Ascend and Maintain

Wow. I am back in India! It has been a long journey, but I am so happy to be back here. Once I decided to come back and was in the beginnings of packing I started to get anxious about whether or not I would be able to switch back into my India state of mind. I began worrying about how my body would react to the heat, if I would feel better or worse, if I was really up to working under the sun in the extreme heat, and if I was ready to go back and give, give, give again...

When I landed in Chennai, I had two worries: 1) That my baggage didn't get lost and 2) that the driver was there to take Laura Jane and I to the Marriot. Gratefully, our baggage had made it along with us, but regrettably our driver was not there. When you walk out of the Chennai airport you are swarmed with people holding signs with names on them along with others trying to get you to ride in their taxi, and others trying to help carry your baggage for tips. As we were walking up and down trying to find our driver I just had a pit in my stomach as I came to the conclusion: he wasn't there. But quickly a man came to our rescue and found the Marriot drivers, and although my name was not on the sign, he graciously gave a ride to the hotel. At this moment my worries about coming back to India were at its peak. I knew I wanted to be here but I didn't know if I had it in me to surrender to the India mind set.

All that changed when I woke up this morning. When our group met up and set out on our bus ride (l-o-n-g bus ride, I might add) to the Rising Star Campus I had felt as though I had never left. I had no culture shock,the life-threatening lack of traffic regulation and crazy driving hardly even phased me, the sweat running down my face wasn't uncomfortable, and the loud bustling of people, traffic, and horns was more of a harmonious melody than rambunctious noises. I remembered how beautiful this land is, I remembered how much I love the drives, I remembered how smitten I am by these beautiful children, I remembered how much I admire those in the colonies, I remembered how it feels to hold a disfigured hand in my palm, I remembered the first time I knelt down and washed a mans toeless feet and looked up at his toothless smile, I remembered laughing with Ravichandron and Jayaraj... most of all, I remembered how special of a place Rising Star is and why I came here in the first place. I was back. Back to a place I love, to people I love, with people I love. I was back to a place I had left part of my heart last summer, ready and willing to give even more to these beautiful people.

When we arrived at the campus (after a 3 + hour bus ride) we were taken to the brand new volunteer home. Oh my! Talk about a lap of luxury. It was amazing to me to see how much Rising Star is growing...that we have gone from staying in 2 small rooms to having a whole volunteer home. This organization has truly been blessed and it is moving to see where it is going. After getting settled in we headed to play time with the children. It was so wonderful to hold those kiddos in my arms again, to relearn and remember names, to learn new faces, and see how much these kids have grown. Ashok is so big and grown up, Rosemary and Mariambee's cute puffy cheeks have thinned out, and we have new little kids running around. I did the Macarena with Rosemary and she didn't want to stop...It is so great to be back and to be remembered by so many loving faces.

At dinner we have a tradition of eating on the roof of the hostel. It is my most favorite place of the RSO campus. During dinner it is tradition to go around and each person says their high and low of the day. Tonight while we were doing this, we were accompanied by a brilliant lightening storm in the distance. I have never seen a sky so beautiful! Ron said something tonight that really hit me. He talked about how he has been training himself to look up. To look above the traffic, the dirt, the bugs, and even the trees, and look up to the sky with "India Eyes" and you will experience a magical world. Then he talked about how the flight control towers communicate with pilots in flight and say "ascend and maintain" then again when necessary, "ascend and maintain". I love the pair of those words together. Last summer I had experienced all of this and had made a goal to carry what I learned from India to my life at home. Now that I am back, I want to take off from where I was last time, ascend through this journey, experience more than I was able to last time, give more than I did last time, love more than I did last time, then maintain the changes made within me, maintain the lessons learned, maintain that deep love and compassion for people of all walks of life. Our lives of full of many "ascendings" and "maintainings", and sometimes "descendings" are necessary too, but as we ascend, maintain, and remember we will find ourselves better than we were yesterday, under a freer sky, full of gratitude, love, hope, peace, happiness, and a desire to do better and be better each and every day.

Its good to be back, India.

Today's High: Being back to a place that I love and people I love.
Today's Low: My feet and ankles are swollen.