the beauty in struggle and the pain in beauty

for the past two weeks i've had the opportunity to work at a day care center for developmentally disabled kids, most of them autistic. a lot of times i feel like i use the word opportunity as a niceism cause it sounds nice and polite. but this experience was something really special. there were times when i really didn't want to go and times at the center where i felt like i was going to freak out. but not to idealize or glorify their conditions and the real challenges they face, i learned a lot, got inspired in ways i haven't before, and i just really appreciated the time i spent with them and the staff at the center. 

prior to working there i had a really weak understanding of what autism is, and it's still weak, but i guess autism is disorder where you process information differently, especially social ones. a lot of the symptoms i saw were, communication problems, repetitive behavior and just completely unique ways of interpretation and expression. also almost every kid had different symptoms so what works for one kid doesn't work for another.  

i think there were two things that stood out the most out of all that i garnered there. one was just how infinitely exotic and flamboyant everyone of us are, and how our perception really alters our state of love for others. the second was sorrow at just how hard it is to live with disabilities. i'm not sure whether this is justified, and i in no way intend to place values, and maybe this is more so in response to an unaccomodating society, but maybe this will get more clear as my thoughts sink into this page.

there was one friday where i was left with 3 kids all alone. one kid was hitting himself on his head and groaningly shouting words and noises i could not decipher, a kid smiling on the couch occasionally moaning plaintive appeals to the air and another kid digging his nails into my arm so he could sink his teeth into my flesh; i personally feel i'm not a complete stranger in the neighborhood of bites, but i've never experienced that sensation of what meat in cartoons must experience, the slow elastic tearing away of flesh that breaks off not because of the bite but because of the pull. the kid's seeming uncontrollable pent up feelings seemed to express what i felt, an overwhelming tumor of an emotion spreading through my mind and trying to vent but not translating into any coherent action. i felt paralyzed as if i was in the middle of a fire with a firefighter's uniform but without the gear or the training, or worse just boots, underwear and those weird shaped hats and maaaaaaybe an axe, but probably useless because of its overbearing weight.

later it became clear that the kid hitting his head didn't like certain sounds, and the kid smiling on the sofa knew that and so purposely made those sounds in his mischievous youthness, he also had a much milder case of autism and that was probably a source of other stresses in his life, and the other kid bites people when he feels stress, most likely caused by the noise the other two were creating.  it was a completely incomprehensible situation at the time, but totally coherent if you know them and their way of communicating. it might have been possible to resolve the situation by asking the sofa kid, or enticing him with a task, to go down stairs and away from the other two. the staff who so lovingly and understandingly explained this situation were really inspiring. in a place where probably so many people would rush to judgement and try to escape or avoid the situation, they truly tried to experience and understand the world through the eyes of the kids, which i ambushed by preconceptions failed miserably to do. but i think identify with what they feel. though our conditions are different don't we all bang our heads against walls that we don't see, thrashing out un-embraced emotions upon what is within hands reach, wanting unrequited desires, crying out lonesome thoughts that go unheard? isn't that what living and growing essentially is? at least to one degree...

and so at the end all i have is mad respect for the staff at the day care center, for the parents and for the kids. but i do feel pain at how hard it must be for the kids and parents, but obviously not pity. like others, their stories must be ones of victories, failures, misunderstandings and overcoming of that which alienates, not to mention neglect and prejudice by the government and society. though struggles may trigger more beauty it still is a source of more pain, and that thought of times when people break down under the weight of struggles that at times seem bigger than the fight they have in them makes my heart is pierced with a dose of poignancy. but when you see the smiles that exude extraordinary love, stories that reveal uncommonly generous compassion, sorrow is replaced with awe. it was a great learning experience, and i feel shamed that this experience was yet just another window in my landscape as i move on to other stories and struggles, but i feel extremely grateful for the time spent with them and i hope i will be able to incorporate their stories into the one i am slowly kneading with each step i take. 

home??

and so it is. After a short interminable-6 months in India, i have safely imbibed the honey-rich air of home and japan.
physically in one piece, emotionally at least two, possibly three.
it's nice to be home, to have people who will recognize your face and smile smiles that release forgotten pleasant feelings that stitch together the sea of time that once in a distant memory separated. in that moment, that first encounter turns into a moment that has always existed, a timeless, shapeless Pangaea we create through relations. but even so i feel i'm also lost, even in what i call home. so i think i'll write about how the past has melted into the now.

i remember during college a thought that constantly haunted me was the ghost of home. it was not so much an image of home or yearning of getting a plane ticket to go home, but an unrequited desire for something that no longer existed. home as it was no longer existed, friends left for other locations, family relations were forever altered and the ghost was literally that, a fading presence of home, transparently blending into other locations that have no absolute value but only conditional meaning derived from uncontrollable factors. and that thought was scary, that i had no where to run to, that even when a storm yanked away tree branches and rain pelted down the hands that reached up to grasp something real, something tangible, there was no longer somewhere i could run to for shelter, for a warm sheepskin blanket and a bowl of warm miso soup, someone to reassure me that everything was going to be alright, but it didn't happen cause the fugees broke up and they didn't come to dance that night.

i bring that up cause, A. the fugees were tight and should have stayed together, but also B. because home no longer had that absolutely value anymore. from afar it still has homeland status, but in reality i guess home is wherever different pieces fit together, and it takes time to find and connect the different joints. it's still an extremely comfortable place and it's such a lovely home, and seeing friends and meeting new peoples who feel familiar by the time you part make my dead cells sorry that they split so promptly, and spending time with my dad, cooking for him, drinking with him, talking to him about my life and the world and all the notes that fall in between has been groovy to say the least. but as of now japan is a transient space. in reality i guess my life style as of now is transient as a whole, and it's taking its toll, and it's nobody's fault but mine that i keep falling in love with all the fabulous people and beauty that surrounds me, and then i pack up and leave, leaving scattered holes of myself in different potential homes.

i can't really sum up my experience in india but the last day and the last week was definitely pendulously pendulous, but maybe from day 1 it was that way. i think more often than not india was an experience i was trying to sprint through, the end's seeming endlessness installing a frame of mind of survival rather than enjoyment. not to say that i did not meet amazing people who make living soo bitterly sweet in so many ways. but building bonds takes butt loads of time and sometimes that becomes discouraging cause when you're on the fly, it makes me cry that the well of love can go dry. predictably, the last week was filled with yearning to get out of unfamiliar territory so i could thoughtlessly float in a paper cup like a straw, hollowly functional, and just be a mere bridge between a pool of love and people, piping out sheer quenchingness to those in thirst. at other times though, i felt a burning yearning for setting down roots and strawing it up right then and there but then realizing the that was a hollow dream and i felt contempt for my style of life. in moments of parting i think emotions are attracted to polars, and a weird emotionalypics is commenced, encouraging oscillations of feelings trying to outflank the happy-sad continuum, swinging from groovy happy to gloomy sad like the 1920s were back. pretty emotionapocalyptic.

for me india was and was, and is and is india, just like japan is so japan. a country and a culture and a people's are always infinitely multifaceted. places that have a lot of character will always have an image that sprints past its physical embodiment, leaving traces of a place way before you arrive to the actual location. i was not there on a spiritual quest nor in search of meaning. just like everywhere i saw people struggling to survive, hustlin for a better life, for happiness for peace, obviously all in their unique conditions and statuses. i had a great time as well as a difficult time, and i have grown as a person there just as i am right now. i don't mean to belittle my experience but i also won't idealize it as many people seem to do. if anything i am as motivated as ever in pursuing liberation of all peoples because until all are free, none are free, and that is a belief i'll pursue till we all wade in freedom's sea.

india to me was where my ideals collided with logistical limitations as i did important work at an office that was less than stimulating but where work was needed to be done. i encountered lovely people who even though i couldn't speak to them and we had vast assumptions about each other, through our smiles we traced the histories of our lives. i felt the pulse of the city as i rode the bus through the city in the heat squeezed together like lovers embracing as if it was the last. i ate heavenly food while sweat, snot and tears, the holy trifecta, slipped away from the heat of the spices. just sitting one night i sweated so much i started laughing at the absurdity of the heat as my hair adorned itself with shimmering perspiration. i felt my heart slowly melt into aromatic wax as i conversed with amazing people who captivated my imagination with intoxicating word rings, extraditing me to a land where words cease to exist and emotions are directly hand woven and given. i lived moments that i wished could be preserved forever, where i wouldn't have to turn the page over because a small perfection was inscribed on that page, and i endured moments where i wished i could just hide under my blanket and wake up to a new day. it was a little bit of everything and whole lot of nothing. and as always at the end connections were severed and springs of inspiration receded until i started to dream of those distant memories that only happened a second ago but were left in that specific time and place, glinting faint yesterdays. i won't say that those bubbles of meaningfulness didn't leave indelible prints around the halls of my mind, but leaving a community has its consequences and its blighting my senses.

and thus here i am at home but not really. waiting for the future to start, yearning for the past to catch up. at present, i guess i'm kind of out of my mind and body.