In Wonder

High

I am a wanderer and I am a wonderer, and that’s good, because they go together.  But right now, with intention, I am focusing on the latter.  Sometimes I send my sister selfies, when I’m having a good hair day, or to prove I’m not becoming skinny, or too dark and broody, only one of which is an actual possibility.  My last attempt caused her concern that I was high, which I kind of loved.  But while I wasn’t on drugs, I was in fact high on the rooftop of this coziest of places, overlooking a city slowly recovering from last year's earthquake.  So now I wonder at rubble, and the incongruity of life.  That potted plants bloom and thrive on the crumbled half-wall next door, that I’m craving classic rock in the middle of Asia, the fact that so many truths can somehow be true all at once, and I have the audacity to try to sort out one from the other.  Ego face.

Buddhist Peace Pagoda, Pokhara

People sat outside last year drinking tea, and playing games, and squabbling with spouses.  And then their homes and temples and shrines collapsed on them: they were in all the right places at the worst time.  In less than a minute every tangible effort and joy and heartbreak of their lives became the kindling of their burial pyres, and they were incinerated by the weight of their lives.  Only a year later they smile as they slowly rebuild their homes and lives, and they’re teaching me.  So despite my best efforts to avoid it, I am compelled by their perseverance to still my restless legs and sort through some of my own rubble, some of the bricks and mortar stowed away in my pack.  Wonder Katie, wonder.

As I squint out the mountains hidden by the haze while not-too-gracefully dodging the giant crows that swoop stupid-close to my head, I’m imagining future tattoos, and future loves, and future adventures, and whether I’ll have courage enough to see it all through.  Whether my crazy little cherub of a nephew over 7,000 miles away is yet inciting the daily wrath of his preschool teacher, or if my dog is getting enough snuggles from everyone: snuggle her up, s’il vous plait.  I’m missing friends I haven’t seen in 15 years, and marveling at the fact that a little girl named Hannah, who changed the trajectory of my life nearly 17 years ago, is suddenly old enough to go to prom.  What it feels like for one of my dearest friends, of a certain age, to have finally found the love of her life, or if one of my oldest friends on earth, recently resurfaced, knows how much I still love and believe in him.  I’m delighting in the perfection of songs like Space Oddity and Harvest Moon, and seriously questioning if Dave Matthews ever received my love letters all those years ago; passionate doozies, all.  How much of this nasty electrolyte water do I need to drink to cure my self-diagnosed fatty fat face syndrome?  Will I ever wear makeup again?  Or use face wash?  Will my thighs ever again feel the sharp side of a razor?  Where will I settle down, when will I settle down, will I ever settle down?

  

Bhaktapur

I’ve met some beauties recently.  The family running this place, who, after recovering from the shock of encountering my fiascoed self following a 120 kilometer, 14 hour bus ride in the piercing heat, cooked for me a proper dal bhat feast at nearly 10 o’clock at night: they served this sopping mess of a human plate after plate of spicy Nepalese kindness and sent me straight to bed.  Two of the nicest Brits I’ve ever met, who made me laugh, and reminded me what it feels like to be safe with men, Sunil dazzling me all the while with his gentleness and gorgeous smile: he has no idea.  A fantastic German couple, full of advice on traveling this corner of the world, with whom I share an intensity to voraciously learn and a weariness of living with European teenagers on gap year: they are magic.

Pause.  I could do this all day, this wondering, and indeed, most days I do.  But instead, I'll comb the clouds from my hair and head downstairs for family dinner.  Rubble enough for today.  A girl's gotta eat.