Maybe I can put a beat to buying shirts.

The monsoon here has been lovely so far.  We have great, cracking storms in the afternoons and night times, and often when we wake the world is sparkling and the sun is rising to shine for a few hours before the rain comes again.  It is humid, but not moldy.  It is cool, but not cold.  Sometimes the lightning at night is nearly constant, and I wake up to watch it flicker in the distance with a rhythmic pulsing, almost the regularity of a heartbeat.

Our house has been full.  We have new neighbors and there are four new children in our apartment building. Yesterday everyone was tumbling in and out of the house, playing tag (or “chasies” as the Australian neighbors call it) or hide and seek, washing the mud pies out of their clothing, drinking water or showing me the stubbed toe they’d gotten from one of the rocks.

In the evening some friends from up the hill came down for dinner.  I oversalted the food and everyone pushed it around on their plates politely and took great big gulps of water.  We washed up and drank tulsi tea and talked until it was time for them to take their long trek back up the mountain to bed.

The concert I was telling you about happened on Saturday night.  I wasn’t able to record it this time, but hopefully another time soon I’ll be able to give you a little listen to some of the best live music that I’ve heard in a long time.  No one was sure what to expect, but the room was packed and vibrating slightly from the dancing in the back.  The fiddler/violinist had never played a concert like it before.  Used to an opera house, he was vibrating slightly from the thrill of playing for an audience that he could interact with.

So.  I’ve been cooking and cleaning and teaching and shooing kids in and out of the house.  (Depending on whether it’s raining or not.)  I’ve been reading the book of John (and being blown away) and knitting a washcloth and drinking tea rather than coffee these days.  I’ve been making plans and avoiding writing and dreaming of Goa.  I’ve been walking up and down hills and glancing furtively at scarves, thinking that one of these days I really should buy one.  (Did you know that I’ve never bought myself a scarf?  They’ve all been gifts.  I’m afraid of buying a scarf, just like I’m afraid of buying most clothes.  There’s too much choice.  It’s paralyzing.)

The house is always in a state of being picked up and put away, as soon as we finish, we need to start again. Same thing with the kitchen.  It is always time to feed.  These rhythms become part of us, and I’m thinking that if I can just be living in a rhythmic way, all the little bumps will be more like dancing.