Do you ever feel like you’re living in a dream? Like, what actually makes our dreams less real than our “real life”?
When I was a teenager, I would get a kick out of going wide-eyed and saying to my best friend, “What if our dreams are real life and right now we’re just dreaming??”
Sometimes I was sure I would finally “wake up”, and my true love—Leonardo DiCaprio of course—would be sitting by my bedside holding my hand, crying tears of joy as my eyes flutter open.
Pema Chodron says, “Every situation is a passing memory.” Think about it. Everything we do, every moment, every thought is always swiftly becoming a memory. Every second that passes becomes a memory.
And you are a part of my memories, a part of what I identify to be my self. Walker Bob, Tom Weis, Maria, Alice, John Gray, Bhakta Priya, Govardhana, Chiara. The list goes on.
Bob read a poem I wrote the other day, and we cried together, hundreds of miles apart.
Tom Weis, in a dream, has his bicycles and a small trailer attached to the back of our future school-bus home.
I talked to Maria on the phone while we were on tour last week, and she was organizing multi-colored fabrics and decomposing bison masks and boxes of feathers and bones and skulls while we talked. “Do you know what is relieving and depressing all at the same time?” I said to her. “According to the Buddha the only thing we get to take with us when we die is our mind-stream. In other words, the things that I think all of the time that I find so annoying, don’t necessarily just go away after I die. Actually, the real way to let go of my negative patterns is by meditating and doing the work.” “That’s kind of terrifying to think,” she sighed.
Just before we left on tour, Bhakta Priya called me (the childhood best friend who I would contemplate concepts like dreaming vs. real life with). “I think I know why you’re calling,” I said. We hadn’t spoken in months. “Yeah,” she sighed. Govardhana had died suddenly that morning. We recalled sledding on snowy Vermont hills with him, and how he would say things to us in Italian and we couldn’t understand him.
Govardhana was diagnosed with stage four melanoma just a few months ago. I created many memories of him in these last few months, even though I haven’t seen him in 15 years. I tried to get a hold of him, called his mother and left a message, considered driving to his house with soup or flowers or… I didn’t know what I would do. I just wanted to help somehow.
I created a memory of sitting with him, sick in bed. I held his hand and he smiled, even though he felt so ill. His eyelashes were still incredibly long. I told him everything was going to be okay, no matter what.
We drove all over Colorado and played music for hundreds of different people last week, and all the while I knew that Govardhana was being grieved by his parents, his children, his friends. And it was like this heavy secret I was carrying. Anyone who I confided in had to watch me melt down into an onslaught of tears.
With only 2 days of the tour left, we found out a friend in Vermont had committed suicide.
I held that, along with everything else. A crushing weight, like the whole world was sitting on my chest.
My friend Alice shared her day with me that night. Her dad’s death anniversary had just passed and she had spent it journaling, crying, just being with him.
We got home from tour the other day. I opened an email from my old friend, Chiara, and she told me the story of being 15 years old, her dad coming home from work and going to bed, and how it felt to discover the next day that he was never going to wake up again.
“I feel crushed,” I told Addison. “I don’t know how else to describe it.”
But here I have the quiet spaces, the time in between, to contemplate, to unpack, to consider all that has come to pass in these last two weeks.
Death is a dream, as is life. How could we be expected to continue functioning after the death of a loved one if it were really truly real?
Thich Nhat Hanh says that when we die, it’s not as if we leave a blank space behind. We can’t “subtract” ourselves from the universe. Everything that makes up our essence, our continuation, is all there. It just changes form.
The Bhagavad Gita says, “Never has there been a time when you or I did not exist.”
The Buddha says there is no “you” or “I”. But there is also NOT no “you” or “I”. We are not separate, but we are not the same.
When I think about my daughter Chickadee, and her tiny body buried in Texas, I wonder. Is there any of her essence still left there? The chickadees here in Colorado flock outside of my window, chirping and eating bugs and bringing me the memory of my child. There are chickadees all over the world who bring my daughter’s memory to anyone who has heard of her.
Wherever she is now, she is also my memory. And she is your memory. And you are my memory, as I am your memory.
May you and I continue to make more memories together for a good long while.
“Yes I’m lonely, wanna die… I am lonely, wanna die…
If I am dead already… Girl, you know the reason why.”
-The Beatles
I am almost 8 months pregnant now. It is late September in Austin, hot, humid with a population of mosquitoes that boggles my mind, despite my years in India.
I hail most recently from Vermont, and am unaccustomed to the long months of confinement in air conditioning that I’m experiencing here in Austin.
Our cat loves meditation time
Sometimes I venture to open a window, to let the sound of bird song drift in… But the heat quickly fills the house and I am quick to shut it again.
I slip outside on a daily basis to water my garden. I move quickly, swatting away mosquitoes while I hold the hose. Sometimes I’m lucky and only get 5-10 bites before I duck back inside.
These guys don’t mind the mosquitoes…
Most mornings we meditate out on the back-porch. We set up by lighting two citronella candles, several sticks of incense, an essential oil burner filled with lemongrass and citronella oils and whatever else we can find that smokes and smells vile to mosquitoes. It’s wonderful to be able to sit outside and not get bitten… too much, anyways. An occasional kamikaze mosquito will break through the frontlines and find it’s way to a leg, or a foot, usually getting a blood sample or two before it’s exterminated with a mighty clap.
One day I scurried outside equipped with a mini saw and some clippers, to cut back the unwanted saplings and suckers from the trees in our front yard. I moved as quickly as I could, while a veritable cloud of blood sucking, hungry mosquitoes formed about me. Ten minutes later I was rushing back inside, my work done, and throwing myself onto our bed, moaning in agony. I counted almost 100 mosquito bites on my body (I got in the habit of counting mosquito bites when we lived in India and were camped on some land covered in rice paddies while we began construction on the community that would be built there). Addison and I rubbed ice cubes over the swelling bites, and I lathered myself in essential oils that eventually helped the itching to calm down.
My midwife told me about these mosquito repelling DEET sprayers that you can clip onto your belt while you garden. I never knew I would actually consider getting something like this before, but it sounds awesome. Misting mosquito death all around me… a force field of toxic doom for the blood sucking masses. Ahhh….
At this point you may be wondering what all of this mosquito talk has to do with loneliness, the title of this blog post.
Or maybe you live in Austin and you are simply commiserating with my mosquito tales. 😉
What this all has to do with loneliness is this: I am hugely pregnant, spending a lot of time at home. My usual activities (when not in my third trimester of pregnancy) involving nature connection, capoeira and cycling adventures have been put on hold for the moment.
I go to bed early. I wake up to pee up to 5 times in the night. I try to get up early and write for a couple of hours before I do any other work.
I go to Barton Springs and swim in the healing, cold waters that seem to suck the inflammation from my swollen ankles and fingers. These spring waters are a veritable source of bliss for this pregnant lady.
I have a mandolin lesson every other week, and noodle around at home, practicing the melodies and chords in preparation for the next lesson.
I read out loud in french, practicing for when the baby is born and I have to speak to her in french as much as possible so she can be bilingual as she grows up.
I reach out to a few people every week, hoping someone will want to come over and see me, or maybe go swimming with me. Perhaps, in some people’s minds, the fact that I’m pregnant means that I don’t exist right now. If I can’t come to capoeira class at night, or go see a show, than why invite me to anything or check in on me? I have a full time job creating another human being, so what else could I possibly want to do?
Ok, that was my bitter, proud Leo side speaking.
I’ve always wanted people to reach out to me, to invite me on adventures, to include me in crazy schemes.
But that’s what I do, not other people. I’m the one who calls people up and asks them to go camping with me, I’m the one who tries to get everyone together to make crafts and play music, I’m the one who writes letters on a typewriter and sends postcards and am thrilled if anyone responds in kind.
I know I am loved and adored by all of my friends. I know most of them would do anything to help me if I asked. I know they all care.
But I am in my third trimester of pregnancy, and I don’t want to be alone all of the time. I do like being alone most of the time. But not all of the time.
I’m feeling discouraged about creating community in Austin at the moment.
I did have a brilliant idea.
I updated my Couchsurfing profile and switched it on, to “Accepting Guests”.
Lo and behold, I’ve had requests from interesting, friendly people from all over the country who want to stay here… and that’s just within the first day of turning it back on.
I even had a Persian PhD student ask if we could be adventure buddies since he enjoys hiking and camping and wants other people to do this with. I said yes, but as I am so pregnant, I can only go on short hikes and am better off swimming.
The other day we had a young couple from Olympia, WA stay here. We talked about adventures and travel, and then they squished together on our leather chair next to the vinyl player reading books, while Addison and I worked out a couple of songs for our show on Saturday (are you coming? It’s at In.gredients on Sept. 24th from 6-8 pm).
Back when I hosted a cyclist from England during my second trimester of pregnancy
It was very cozy and nice to have other human beings in our house.
Next weekend a woman from Alberta, Canada is going to stay with me while Addison is in Chicago. We’re going to go swimming, crotchet and read french to one another.
The weekend after a couple from Colorado is staying here for ACL.
Oh, and this kid from Denmark, who is traveling around the United States, just hit me up while I was writing to stay here tonight. 🙂
And ANOTHER guy just hit me up to stay here this weekend… he’s offering us Thai massages and yoga instruction. Woah.
Another idea I had is to figure out how to sit in my front yard on a daily basis, so I can wave to neighbors as they walk by. If anyone stops to chat, I’ll offer them a drink and a seat. I just need some really baller outdoor furniture and some extra citronella candles… maybe a fan that blows mosquito repellant everywhere. 😉 (if you live in Austin and have baller outdoor furniture to share with me, let me know! If the furniture comes included with you sitting in it, even better!)
I have always wanted community. But I didn’t always know that’s what I wanted. And now that I know that, I don’t know exactly how to make it happen. I’ve moved so frequently my entire life that I have friends and family spread across the world, literally.
Sometimes I sit and consider who I’m going to visit when, and as I start going down the list my head begins to spin. Should I spend New Years in Saltillo, Mexico with my new family-away-from-home that I spent last New Years with during my bicycle trip? How will that be with a newborn baby?
When should I fly to L.A. to visit my uncle and my new cousins who I still haven’t even met yet?
And then there’s always India. I haven’t been back there in 10 years, and I’d love to visit my mom and brother in their natural habitat, and revisit the Tibetan refugees who live near Govindaji Gardens (the spiritual community where my mom and brother live) and walk through their beautiful temple again and see the incredible depictions of the Peaceful and Wrathful deities.
Oh and France, of course. Half of my family lives there, shouldn’t I do a french pilgrimage and visit them all with the new baby?
And since my sister and her husband have decided to move to Washington, well I suppose I’ll need to head that way in the next year as well!
I will have to wait on all of these schemes while I discover what it’s like to live and travel with a baby. But I do believe she has a lot of adventuring in her future… 😉
For now I am thankful to have a beautiful, spacious home and a guest room, so that I can invite people to stay here.
And perhaps one day I will actually buy a house and live in the same place for the rest of my life and build up the kind of community around me that I’ve always wanted.
Seeing as you’ve read this all the way to the end, something about this topic must be interesting to you and I would LOVE to hear your thoughts. About any of it. In addition to being curious about what other people’s thoughts are on community and loneliness… and mosquitoes, reading your comment I think will help me feel less lonely. 🙂
The man looks to be in his 50s, with a tan face and well-groomed mustache. But at this moment his mustache seems to be coming undone.
“You rode your bicycle across Mexico??” He fidgets uncomfortably.
“Yeah, I got to Playa del Carmen and then realized I was pregnant and needed to come home.”
“Well….” he seems to be searching for words. “Well you know what I would say about it if you hadn’t gone already… you know I wouldn’t advise doing that! Alone… on a bicycle…” He trails off.
I smile and squeeze his arm. “No harm came to me!” I head into the kitchen to find the others.
Dick’s kitchen is brimming with chattering, smiling, laughing people, arms laden with potluck goodies… pasta dishes, giant chocolate cakes, guacamole dip that is “actually made out of asparagus!”, chips, loaves of bread, soup and numerous bottles of wine.
They’ve all come to see The Love Sprockets perform tonight, and to visit with old friends, break bread and drink wine… and whiskey… and banana daiquiris…
A lovely lady with long blonde hair and a wreath of green leaves and purple flowers on her head rushes to greet me. “Jahnavi! You made it!” Golden exclaims over my pregnant belly, and Lloyd looks at me in shock.
“I didn’t know you were pregnant!” he says, with what looks to be something like reproach on his face.
I’m wearing a slinky, form-fitting dress so that all of my old Baton Rouge friends can get a really good look at my big belly. I only see them once or twice a year, so this is their chance to see me in full baby-bloom.
“Well,” he concedes. “You make being pregnant look good!”
I sit down next to Golden to catch up.
“I was reading your blog the whole time,” she’s saying, “And I was scared for you when you were getting so tired, and than you found out you were pregnant, and…. oh…. But it was so funny when you did the whole pregnancy test in Mexico and your friend was there…” She laughs like tinkling bells.
I see Phil, our first Baton Rouge host from three years ago. He and his wife, Goldie, had taken Addison, Nic and I in on New Years Eve, on a cold, blustery day during our cross-country bicycle trip. We had been instructed to draw up a menu for that evening’s dinner and describe the dishes enticingly. He had taken close up shots of everyone’s mugs that night, even Zoso’s. We all look windburned, bedraggled, and Zoso’s mustache was the color of a hundred snacks, meals and drinks of water that had dried into it. But Phil loved Zoso. He fed him special, handcrafted meals alongside his own two dogs, and lovingly referred to him as ‘Yo-so.’
When I step in to give Phil a hug, his eyes widen with surprise. “I didn’t even recognize you!”
I eat spoonfuls of his spicy bok choy, ginger soup, while he tells me about his idea for the nights events.
“I would really like to hear the development of your music,” he tells me. “A song picked for each stage of your career together.”
“Like, a chronological set list!” I say.
“Yeah, okay, something like that.”
“That’s brilliant!”
After I’m done with my soup I find Addison unloading instruments from our car and tell him Phil’s idea.
“Cool,” he says, “That sounds like a good idea!”
And then he discovers the missing space that his set of 10 harmonicas, which he carries in a black case, should have been filling.
“Oh no….” he groans. “I think I left them in New Orleans!”
“Oh no….” I commiserate.
We had been on tour since Tuesday, and tonight it was Friday. Thursday we had driven to New Orleans and performed at a quaint, co-op of a cafe called The Neutral Ground. Perhaps because the venue is so covered in artifacts collected over the years, and only lit with soft, glowing lamps and christmas lights, it was hard to see that he had left his black case on the piano bench off in the corner.
A picture of Mark, the artist who played before us, at The Neutral Ground
“Well at least I have one harmonica,” he whips one out from his pocket. “And it’s in the right key to play Wade in the Water and Soul of a Man.”
That night we all go on a journey together, sitting cozily in Dick’s living room, people cuddled together on couches, smiling and clapping from rocking chairs, or peering from the perch of a wooden kitchen chair to see over the heads of the others.
We tell the story of our meeting, starting the band, bicycling across the United States, and finally arriving in Austin. Each song we play fits into the story, and has its own story behind it. When we get to the part of the night’s journey where we talk about me leaving Addison and biking across Mexico, people sigh, laugh and make commiserating noises. We each play a couple of solo songs to show what music we were playing while we were apart.
Me playing ‘A Moment’s Rest’ on the mandolin
Even though we let people get up and take a break halfway through, I am still so impressed and touched by how some of them sit and listen the entire time, following the story and the songs, with no complaint of boredom.
This is music as I feel it must have been in ‘the old days’, before TV, wifi and YouTube. The traveling musician arrives at your doorstep and the village gathers to feed them and gather stories from them about the lands they’ve visited, and to hear the songs they’ve carried with them from other places that perhaps the villagers will never see themselves.
It’s not about the musician, not about how they look or idolizing them as some kind of sex symbol. It’s about the music and the story and the community that’s come together to listen and discuss love, life and death with one another.
Here are some more pictures from our Houston, Baton Rouge and New Orleans tour:
Packing up the car–no dog left behind!On our way to our live appearance on 90.1 KPFT Houston with Roark, one of the happiest DJs we knowA Houston nativeAddison playing a solo song before our set at the Avant Garden open mic in HoustonThe Love Sprockets at The Neutral GroundZoso getting comfy before our show at The Neutral GroundMe and the owlPacking up in Baton Rouge the morning after our house show at Dick’sDriving into the sunset, Austin on the horizon
Do you remember your first time discussing the all-important topic: ‘Am I going to have kids or not’?
I believe my first embarkment on the topic of this important life decision was when I was 9 years old, playing tag with my little brother and our two friends in the courtyard of a 3 story, marble and granite house in the heart of Mysore, India.
Our families had moved to India a few months earlier from Efland, North Carolina, and we were sharing the space of this house that, by most Indians’ standards, was no less than a mansion. The courtyard at the base of the house was fenced in, and although we could see traffic moving past and people walking by, we were separated from it all by walls and gates.
There was plenty of space for the 4 of us to scamper about, and as we darted back and forth, we were able to discuss–though somewhat breathlessly–the prospect of children in our adult futures.
Vraja, the twin brother of my best friend Tarini, asked me, “So do you think you’re going to have kids?” He seemed both enthralled and embarrassed by being the one to breach the topic. “I don’t know if I will… maybe!” he cocked his head to one side, before dashing out of reach of my pursuing brother, Gaura.
I raced after him, in order to follow up on the discussion. “Nah,” I yelled, gasping for breath. “I don’t think I’m going to have kids! Because I don’t think I would ever want to get married.”
Later, I would take Tarini aside to divulge my reasoning behind not getting married and having kids when I was a grown up.
“You see…” I explained to her, “My sister told me that the way you have to have a kid is the man has to stick his… ‘thing’ inside the lady!”
Tarini’s face was filled with the horror that I had been anticipating.
“I don’t EVER want that to happen to me,” I said.
She looked ill. “Me NEITHER.”
And there we sat, the two of us, 8 and 9 years old, on the rooftop of a house in Mysore India, considering our baby-less and husband-less futures.
Once I had made that decision, I didn’t worry about it or give it much further thought until many years later.
Once I had been able to come to terms with HOW babies were made, than it became a decision I would consider and discuss once again. Between the ages of 20 and 30, I would pendulum back and forth between theoretical futures.
There was the, “I MUST have a baby! NOW!”
Followed by, “I can’t ever have kids! There’s too much I want to do with my life! I’ll never NOT want to be accomplishing cool stuff, when would I ever have time for a kid??”
So when Addison and I were faced with the reality that there was a living, pulsing being that we had created, swimming around inside of me, the world stopped. We sat together in silence and in conversation, in wonder and in horror.
There was the cold, calculating voice that seemed to whisper to both of us, “You have a choice, you don’t HAVE to have this baby… You could be free of it if you really wanted to.”
I didn’t want to feel like that was a choice. I had never considered abortion to be an option for me, even though actually being pregnant gave me a newfound understanding and compassion for those who do choose to have abortions.
I just wanted to know that this child was a certainty, so I could than begin to move forward accordingly.
Addison left a day and a half after we discovered I was pregnant, headed back to Austin. We were pretty sure baby was staying. We weren’t sure where I was going, however.
All I really wanted was to “go home.” I was nauseous, homesick, tired of being in a different country. I also felt like I wanted to keep going. I hadn’t actually made it to Brazil!
I went back to share Watson’s room with him, and Addison went to get some space, some time to digest the news apart from me.
I called friends, family members, and one time burst into tears on Watson’s bed while he patted me awkwardly, cheering me by being sweet and silly.
I wanted to go home, but I also wanted to keep cycling. I wanted to fly to L.A. and bike up to Alaska. I wanted to fly down to Brazil and bike around Brazil before it was “too late”. But between pregnancy nausea and the Zika virus, those two options were out of the question.
I considered going to Vermont and staying with Addison’s mother for a while.
But finally, I got a message from Addison. His reflection time had led him to the turning point that he would later call, “Getting my head out of my ass.”
“This child is an expression of our love,” he said. “You are the only person in this world I would want to have a baby with right now, and I want you to come home.”
3 days later, I was in the airport and headed to Austin, my bicycle broken down into a box, my baby in my belly. We had all traveled across Mexico together, and now we were all going home.
I am sitting in an air bnb apartment on Avenida 15 Nte. in Playa del Carmen. Outside our balcony window is Avenida 15, a busy street with tortillerias and cheap Mexican food. The ocean is a 10 minute walk away. Inside this one room apartment there are towels,clothing and musical instruments strewn around.
I am slathered in sunblock–a morning and afternoon ritual I have been adhering to since I arrived–and my skin is salty from swimming in the ocean today.
Addison is sitting on the couch trying to get his work done on the computer, though he’s really just fighting the urge to go take another nap.
I have ridden my bicycle across Mexico (and taken rides in a few buses and cars), and now I sit back to contemplate the last two weeks.
During these last 14 or so days, I’ve ridden my bicycle almost everyday, spent the majority of my hours alone, slept in random hotels or at couchsurfer/warmshowers hosts’ houses, and have eaten everything from cold tortillas stuffed with refried beans from a bag in my hotel room to huevos rancheros floating in red sauce at a fine restaurant in Champoton. I’ve consumed roadside coconuts, oranges that are peeled and sliced in half and sold for 10 pesos a bag, and the stray coca-cola when I’ve still got 30 km to my final destination and I feel like I just can’t take it anymore.
With my chapter of alone time coming to a close for this trip (at least for the moment), I feel truly grateful for this rite of passage, and also relieved that nothing ever stays the same.
My friend Watson (also former upright bass player for my band, The Love Sprockets) lives in Playa del Carmen and had been expecting me to show up any day. He had also mentioned if shit really hit the fan, he’d be open to borrowing a truck from the brewery he works at to come and save me.
Traveling from Villahermosa to Merida I had been heading due east along the Gulf Coast. Then from Merida (about 300 km from Playa–so basically 4-5 days of riding) I was turning due south for the last leg of my ride. While leaving Merida, I was hit with such an incredibly strong headwind, that it felt like my purpose in pedaling was mostly to avoid being blown backwards. It was also intensely hot all of a sudden.
In addition, my iPod had died, never to return to the land of the living, during the fateful rainstorm I wrote about in my last blog post. This meant long hours of lonely silence, only broken up by the passing of trucks and cars, and the occasional Mexican man who decided to yell or whistle at me.
I felt a wave of complete and utter discouragement, and suddenly didn’t care about finishing the final 321 km by bicycle. I wanted out. I wanted Watson to come and get me, and to just lay around Playa until Addison arrived on the 18th. I didn’t want to be fighting a headwind for the next 4-5 days, staying in hotels, eating shitty food from roadside restaurants, and being out in the full sun day in and day out, with no shade to speak of.
But when I tried to make the emergency rescue call, Watson was not available. He had work/the truck wasn’t available. Eventually, over the next couple of days, I tried to convince him to just ride his motorcycle out to see me, and I could take the day off, hang out with a friend and go swim at a cenote in good company.
However, his lady friend was visiting, and he didn’t want to drag her out on the motorcycle for a 4 hour ride to come and meet me.
So I found myself pushing through a wall that I had really hoped to just walk around and avoid altogether.
Yes, there was quite of bit of crying involved and a tad too much sun exposure, but nothing that was going to kill me. At the urging of Radha (my sister), I began to make my rides a bit shorter, tackling 60 km a day rather than 80-100 km as I had been doing for the first half of my trip. This certainly helped my moral.
This seems like a good time to talk about the wildlife I’ve seen, most of which has been roadkill, but some of which has been the real, living animals themselves.
Here is some of the Mexican roadkill I can recall (I’ve researched photos of the real thing online so you can get a visual of the magnificent, though sadly dead, creature):
Coatis
Gray foxes
Ocelots
An oriole
Beautiful blue and green birds (maybe the blue-crowned motmot?)
Small, brown bats
Black Vultures
Dogs
Butterflies
Snakes of all sizes
Parrots
Some of the live animals I’ve seen have been:
-a gray fox who crossed the road in front of me so close that I had to stop so I didn’t run into her
-lots of bats at the cenotes here in the Yucatan
-many varieties of birds including herons, orioles, parrots, doves, grackles, warblers, woodpeckers, hawks, eagles, pelicans and ones whose names I do not know.
-I was able to hang out with a bush-full of coatis one day, much to my (and their) surprise.
-I never pass up the chance to watch one of the enormous, cat-sized lizards sunbathing or doing it’s strange ‘push-up’ dance, where it bobs up and down and sometimes arches its head back rhythmically. Oddly, I feel no desire to try and catch one and hold it, like I used to with the little fence lizards in California. Dinosaurs are best observed at a small distance in my opinion. 🙂
Here in Playa del Carmen I saw a giant rodent like creature rummaging around the trash near the beach… an agouti seems to be what I saw:
Here’s a picture of the agouti’s tracks that I took on the beach here in Playa del Carmen (I added my credit card in the photo so you can get a sense of their size)
I was able to camp one of the days I was on the road near a cenote, in a small Mayan village town called Yokdznot (please don’t ask me how to pronounce that). I was psyched to see an official campground in Mexico.
Yes, I was the only person camping, and the Mexicans who passed by my camp spot seemed to be highly perplexed as to what exactly I was doing…
I didn’t sleep all that well in my little tent–what with the village dogs raising the alarm every hour or so when a leaf rustled in the distance–but I was so happy to hear the wind in the trees and to be awoken by birdsong that it was fine.
Actually, in the middle of the night at that campground, I had to go to the bathroom, and had a cool little experience.
The bathroom was a good distance away, so I followed the path that led to it, stomping my feet every now and then to scare off snakes. I saw a strange, white beast off to the side under a tree. It seemed to stock still, gazing at me with mute concentration. I stopped, feeling a little uneasy, and had to look at it for a while before I could discern that it was a goat. And no, it wasn’t staring at me with it’s head erect–that was, in fact, it’s butthole and it’s little tail sticking up in the air. It’s back was turned to me and I suppose it was just sleeping standing up or something.
When I reached the bathrooms, I saw two men sleeping in hammocks hanging from the trees nearby.
There was something so fascinating about seeing them dangling there, like two overgrown babies, snoring softly. No blankets, sheets, pillows or mosquito netting. Just a hammock swaying beneath the trees in the breeze.
I was truly impressed by this scene.
I snuck by quietly so as not to awaken them.
All of this alone time has given me plenty of space for meditation and just ‘being’ with myself.
Sometimes I don’t really want to hang out with myself.
Sometimes I’d MUCH rather hang out with anyone else but me.
But that’s usually when I’m feeling some kind of pain–fear, loneliness, despair–and I don’t want to feel bad anymore.
So I’ve simply taken the time to hang out with these unpleasant feelings, and it’s amazing how much quicker they seem to dissipate when I give them all of my attention.
It gets tiresome when these unhappy feelings arise every morning, or every 5 minutes. Especially when I need to pack up all my gear and hit the road in a timely manner, and need to have the strength of mind to cycle 7-8 hours everyday and find a place to sleep at night before it gets dark.
But now I’m beginning to regard these painful feelings simply as little crying babies with poopy diapers. As long as I’m willing to hold them, let them cry, and even change their diapers occasionally, they can’t carry on forever. They finally seem to be satisfied at some point, and give me a break.
It’s during these respites that I regain my sense of humor, and actually want to talk to other people, even if it’s only in spanish. I feel a resurgence of inspiration around my trip. I feel space inside of me, and can take some easy breaths, maybe even smile.
What I like about being alone is that I get to decide exactly what I do when. I can leave the hotel in the morning as early (or as late) as I feel like, I can go to sleep when I decide it’s time to turn off the light, and I don’t have consult anyone about any decision I’m trying to make.
That being said, sometimes I choose to consult other people. Like Watson, for instance–when I’m getting ready to ride 100 km with a broken spoke and my wheel is rubbing the brakes off to one side even thought they’re released.
Or I’ll call Radha and Erik (my sister and her husband), when I’ve had a rough start to my morning and my insides feeling all junky and sad. I just chat with them for a few minutes to hear how their day went (they’re getting ready for bed when I’m waking up, because they’re in Thailand), and Radha will patiently remind me that feeling sad does not mean the end of the world.
I made it to the small town of Chemuyil (near Tulum) on Monday, and spent two nights at a friend of Rohn Baye’s (Rohn is one of my Patreon backers who I met in San Antonio on my way through to Brazil). His name is Pepe, and on Tuesday we spent some time walking around Tulum while he got his car repaired at the mechanics, and then he drove me to his friend’s place out in the jungle where I was taken through a series of underground caverns and swam in an underground cenote. Truly amazing.
On Wednesday I awoke at 5:30 am, so that I could rolling out to Playa del Carmen by 7 am, and be able to beat the heat. I arrived at Watson’s apartment complex around 10:45 am.
“Watson,” I said, after he’d stepped outside to meet me and was marveling at my loaded bicycle. “I rode my bicycle across Mexico. Now I never have to do it again, ever.”
“FUCK YOU!!” I scream, rain pelting my face and filling my mouth. “I’m trying SO HARD, so FUCKING hard. FUCK. YOU.”
A semi truck passes me on the bridge and a wave of dirty water splashes over me. I don’t care. I’m soaked through anyways.
I am crying now, gulping and gasping, my tears mixing with rain.
When I finished crossing the bridge, I pull my bicycle over. The front tire has been losing air slowly and has become quite soft. So I yank my hand-pump off the frame, and kneel on the wet ground while I fill the tire with more air. I shiver as my wet clothes cling to me, and a peal of thunder cracks the bruised sky.
I had left Dzitbalche that morning, a small town about 50 kilometers from where I was kneeling in a puddle now. I had awoken quite early, without prompting from my alarm, and had meditated sitting on the square lump that represented a bed at the hospedas I was staying at. I had slept on top of the covers with my sleeping bag, not daring to venture into it’s depths after discovering toe nail clippings on the blanket.
I hadn’t meant to end up in a hospedas in Dzitbalche when I had ridden out from the city of Campeche on Friday morning.
Dzitbalche
I had intended on cycling to Calkini, a halfway point between Campeche and Merida. Merida was my goal, my shining portal of light, a beautiful city with two beautiful warmshowers hosts who had a room waiting for me, a place that was not a hotel, had internet connection, a washing machine, bicycle repair shops, and people who speak english.
I had pulled off the highway on Friday afternoon after having traveled about 80 kilometers that day, to ride on a side road into Calkini. Within moments I received a flat tire from some broken glass, or maybe shards of wire that decorate the sides of the roads here like confetti.
Unfortunately I was not aware of the flat tire until moments later, when I went over a surprise speed bump a little too fast, and felt the unmistakable *whump*–the sickening sound and feeling of a flat tire that is even more flattened beneath a mountain of gear.
I pulled over right away, avoiding the flabbergasted expressions of the villagers who were walking past me, or leaning on their shovels, their work forgotten due to my unexpected arrival into their usually cycle-tourist-free existence.
Don’t they have work to do? I thought grumpily, wishing everyone would just go away while I surveyed the damage of my only mode of transportation, my house-on-wheels.
“Mi bici es mi vida,” I always tell people, when they talk to me about my strange, overloaded vehicle. My bicycle is my life.
Well, my life was currently looking a little butt-fucked, if you don’t mind me saying.
Not only was my tire completely flat, but as I was pumping it back up so I could at least creak my way to a place to sleep that night, I noticed I also had broken a spoke.
Cue the doomsday music.
After filling the back tire with more air, I gingerly remounted my injured steed and began to roll slowly down the streets, hoping to see a sign for a hotel of some kind. When I reached the center of town, I pulled over to look at my phone map, and an old timer sitting on a bench yelled over to me.
“Que estas buscando? A donde vas?”
Well if he was asking me what I was looking for and where I was going, clearly he wanted to help.
I pushed my bicycle over to where he sat and asked, “Sabes donde esta un hotel?”
“Si, si!” He went into a lengthy description of where a hospedas was, telling me where to turn and what the landmarks were. I was a little nervous because it sounded like it might be hard to find.
But I set out to look for it, after thanking him and saying good bye.
It turned out the hospedas was actually quite close and easy to find, and when I pulled up, two older gentleman leapt up to greet me and help me bring my bicycle inside the courtyard. They were amazed to see me and my gear, and asked me lots of questions about my trip.
“Tiene un cellular,” one man said, pointing at my cellphone mounted to my handlebars.
“Asi que se puede hablar con su novio,” the other said, chuckling. (‘So she can talk to her boyfriend’).
“Mi promitido,” I corrected. (‘my fiance’).
“Oohh!” they gasped appreciatively.
It’s somehow even more impressive to the Mexican people that I’m cycle touring alone AND I have a fiance.
That night one of the guys took me around town to visit a couple of bike shops, both of which where closed. But we were told one of them would re-open at 5 pm, so after taking a shower, I headed back there, again assisted by the older man who carried my wheel for me.
A bicycle shop in Mexico is not a bicycle shop in the United States. The ones I’ve seen look kind of like auto shops in the U.S., just smaller, darker, and even dirtier, if you can imagine that. They usually have a few rusty mountain bikes lying around, and it always makes me wonder what exactly they’re doing to improve the bicycles they work on.
The mechanic took my wheel and surveyed my broken spoke. I also told him I had a flat tire and could he fix it.
“Si, si. 30 pesos. Volver por la manana.”
Come back in the morning? Hmmm… I had almost 100 km to ride to Merida in the morning, I couldn’t be hanging around waiting for his shop to open.
“Voy a Merida con mi bici en la manana,” I explained.
“Ah ok,” he said. “Entonces, volver en una hora.” (‘Than come back in an hour’)
I was relieved.
Wow, I’m not screwed. This guy’s gonna replace my spoke, patch my tire, and I’ll be good to go tomorrow!
Me and the older man (he did tell me his name, but unfortunately I can’t remember it) stopped and got tacos (he didn’t eat, but insisted I order 5 or 6–I thought maybe they were kind of small so I finally agreed to order 5 and had to take 3 to go when I discovered they were of normal size).
When we returned to get my wheel, the mechanic waved at it sadly.
“No puedo.” He couldn’t fix the spoke because he didn’t have the right tools for taking my cassette off.
My heart sank.
He did show me that he had kindly filled my tire with air.
I knew this meant he hadn’t actually patched the tire, so that was something else I would need to do before going to sleep that night.
It was difficult to remember to smile when morning came.
I had patched my tire but it was flat again, so I just replaced the tube, not feeling patient about finding a potentially microscopic hole in addition to the other one I had patched.
I pulled my bicycle outside of my room and into the center courtyard, where the older man from the day before saw me and came over.
I was trying to put my wheel back on after having changed the tool, but it was a little complicated because of being the rear one and dealing with the chain and gear shifter. The man was trying to help me–though I really did not need or want his help–which almost made matters worse. Once I had the wheel in place, I noticed it was rubbing the brakes on one side very badly.
I knew this was because of the broken spoke and the wheel not being ‘true’.
I couldn’t explain this in spanish to the guy trying to help me, so he kept fussing with it, though he seemed to know about as much about bicycles as I do about engineering.
I called Watson and he talked me through, so that I could at least set the wheel up to a balanced enough spot where I could ride with the brakes released.
I finally had to shoo the overly helpful guy away. “No mas. No mas!” I said, as he continued to finagle and fuss hopelessly.
I think I may have offended him because he walked away and did not return.
But I was relieved to have him gone.
Fighting back tears, I set the wheel, turned the bicycle right side up, and loaded it with my gear.
As I was rolling out of town, I noticed the other bicycle shop was open.
Hmmmm… I thought. Maybe they have the right tool for taking my cassette off and they can fix my spoke!
The potential promise of my 100 km ride to Merida with all of my spokes caused me to stop and talk to the guys at the shop.
Maybe it’s just because I’m from the United States and in Mexico the culture is very different, but I made the assumption that by explaining to them that I had ridden to Dzitbalche from Austin, TX and was on my way to Brazil–and needed to ride all the way to Merida today–that somehow they would ‘get’ it.
I assumed they would see my enormous, heavy pile of gear and think, “Well gee. This girl is carrying a lot of weight and has a long way to go today. Let’s make sure we take good care of her and her bicycle so that she gets there safely.”
But sadly, this was not the case.
Despite my insistence that the removal of the cassette was the potential barrier to them fixing my spoke, they didn’t look closely and just told me to take all of my gear off my bicycle so they could work on it.
Sure enough, they took the wheel off and began to try and remove the cassette–with no luck.
One of the guys seem to fiddle around with the wheel and the spokes, as if he may have been truing the wheel. I could only hope.
Then he gave me the final assessment. They couldn’t fix my spoke because of the same damn thing the other guy ran into–they couldn’t take the cassette off.
I watched with growing dread as they tried to put my wheel back on.
Why did I let them touch my bicycle? Why was I so hopeful? I could have just ridden past, and saved my self the trouble…
I finally stood up and told them to get out of the way.
I finagled with my wheel until I had found a good position for it to spin freely.
I reloaded all of my gear once again.
I thanked them… for trying I guess… and tried to ride away.
But my wheel was wobbling horribly.
An old lady being pushed in a strange bicycle cart thing by a man rolled past me and she asked me where I was traveling to.
I tried to answer her, but I was so upset by my wheel that no words came out.
She shook her head at me and continued on.
I turned back to the ‘bike shop’ and told the ‘mechanic’ that my wheel was worse off than before. As he watched me slightly open mouthed, I frantically grabbed a small log from their shop and hoisted the back of my bicycle on it. I indicated for him to hold the bicycle in place for me. Than I began to spin the wheel and try to assess what else had gone wrong.
The other ‘mechanic’ came over and eventually ascertained that they had not actually tightened up my wheel bearing properly after having loosened it to try and get the cassette off. He grabbed a wrench and tightened it. Seemed like an obvious thing to have done in the first place, but hey, it worked as an afterthought as well.
Finally, I was able to ride away without any undue wobbling or rubbing.
That’s right around when it began to rain…
“Do you know what?” I said out loud to my bicycle, watching droplets of water drip off the front of my helmet. “You are the most awesome bicycle I have ever owned. And guess what? You and me, we’re going to Merida today! We’re going to stay with a nice couple named Ken and Erin, and we’re going to take really good care of you once you get there. All you have to do is just hold out for today. I promise I’ll get you all fixed up in Merida.” And then, to my surprise, I began to cry and say to my bicycle, “I love you. I love you so much.”
Well, yes, I suppose I had gone a little batty from riding alone for so long and being worried about getting stranded on the side of the highway with my bicycle and gear.
As my my mind raced around, assessing potential problems of riding with a broken spoke, and coming up with solutions just as quickly, I saw some beautiful yellow flowers growing along the roadside.
I remembered something I had read in one of Thich Nhat Hanh’s books: “Happiness is always possible in the present moment. The flowers are keeping your smile for you. You can have it back anytime.”
A smile came to my face.
I stopped to take a picture.
So it is that I find myself 50 km to Merida, in a full-on downpour, kneeling on the side of the highway and pumping up my front tire.
I continue on down the highway, until to my relief, I eventually spy a bridge that I can hide under.
I pull under the bridge and begin to assess the damage. I had been so intent on riding as quickly as possible to Merida, that I had not taken great care in insuring my electronics were in waterproof containers.
My ipod has shut down after getting wet in my belly pouch, and my phone and extra charger are in danger of meeting the same fate.
I quickly wrap them in some clothes from my dry-bag pannier and stow them away into safety. I pull off my dripping wet over-shirt, shivering gratefully as I get my coat out and put it on. While I wait for the rain to pass, I eat an apple and just pace back and forth beneath the bridge, trying to stay warm and keep my limbs moving.
15 minutes later, I’m able to keep riding, though there is a steady drizzle still oozing out of the sky.
When I finally arrive at Ken and Erin’s house in Merida, it is 6 pm, and my feet are sloshing in my shoes. Ken shows me inside his magnificent home and to my room. Than he leads me to the kitchen. “Are you more wet, or more hungry?” he asks me.
I feel like I can barely stand up. “I’m honestly not sure…” I say, squelching alongside him. “But I think I’m too hungry to get changed.”
I eventually resign myself to at least taking off my wet shoes and socks, putting dry socks on, and then settle down in front of a giant bowl of homemade chili.
“You have no idea what it means to me to finally be here,” I tell Ken later that evening. “Today was a true trial. Thank you so much for being here to receive me.”
Later I go to say goodnight to my bicycle. “Hey,” I whisper to her, avoiding the puddles of water that have formed around the floor beneath her. “You did it. You fucking did it. You are so amazing.”
And true to my word, I did get her all fixed up over the next couple of days. The bicycle mechanic in Merida had no problem removing my cassette, replacing the spoke, and truing the wheel, charging me a whopping 30 pesos for the whole operation (that’s like $1.50).
“God is the love that moves the sun and the other stars.”
I sit at a table on a restaurant patio overlooking the ocean this morning.
I have been dreaming about eggs for days now, imagining them gliding around deliciously in a handmade tortilla, dripping with salsa.
And now, here they are with me, huevos rancheros, gazing solemnly up from my plate in their warm bath of red salsa and fresh, crumbled cheese.
The tortillas that my waiter presents me in a basket wrapped in cloth are, indeed, handmade and very hot.
Before diving into my breakfast, I sip my cafe ollo (coffee brewed with cinnamon) and look out at the three cormorants (badass birds that can swim underwater) who have set themselves up on the three available wooden posts that stick out above the ocean tide.
These three birds are facing the sun, which rose about an hour earlier, and are sitting silent and still, in worshipful reverence of the source of warmth and light for the entire Earth.
I stare at them, appreciation swelling in my heart.
Without water, I would die, I think, looking out at the vast body of lapping waves in front of me, and so would these three birds.
Without the sun, I would die, I continue in my head, looking at their peaceful, beaked faces pointed at the sun, and so would these three birds.
I feel my connection to the water, the sun, the birds and… without food, I would die. I gaze down at my breakfast.
I imagine the man or woman inside the kitchen who has carefully prepared my tortillas and huevos rancheros for me.
I feel gratitude filling my chest for this stranger who is making sure I have a delicious meal to give me energy for my day.
And I think about the chicken who has laid the eggs I am about to eat, and wonder where she is right now. Most likely she is scratching around in the dirt next door, chasing bugs with that vacant look in her eye that all chickens seem to have.
I take a sip of the freshly squeezed orange juice waiting in a tall glass in front of me, and imagine the orange tree reaching towards the sun, drinking in his rays and fattening up her crop of bright, sweet orbs of fruit.
After these contemplations, I promptly begin eating.
The waiter approaches a little while later, smiling at me good naturedly with his haggard teeth, and I thank him as he takes away my used napkins.
“Donde vienes?” he asks me (meaning, ‘where do you come from?’).
“Austin,” I reply.
“Austria?”
“Austin Texas,” I clarify, silencing the ‘x’ in Texas so he can be sure where it is I’m talking about. “Voy a Brazil con mi bici,” I explain with a smile.
His eyes widen. “Con su bici?”
“Si.”
He wanders away, clearly needing some time to digest this information before his next question.
I have been traveling from Austin, TX by bicycle, bus and car for 2 months now, and in the last week it has now been solely by bicycle.
When I left Austin, headed for Mexico, I didn’t really have a way to prepare myself for the endless highways running through the endless desert, broken up only by cities that are barely navigable by bicycle.
I soon found that my comfort level allowed me only some short stints by bicycle, and then many more by bus and car.
The waiter returned, this time with a new question:
“No tienes miedo a viajar sola?” (‘aren’t you afraid to travel alone?’)
It took me a minute to decipher this question, because I wasn’t familiar with the word ‘miedo’ (‘fear’). But after repeating the unknown word aloud a few times, I understood.
I shrugged. “Un poco. Pero, esta bien.” (‘a little, but it’s okay’)
He laughed and walked away again.
I have come to know Fear over these past 2 months, more intimately than I had ever hoped.
Rarely have I actually been in any ‘real danger’. The fear I have been experiencing is mostly hand-made. 😉
After arriving in Mexico City in the car of a friend, I met Mestre Acordeon for the first time, practiced capoeira with Profesor Nao Veio, spent 5 days with Addison who came to visit me, got a new tattoo, and then finally got on a bus to a town in Tabasco called Villahermosa.
View from inside the bus. 10 minutes after we pulled out of the station in Mexico City, someone decided to drive right in front of the bus and get their fender nearly bent off.
In Villahermosa I spent my first night sleeping in a hammock, something I’ve never done before. It was very hot and muggy, but after being bitten by mosquitoes I eventually pulled out my sleeping bag and somehow managed to wrap it around myself while not falling sideways out of the hammock.
I was at a Warmshowers host’s house. His name is Juan, and he was expecting two more cyclists the next day.
My first morning in Villahermosa I was awoken at 7:30 am by the sound of someone bashing a wall in across the street with a sledgehammer. I shifted around in my hammock, and then eventually sat up to greet my host and his friend.
They both left to work for the day, and I greeted my fear, who was waiting for my undivided attention. I meditated, journaled, cried, called friends, and cried some more.
During my walking meditation, I saw a little statue of Jesus Christ in Juan’s hallway. And I began to say to myself, over and over, “The Kingdom of Heaven is inside of me.”
Finally, I heard a knock during mid-afternoon and opened the door for the two cyclists Juan had been expecting.
Their names are Charles and Denise, and they are retired french canadians who have been cycling in South and Central America now for a year. They started in Peru, cycled down to the tip of South America (Chile), than back up into Peru where they spent four months, after which they continued north and eventually ended up at Juan’s house with me, in Villahermosa.
I was glad for their company, and Denise and I walked together to a nearby supermarket to buy food. I had a strange sense of feeling like a child again, wanting her to be my mommy, not wanting to lose her in the huge supermarket.
This kind of fear I experience is the strongest when I am transitioning into a new, unknown situation. This time it was the transition from Mexico City to now actually cycle touring again, and not knowing what it would be like to spend days on my own, sleeping at hotels in towns I knew nothing about.
But at the moment, I was safe, and I had a wonderful couple to spend the evening with. They made a pasta dinner for all of us, and drew me a route through the Yucatan on my map of Mexico, since they had just come from the area I was headed. This brought me some relief, as the unknown began to feel less ‘un’ and more ‘known’.
That night we pulled the hammock out of the way, and the three of us lined up on the tile floor and slept side by side with our sleeping bags and earplugs.
Sleeping with strangers has never felt so comforting.
Me, Charles, Denise and Juan
The next morning we all packed up and made our procession out to the sidewalk. Juan was chatting with us amiably and helping us out the door.
Charles, Denise and I navigated through the city, and then, after a few blocks of riding together, they turned left and I went straight.
I took a deep breath. Here I go… I thought, watching the highway take shape out in front of me. I would be on Highway 180 for the next week or so.
After sitting and gazing out over the ocean some more, the waiter arrived to take my plate away. I was left with my coffee and orange juice (probably not the best combo for my digestion, but who cares), which I took as long as I wanted to sip and savor.
In Mexico they NEVER rush you in a restaurant. You can sit at your table for hours, maybe even days, and they’ll just smile and offer you more coffee.
But eventually I did raise my hand for the waiter. “La cuenta por favor.”
He bustled away to count up my order.
I’m doing it, I thought, watching a large, blue-black grackle making a ruckus in the tree next to me. I’m enjoying being alone.
It’s so hard for me to go to a nice restaurant, or hang out in a beautiful place and not be filled with the desire to share it with someone.
It’s not that I don’t feel like I deserve it, but I love sharing the world with other people. And maybe I’m afraid it’s as if none of this actually happened, if there wasn’t someone to witness it.
‘If Jahnavi hangs out in a fancy hotel and meditates by the gurgling pool in the garden out back and no one else witnesses it, did it really happen?’ 😛
I say good bye to the waiter, who wishes me luck and ‘cuidado’ (‘be careful’), and make my way back to my hotel room.
I’m taking a day off at this hotel, because since I left Villahermosa that morning with the french cyclists, I have been pulling 7-8 hour days, fighting a headwind as I travel alongside the Gulf of Mexico. My body wants a bicycle, wind and sun free day.
My first day back on the bicycle, from Villahermosa to Frontera, was 82 km and so easy, I was confused. It only took me 4 ½ hours, and there I was, in Frontera, booking a room at a cheap hotel at 2 pm.
I figured the next day, 99 km, shouldn’t be so bad.
There’s a whole lot more water in Tabasco and Yucatan compared to the deserts I’ve been traveling through for the past 2 months!
Taking a break from the rain
But that’s when I hit the waterfront, and was reminded about the joys of a nice, healthy, headwind. At first I was more focused on the fact that I was being rained on pretty thoroughly for a couple of hours, but once that cleared, I began to feel concerned.
I was traveling so SLOWLY.
After 5 hours, I had only gotten halfway to Cidudad del Carmen, the town I was intent on reaching, where a Couchsurfer named Victor Hugo was awaiting my arrival.
It was like moving in slow motion for 9 hours straight.
When I finally reached the city–after crossing a mile long bridge and weeping copiously as my speed slowed to a crawl due to the even greater wind exposure–I had to cross through the entire city to the other end, where Hugo lives.
At one point I pulled over to look at my cellphone map, and a very excited, older Mexican man approached me, eager to practice his english and find out what in the hell I was up to.
I was so tired I could barely conjure up my good manners, though I appreciated his interest in my trip. Most people just regard me as an alien here in Mexico, so when someone actually treats me like a human being and asks me about my life I feel glad.
After chatting with him and explaining that I was riding my bicycle to Brazil and yes, I am crazy, I continued on to Hugo’s apartment.
Hugo was amazed to see me and my bicycle pull up to his place, and helped me inside.
The beer I drank before we ate dinner was like an elixir of life, and we talked about travel, my sister and her husband’s 6 month excursion across half the world, my mom and my brother living in India, and his part in his family’s business.
My second night with Hugo. I made him ‘sandwiches like in the USA’. He loved them, especially the hummus which he was trying for the first time.
I had been planning on continuing on to the next place in the morning, but I had already arrived at Hugo’s much later than expected and was feeling rather knackered.
I awoke early the next morning, looked at some maps, and finally decided I would take the day off.
After a morning meditation session with Addison over the phone, I wrote this down from Thich Nhat Hanh’s book called ‘Fear’:
“If you are capable of living deeply one moment of your life, you can learn to live the same way all the other moments of your life.” -Thay
Sometimes I do need to live life moment to moment–any more than that can feel overwhelming when I am in a certain state of mind. And now I can just consider it a meditation practice, this one moment where I choose to live deeply.
“If you can dwell in one moment, you will discover eternity.” -Rene Char
Hugo took me to Walmart so I could buy supplies for my trip (and where, coincidentally, they were blasting capoeira music), and then we ate lunch under an oceanside tent restaurant.
We discussed jealousy (something Hugo struggles with, as do I and most people) and he asked me how I deal with it.
“Meditation!” I said. “It’s the only way!” I laughed.
He was intrigued, so we talked more about meditation and discussed the best way for him to get started on his own, since he’d never done it before.
That evening, my right hip and leg began to hurt so badly, that I was having trouble walking. I tried to brush it away, assuming I would feel fine in the morning and be able to ride.
I stretched, massaged the area, slathered myself with biofreeze (thanks again Diane!), drank a glass of water with arnica drops in it, drank magnesium, and then finally lay myself out to sleep. It took a while to fall asleep, because the only comfortable position for my leg was straight, so that didn’t give me many options for how I could lay down (and boy do I like to shift positions every 5 minutes).
I awoke at 6:30 am, eager to find out if my leg had magically healed overnight.
But when I stood up to walk to the bathroom, I was filled with dismay. It hurt just as badly… maybe worse.
I called Radha and Erik (who are in Thailand) and discussed the situation with them.
Finally, I decided I would have to take the day off. Even if I could manage to get on my bicycle and ride 80 km that day, getting off to walk around was agony, and probably not the safest situation to put myself in considering I’d be traveling out in the middle of nowhere, alone.
So I stayed, and spend some quality time with Fear.
I’ve been meditating so much on this trip that I told Addison, “I’m beginning to feel like a monk, like I’m in a monastery… but I’m on an epic journey at the same time… so it’s like I’m a warrior monk.”
The day off didn’t kill me, and I even got some practical things done, including making music with my mandolin.
“Art is the essence of life, and the substance of art is mindfulness.” -Thay
The following two days would be a blur of oceanside cycling, granola bars, sunburn, Harry Potter audiobook, hotels, limping around, whistling Mexican men, semi trucks, gray foxes, coatis, iguanas the size of cats, swamps, mangroves, beaches, albatrosses, eagles, hawks, fish, exhaustion, alone-ness, and more meditation.
Looking out from my hotel room in SabancuyA bush full of coatis. How many can you see?A lizard the size of a catMiles of swampsLunch at the only (rather fancy) restaurant between Sabancuy and ChampotonMid-day photoshoot break (anything’s better than getting back on that bicycle seat!)The long and winding road over more swamplands
Having spent so much time gazing at the ocean, I gleaned this thought from my reflections: “The ocean is not afraid of change. She never stops moving, never stops shifting, and changing the sands at her edges and the ocean floor beneath her.”
At another point, as I was riding past miles of mangroves and swamps and listening to Danny Malone’s album, ‘Balloons’, this question he asks stuck with me:
“They say the way to know yourself, is by yourself
But what if you’re someone you don’t really wanna know…?”
When I pulled into Champoton yesterday and saw the Hotel Posada la Regia on my right side, I didn’t care if it was cheap, expensive, new, old, had internet, or hot water… I just wanted to stop, and sleep.
My fully loaded bicycle looks a little out of place in this setting, but she doesn’t mind
But after being shown to my room and realizing it’s actually a nice place and a reasonably nice town, and taking consideration of my very unhappy right leg, I decided I was staying an extra night and that was that.
My companion for the night
“The past is not me. I am not limited by the past.
The present is not me. I am not limited by the present.
The future is not me. I am not limited by the future.”
My goal right now is to rest, write, read, and (yes, you guessed it) meditate. Than it’s another three days to Merida, where a warmshowers host is awaiting my arrival on Saturday.
A side neighborhood here in Champoton
I’m learning to relish this alone-ness, to let it sink into my skin.
Because once I get to Playa del Carmen, I may be traveling with a whole lotta people, and potentially looking back on this sweet, quiet time wistfully–and then turning back to my large group of humans and reveling in their company all the same.
A month before I left on my bicycle trip from Austin to Brazil, I decided to write to Mestre Acordeon.
According to wikipedia, ‘Mestre Acordeon is a native of Salvador, Bahia, Brazil, and a master of the Brazilian folk art known as Capoeira. His international reputation as a respected teacher, performer, musician, organizer, and author is built upon fifty years of active practice, as well as research into the origins, traditions, political connotations, and contemporary trends of Capoeira. Mestre Acordeon has travelled extensively promoting Capoeira outside Brazil.’
A week after I had written to him (and almost forgotten about it), I received a phone call with a Northern California area code.
“Hello?” I answered, expecting to hear the voice of an old Northern Cali friend.
“Ah… em… hello…” came the voice of a man with an accent. “How do you say your name?”
“Oh!” I replied, wondering who it was. “My name is Jahnavi.”
“Ahhh, Jahnavi. Hello, this is Mestre Acordeon.”
I stopped pacing through my apartment and went to my room and shut the door.
“Hello! Thank you for calling!”
We chatted for a while, and I told him that I wanted to ride my bicycle to Brazil also, and asked him about his trip.
“The voyage for me was truly magical,” he told me. “I encourage you to do the trip. It changed my life.”
He put me in contact with Pirata, one of the capoeiristas who had done the whole ride with him and who is currently writing a book about it.
“If you have any questions, you can call me anytime,” he told me.
Well, needless to say, that made my day… well, my week, really.
And as we all know, a month later I saddled up and left Austin on my bicycle, headed south.
I’ve made it halfway across Mexico at this point.
I’ve trained with Capoeira Longe Do Mar in San Luis Potosi, Queretaro, and now Mexico City.
I arrived in Mexico City with my friend Monica on Saturday.
That night I found Nao Veio, a professor at Longe Do Mar, and am staying at his house with his wife Nana.
The next morning I received a Facebook message from the Longe Do Mar academy.
(it was in spanish, but I’ll tell you in english):
“Hello, welcome to Mexico City. Mestre Acordeon is here today and tomorrow and he would like to meet you.”
Apparently Mestre Acordeon visits Mexico City once a year, and I happen to have arrived during the two days he is in town.
That evening Nao Veio took me by subway to the Mestre’s house where Acordeon is staying.
After waiting outside and chatting with some capoeiristas, I was ushered in to meet the Santa Claus of capoeira.
Acordeon had just finished a meeting with the director of his documentary (the documentary about his ride from Berkeley to Bahia).
He welcomed me in, embraced me, and we immediately dove into talking about my journey and his journey.
He scribbled on a piece of paper, showing me how I could get from Panama to Brazil, and eventually demanded that I sit down next to him so we could get to the nitty gritty.
He showed me sample clips of the unreleased documentary, and shared stories, switching seamlessly between portuguese and english as though he barely noticed they are different languages.
I soaked it in. His energy is amazing.
I felt a resurgence of confidence in my voyage.
This journey is bigger than me, I thought, as I watched some footage from his ride. I can’t even imagine who I’ll be at the end of this, because it’s so huge.
One thing I know for sure, is that every single capoeirista who I’ve met along this ride so far will never forget me (nor I them) and they will be rooting me on through every step of the way.
And even if I go back to live in Austin, I will have homes away from home across all of the South Americas.
Mestre Acordeon could have chatted all night, and I would have happily sat there through all of it, but finally it was time for everyone to go home and go to bed.
He hugged me close and wished me the best of luck on my trip.
I am so thankful for synchronisity and the constant reminder that I need only ‘jump and the net shall appear’.
I can’t plan out every day of this trip, I can only continue to move forward and continue to seek out capoeira and higher guidance as I travel south.
“The greatest suffering can be overcome through the simplest of actions…” -Me
In the past couple of weeks I have cried more and slept less for the longest stretch of time I can remember.
And whenever I would have a moment’s rest from the onslaught of pain, I would wonder… “How can I stay here? I don’t want to go back down. I need to stay above water!”
My sister brilliantly reminded me that I could listen to Thich Nhat Hanh on YouTube or podcasts whenever I wanted.
My own mind was struggling with creating and maintaining a positive thought stream, and I found it almost impossible to stay in the present moment.
So I turned to Thich Nhat Hanh to fill my head with the good stuff. 😉
It took a couple of days of listening to him, but finally, one of my bigger questions was answered and I had a tool I could use to make changes in the recesses of my consciousness.
Thay said, “If you are listening to a CD and you don’t like the music that is playing, why keep listening to it? Just change the CD.”
Simple, yet brilliant.
“If your thoughts are causing you to suffer, why continue to listen to them? You can make a change, right now. You can choose to stop your suffering, right now.
There are seeds in your unconscious. Seeds of love, of anger, of joy, of hate. If you water the seeds of hate, anger or despair, they will take root and grow strong. You need to sing them a lullaby, and put them to sleep. You need to water the seeds of joy, of hope, of love, and they will grow strong in your mind.”
So thank you for being part of my practice of watering the seeds of gratitude and love in my consciousness. I am going to share with you everything I have been grateful for and appreciated over the last couple of weeks here in Mexico.
This is my lullaby, sending the seeds of despair and fear to sleep. 🙂
The first thing that I think of when I feel this swell of appreciation in my heart are the people I have met in the past few weeks:
Julian, Ceci and Julian Jr. hosted me twice and became my home away from home. They helped me more than I can say and continue to check on me and support me.Gaby took me in and helped me in every way she could until the last minute when I walked out her door.Pancho took me on a ride in San Luis Potosi with his cycling group and spent a long time going over maps for my route with meErick picked me up outside of Queretaro so I didn’t have to ride through the city and also spent a lot of map time with me, suggesting routesMarcego (on the right) welcomed me to his city, his capoeira group and his home and gave me much needed pep talks about my tripI’m thankful for all of the beautiful Mexican women I’ve met, especially Monyca and Aurora who let me fall apart on them and gave me loveAdriana and Nao Veio took me in at the last minute here in Mexico City and are so beautiful and kind, sharing their home and capoeira with me
And there’s more and more…
I’m thankful for the sunsets here…
I’m thankful for the beautiful city of Queretaro…
I’m thankful for cute dogs… 😀
I’m thankful for the beautiful art of basketry…
I’m thankful for the mandolin and the ability to play music and heal…
I’m thankful for my noble steed, my amazing bicycle who carries all of my stuff and goes with me everywhere…
I’m thankful for capoeira, my saving grace, and Professor Marcego for saying, “If I check on you in a couple of months and I see that you’ve quit and gone back to the U.S., than you’re not my friend anymore.” 😀
I’m thankful for delicious Mexican food…
I’m thankful for walking meditation…
I’m thankful for handstands…
I’m thankful for finding random, inspiring quotes on the walls of a restaurant:
“Never ever give up on hope. Never doubt, never tire and ever become discouraged. Be not afraid.”
I’m thankful for Mexico City for welcoming me into it’s awe inspiring massiveness…
I’m thankful that Addison Rice, the love of my life is coming to see me here in Mexico City in just three days…
And I am thankful to you, dear friend, for reading this whole post and giving me the gift of your attention today. 🙂
