Sunday, March 25, 2012

Soft power, quiet certainty



My dad got back from India last night! Hurray! I was missing him so much! (No silly thats Ramana, not Daddy! But he has that same look!)

I went to SFO and picked him up and drove him home in the rain. He said he wasn't sure if he even remembered how to drive! It was raining so hard all the way there and back. It was scary, driving in the dark and all the weekend traffic and the clouds of spray coming up from all the other cars, but I was so careful and concentrated real hard. I had precious cargo!

Its a funny feeling to be responsible for someone elses life like that, driving in bad conditions, knowing that if you screwed up, it could be bad. I saw like 10 ambulances with their lights flashing rushing to accidents too, and passed one where a car was turned facing traffic in the fast lane with a terrified woman being comforted by her man standing next to it waiting for someone to stop the traffic and rescue them. I am most cried seeing it! Well actually I did! They were standing on the thin little strip between the fast lane and the divider holding each other tight...

But we made it home safe, and I had a fire laid and even though Dad must have been tired he was excited and happy and we stayed up till after midnight talking.

We killed a bottle of Cab and he told me all about his trip. Well probably not all about it, but the highlights. He started with a Vipanassa retreat in Dharamsala which is in Northern India and real close to Pakistan =0 and when that was done, he did a touristy thing to some of the parks and conservation areas that they have along the base of the Himalayas.

Then he went into Nepal and climbed Everest....Just kidding! He just visited Katmandu and then went and stayed in local type places in smaller towns for a while. He says he meditated every morning and every evening the whole time, and sometimes even with other people he met.

After Nepal he went back down into India and visited the holy city of Varanasi, which is full of temples and is on the Ganges, and then to New Delhi for a week and back home from there. He said the flight home was full of people who work in San Jose in computers!

He's different, he's like real calm but sort of like more alive too. He used to be quiet and calm and steady and happy too, but its like he has his same calm but with a sort of excited ness about it too. Kinda like there is a bigger smile behind the calm. Not that he doesnt smile! He always smiles, but now its like there is a youngerness to it.

I'm so happy for him! I was worried he might get depressed like I do, with missing Mom and all, but he really never went there. Thats good too, 'cause I don't know what I'd do if he did!

I made waffles this morning, my favorite thing in the world for a sunday morning, and later I'm going to make him go to whole foods with me and reintroduce him to American culture! He says it will be fun!

Taking my Dad on a date to the grocery store, Oh Yea!

You don't realize how much you miss someone sometimes until their back!

:)