Tuesdays With Morrie

I am finally beginning to feel at ease in India. I like it here. We found a good cheap restaurant right by our ashram, there's yoga, food shops for peanut butter breakfast sandwiches, and fixed price clothing stores, plus an amazing lack of hassling rickshaw drivers. Did I mention I am reading "Tuesdays with Morrie" by Mitch Albom? Well, I finished reading it now. It's a great read, particularly because it is set in Newton. In reading the book I wonder if I will be able to do it - lead a good simple life - or will I get caught in the traps. I've read so much about going slow, focusing on emotions, relationships, and forgetting the material things. But everyone who is to be writing about this stuff seems to have already sought their fortune, realized the error of there ways, and are now financially secure enough to live a simple life. But what's a fresh start like me to do? Maybe positive doesn't have to mean poor, and I'm sure it is hard to be positive when your flat broke anyway. I don't think getting a shit job to support myself while spending my free time on good works is the right answer either, that goes against the whole idea, that's what society wants me to do so it can lock me in. Something to think about.

I remember a party I went to last summer when I was in San Francisco. I didn't know anyone and was sitting on the couch with a few other people watching a movie. Then this guy arrived, big guy, looked around the room, saw me, came right over extended his hand and said, "Hi, I'm David." It was one of the nicest things someone had ever done for me, and so simple. I wish I could be like that, so open, so unconcerned with rejection. I want to be a good listener, collector of voices, and story teller, too. A good person. I can try.

I told Alison that she's turning into a real hippy since she decided not to shower anymore on the logic that India is dirty and no matter how often she bathes she will only immediately get dirty again, especially when doing two classes of yoga a day (we hurt all over). But then she pointed out that in fact neither of us have shaved in weeks, I was the one wearing natural fiber clothes and had my hair up in an awful shaggy pig tail. We're having a great time, and after all the yoga, we are showering for sure.