Contemplating the present

I sit in my room at home in Wexford, PA and wonder what my surroundings will be like in one week. Throughout August and half of September I plan to be traveling around India before heading over to Bangladesh, where I'll learn the language until the end of the year and teach English until October of 2011 through a Fulbright scholarship.

I've been busy this summer getting new bank accounts set up, transferring software and my iTunes library to a new laptop, going through paperwork for Fulbright, scouting for cheap airplane tickets, wrestling with the Indian train ticket booking website, uploading pictures from college onto facebook before they all get lost, trying to sell old textbooks from college, etc etc, and oh yes there's saying goodbye to old friends (most of whom are spread across the country now working new jobs), spending time with the family, and trying to soak everything in while I'm still in the US. I look back at my time spent abroad in India 2 years ago and remember how far away everything--all this--my piano, speedy internet, spacious neighborhoods, massive supermarkets, exercising at the athletic club, prizing locally-grown and organic food products, a relaxing living room, an environment that conjures up nostalgic memories of a simpler high school lifestyle--was from me. A distance not only physical, but also one that marks profound dissimilarities. No matter how many miles away Wexford and Hyderabad are from each other, both are incredibly different worlds; compare previous entries from 2008 and 2009 to a spacious, clean suburb and you'll see what I mean.

In any case, I'm back in a suburban way of living, and I have been the whole summer. Comforts become invisiblized over time. As is the case with most things, 'you don't know what you have until it's gone', and I imagine that in a week when I'm in the steaming, crowded streets of Delhi, that cold fruit juice that's always in the fridge will look pretty appetizing. Memory is a funny thing though. The ease of being in Wexford was idealized in my mind after a few months in India. However, complaints easily rise to the surface from my seat here in my room. Things come to mind like boredom, having to drive everywhere, recognizing wastefulness, and feeling like physical activity has to be planned to compensate for a largely sedentary lifestyle. I suppose the dynamics of memory and the desensitized customs of day-to-day life both complicate what it means to know a place. Present and surroundings. Past and memories. Future and hopes/fears. Where do we actually live?

As I organize my things in preparation of going abroad again next week, one thing is for sure: time is limited. Maybe this means that taking the time to really process what's around me needs to find its way up a few noches on the priority list. It won't be here forever. Maybe that's one of the things travel teaches us. The dynamics of life can be pretty wrenching sometimes. Things begin, they end. I guess however I want to look at the present situation though, I know one thing: It's time for something new.