Traveling Light
On the holiday self.
The practise of “phowa” in Tibetan Buddhism refers to the moment between life and death, when human consciousness dissolves from the individual into the infinite, finally letting go of all attachment. Ideally, Buddhists say, we should live our lives in a state of readiness for departure — because as each moment ceases to be, we are already transitioning into the next one, and the next. We are, as the filmmaker Richard Linklater says in Waking Life, in a state of constant departure while always arriving.
As a person who is deeply attached to many creatures, rituals and ways of being, travel makes me anxious. What if nothing is the same when I return? What if I lose something irreplaceable along the way? If I don’t hate my life, why do I need a holiday anyway?
Last week I spent some time in the company of strangers at Little Flower Farms, a beautiful homestay in Vagamon, Kerala that is run by my friends Rekha and Thoma. Over cups of tea, marveling at the rain and sampling Vagamon’s fruit, we learned that each of us had arrived at the homestay during a phase of transition. Collectively, we grieved the passing of one of Rekha and Thoma’s dogs, and the sudden and random nature of death. We celebrated a lovely couple’s surprise engagement. We discussed our exes and wished them well, thanked god and whatever is out there for releasing us from our past towards uncertain but hopeful futures. We confessed our tentative dreams for the future. I wished these new and old friends love, peace, clarity and success, and as we each made our departures from the farm, I wished I knew how it would all turn out in the end.
I am losing things along the way — my heart, constantly. Socks. Hair ties. Ghosts of the past and a sometimes paralysing shyness around strangers. The point of a holiday, I now realise, is not to come back exactly the same. I remember all the reasons I love my life, and make room for all the things I want to change about it.
Finally, a playlist for dancing on your own no matter where you are: