I miss

Nepal.

in stunning amounts right now.

so much so that I have sat and stared at a picture for five minutes while songza takes me through some mellow playlist (if you haven't caught the general vibe, since getting the songza app I've just filled my apartment with music at all times, and it's amazing. this isn't a plug, just a testament to awesome).

it was this picture, for the record.

the balance of it and the colours of it and the exact moment of it. I couldn't look away because I couldn't leave it, couldn't somehow pull myself back through time zones and time spent and going and leaving and everything in between, couldn't bring myself here now.

Because I am running into all my personal politics getting into a true kerfuffle over readings I have to do and having to set that aside for a moment to do them anyway, and I am running into that wall you hit when you know that something learned unwillingly is gladly forgotten and I am staring at myself staring into the distance.

How hot the stones were underneath our bare feet. The sound you made walking around and through the temple, the colours that seemed unreal, the flowers floating in the fountains. How Dinesh rode with me in our rickshaw and his patience and kindness with all of us, the threatening grey of the sky and how comfortable it was still. Hot, humid, pressing heat, the kind that crackles at night with lightning, the kind that rolls in one marching band line down your back, remembering, remembering.

I want to say 'take me back' but there is only one person who needs to hear that...and that person is me. I am the only one who will orchestrate a return, who is in charge of where my feet fall and my dreams lead.

So Kelly, take me back.

Take me back, to where it will not be the same but the sun still sets.

Take me back to the rooftop where I stood for long, long minutes looking into a night sky I would not feel again and I thought, around and around, "what if I stayed", and around and around, and I did not. 

Take me back to the spice and the blisters and the sweat and the people, the vehicle horns on no-line highways, where it is wide and open and the roads and dusty and staring and waving, until one day I am nothing to look at. 

Take me back, 

take me back

take me back. 

And all I have to say to myself is that yes, yes you will. yes I will. Return. And keep going, all together and all at once. 

 And to get there, I need to be here. 

All the language and schooling and classroom and pens and learning agreements and bicycle lanes and bus passes and hvala's and dober dan's and facebook acquaintances and nights that turn into mornings, and books and articles and rental cars and weekend trips and receipts for things and rivers, forests and photographs and who will be and what is now and all of this

is to happen 

and the rest will come as it does. 

keep going

-k