catching up
two months in India
Waiting for the clock to hit 630, watching the snow fall from the street window. I’m in Brooklyn, taking my last sip of wine before I head to the lesbian herstory archive.
I hear a little girl from across the room say,
if you want to find your treasure, you have to dive deep
I think about where I’m at now, and where I was just a few years ago.
What do I hope to find at the archive?
Photos I say, and love poems.
What am I actively archiving?
Flashes of my last two months from India pop up in my mind.
I’m in Goa, in the Arabian Sea, the water is choppy. The sun is climbing to the top.
Surya holds down my board in the ocean as a wave comes. It’s too big for me to surf so he tells me to put my head down and hold on. The wave comes and I feel my once perpendicular body now upright. I slam back into the water looking back at him. He’s calm. I’m not.
Another one comes. And then another. And another. Until I feel wiped out, unable to catch the next wave.
Suddenly I’m in Kerala. I arrive to the terminal and see a group of 4 people gathered around a man on laying flat on the ground
Oh god, I say. Please be alive.
I turn for a second towards the luggage, I can’t help but look. He’s alive.
I find a driver who takes me 3 hours up a mountain. It’s pouring rain, we pass rivers, waterfalls. It’s foggy in my window, I can make out the rocks, the signs and the greenery. I can see the driver’s eye’s in the rear view mirror. He keeps to himself. I arrive at the Ayurvedic center where I stay for 21 days. The sage tells us that the universe is expanding, that there is no end and we are being pulled further and further from the core. That we’ve been here before. Many times before.
I’m in Patiala, my baba’s room. The place where he passed. The walls are mint green. I burn incense and put on a prayer from spotify. The stale, cool energy in his room is thick. There is no life here and I feel the chill in my bones. I open the windows, a giant red lizard pops out and I scream. I instantly laugh deep from my belly and suddenly the room is alive.
I’m in a mango orchard in Haryana. Everyone has left the farm today except for the groundskeeper. I go on a walk before the sunsets through the wheat farm. A wild peacock lifts its head, and runs. I cry and let my tears seep into the dirt. I rise and laugh at myself. l see a hawk feather next to my foot. A gift.
The feathers are a good sign, the witch tells me. The one of course at a queer mela in Goa. After reading my cards, she encourages me to keep on.
I’m in Mumbai, I cry a lot. I see almost 100 hawks, crows, bats in the sky. I don’t want to leave.
Devotion is on my mind throughout my entire time there. Devotion to something greater, devotion to something cosmic and powerful.
When I’m in India, I feel this wholeness that I’ve been looking for. All the questions about myself, you know the really full parts of me that are not so easily integrated in the US. They are not in hiding here. My deepest thoughts, emotions, reckonings, ways of being etc. They are held sweetly when I am alone in India. They are not defined by my parents or grandparents. They are defined by me. I determine whether I am enough.
I am brought here because of my last relationship. Although we are no longer together, the gift of our union is honored here. I guess that’s the beauty and power of queer love.
Not once do I feel unsafe, only in the thoughts of my worried family members. I am prepared and my intuition has lead me here.
I land in NY two months later, with fresh eyes.
I start doing some research on my own, without even knowing it, I start recording tapes from home before I even go to India.
I follow my instincts without questioning.
I think about leaving photo albums of me and my ex in the lesbian herstory archive. We have so many beautiful photos together. Our love deserves to be archived. Possibly transmuted through the eyes of strangers digging to find something familiar.
I have more to say on that but will pause for now.
ANYHOW, it’s been so sweet returning to this space.
I’m looking forward to sharing more collective readings in the future, now that I’m reunited with my oracle cards and divination tools. Also wow you guys, I started my own oracle deck??? Been thinking about sharing a symbol with its meaning in my upcoming letters.
It’s literally something I never dreamed I’d be doing BUT AH.
LOVE YOU ALL
JAKARI WING