In Goa.

Ahhh. This place. Oh, my heart.

How to describe it? We are in Goa, staying for six weeks in the very same house we lived in when we were here, with the very same furniture, dishes, pots and pans. It is like a little piece of time travel (how clever of us!) except that everyone is taller and we have a toddling addition who is busy capturing the hearts of our neighbors. My heart is doing complicated things. I’m trying to observe the emotions and let them slide on over me. It’s everything, you know. I love so many places. I don’t miss only my home country, I’m all tangled up in this one here too. I dug into California, once upon a time. There are places, the smell and feel of them, in the folds of my skin, in my pores.

It is lovely to be here with Miriam and Johanna again, and there are new community members, delightful both of them. The children in the village are all taller, I exclaim over it with the villagers. Stop and exchange greetings with all the people I have talked to over the years. It took a while to earn their respect, it was not easily given, but they are all very kind.

I walk the beach in the mornings with my early waking baby in the baby carrier. He is heavy, but it is better to be out than trying to keep him quiet (there is no way) so the other kids can sleep. The beach is already populated. There are joggers with big sticks to keep the big dogs at bay. A group of people doing some kind of exercise (I think they are Osho people) where they jump and growl and shout and shake. A group of people doing a slow dance. The older Indian man doing his morning yoga. The fishermen out in their boats.

This shore is so familiar to me. All the lines of it. Every smell, the sounds of this house, the squeaky fan in my bedroom, the way my bathroom opens to the bathroom on the guesthouse beside, so I can hear when someone is peeing, or showering, or throwing up. The porch, where I sit right now, looking out into the garden (it’s doing very well, everything tall and growing) the well where they used to butcher pigs (they don’t do it there any more). The marble everywhere, my kitchen and all the things I have designed and bought in this house.

Is it any wonder that my heart is doing somersaults? I remind myself that I always loved living here—it was the moving around that we had to do the rest of the year—that is why we left. I remind myself that it is easier to enjoy it now, when I am not trying to cram all of our practical things—our schooling, our business things, into the four months of the year that we could be here. We are on vacation now, barely touching school. We have a home that is there for us all year. This has been so healing for us. Of course we love it here. That has never been in question. The texture of this place is like no other, with the gathering of so many nations.

The kids are delighted to be here. We are joining in with helping in the meditation center here for these weeks, and then we will be going back to Pai to continue work on our meditation center there. Miriam will join us in May, (or late April, I’m not sure) and more people later in the summer. We are building there, just like we have built here. We are digging a place for ourselves there, marking a way, just as we did here. We are on a long path, I’m sure we’ll do this in more places on the earth, opening places of contemplation, faith and rest.

Be at rest once more, Oh my soul, for the Lord has been good to you.

PS: Leaf and I are still posting daily photos at I Wanted To Tell You. It's been so amazing to see what she sends everyday, and such a great chance to take a lot of photos.