Epiphany

Dark and stormy night. The flash and crash pulls me out of my sleep, that irresistible, before-you-hit-the-mattress jet-lag sleep. I go up to the kitchen and hesitate before filling a glass of water from the sink. This is the first tap water I've drank in five months. Check the time: still not yet midnight. Still Epiphany.

The little things feel the strangest. Driving in the right lane---driving in lanes at all. Ordering food and having it arrive in a matter of minutes. Washing my clothes in a machine makes me giggle and grin; it feels like such wonderful indulgence. I shower completely for the first time in weeks and stand there under the spray, waiting for the hot water to run out and shaking with silent laughter when it doesn't. I curl up in my heated waterbed, so immediately warm. I'm shocked at the number of mirrors in our house.

But oh, the sky. In India I saw skies like I'd never imagined, skies so close that you could grab them, could be swept up by them, step off into them and never fall. But that was months ago, during the monsoon and before the rice harvest. The dry months made the sky a plain thing that no longer carried my gaze beyond the hills. In Kathmandu the smog had hid away the mountains. In Agra I had hid myself, in a hotel room with no windows, away from the hungry eyes of those who see my height, my clothes, my skin and assume I have money that should be theirs, by scheme or theft or charity.

I had never expected to come back to this, this monstrous god of Midwestern winter, stretching off to the horizon---the horizon!---and pulsating with the hot colors of the sunset. Somewhere over the ice crumbled arctic, during that long long flight, somewhere we must have found a rip, a wormhole, flipped around, tumbled off the world and landed in my home, a place of monstrous skies.

And now the sky is crashing, cracking, booming, flashing, the Thunderer of my ancestors welcoming me home, and I start to wonder what now I can write. What can I say, what poignant conclusion can I give? How do I "end it," "cap it," "round it off"? I've been telling people, at the party and before, that this week I'd finish this haphazard narrative that you are reading, but what can I say?

I'd always intended to write this post about Epiphany, the Christian holy day celebrating the three Magi's journey to see baby Jesus. Epiphany was the day after I got back, my mom had realized, so it seemed only natural to simply save our Christmas celebrations for then. Our plans grew, as did our guest list, and soon it began to feel obvious that Epiphany was the last thing I'd have to do, the end of my journey.

And now it is over. A fun day of seeing old friends and meeting new people, but nothing feels different. I'd chatted and talked a bit about my trip, some "did you know"s and "actually"s, but it all seemed so short, all over too quick. I still haven't had the conversation, that one long discussion where I finally articulate it all, the great lessons that I learned, the magic that I saw and didn't see, my wisdom from the East.

So what did I find out? I suppose the biggest shock and, in a way, disappointment, was discovering that India doesn't have any answers for us. There is no Shangri-la there, whatever the tourism posters might tell you. Folks there might be more superstitious than westerners, but few are really more spiritual. If you go to India to "find yourself," you will probably be disappointed---there is nothing like that there that you don't bring with you. Despite the color and texture and the intensity that can grip life in the East, there is no magic to be found, at least not in the obvious places.

"Epiphany" means "appearance" or "revelation," and the truth is that is what I went looking for. For the last five months, even up to today, I've been waiting for that life changing, mind blowing something to happen to me, and you know...it didn't. I wandered twisty back alleys, hoping to stumble upon a cult. I stared intently into the incense swirls at pujas, Tibetan chants, and witch doctor performances, waiting to see a ghost or god. I screamed alone at the alien landscape of the Himalayas, desperate for a sign. Now they are all done, checked off my list, all those things that I knew wouldn't work but felt compelled to try. In a very important way it is a relief: now I have no more excuses.

Still, I cannot say that I came back empty handed. I've already discussed the hard truth learned from my aamaa and my bhaai: that for some people life is simply and intolerably unfair. You hear this rejected so indignantly, but the sad fact is that arranged marriage is horrible for women, life in the village is not only serene and earthy but stagnant and painful, people in the third world are just as mean and greedy and violent and perverse as people in the first. These are the truths that now drive my wish to change the world, that shape my understanding of how things could and should be.

And then there is the magic, the real magic hidden under the dead crust of gods and legends and charlatans. Stare off at mountains wherever you are, think hard and long and often enough, and eventually you will find something, become something. I've heard people say that "India changes you," but where you go doesn't matter nearly as much as the going away. You go away, disappear for a while, break your habits and the expectations of others---you can come back a little different, as whatever you want, as a man or a magician or something else entirely.

I want to thank all of you who have read my reflections over the last several months. I hope that you have enjoyed reading them as much as I have enjoyed sharing them. Obviously my style and method for this blog has changed a lot while writing it, and thus I am hesitant to declare it cohesive or complete, at least in the way I had originally hoped it would be. There is a lot missing, a lot I never wrote about, out of laziness or lack of time or some exaggerated sense of secrecy. Still, this is where it stops. I may come back, correct typos, polish it some, but this will be my last post. For better or worse, this journey is over.

It is good to be home, back to my friends and my family and the simple things that maybe I never appreciated until I had to go without them. I've spent the week resting, sitting around, enjoying food and warmth and bandwidth. But I'm not done. I have plans and plots and clever schemes. Among these is a new blog project which should begin in a week or so. Given how much this one evolved since its inception, I am hesitant to suggest details, but keep an eye out for the beginning and continuing prolific progress of Jump Buddha Gun. As always feel free to pass on the link to this or my coming project to anyone you think might enjoy them.

A happy New Year and a blessed Epiphany to you all.

Dhanyabad.