Sorry for the recent lack of blog: it's been a mobile time. I am now back in Mexico - it took five days to get here. Day 1: Antigua-Lanquín = 8.5hrs. I was supposed to leave Lanquín the following morning but I accidentally spent Day 2 in a hammock. Then (Day 3) Lanquín-Flores = 10hrs. Thanks to two Israeli's who decided the whole bus should wait for them while they (a) arrived late (b) strolled off for lunch (c) changed their travellers cheques and (d) organised their Day Trip for the following day. I would like to say that this is unusual behaviour, but I can't. Day 4 saw me cross the border into Belize (and ripped off by Guatemalan Border Guards. I would have complained, but unfortunately I had a dodgy, under-the-table stamp - long story - so I said nothing). Then out of Belize (not ripped off at this border this time - hurrah) into Mexico (ripped off at the border) and to Chetumal. Followed by a "pleasant" wait at Chetumal Bus Station and a night bus all the way to Cancun. Arrived 5am, shattered but with great plans... slept all day.I've been here for a few days now and all is sorted. Big News! I will be flying back to the UK on Tuesday to try out "real life" for a while. I don't think I'm going to like it - but I am trying to stay positive. Ha! In the last week I have met two people who recently moved back to Europe... and yes, they're both here again now.
Not that I have necessarily given up travelling forever (I don't know yet) - but I know I would like to have a home and also, I am completely broke. I couldn't find work anywhere and my savings have slowly trickled away. Also, if I'm honest, after the tribulations I've had recently, I am feeling tired and defeated. I don't want to sound melodramatic - but I just can't take it anymore! And, of course, I don't have a choice.
From what I'm hearing I am not sure if anything's going to be better in the UK. Sounds like the job market there is pretty awful - so it could be that after a creepy-crawly Summer, followed by the most monumentally crap Autumn ever (by far), I may be heading back to a cold, dark, unemployed Winter. Please, no. If that happens I shall endeavour to assimilate by embracing day-time television and hallucinogenics, equally. I will also eat a lot of cheese and become obese - well darling, that's all the rage in the First World, don't you know.
Right now I am packing. That's not strictly true: right now I am writing a blog, whilst surrounded by numerous looming piles of dive gear, yoga mats, clothes, tea (leaving), sudoku (definitely taking), books... books! O dear, could it be any more harsh? Books or clothes? I can't take them all! I currently own 6 books. I would like to take 5 of them with me, but they won't all fit. I can take 2-3.
They are:
- Rough Guide to Mexico (I might need it again... ok, probably not)
- Midnights Children (definitely taking - I will sacrifice whatever clothes necessary for this one)
- On Chesil Beach
- The Reluctant Fundamentalist
- The Iliad
Hello Jane!
ReplyDeleteNice to read a longer opus from you than just FB one liners! First of all on the book subject: don't stress out about that, you can get ANY book again if you leave it behind! Order online, get it from the library, options are numerous. Maybe I'm saying something obvious, but do you have the maximum size carry on luggage? Something that fits into their little "measuring basket" plus a backpack you pass off as "laptop, handbag or camera"? All the books you don't want to leave behind (despite the fact that you could get it again back home) should obviously go in the carry on plus regulator and all heavy stuff you can think of. Rough Guide to Mexico? You can pick it up on any corner when you are back there and maybe there will be a more recent version by then!
Advice for getting used to home:
1. If you can help it at all, don't go shopping for anything for at least a week, longer if you can help it. Price tags are a shocker. Same with restaurants. You get really indignant and wanna give a speach to management about how they rip people off and how people are living with 1 USD a day in some places. Not helpful.
2. Take hot baths and be patient, you actually do get used to the cold in about a week or two. Body lotion or even better massage oil helps too. Repeating how nice and warm it was in the tropics and how cold you are: not helpful.
3. Try to spend time outside in spite of the cold. You do get sunshine through the cloud cover even if you don't see any of it. And admiring and appreciating the winter face of nature that you don't see in the tropics also helps a lot! And of course picking things you have in wintertime England and didn't have when you were travelling and focusing on how great it is to have those wintertime things is also helpful. It's a change! And it's a challenge for you spiritually, as a yogi, to deal with this change and see it as an opportunity to grow.
And get the sentence "I have no choice" out of your head. You know you always have a choice and that's not the spirit that will help you through wintertime in England! Oh, I'm here because I have no choice? Not helpful. You are (will be) there because that's what you chose. You weighed pros and cons and decided that's the best for you now. So you are (will be) there because that's the best for you now!
And don't worry about unemployment either. Just believe in your yoga teaching being the best ever. And maybe you will have to take another job, a boring one to make some money in the beginning but if you keep up the good spirit students will come to you. Which also means that if you don't keep up the good spirit they just won't come to you! They feel the disturbance in the Force :-) so focus on the Force :-)
Hope you have an OK trip home (I think that's about the best a trip like that can ever get). And hope we can talk on Skype once you are here in the neighbourhood :-)
xxxJudit
You're welcome to my copy of the Iliad when you get here. I tried reading it and realised that I need to read a book about the Iliad before I could even begin to understand the dense poetry. One free Iliad waiting for when you pop to London!
ReplyDeleteSafe travel!
ReplyDeleteThe two previous comments are lovely and wise.
You are making the right decision to manage your life. Managing one’s life is the most important task/decision of all. There is a solution for any problem.
Forget the material possessions they can easily get replaced. Bring yourself safe to the land you call home with your soul whole and enriched with the lessons learned from your travels and the interesting people who crossed your path whether good or bad. You have taken a positive action. And every action yields a result. You’ve set the energy in motion now and other good things will follow. Do not worry on how it will end. Remember it’s the journey that counts. Avoid please negative self-talk. We always have a choice. I know it’s easier said than done. And it is unfortunate when the moments of despair and the darkness before dawn get us to think so darkly that there is no hope. There is always hope and a choice waiting around the corner for our taking. So keep your eyes and heart open as hope may come in the disguise of unwanted change. Embrace this new chapter of your life.
Sending you positive thoughts and this poem:
‘Just Rain‘
by Mary Oliver
The clouds
did not say
soon, but who can tell
for sure, it wasn’t
the first time I had been
fooled; the sky-doors
opened and
the rain began
to fall upon all of us: the
grass, the leaves,
my face, my shoulders
and the flowered body
of the pond where
it made its soft
unnotational
music on the pond’s
springy surface, and then
the birds joined in and I too
felt called toward such
throat praise. Well,
the whole afternoon went on
that way until I thought
I could feel
the almost born things
in the earth rejoicing. As for myself,
I just kept walking, thinking:
Once more I am grateful
to be present.