blessings - may 29, 2006

A mother and daughter approach me on my evening walk, pulling me aside to whisper about prepared meals for yoga students, tell my friends. Manu, the rickshaw driver, offers repeatedly to drive me home for free, but nothing is free. As my refusals mount so do the details of his story until I eventually learn about his friend’s shop, very close by, we could stop on the way. The mango vendor humours me as I select my fruit only to replace my carefully selected mangoes with rotting ones when I look down for change. Children chase me down, small flipflops flapping quickly from behind, to ask for donations for school, for new books, for children in Bangalore. At times, it seems like everyone wants something from me. But why wouldn’t they? When it comes to requests like these, I have it to give.

The road in front of the shala this morning was filled with sleeping dogs. Small doggy-sized bumps waiting until practice is finished and they can count on an outpouring of affection from yogis homesick for their own pets. Funny how it’s so easy to give to dogs what it’s so hard to give to people, the requests are essentially the same; acknowledgement, attention, maybe something to eat. There’s something there, I can’t quite put words to it yet. Maybe it’s that I’ll never be a dog (at least in this lifetime) but it’s possible that I could be the mother with the beseeching eyes asking for food. It’s too close. Too overwhelming. I feel at once grateful, sad, embarrassed, irritated, ashamed, and afraid - life is just so tenuous. So little separates me from them and, blessed by the grace of where I was born and the hard work of my parents, I'm aware of how little I've done myself to deserve the blessings I have.