A Letter from Ahmedabad

This is a letter I wrote to my future self whilst in India three summers ago. It it seems ever fitting to return to my India journals in reflective preparation for my approaching journey back to the mother land, enjoy the nuggets of wisdom 18year old Kendall has to offer.



August 1, 2010--1 Day prior to departure from India

Kendall Madame,

I'm sitting at the Environmental Sanitation Institute in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India. There's a lanky dog resting beside me, giant ants crawling under the arches of my knees, huge bees, tropical greens and flowering tress--images and messages from Ghandiji. The sounds of children playing and birds chirping. I sit in the shade, in heat you probably cannot fathom. Yet I've become accustomed. Ah! isn't that the beauty of our species--to habituate, to make the most of our situations.  Even to learn to be patient with the flies is a grand lesson to take home from India.

Patience Kendall, a valuable lesson indeed. By now society has filtered your brain with schedules, materialism and skewed body image. But pause, take a breath. Take note of the space you are in--the air that you breath. Close your eyes and remember the drums from Manav Sadhna prayer. The power of voices chanting Ohm, Shanti, Shanti, Shanti--Peace, Peace, Peace. Remember the rambunctious children of Taltej primary school who held your hand and called you 'Didi.'

Don't be jaded by the abundance of the alternate reality America thrusts upon you. Stay true to yourself. Life is not all work, enjoy the little things.

I hope you are still incorporating pure LOVE into your life. Don't waste your time with malicious interactions or petty grievances. Cast off other people's perception of you. Their thoughts only affect you if you allow it.

I do not know what kind of state of mind you are in or the worries in your heart, but please be centered on your inner beauty. Remember the month when you wore no makeup, didn't shave, hardly showered, sweated buckets, never worked out, ate abundantly because food was energy, when tea brought people together. Remember having dance parties in the back of the car and being on India time.

You were unplugged.


Please consider the relativity of time. Here I am, at the end of my journey in India. When I can close my eyes and remember tipsily writing the night before I left and love and the Lassen sisters.

Here you are, in your own space and time. A list of things to do, im sure. Lots of worries on your mind: parties, clothes, sex, boys, body, school, grades, family, friends.

Remember Jemna at RamRahim. Remember Kamraben and Kamleshbhai, their kids. Are they still alive? Are they in the same slums?

Where are you? Where is your soul? Are you feeling how you wish you were? If you are feeling bad, Why? Is that realy an issue?

Always question yourself, but be patient with the answer. Everything comes when it must, a life must not be rushed--it will rush itself. Don't let life become a pile of paper achievements. Remember random acts of kindness.--(Rina just brought me a fresh Limca) Always consider the good in people. Always consider the good in yourself.

Don't jump to think your answer is right. Often times your are wrong. I hope you never come to think that fun and bonding can only be had when substances taper the awkwardness. Never mistrust the value in an awkward moment. I believe true relationships are built upon embarrassment and exposure of vulnerabilities. People imbibe to alter their reality and avoid the silence, the upsets, the annoyances--but it is in these normal, human interactions that the best memories are made, the strongest bridges fused. Why do you think we value childhood so? There is nothing clearer than a childhood memory. Before societal ideals, self-talk, and substances dilute the divine experience. Comfortability is built upon being uncomfortable. Don't judge others too quickly. You could never fathom their story just as they could never understand yours. Chances are, they've gone through some hairy shit aswell.

Life is built upon contradictions, be patient with them--seek to find a happy medium.

and love, love, love yourself.

So Here I Am.

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Smoking a bowl, cigarette on the counter ash counting the seconds of my life slip through the sand. 19/20 who gives a fuck. I am at the age where I shouldn’t, yet I do, give so much of fuck it’s driving me insane. Off my gord. Maybe I'm wired differently but I cant go round and round getting fucked up and acting like I don’t care, acting like I don’t want to change the world, acting like life doesn’t matter, like my locus of control is external—everyone around me blames it on the world. But no, we are the sum total of our choices, and that’s what kills me because I can’t understand why I choose some things, and yet I know exactly why. What kills me is to see my loved ones drill their existence into the earth's mantle till they puncture some magma fissure that will incite feeling.

I mean I have my issues, white girl problems I like to deem them. Because I know how fucking stupid they are yet as a woman in this society; it’s like a mini whitney housten lives inside all of us Western women and we feed her crack just to make her shut up so we can think.... About the future. 

Fuck the future, I could die tomorrow. My friend’s dad commited suicide last week. I mean he was a real fuck up. We always use to party at his house, grow weed at his house, eat mushrooms and stare silly at discobiscuit concerts on the 64’ TV. Is that the right size? Fuck technology. There is a real crazy side to me, there’s no doubting that. I almost have to be grateful for it. Its what makes me question everything. 

Its what makes me get the answers. Cause I refuse to fall into that void. I refuse to not care. I refuse to piss my life to the wind. Christ. Am I having a pre-adult crisis? Yes that’s right, Im not even an adult yet. Nine-teen. TEEN. Comical. Isn’t it? Not really. Its oppressive. Only if I view it that way. I wish I could be like my hobbit jade. Every since I put him in a new pot he’s flourishing. 

Maybe that’s it. Maybe I just need a new pot. Before, he was cramped, he had brown crumpled leaves and tilted too far to the right. I love watching him after I’ve twisted the pot 180 degrees. Never alarmed, he just adapts, starts facing all his purple fingernails towards that carbon. Chorophyll also needs its fix. 

At least once I had love. I wonder if I will ever be able to let someone back in. That’s prolly why me and the fishin musician like each other. We understand that we we're both clams, shut up to anyone; we’d never open. Maybe because we had to prove to ourselves first that we could say fuck the world I can do it on my own before someone else got to see our gems again. Bitterness is tough. I call it bitterness, he calls it pride. Tomato, tomato (note the pronunciation). And we never really question each other on it or inquire we just let each other be flawed. Filling the void. I know exactly what I am to him. A distraction from her.

People are fucking weird. Maybe that’s why I am so crazy, I ask questions about the weirdness, I want to talk about it, cause it really is so interesting. The bane of existence, to hide ones weirdness. I'm not really bitter about my weirdness anymore, just scared. Scared is wrong, I am mystified.

The decisions I made today, tomorrow and two years from now are going to lay the foundation for the rest of my life. God that’s depressing, and mystifying. I want to be challenged. It’s almost midnight, I’ve pissed away an afternoon I could have spent mundanely studying hypothesis testing and reading Elizabeth Bishop. Tomorrow ill have to get up, put on my cute girl disguise, or perhaps my 'Im haggard as fuck but still intellectual so ill just wear my flannel, glasses, and lululemons so my butt looks decent' disguise, go to a lecture which I will thoroughly enjoy (bc Bandura is the bees knees) when really I would just want to be having a conversation with my professor about what were really talking about. 

I want to ask him what sorts of thoughts he had at my age. I want to ask him if he felt like he could change the world, or at least change students lives. I believe we change the world , one impression at a time. I wonder if he knew the choices he made when he was my age got him where he was. I wonder if he regrets anything. There are so many things I could do in life. If I could just pick one fucking path I could succeed. 

But I cant pick one path. I want to take the world into my arms. I don’t want to treat depressed middle age married alcoholic women who should really be sent to a psychiatrists instead of talking bullshit because all she really wants is a xanex. If I wanted to do that for my whole life I could live at home with my mother. Sorry, that was low, shes doing better now. And once someone does better everyone is so quick to forget the grime. I picked her up from the pile of shit in her mind. I saved her life once or twice. I tucked her son in bed. 

The thing I am so baffled by is that everyone has a story. There are so many twists and turns, more twists than turns more likely. So many people have stories to tell. I feel like every day I wake up with a new brain, a new outlook, except its like a crabshoot which state of mind I land on: could be crazy, could be stable, optimistic, zen, fitness friendly, book worm, pmsing bloated bitch, hungry fatass. Sometimes I feel like that, but fuck those feelings. Our bodies, this physical form, means so little, honestly. 

Sometimes I think about what the world would be like if mirrors weren’t invented. A lot of qualities I really despise in people never would have evolved. Like the arrogant pricks who try to impress me with how many beers they can shotgun or how big their pecs are. I don’t give a fuck. Can you have a conversation with me about Kant’s metaphysics in relation to Guantanamo? No. so fuck off. And I don’t mean to sound like a pompous ass, but no one seems to THINK. They all play the nonchalant “I don’t give a fuck” pissant. And it does nothing for my libido. 

 I guess I just feel so alone sometimes. And being alone when your surrounded by people is the worst kind of loneliness. 

Fuck. Fatalistic attitude kendall. Shut up and take a chance. Live the questions as Rilke would say. Our kind are far and few between. Peace out. 

10-16-11 11:48pm

accept the fact that you may lose what is most dear to you

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           A great man once told me, to “accept the fact that you may lose what is most dear to you.”

           I squirmed and exclaimed, “but what am I if not an amalgamation of attachments? I am made of memories, places, people, foods, experiences. Without being attached to these things, where would I find meaning for my life? Accepting the inevitable loss of this is a negation of myself.”

            He continued to say, “Nothing is permanent Kendall. Only in accepting that fact can you find happiness. Even as we sit here, with our coffee and toast, the world is in constant flux. I am changing, you are changing, the coffee is getting colder, the toast dry. Appreciating the moment you are in and to honor its moment in the winds of infinity, this is true happiness.” He takes a moment, "Finding the balance between the finite and the infinite is a lifelong task. You’re lucky you are having these questions so young. You see Kendall,” his eyes focus on mine, “We are old souls you and I and our life decisions make this wisdom a great blessing or a terrible burden.”