Welcome to the last post on my blog "Manju’s Gap Year"! The gap year is officially over since I returned home to California a week ago... The reverse culture shock kept me occupied for a while, so I procrastinated posting this! It's so nice to be home again.... I leave for college in Holland on the 10th of August! Little time at home :(
Evacuation from Nepal
With a few days notice to mentally prepare, pack and clean, and say bye to everyone, I evacuated Nepal on Saturday the 18th of July. I wasn't so excited about leaving... more so daunted by all that was to come-transitioning back into home life, trying to express this whole colorful experience into a few simple words for people, and going to college... In fact, I wasn't planning on taking an evacuating flight out; I wanted to tough it out until the airport resumes its regular cheap commercial flights. But as the situation gets worse in Nepal and college approaches nearer, the reasonable side of my brain persuaded me to get a ticket ASAP and leave. Technically, there was nothing keeping me in Nepal; I had finished all of my duties and wrapped up my internship. Despite that, leaving Nepal felt so viscerally wrong. Love and attachment towards the place, family, and friends, as well as a deep denial that my gap year was truly over and fear of the uncertain future, conspired to keep me in Nepal forever. In the end, reason won and so with next to no excitement to leave and a pinch of resentment at the world for forcing me to enter "real" life again, I packed up, said bye to friends, and paid the ridiculous amount to finally get evacuated. Perhaps the hardest bye besides my sweet grandma, adoring puppy, and good friends (in that order!), was saying bye to the version of me that has manifested in this time and space. Even when I return, I know that it won't be the same as now!
As I write this I am sitting on the flight from Istanbul to San Fransisco. The past 30+ hours of airplanes and layovers might as well have been a nightmare… Flight attendants in full PPE, crying infants, cold rubbery sandwiches for breakfast, lunch, and dinner... My paranoid predisposition for hand-sanitizer-ing myself punctuates my dull schedule of reading and napping as I try to pass time during the 12 hour flight. My mind is muted and blunt, my body heavy and tired. The sticky emotions of leaving Nepal and everyone I love sink in my chest. My ears are still ringing from the occasional piercing shrieks erupting out of toddlers. The sharp environment of the sterile airplane, the anonymous strangers around me, the shifting scenes and clouds through the window as the plane hurdles through the air- it all becomes the backdrop for this moment of transition. I’m almost grateful that this is such a long flight- it allows me to digest everything and prepare myself for the next course. Transition has always been hard for me; it feels especially so this time because I've had such an unbelievably good time this past year that I wish I could stay in it forever. I didn’t allow myself to feel too sad about leaving my grandma and aunt before, but now in the comfort and privacy of my own seat, the heat rises up my throat to my eyes before it spills out over my cheeks, dampening the flimsy surgical mask on my face.
Some thoughts on this past year
Past-Manju from a year ago could have never fathomed how incredible this gap year would turn out to be! I remember first leaving home a year ago, heading to Nepal with the same feelings of anxiety, dread for the unknown, and heavy sadness at leaving loved ones. As the plane touched down in Kathmandu, and I saw through the window rolling green hills and crisp mountains, I felt a glimmer of hope and excitement- for the first time-, that this year might be better than I thought. I had no idea what was to come! It has been quite the year since I got off that plane.
The past 11 months of independent life has flown by like a thrilling, bright movie, leaving me at the edge of my seat, stunned. I wish I could replay it...
Incredible memories of travel on rickety busses through the Himalayas, teaching and playing with my students in Bhotenamlang, cycling around rural Kathmandu in the warm monsoon rains, canoeing on a still lake dipped in the hues of a golden sunset, living in a nunnery at 3,800 meters/12,467 feet, challenging myself to sit for 10 days of silence and meditation, immersing myself into the sophisticated yet raw art scene and befriending wonderful artists in Kathmandu, interning with a development agency which entrusted me to create a girls empowerment program in remote areas, reading a good book in the magical environment of Bouddha, drinking a fresh coke as I walk around the temples of Swayamabhu, experiencing Nepalese lockdown in the midst of a global pandemic, learning some Tamang language (a native dialect) from strangers in a crowded bus, drinking traditional distilled liquor made of rice and millet in the lush countryside, crashing weddings and dancing to awful Nepali tunes, becoming a quasi-godparent to the son of a close friend in the village I lived in this past year, sitting stunned in a room with two Nepalese women who have sumited Everest and the tallest peaks on each continent, haggling for juicy Mangoes at the bazaar, chocolate ice cream cones and evening walks by the old Patan Durbar Square, sleeping beside my grandma and listening to her life stories…. So many inspiring people and new friendships, awkward moments, silly moments, hard moments, life-changing experiences, lots of fun, and lots of deeper understanding. I think it has been the perfect environment for me to gain clarity, develop strength, learn to love myself unconditionally, and be happy without dependency on others. It has just been so incredible.
I'm so grateful to this blog and that people besides my mom and dad have been reading my posts! Thank you. This space has allowed me to sort through and process some of the difficult and challenging, rewarding and inspiring, and fun and free thoughts and experiences, make them somewhat logical and presentable, and share them with others. In the future, I think it will serve as an archive for myself to look back!
Lots more to experience, lots more to learn, lots more, lots more….
Thank you for reading my blog this past year and supporting me on this incredible journey. Being able to (try to) share the magic of the experiences of this past year, has been such a joy!
Lots of love and stay safe,
Manju
Some extra words on meditation
I’ll rewind for a bit and write about my experience at the 10 day silent “Vipasanna Meditation” retreat I attended early July. In a span of 10 days with 10 hours a day of meditation, the course aims to guide you into the realm of deep meditation. It sounded challenging, but refreshing and peaceful and since many members of my Nepalese family have taken these courses throughout the years, I felt compelled to try it. Even though I was raised in a Buddhist household, I used to view meditation as some spiritual heeby-deeby, hippy-dippy activity... But.... rather than sit idly and judge it as BS I decided I should try it out for myself!
I was daunted by the strict rules the meditation center observes in order to maintain the perfect introspective environment for meditation. 10 days of absolute silence (not even eye-contact or sign language), no phone, no books, and no journals (though the rebellious Manju broke that rule and took along a small journal). For someone who loves to talk, couldn’t sit still, was only able to meditate for some 10-15 minutes, and was seemingly addicted to absentminded social media scrolling and consuming news and information, it seemed like an impossible set of rules. In the end, I decided to take up the challenge with faith that future Manju would figure it out.... well she did because I didn't leave halfway through and stuck it out the whole 10 days!
It turns out our human body and mind is super adaptable. Waking up at 4 am seemed insane before but within two days I would wake up naturally. Within a couple days I didn’t miss my phone, he news, or books, didn’t crave talking with other people, and was perfectly content with just being. I was forced to sit with myself, just me, observing my breath and the sensations that arise and pass throughout the body. The silence felt normal and comfortable... I realized how much energy I used to expend, talking about pointless or counterproductive things...
It is such a strange experience to meditate. Eyes closed, I am locked into my own body and mind. There is darkness all around. My mind begins racing into the future or rewinding into the past. At the beginning, my mind was disturbingly loud and my body ached from sitting all day for the first few days. Every awkward memory came back to haunt me, I started making plans for the future (“What will I do once I get out of here? What will I eat first? Who will I call?”), and sorting through the files of the past, pleasant and unpleasant. Then, my entire body began aching from being seated with my knees tucked criss cross for so long (10 hours a day! yikes). My right foot kept falling asleep, a smatter of numb pins and needles. My left knee felt like it was being compressed by some huge force and occasionally stabbed by a dull butter knife. Itching sensations all over and sweat dripping slowly from my scalp in the hot afternoons irritated me sick. My shoulders felt stiff as concrete and my back had painful thick knots all along the spine. What is this torturous BS, I thought to myself, they call this peaceful? I started stealthily opening my eyes and checking my watch to see when the session would be over. My stomach would perform a loud whale-cry around lunch-time. Some other women were having much more profound experiences than me and would start crying, sniffling quietly. Yet someone else would snoring and start tipping over from fatigue. It surely wasn’t an easy experience for anyone. I would fall asleep at night, exhausted from the insanely difficult task of being still in body and mind, hoping to wake up back in the comfort of my own bed at home. In the beginning I counted down the days desperately. Meditation is just NOT for me, it seemed.
Then, slowly, after a few days of mental and physical torture, I began to internalize the instruction given by the teachers. My willpower became stronger. I stopped checking my watch during meditation sessions and I leaned into the pain and discomfort whenever it arose. I felt myself becoming calm and serene, like the surface of an Alpine lake. My mind became sharp and dagger-focused. I could feel sensations all throughout the body-heat, cold, itching, piercing, poking, aching, vibrating… I started to feel the knots in my back and ache in my knee fade. My mind started to rid itself of the foul garbage of negative thoughts and loud chatter clogging its drains. I realized that I was allowing myself, if not perpetuating, my own misery by clinging onto negative emotions and thoughts. It is my own responsibility to keep myself happy, I realize. No pain or unpleasant circumstance should affect that. I started to enjoy the meditation, even look forward to it when I woke up.
I don’t have the words to properly showcase how deep the meditation allowed me to get in my mind. It’s like there was nothing…. Just stillness, darkness, breath, and sensations. There was a point on the fourth day where not a single thought drifted into my mind for several minutes. It was remarkable. During the breaks I started being more aware of my surroundings and the constantly changing nature of the scenery around me. The lotus flower in the pond would bloom and close every day, the snails on the leaves would inch ever so slightly, and the leaves would shift position after a rainstorm. The garden at the meditation center, just like our bodies, just like our global ecosystem, and just like our lives is in constant change, decaying, regenerating, and transitioning.
Then around the sixth day I felt the subtlest of sensations on my body, a wash of uniform buzzing on my entire body. It felt as if the entire body was shaken awake and each cell was electrified with a warm, humming energy. (Apparently, these subtle sensations are on the body 24/7 but we aren't aware of them usually.) The entire body lost all sense of solidity and the entire physical structure of my body became subtle washes of vibrations, the buzzing of particles in my body. Our bodies are nothing but empty space,. atoms and subatomic particles, and vibrations.
Life consist of transition, decay, and change, at every level, I learned. It has helped me in this moment of suddenly leaving Nepal and reflecting on the past year. I think this meditation course was a good way to end this magical year with some practiced wisdom.