commencing 9th december
missing deadlines; missing links
this is my newsletter so i’m LATE and it is off book and off kilter and that’s fine.
i don’t have pictures of all my outfits because i’ve been out and about and all my outfits have been of necessity because i’m away and have a bad warm weather wardrobe and it’s all in a carryon. you can literally watch my outfits decline in real time as i travel.
turtlenecks - minga (1) and ralph lauren (2/3) / jeans - ragged priest (1/2) / tracksuit bottoms - zara / shoes - croc stomps (1), moonboots (2), adidas (3) (all secondhand)
leggings - uniqlo / tees - collusion (1) and shein (2/3) / skirt - topshop (all secondhand) / boots - puma / fanny pack - cotopaxi
i have also been thinking a lot about just how little i like who i am right now. and it’s not what i’m doing, it’s not my circumstances, it’s just who i am and how i respond. that doesn’t mean other people can’t like me (though maybe they don’t right now either), but it does mean i feel a lot of shame about myself right now. i feel stupid a LOT. i feel overdramatic a lot! i feel like too much and not enough all at once right now and i hate this for me and for the people i love. i want to be loved so hard it crushes me, but i’m also being an avoidant little twerp.
that aside: india is hard.
i think i went into this trip thinking it would be part of my route towards reclaiming myself and coming to terms with my own roots. i’ve made a lot of friends from the subcontinent in the past couple of years, which has been good, but has also brought me a sense of comparison - one where i feel inadequate about my lack of language skills, temple attendance, indian media consumption, and family integration. so naturally, this trip this has given me doubts about myself and where i come from, and i was wrong to make the assumption that i could do this so easily. i like the same things about india i always have. the temples, the food, the nature. and i also dislike the same things about india i always have, only probably to a much larger degree than i did as a child - the inability to eat anything that wasn’t made by a five star hotel or a friend (i’ve already had one really nasty allergic reaction with some cashew-based ice cream after eating something super spicy and threw up so much chili that my throat was raw for 2 days), the sheen of sunscreen and bugspray and sweat sticking to me at the end of the day, my skin loving the sun but hating the sweat, the noise, the dust, the bathroom cleanliness outside of hotels. but this is the first time i’ve navigated india as an adult - which means new inconveniences!
for instance, leaving the hotel without about three tuktuk drivers, three cabbies and three shopkeepers shouting at me is impossible - especially with my white husband in tow. the horn beeps are incessant - early on this stay someone explained to me how indians use one short beep to indicate that they’re present, a long one to indicate that they’re angry, and a series of short ones to say they want to go. it’s horn morse code! and as someone who takes psychic damage when even one person uses their horn back home, it’s a trial by fire.
other parts of this are more my brain than culture shock. i feel like an absolute monster - i just physically feel so different from everyone here. there are over 120 million people in maharashtra but i’ve only seen three women even close to my own height this entire trip, and everyone else is close to a head shorter than me. i feel indecent because i dress differently, but if i tried to buy one of the kurtas available to me i know i would be sent spiralling because they would no doubt be too small because they’re geared towards people who are smaller than me. i bought a shirt from adidas here and was surprised that i could be an XS, but that’s because adidas’s uses EU sizing. i’m also just great at modesty culture, which is weird, because my style is not particularly skin showy normally but because it’s so hot it feels like all i can do to make myself feel comfortable without buying a ton of shirts that i won’t take home. and lastly, my hindi sucks. i’ve been working on it with intention this year, but it’s still bad enough that people don’t usually know what i’m saying and i have to think extensively to formulate a sentence and get all in my head about it. i definitely come across like someone with a phrase book, not someone who’s been taking weekly lessons for 8 months.
so this is weird, and feeling cute (inside or out) is not happening for me right now. i feel grotesque and like i am letting my heritage and myself down. there are still parts of this country i want to see - kashmir where my roots lie, haridwar where our records are, and someplace i can find some peace and quiet. but maybe next year. maybe never - maybe i give up! i’ve seen a LOT of this country in my life. we’ll have to wait and see. i miss my closet. i miss functional ingredient matrices and not wearing bugspray every day and skipping breakfast because i know i’ll be able to eat lunch without an epipen to hand.
xoxo