arriving in India. We were all headed to Darjeeling and met each other wandering around the station in search of our coach. We shared a jeep to Darjeeling, stayed at the same hotel, and continued on together 6 days later, as a foursome, to Varanasi. Traveling as a group, all of us 'babes' in the nascent phase of our voyage in the subcontinent, bound us together in a net of safety, shared expenses, and companionship.
After 3 nights in Varanasi, we parted ways in mid March -- they to the West and us to the South. After splitting off, Benjamin and I spent the rest of the month with little contact with other Westerners. In fact, aside from the occasional greeting here and there, we didn't speak to a single 'foreigner' until reaching Rajasthan at the beginning of April. We were sole companions thrown into the chaos of India -- one leaning on the other in times of distress, forever hoping that at least one of us was always capable to quell the anxieties of the other... for if neither of us were capable, we'd become paralyzed, immobile... 'lambs for the slaughter' so to speak. Of course it never came to that... and leaning upon each other, sharing the roles of the strong and the weak, is what makes us so compatible as a couple and as travel companions.
Having arrived in Northern India, to Rajasthan, a destination our Dutch friends had headed towards, we sent an email to check on their progress and were happy to find that our paths would again cross. Sole companionship has its perks: often sentences can be finished before they're even spoken, which saves on the effort it takes to form a thought in the mind and force it from your lips with words... But a reunion with friends -- old, yet new -- represented alternate conversation paths, new jokes, a different point of view, fresh stories... It's not that Benjamin and I have run out of things to talk about (India provides plenty of fodder), but the prospect of socializing with other people who speak succint English, who share a similar cultural understanding -- people who are friends, was exciting.
It was kismet that we should all find ourselves in Jaisalmer at the same time, after what seemed like eons since our parting. As they say, all things happen for a reason and perhaps the sickness that held them up in Jaipur and then train fiascos that drove us to air travel, brought us all together one more time.
All day, in anticipation of our dinner date, I would tap on Benjamin's arm and with a wink of the eye, I'd say, "Tonight, we have plans!" It was an odd feeling, to be excited about having plans. At home, the concept of plans felt restrictive, or so commonplace that having plans meant nothing special, in and of themselves. Plans are like silent vowels -- their existence, though necessary, always overshadowed by something more interesting to pay attention to. At home, it wasn't the plans I got excited about, it was the people I was going to see or the places I was going to go.
On this occasion, however, not only was I excited about reconnecting with Michiel and Karen, but I was also excited about having plans in the first place. For the first time since leaving San Francisco, time had meaning... we had a purpose.
It sounds strange, I know, as our purpose for traveling was, to a large extent, to shed the structures of time -- our purpose was to explore the foreign places of our world. But once here, once doing it, purpose lost its meaning... because when you travel, time and purpose have no meaning... you are just a person in the world, sometimes here, other times there.
The day, the date are soon things of mystery -- unless there is a train or bus to catch, a clock and a schedule are of little use. Time becomes endless. Existence is measured only by the rising and setting of the sun and grumbles of the stomach that alert you to 'breakfast time' or 'dinner time'. Life becomes a series of impromptu decisions about where to go, what to do, when to do it. Purpose is lost in spontaneity. Ironically, the longer this goes on -- living life 'off the cuff' -- spontaneity becomes routine... and having a 'plan', like our dinner date, becomes something to look forward to. It's concrete. It breaks up the routine of not having a routine. An ironic twist I had not expected...
Contemplating this, I've resolved that living from one moment to the next without a clear idea of how the days, weeks, months will unfold creates a kind of inertia.
Questions are asked half-heartedly, "What should we do tomorrow?" or, "When should we move on?"
The answer, an indifferent, "I dunno. Let's figure it out later." In this manner, a decision can take days to make.
Without having a time frame or purpose, life moves slowly and the answers to the questions are not really even necessary. There is always 'time' to do something, if not today then the next, or possibly the day after. This isn't to suggest there is anything wrong with this. The pace is beautiful... but it all just makes having a 'plan' so remarkable.
At home in San Francisco, I would occasionally take a different way to work just to break up the monotony of my daily routine. When the other passengers on the J Church -- strangers -- became familiar faces, I would walk to Market Street and take the F. It made the rest of the day feel less ordinary.
Oddly, here it is the opposite. Instead of seeking the unusual to break up the usual, the usual has become the unusual... travel has made 'plans' and 'purpose' exotic.
posted by Cheryn at 6:28 PM
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