A Trip Home for My Kind of Holiday.

Long Days Dancing and Long Flights Do Not Mix! (December 23, 2018)

I like sitting over the wings when I fly, and seeing planes from Canada, Egypt and New Zealand reminds me of how accessible wildly different cultures has become.

So I was incredibly reticent to teach a full day and then get on some 17-18 hours of flying, especially with a long layover in London. Now I know that I was right to be concerned. My body was not at all happy, and the unpleasant sensations running though my legs and back made me fantasize a Disneyesque fantasy of what was going on in my body. I imagined all the lactic acid build up from demonstrating heavily for my classes was creating tiny molecules of saturated gasses in my muscles and bloodstream. Then with the reduced atmospheric pressure flying at thousands of feet above sea level, these molecules were expanding and actively ricocheting off each other, making me feel like I was being inflated from within the fibers of my body. It reminded me of scuba diving lessons about the dangers of Nitrogen gas build up, and the expansion of the gas within one’s bloodstream when either rising from depths too quickly, or flying within twenty-four hours of deep diving.

Given that I am traveling all the way between India and the USA for a short week at home, I am incredibly fortunate to be able to fly business class on British Airways. And again, I will admit to not looking forward to flying coach on my flight back home in February. At least those flights will be a short hop to Delhi, and then non-stop from Delhi to New York.

After my busy week and my rush to publish my last post, I neglected to let you know that I recovered my iPod. I mentioned that the day it went missing, I was very tired and not feeling well. Closed circuit video showed me packing up my iPod into its carry-all case and putting it into my backpack. That afternoon, I stopped off for a meeting at Starbucks before heading back to my apartment and collapsing, with no recollection of the last time I actually handled the iPod. Given that it took me a couple of days to work out the only other place that I might have lost the iPod was at Starbucks, I decided to take the chance and ask the next morning if it had been turned in. Lo and behold, it had been turned in, and it was returned to me without much ceremony. There was a small part of me that did not hold out much hope on asking at Starbucks, and in many ways, I had resigned myself to having lost it. So when asking resulted in recovering the outdated MP3 player, I was reminded of my “sandals at the temple” story, where that which I was convinced was lost was returned (more or less).

Another anecdote that happened last week, indicates how “local” I have become in my neighborhood. Since I walk to and from my apartment each day, rather than getting into a rickshaw or always taking a car, the shopkeepers and vendors on my route each day have become familiar with the sight of me wandering by. In some cases they can anticipate that I will stop in to get a bite to eat, drop off/pick up dry cleaning, and even get a haircut. Last Friday, the owner of the salon where I sometimes get my haircut called out to me holding up a newspaper as I was walking by. He recognized my photo in a local newspaper that published a short article on my teaching in Mumbai as a former Paul Taylor dancer. I was so caught off guard by the recognition that I was a block down the street before I turned around and went back to grab a photo of the article.

Ten Days Later… (January 2, 2019)

So here I am flying back to Mumbai from NYC. It is curious to see what I had started to write above, and to think that I am about to test my hypothesis of my “localness” when I land and make my way home. This will only be my second time flying into Mumbai and needing to find a way back to my apartment on my own. The first was when I returned from Delhi, as I did get met by a driver when I first arrived in August. My last experience was not so great when I tried to use the “pre-paid taxi” and the dispatcher gave my destination as something other than my address, and my taxi driver coerced me into paying almost double the fare to drop me at my apartment building under my direction. This time around I plan to use Uber, and see how the pick up at the airport works out. I have to keep reminding myself that thousands of people land and do just as I must, every day.

I think my trepidation may have something to do with getting older, and being a little less enamoured of tangling with the unknown. This adventure in India and getting to be home for a short break after four months away is a good reminder of the inevitability of change, and the comforting nature of familiarity.

When I passed through London on the way home to New York City, I was selected for additional security screening, and an agent had me unpack my hand luggage so that he could test the contents, my clothing, my hands and ankles for “dangerous” residue. He proceeded to ask me about the Surface Pro tablet I had been using, with a warped screen that had pulled away from its housing in a convex arc. You could see the motherboard quite clearly behind the screen, and at that point, I was just relieved the technology continued to work long enough for me to keep up with my presentations, this blog and my other work and correspondence. The internal batteries on the tablet were prone to getting extremely hot, and had done so often enough to cause the physical distortion of the touch-sensitive screen, but it worked. However, the agent’s concern was if I thought it was dangerous to be using a machine so obviously damaged and malfunctioning. To be honest, I had a new computer waiting for me in New York, and had not thought specifically about “dangers” from the overheating machine. I just wanted to get home and transfer all of my data and programs, before retiring the two year old technology. Happily the agent wrapped up without further action.

Once home, I was faced with learning to setup and use a new piece of technology. And again, I know this is routine for many computer users, but I can also feel the resistance within me of needing to be flexible and adapt. It surprised me as to just how many different apps and programs I use regularly, when I thought I was really only using three or four. And as I write this, I am remembering a few more things I did not load, and which I will live without for the next couple of months. C’est la vie.

Fortunately, my time in the USA was quietly restful and I had the opportunity to spend a few days at my home in the Berkshires where there was snow on the ground and, for the first time, I saw a wild bobcat hunting outside the house. My four domestic cats reminded me just how different they are as individuals, and I am sure that Anukis, who is the most attached to me is NOT pleased that I have up and left again after being away for so long. It took her four days before she accepted that I was back and she could return to her routine of pouncing on me in the wee hours of the morning and randomly demanding attention throughout the day.

Life at the Taylor organization after the passing of Paul Taylor that first day I left for India has also changed, but I can’t quite say “how”. Paul was not a daily fixture at the studios though I certainly got news of his daily antics. And I did realize, when I dropped by to visit and see the winter intensive staff and students, it was the first time I was talking in person with friends and peers since Paul had died. There have been a number of gatherings and memorial activities which I have missed on account of being in India, and a memorial performance by the Taylor Company will happen in March before I am back. So I have missed reconnecting in person with so many of the Taylor family, though I cannot say that I have felt “left out”. Other changes have taken place with certain personnel no longer there or holding new responsibilities, and there are new dancers and staff whom I will need to wait until March before I meet. Four months can seem like a very long time, when such changes take place. And yet the institutional culture is still comfortingly familiar.

London, Heathrow airport. Classic BOAC poster. Mumbai, Chhatrapati Shivaji airport.

All in all, I don’t think that most people imagine “The Holidays” at the end of each year to be a chance for quiet and selective companionship. Yet that is exactly what I was hoping for and what I got. When planning this excursion back in May 2018, I knew that I would be more than halfway done with my grant period, and that I would be more than ready to languish briefly in “comforts” to which I have associated my life in New York. I am happy to have more time in India, and it also makes me more appreciative of the fact that I have built a sense of “home” somewhere in the world. As a member of both a racial (Chinese) and an ethnic (Jamaican) diaspora, I have always imagined that “home” is wherever I am. But age and travel have afforded me the chance to recognize when the “family” that I choose and who chooses me has anchored my sense of home with geography.