Читать книгу The Road to Shine - Laurie Gardner - Страница 12

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THE HARVARD HOBO

Whose Kid Is This?

Follow Your Bliss, Even If Other

People Don’t Approve

A week after I graduated from college, my parents sat me down in the family living room, looking anxious and perplexed. I had just announced that I was leaving to backpack around the world by myself. I had no set itinerary or pre-arranged destinations; my only plan was that I would explore for at least a year.

“Just tell us why!” My mother buried her head in her hands, as if I had just killed someone.

Looking at me earnestly, my father said, “You graduated with high honors. You won a fellowship to the American University in Cairo, and you have a job offer from your German professor. Is this really what you want to do?”

Clearly, my parents weren’t as excited about the idea as I was.

“How are you going to pay for this?” my mom asked.

“I’ve got a summer job leading a group of high school students on an exchange trip through New Zealand and Australia. My flights and expenses are all paid, and I can extend my return ticket for up to a year. After the kids leave, I’ll stay and see where the winds blow me.”

“But how will we get in touch with you?” She shot a worried look at my dad.

There were no cell phones yet and no Internet cafes for the wayward traveler.

“I could fax you once a month to let you know where I am and that I’m okay.”

“Once a week.”

“Once every two weeks.”

“Deal,” my dad said, patting my mom on the shoulder.

Two months later, I was sitting on a bunk bed in a youth hostel in Christchurch, the largest city on the South Island of New Zealand. As I kicked off my shoes, the magnitude of my decision hit me: I was out in the world alone, indefinitely.

When I was ten, I went to a sleep-away camp in Vermont for two months, my first time being away from home for more than a night. I missed my house and parents so much that, one day, I just walked out of the arts and crafts shed and through the camp’s main gate. “I can make it home to New Jersey from here,” my little ten-year-old self decided determinedly. I was a mile down the road before they found me.

My stomach cramped with nausea as a wave of intense loneliness and fear passed through me. Maybe I should just go home and look for a job. What am I going to do out here? Where will I go? What the hell was I thinking?

My bunkmate had a wine bottle with a thick, woolen sock over it strapped to her backpack.

“What’s with the wooly wine?” I asked.

“I just came back from working on a sheep farm that’s also a vineyard. Want the number?”

“So, can you cook?” asked the voice on the phone in a thick New Zealand accent.

“Yes sir.”

“Do you ride horses?”

“Not in years, but I used to ride quite a bit as a kid. Did show jumping and everything.”

“How soon can you start?”

“As soon as you like, sir.”

“Call me John. I’ll pick you up in an hour.”

A lean, swaggering man in his fifties wearing oily work coveralls and gumboots pulled up in front of the youth hostel in a white Ford pick-up truck.

He rolled down his window and asked, “Can you stay for at least a month? I need a head farmhand.”

“I don’t see why not,” I said.

We drove due north into the countryside, a seemingly endless landscape of rolling, green hills dotted with white fluffy sheep, mirror images of the clouds overhead. As we chatted, I wasn’t sure what to make of John. With social conversation, he was very curt, cutting right to the point of what he needed to know without any of the usual niceties. But just when I’d decided he was a man of few words, I asked him about New Zealand’s politics, and he went off on a lengthy, fervent rant that lasted the rest of the forty-five minutes until we arrived at his farm.

“Come on,” he said, jumping out of the truck and onto a dubious looking motorbike with the muffler tied on with a piece of white rope. “Hop on!”

I held on for dear life as we raced through a lumpy paddock full of dozens of sheep.

“You see that one over there?”

“Yeah.”

“Get off and throw it over the fence; it’s not mine.”

“Uhhhh . . .”

He drove off, leaving me in the middle of the field.

I chased that stupid sheep around for a good fifteen minutes before John returned, laughing and shaking his head. “Aw look, you’ve got to grab it around the neck to put it into submission.”

Sure enough, as soon as I managed to get put my hands around its throat in a stranglehold, it dropped to the ground, looking up at me for mercy.

“Good on ya’! Now throw it over.”

I don’t know how much the average sheep weighs, but I couldn’t even lift this one off the ground, never mind toss it over a five-foot fence. Laughing again, John grabbed it with one arm and threw it over the fence. It landed with a thud on its side, then scrambled to its feet.

“Let’s go,” John said, “I want you to meet Marg.”

We drove past several more sheep paddocks, various feed crops, and a few pens of cattle before arriving at the vineyard. Rows of grapevines stretched for acres toward the horizon, looking like leafy lane lines in a giant green swimming pool. A stout woman emerged from the middle of the third row of vines. She was about John’s age with short hair tucked into a bright pink knit cap.

“I’m Marg; g’day mate,” she said with a grunt, extending a dirt-stained hand.

“Well, I’ll leave you to it,” John said, and left.

He sure wasn’t spending much time showing me the ropes. I didn’t mind. I’d just eaten a big meal a couple of hours ago; it was warm and sunny, and Marg seemed nice enough.

“So what is it we’re doing out here, Marg?”

“Tending the vines,” she said, pointing to the new, wayward shoots not yet attached to the wire. “The trick is, you’ve got to get the twist tie on there just right. Then you’ve got to crouch real low and check each of these irrigation drips at the bottom of the base to make sure a rabbit didn’t chew it off.”

After about twenty minutes, Marg announced, “Time for a cuppa!” She pulled out a thermos and offered me a sip of tea. Then she pulled out a raw onion sandwich from her shirt pocket, took a couple of bites, and let out a tremendous belch.

“More tea?” She extended the thermos toward me, with a piece of onion hanging out of her mouth.

“Uh, no thanks.”

“Well, that’s enough work for today,” she said, taking off her gloves. We couldn’t have been there for more than an hour. On the drive there, John had told me he preferred hiring foreigners because “they work damn harder than the Kiwis.” He seemed to have a point.

The sun was getting lower in the sky, and I was in charge of making dinner. “I’d best be getting to the house, Marg,” I said. “See you tomorrow?”

“You bet, see you bright and early—well, not too early.”

BANG! A shot rang out on the front porch. I was so startled I dropped the cookbook I had been browsing. A moment later, John came into the kitchen, carrying a rabbit by the ears that was dripping with blood.

“Cook ‘er up into a stew,” he said, pushing it toward me.

“Not on your life!” I squealed.

At first he looked angry, then he grinned. “All right, I’ll give it to the dogs. Do you know how to make shortbread?”

“Desserts are my specialty,” I smiled.

When I was a kid, nothing made me happier than whipping up a fresh batch of brownies while belting out show tunes. Although I no longer had aspirations of becoming a singing pastry chef, cooking for John was the next best thing. He went through plates of my shortbread like they were handfuls of peanuts. Each day, I’d come in from the fields or vines an hour early, crank the radio, and sing at the top of my lungs as I prepared dinner and another round of cookies.

John McCaskey was quite a character: A short-tempered yet good-natured fellow who muttered curses under his breath on the tractor and laughed at his own dirty jokes. A lanky, Scottish immigrant, he loved playing the saxophone as much as he loved working the land.

One day, John called me down to the sheep barn. “Can you hold steady under pressure?” he asked.

I must’ve looked worried, because he added, “Don’t worry, you don’t have to castrate any more lambs.”

He escorted me into the main barn, where the temperature was at least 100 degrees. There was a team of husky, sweating men with clippers, shearing the wool off the sheep in record time.

“We got a lot of sheep to get through today, and your job is to keep ‘em moving. Get under the barn and push the sheep up the chute. When you’re done with a round of sheep, run back up here, get the wool from the shearers’ feet, and throw it in that tall burlap bin over there. When the sack is full, stomp it all down and sew it up with that twine. Got all that?”

I must have lost ten pounds that day, slapping sheep on the butt from under the barn, running up to the shearing stage to clear the wool, jumping into the burlap sacks up to my knees, and then hustling back under the barn. The men let me try my hand at shearing during the lunch break, and it was much harder than it looked. By the time we stopped at ten o’clock that night, we were all sweaty and exhausted, but also elated.

“Good work, mates!” John said, clapping the shearers on the back. “Pub time!”

Marge Piercy wrote a powerful poem called, “To Be of Use” about jumping in the trenches and getting done what needs to be done. That’s exactly what I loved about being on John’s farm. “Fence post needs fixing? No problem!” “Irrigation system not working? I’ll figure it out.” “Snip the dirty wool off the legs of 900 sheep? I’m on it!”

I didn’t want to just skim along or hang out in life; I wanted to contribute. I needed to feel like my life had a purpose. This drive for meaning and purpose started when I was sixteen years old.

The summer before my high school senior year, I was an exchange student on a Swiss farm. While most kids back home were filling out college applications and stressing about the SATs, I was happily milking cows and hoping that my cute blond host brother would notice me.

For the first time in my life, I felt completely at ease, living in a peaceful, beautiful countryside surrounded by kind, authentic people. Living directly off the land felt so natural and “right.” Every morning, I awoke at dawn for the 5:00 a.m. milking. Walking barefoot down the cobblestone street of our village to the local dairy, I would exchange my buckets of fresh milk for a large wheel of cheese and some newly pressed butter. Stopping at the bakery on the way home, I’d pick out a loaf of country bread that was still warm. Before walking inside the farmhouse, I’d graze my way through the patch of overgrown fruits and vegetables next to the shed, hoping not to get busted by my host mother. Dori was a powerful, imposing woman whose generous, but no-nonsense attitude had earned her widespread respect as the matriarch of the village.

“Laurie, as-tu mangé dans le jardin encore?” (“Laurie, did you eat in the garden again?”)

“Moi? Mais non!” (“Me? Of course not!”) I protested, with blackberry stains around my mouth.

“Qu’est-ce qu’on va faire avec toi?” (“What are we going to do with you?”) Laughing, she wiped her hands on her apron.

One evening, sitting high on my favorite hillside, listening to the tinkling of cowbells on the patchwork of fields below, I wrote my first song, called, “Who am I?” Strumming along with my host brother’s guitar, I crooned out soul-searching questions about life and my place in it, as only a teenager can. Soon, I’d be finishing high school and have to decide what to do with my life.

In Switzerland, people choose at age twelve or thirteen what they want to be when they grow up. Based on that decision, they’re either officially finished with school a few years later, or they begin an academic track toward their chosen career. My nine-year-old host cousin already knew that he wanted to be a farmer like his dad. His eleven-year-old brother wanted to be an aeronautic engineer.

Both boys’ decisions were received with open praise and enthusiasm. No one looked down on the younger son for wanting to work a blue collar job, and no one scorned the oldest son for not carrying on the family tradition. In their culture, children were encouraged to follow their dreams, whatever they might be. These values made complete sense to me. I saw no point in going back to the American rat race.

“I’m going to live here for the rest of my life!” I informed my parents the day before I was scheduled to fly back home to New Jersey.

My parents balked, then made me an offer I couldn’t refuse. “If you go to college now, you can travel every summer.”

Surprise! It’s Me!

Welcome Your Passion When It Shows Up Out of Nowhere

The Harvard undergraduate course catalog was the size of a phone book. I’d gone from having very limited choices while growing up to so many options, it was overwhelming. Two weeks before classes began, I was hiking up Mount Monadnock in New Hampshire on a freshmen orientation camping trip. Our hiking leader was a senior, so I thought I’d pick her brain.

“You should check out Diana Eck’s comparative world religions class,” she said.

“Um, okay . . . thanks.”

What I was thinking is, Uh, no thanks. I had little interest in religion. I was raised in a liberal, reform Jewish family that celebrated the High Holidays and Passover—sort of like Christian families who go to church only on Christmas and Easter. Mostly, my family enjoyed the cultural aspects of Judaism, especially eating large quantities of home-cooked food with loved ones. Outside of reading prayers during holiday services, there was no mention of any sort of “God.” I had no idea if anyone in my family even believed in one.

Culturally, I was raised a WASP (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant). My family was one of only a few Jewish families in our tiny rural town where the deer outnumbered the people three to one. For those who remember the popular Preppy Handbook of the 1980s, those Muffys and Biffs in the bright pink Izods were my peers. I was the preppy who carried the lime green Bermuda bag but who occasionally ate latkes.

It wasn’t easy being one of the few Jewish kids in school.

“Where are your horns?” asked Evan, the boy who sat behind me in fourth grade.

“My mom says that Jews have horns because they killed Jesus.”

“I don’t have any horns!” I said, blushing.

When the head of the junior high cheerleaders found out I was Jewish, she nicknamed me “Hanny” for Hanukkah. For years, kids refused to call me by my real name.

One morning, I came running into class one minute before the bell rang and slid into my seat. As I put down my notebook, I noticed that someone had carved a swastika on my desk.

When it was time to enroll, my trip leader’s suggestion kept niggling at my brain. Finally, I decided to give the religion class a go.

When I walked in on the first day, I half expected to be welcomed by burning incense and meditation cushions in place of desks. Instead, I found a diverse, but fairly normal looking group. There were a few stand-outs: a bald, Burmese monk in a saffron robe, a girl with multiple piercings in Guatemalan print pants, and a guy in a dress shirt and slacks wearing a prayer shawl. But everyone else was just your regular college kid in jeans.

The passionate discussions, meanwhile, were anything but the norm.

“Religion is a pathetic crutch!” said Nat, the atheist.

“What do you believe in, then?” Tammy asked, perplexed. Earlier, she had invited me to the Catholic Student Association’s spaghetti dinner.

“I think we all need to detach from our definitions of religion,” said Cho. He was a Buddhist.

I was fascinated. I still felt like an outside observer, but I loved hearing what people believe at their deepest levels and why.

Our midterms were after the holiday break, so I only had a couple of weeks to get ready. Tilting back in my chair in my bedroom in New Jersey, I contemplated the stack of books in front of me. I picked up a thin paperback with a brown and black cover called Honest to God.

Within seconds, I was drawn in. The author was an English bishop named John A. T. Robinson who, while bedridden, took a hard look at his faith. Among other things, he questioned the expectation that people must instantly feel religious when the church bell rings. For him, the most authentic prayer was “waiting for the moment that drives us to our knees.”¹

As I read his words, I felt a warm “lightning flash” inside my head and chest—a simultaneous intellectual and emotional “aha.” I’d always had trouble praying on demand and had just assumed I wasn’t religious. But if I understood Robinson correctly, the sense of something beyond myself that I often felt in nature and while writing in my journal was in fact a form of connection to a Higher Power. I didn’t have to follow the rules and dogma of any particular religion. I could pick out the teachings and rituals that resonated with me from different faiths and create some of my own, forging my own spiritual smorgasbord.

As this powerful realization sunk in, the colorful stripes on my childhood wallpaper started to blur and merge before my eyes. I no longer felt the desk and chair beneath me; I lost all awareness of my body. Soon, I completely dissolved—floating in a buzzing, limitless “electricity” that felt both like nothingness and all there is. Suddenly, a surge of warmth gushed in, and I was flooded with an incredible feeling of loving and of being loved and a deep understanding that I was connected to everything and everyone in the entire world. I stayed in this euphoric state until a chirping bird flew me back into my body at dawn.

I still didn’t consider myself a religious person, but one thing was certain: That night, there was no denying the inexplicable connection I felt to something much bigger than myself, and that something felt like pure love. Spirituality was no longer something merely intellectual and outside of me. I now recognized it as the deepest part of my being.

A few weeks later, I chose my field of study: Comparative World Religions with a minor in Psychology.

“Comparative what?” my mom asked.

I laughed. I knew exactly what she felt.

“Why don’t you major in computer science?”

“Ugh, banging on a keyboard all day and sitting in front of a screen? I’ll go mad! Besides, what could be more important than learning what matters most to people on their most profound level?”

“Take at least one programming class.”

“Forget it, Mom.”

Senior year, I had to write a culminating paper encapsulating all four years of my college studies. It was due in a few weeks, and I was still struggling to choose a topic. I had read and discussed every major religious text, from the Bible to the Buddhist Sutras, and studied all the foremost schools of psychology—Skinner, Freud, Jung, Maslow, and more—how could I put it all together into a thesis-length paper, focused around a single question?

I thought about my two favorite religious scholars, Wilfred Cantwell Smith and Mahatma Gandhi. Smith was a renowned religious historian who pioneered the comparative study of religions. He discouraged the “we’re right, you’re wrong” attitude and instead advocated the “pluralist” view that all world religions are equally valid. Gandhi took it one step further and wrote, “Just as a tree has many branches but one root, similarly, the various religions are the leaves and branches of the same tree.”²

I was intrigued, yet confused. Were all religions leading to the same, shared “truth,” or was everyone walking toward different, but equal, truths? Did it matter?

That was it! I had to go find Smith, a comparative religion scholar who had taught at Harvard. I’d heard he was still alive and living in Toronto. My burning question was this: Did he, like Gandhi, believe that all world religions lead to the same ultimate truth?

Four days later, I was in his home. His wife Muriel welcomed me in, serving me tea and straightening the red and blue crocheted Afghan on her husband’s lap. Professor Smith was a kindly white-haired man with glasses, who spoke softly and thoughtfully while rocking in his mahogany chair. We talked for over three hours. By the end of our conversation, he confirmed that he did believe that all world religions were variations of the same ultimate reality. I thanked him profusely for his wisdom and hospitality.

After listening to the interview tape, I realized I was still missing the psychology part of my thesis. Psychology provided a broader understanding of why people think and behave the way they do, but how did that fit into this spiritual question of ultimate truth?

I went to Widener Library, hoping to find something helpful. Wandering down a narrow aisle in the stacks, my backpack bumped into a shelf, drawing my eye to a book by Viktor Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning.

I sat down in the nearest carrel and read it cover to cover. Frankl was a Viennese psychiatrist who survived the Holocaust. While enduring unspeakable hardships in Nazi concentration camps, he observed that his fellow prisoners who felt they no longer had a purpose were the first ones to die. He concluded that the main motivation we’re all driven by is the desire to find meaning in our lives. Based on this insight, he created a new form of psychotherapy called “logotherapy” (“meaning” therapy).

I’d found my missing link. While Smith had demonstrated that we all share a common religious history and affirmed that we are all spiritually connected, he never really explained what that spiritual connection was. Frankl’s theory identified that connection, namely that we all share a universal search for meaning.

Combining Wilfred Cantwell Smith’s religious pluralism with Viktor Frankl’s logotherapy, I wrote my senior thesis on people’s search for purpose, in their own lives and in life in general. I concluded:

Whether we are all seeking the same, shared Truth or whether there are many different truths, we’ll never know. What we share is the process—the existential search—as well as the goal of understanding life’s essential meaning. Since we’ll never attain our goal, the best we can do is to respect one another’s attempts. If we focused less on our differences and more on the shared nature of our fundamental search, there would be a lot more tolerance and understanding in the world.

I laughed as I printed the last page and ran to go turn it in. I had gone to one of the preppiest, most academically esteemed universities in America and emerged a hippie.

Back in college, finding my life’s meaning had felt like a daunting task—like we have to take some big leap to live our big purpose. When most people hear “go big or go home,” they choose to go home. Working on John’s sheep farm helped me realize that small steps toward living your passion are just as good as a big leap, so long as my contribution to the world is somehow useful. If all I accomplished was to make three more batches of shortbread to keep John and his farm going for another day, then I had done my part.

Are You Talking to Me?

Push Past Your Fear

Before coming to John’s farm, I’d met an Indian woman at Mount Cook, in the Southern Alps of New Zealand. Looking out of the youth hostel kitchen window at the snow falling thick and hard, I noticed a woman who looked to be about sixty-five struggling with one of the largest suitcases I’d ever seen. I ran outside in my slippers to help.

Have you ever liked someone from the moment you met, without knowing why? That’s how it was with Kamla and me. Although we had nothing in common culturally or generationally, we immediately connected and chatted for several hours over a pot of hot tea.

Before she left, Kamla handed me a tiny piece of paper with her address and phone number written on it. Too bad she didn’t live in Thailand or somewhere else that I really wanted to visit. There was no way I was ever going to India. I had no desire to go to a country that destitute, crowded, and intense.

Three months later, I booked myself a one-way ticket to New Delhi. I had just gotten back to John’s place from a mini-vacation in the South Pacific where I’d listened, spellbound, to riveting tales of India and other exotic lands from returning travelers. Ever since, I lay awake at night, my veins pulsing with excitement as I thought about all of the places I hadn’t yet seen.

I left a phone message for Kamla, letting her know I was heading her way. As soon as I hung up, a cocky American guy who came to work on John’s farm started telling me horror stories about traveling in India. “You know, they drug your water and steal your bags over there. I have a friend whose money belt was taken right out of her pants while she was sleeping on a train. Another friend was in a crowded market, when a guy pretended to bump into him from behind. Before he knew it, the guy had slit his backpack with a razorblade and stolen his stuff right out of it. Then there’s the ‘drop the baby’ trick, where a mother will pretend to drop her baby, and when you try to catch it, she grabs your daypack and runs. You’re going to have to watch yourself and your stuff every minute that you’re there.”

Now I was terrified about backpacking through India alone, especially as a single woman. I began having vivid nightmares about each of the scenarios he described. I bought a piece of metal mosquito screen, lining my backpack with it so I could hear a razorblade scraping metal on metal if someone tried to rob me. I also bought an extra money pouch, one for inside my pants and one to be hidden elsewhere. Even with these precautions, I was filled with anxiety.

My fear always shows up right on time, just before I have to do something risky or important. The conversation goes something like this:

Fear: “You know you really shouldn’t do this. Something bad is going to happen.”

Me: “Yeah, so you keep saying.”

Fear: “No, this time I mean it. Don’t do it; you’ll regret it, maybe forever.”

Me: “You could be right. Now, if you’ll just step aside, I have something I need to do. I’m sure I’ll see you again soon.”

Sure enough, Fear is always waiting for me the next time, right where I left it.

But as scared as I was, nothing was going to stop me from seeing the world.

Leveling with Each Other

No One’s Purpose Is Greater Than Anyone Else’s

Kamla received my phone message twenty minutes before my plane was due to arrive in New Delhi. She and her husband didn’t own a car, so she scrambled to borrow one from a neighbor and rushed to the airport.

Joining the hordes of people in the arrivals lobby, I was bombarded with sensory overload. Women in colorful silk saris and men in designer business suits hurried past me, elbowing each other out of the way. The airport loudspeakers blared with flight departures in three different languages, two of which I’d never heard before. I hadn’t gotten a call back from Kamla before I’d left, so I moved to Plan B. Scanning my travel guide for a cheap backpackers’ hostel, I couldn’t find an affordable one that didn’t have warnings about bed bugs and theft.

“Laurie!” Kamla called out, grabbing my arm breathlessly from behind. “Oh thank goodness, here you are!”

I felt as relieved as she did. We gave each other a big hug.

In New Zealand, Kamla had worn sweaters and jeans, but here, she had on a long, loose tunic with narrow-cut pants, which the Indians call Kurta pyjamas. Her husband was wearing a white, linen kurta.

“My name is Dalbir, but everyone calls me Dolly, he said, extending his hand. “I hear you’re another globetrotter like my wife. Do you like skydiving? Besides my grandchildren, that’s my new hobby!”

A grandpa who jumped out of airplanes. I immediately liked him too.

“We’d better go, ladies,” he said, walking toward the baggage claim. “There will be more time for catching up once we get home.”

I clung tightly to Kamla’s purse strap as we pushed our way through the throngs out to the car.

The roads were just as crowded and chaotic as the airport. People honked, shouted, and shook their fists as we wove our way through roads packed with cars, bicycle rickshaws, two-seater motorcycle taxis, ox carts, cargo-laden elephants, people riding camels, and hump-backed cows wandering aimlessly wherever they pleased. A thick cloud of diesel filled my nostrils and lungs when I opened the window to let in some air. Although it was December, the weather was still sunny and spring-like.

Everything looked brown. The soil was brown; the dusty roads and sky were brown; the buildings were brown; even the people were brown. I found that color to be somehow grounding. Bouncing along in the back seat, listening to Dolly and Kamla chatting in Hindi, my fears about being in India disappeared.

Because Dolly was a retired army officer, the government gave his family a small house in a military compound twenty minutes from downtown. All of the buildings there were the same: square, cement block houses. The inside walls and floors were also made of cement, streaked white from being washed clean. The furnishings were simple, but tasteful—polished, carved wood with richly colored, sequined pillows on the couches and chairs. There were only two bedrooms, one for them and another for their two adult sons. I offered to sleep in my sleeping bag on their living room floor.

“No, no, no!” Kamla said, horrified. “Only servants sleep on the floor!”

“Absolutely not,” Dolly said, “You’ll sleep with Kamla and me.”

I strongly preferred to sleep by myself on the floor, but they wouldn’t hear of it. After protesting three more times, I finally had to give in.

For two months I shared a bed with the sixty-five-year-old Indian couple and their big, farting dog. I didn’t mind sleeping with Dolly and Kamla so much, but that dog almost killed me.

Among the many things I learned while living with my Indian host family, I discovered that Indian fathers can be extremely protective of their daughters. Dolly, who called me “his American daughter,” wouldn’t even let me go downtown by myself for the first two weeks. When I told him that I soon wanted to explore other parts of India, he insisted on doing a test run, agreeing to let two servants drive Kamla and me on a day trip to the Taj Mahal.

As I stepped out of the car and approached the mammoth white structure, my mouth dropped open. For the first time in my travels, reality exceeded my expectations. The huge marble dome, with its towering minarets and mosaics of iridescent jewels, was even more impressive in person than it was in pictures.

“It’s stunning!” I turned and said to the first servant, Chedi. He lowered his eyes politely to the ground.

“I mean really, I’ve never seen anything like it!” I exclaimed, stepping toward the other servant, Baghwan. He took a step backward so that he was again two steps behind me.

I couldn’t get the hang of the Indian caste system. I was trying to respect the local culture, and I understand the history behind it, but I didn’t feel comfortable treating anyone as less than equal. I never understood why certain groups were supposed to be “higher” or “lower” than others. It’s not that I don’t respect someone’s accomplishments or position in life; I just don’t believe there’s a hierarchy of human worth.

When I interact with people, the only “level” I note is the depth of their communication. I’ve always viewed interpersonal interactions like a stereo equalizer. People are capable of relating on many different levels, from the most superficial to the most profound. Depending on my “relationship goal,” I might choose to match their level or nudge them up or down the equalizer.

For example, if someone is just “shooting the breeze,” and my goal is simply to connect in a fun, lighthearted way, I’ll match his or her level and chitchat in return. However, sometimes I can sense that people want or need to be pushed to go a little deeper, such as when they’re struggling with a relationship problem and can’t articulate the real, underlying issue. Or sometimes I sense it’s best to bump people up on the equalizer, like when they’re getting stuck in fear or depression, and I can help lift them back up to a lighter, more hopeful place. Just as I adjust the bass and treble levels to maximize my music, I make adjustments up and down the communication equalizer to make the most of my interactions with people.

My Way, Not Your Highway

Find the Courage to Follow Your Own Spiritual Path

“Taxi, lady?” “Rickshaw?” “Hotel?” “I love you, baby . . . green card?” As soon as I got off the train in Varanasi, I was swarmed by pushy hopefuls. Gripping my backpack tighter, my only thought was “I hope to God I don’t get sick.”

A few feet ahead of me, I saw a man pinch a female tourist on the butt. She was about five feet tall and looked like she weighed all of ninety pounds. She turned around and walloped the man behind her with an echoing slap. The man she hit looked completely shocked.

“Um, excuse me . . .” I said.

“What?” she snapped.

“You just hit the wrong guy.”

“I don’t care!” She stormed off down a side alley.

I was on the Ganges River at dawn. The smell of burning wood filled the air in the inky, chilly darkness. As the sun rose and my surroundings became clear, I realized that what I’d thought were pieces of driftwood were human body parts floating past the boat.

“Why are there . . .?” Cutting me off, the oarsman pointed to shore.

Along the banks was row after row of thickly smoking funeral pyres where dead bodies were being ceremoniously burned.

In front of the pyres, thousands of people were wading in the river, washing their bodies and clothes and drinking the same water. I watched a man push a floating leg out of the way so he could continue to splash his hands in prayer. I was mesmerized and horrified at the same time.

I’ll never eat chicken again. After being cooped up on a bus for two days straight surrounded by chickens in baskets and their high-pitched, non-stop squawking, it was enough to put me off poultry for life. I’d just come from Dharamsala, where the Dalai Lama lived. I had traveled all the way to northern India to meet the Dalai Lama in his hometown only to discover that he was back in mine, giving a talk in Boston.

I decided to make the most of it, and I ended up having a powerful experience at his monastery, listening to the monks chanting. Each baritone “OMMM” seemed to penetrate directly into my heart, swirling and reverberating inside my chest until the sound became part of my cells. When I left three hours later, I felt completely calm and at peace. If that stuff could be bottled, it’d put Xanax and Prozac right out of business.

After another twenty minutes on the chicken bus, I arrived in Rishikesh, a well-known Hindu religious hub. The Beatles had studied there with their guru, the founder of Transcendental Meditation. I chose a different ashram not too far away.

I knew several people who’d had life-changing experiences at ashrams, and I hoped I would find enlightenment too. I decided to stay for at least a month.

That spiritual venture lasted exactly three days. In the words of a California Valley Girl: “OMG, hated it!”

From the stories I’d heard, I was expecting an environment of joyful, ecstatic prayer within the fellowship of a friendly community. Instead, the atmosphere at that place just felt oppressive. Nobody greeted or interacted with one another; everyone was somberly absorbed in their own prayers and tasks.

Once, I made the mistake of smiling and saying hello to a man who was pulling weeds from the garden. He glowered at me.

I felt absolutely no union with something higher, just tension and a sense of my own resistance to following someone else’s rules. We had to eat at a specific time, clean our dishes a certain way, and pray in a designated manner with precisely dictated words. I wasn’t hungry for breakfast at 4:00 a.m. I didn’t always feel moved to pray using someone else’s script. While I enjoyed some of the communal chanting, I began to appreciate what Robinson had written in Honest to God about being allowed to communicate with your Higher Power on your own terms, on your own schedule, and in your own way. I confirmed what I’d discovered in college: My spirituality was an eclectic blend of various world religions and my own unique practices and beliefs. Although the details were still evolving, my path included not only flexibility and openness, but also passion and connection with others, creativity and spontaneity, love, humor, and joy.

I wrote in my journal on the third morning, “I find no God here,” then I packed my bags and left.

It’s Your Job

The Duty to Share Your Gifts

Buddhism? Check.

Hinduism? Check.

Judaism? Hmm, not really the best place for that.

Islam? I’ll wait to check that out in Indonesia.

What was left on my list?

Ah, yes, Christianity.

What better place to get a deep taste of Christianity than in Calcutta (now known as Kolkata), former home of the famous Catholic missionary, Mother Teresa. I had heard that Calcutta was a place of intense poverty, and I was powerfully drawn to seeing the slums for myself.

For the fourteen-hour train ride to Calcutta, I could only afford the lowest-class ticket. I walked into the littered, dimly lit cabin crammed with people of all ages perched on ripped seats with their parcels piled high around them. The train reeked of perspiration and curry. Once I was lucky enough to find a seat, I didn’t move. I had no companion to watch my stuff, and I trusted no one. I had witnessed enough petty thievery to know that if I even so much as turned my head, my belongings would be history. I popped an anti-diarrhea pill so I wouldn’t have to use the bathroom.

“Baksheesh, baksheesh!” (“Tip, tip!”)

“You give me money, lady.”

“Please, lady . . . p-l-e-a-s-e . . . ”

All around me in Calcutta, people were crying, pleading, and moaning in an orchestra of suffering and despair.

A drooling blind man grabbed my pant leg and refused to let go. Filled with repulsion and guilt, I pried him off and kept walking. I had been raised with the Jewish ethic of tzedaka: “Always help those less fortunate than you.” I sincerely wanted to hand him some money, but I had just given my last cash to a half-naked girl holding a wheezing, emaciated baby. There were so many needy people here; I couldn’t possibly help them all. Who to relieve, and who to deny?

Perhaps I would find an answer at Mother Teresa’s church. I kicked my way through piles of rotting garbage, ducked under corrugated cardboard and metal shanties, and wove my way through endless crowds of people and cars coughing out black gusts of smoke. Suppressing a gag, I hurried past an open pit overflowing with human waste. Everybody I passed seemed to be missing at least part of their eyes, arms, or legs.

“Is there such malnutrition here that people’s bodies become twisted and malformed?” I asked a nun who was giving an armless beggar some water outside of the church.

“Many people maim themselves and their children, gouging out their eyes and mangling their limbs,” she explained.

I was dumbfounded. “Why on earth would they do that?”

“It brings in more money.”

I don’t know how Mother Teresa did it. I felt nauseated my entire time there.

To this day, I try to give money to as many homeless people on the streets as I can. A recurring phrase keeps running through my head: But by the grace of God go I.

Calcutta made me realize what a luxury it is to ask such questions as “What’s my purpose?” and “How can I best follow my passion?” Mother Teresa’s purpose emerged in those slums. But what about the people she helped? What passion and purpose did they get to pursue? They were living on a subsistence level—literally hand to mouth. I felt more motivated than ever to find and pursue my purpose. If I was in any position to think about and figure out how I could best use my gifts and talents to serve, and if I could find the means to go do so, then I had absolutely no excuse not to. Finding the answer to how I could contribute to the world was more than a luxury; it was my responsibility.

Thou Must Chill!

Learn to Relax and Recharge

Creamy coconut milk melted into tangy lemongrass and salty, crunchy spring onion. “Mmmmm!” I cooed as the warm custard cup disappeared on my tongue.

“And for dessert,” the woman said, handing me a clear plastic bag. I picked up a piece of sticky-sweet, perfectly ripe mango.

“Wow . . . whoa!” I exclaimed, surprised by the bite of freshly ground chili. She laughed with delight.

Everything in Bangkok was a magnificent feast for the senses. Whatever I touched, tasted, smelled, heard, and saw in Thailand screamed joyfully to every part of my body, “Wake up! You’re alive!”

Before coming to Thailand, I’d trekked through the jagged, 26,000-foot peaks in Nepal, known as “the rooftop of the world.” When hiking in Nepal, you don’t camp; you sleep and eat in the local villages. My Australian trekking partner and I had underestimated how much money we would need. By the time I came staggering out of the Himalayas three weeks later—having lugged my heavy backpack at high altitude on only half a cup of lentils a day—my legs were trembling uncontrollably. I had a new appreciation for my body and how strong it could be.

I decided to spoil myself a little. Fancy salon haircut at the Bangkok Hilton: $15. Relaxing Thai massage: $8.50. Nice hotel room with clean, crisp sheets and a working fan: $10. Many of my friends had asked how I could afford to travel. I wondered how they could afford to live at home.

After a few days in Bangkok, I took a bus to northern Thailand. Riding an elephant wasn’t on my bucket list, but it was a popular activity there, and it seemed like a fun thing to try. In the hill tribe village of Karen, as I clung to Jumbo’s prickly neck, I listened to the two young women chatting on the elephant next to me. From their accents I guessed they were British.

“I don’t think we should try opium, Catherine,” the one riding in front said to her friend.

“I’m not saying we should, Marion; I was only curious what it does,” said the one in back.

“I can barely stay on this elephant sober,” I joked, hoping they wouldn’t mind me joining their conversation.

They laughed.

We introduced ourselves. With her blue eyes, porcelain skin, and perfect features, Marion reminded me of my favorite childhood doll. Catherine was the more athletic type; lean and muscular with tousled sandy brown hair, she looked like she could compete in one of those “gigacathalons,” where they run, swim, bike, and bake a cake upside down, all in under two hours.

After trekking with them all day, I discovered they were both highly intelligent women. They knew when to be flexible and easygoing and when to take action in a challenging situation. Best of all, they both had a fantastic sense of humor, and we spent hours cracking each other up. They were perfect travel companions, and we became inseparable for the next forty days.

Catherine and Marion shared my passion for the beach. I soon shared in their passion for coconut peanuts with Mekong and Coke. Each evening, we watched the sun go down while sitting on our towels with our snacks spread out before us in the sand.

We explored Thailand’s most scenic islands, including Ko Samui, Ko Pha-Ngan, Ko Tao, and Ko Phi Phi. Back then, many of the nicest Thai beaches were still undiscovered or just being developed. In Ko Tao, they literally finished putting the doors and windows on our bungalow when we arrived.

When we got to Long Beach on Ko Phi Phi, there were only seven tiny tourist huts in the whole place, and six were already full. It was getting to be nightfall, and there were no other options.

I told the girls, “If you keep my money belt inside with you, you can have the hut, and I’ll sleep on the beach.”

“Are you sure?” Cath asked. Marion was already half-asleep in the hut.

I picked a level spot on some powdery white sand near the edge of the ocean. Lying down on my sarong, I pulled my towel over me as a blanket. It was a starry, balmy night, with a tropical breeze blowing gently across my face.

I liked my new bedroom so much that I slept there for a week. Each evening, I’d lie down and close my eyes just as the first twinkling stars appeared in the night sky. Soothed by the crickets’ lullaby, I would peacefully drift off to sleep.

Each morning, I’d wake up to the first rays of sunlight kissing my toes and the sound of the local fishermen getting ready to start their day. Wading into the still water while I had the ocean to myself, I’d take a morning dip before rousing my friends.

By this point, I was deeply tanned, and my hair was completely blonde, bleached from the salt and sun. I’m also convinced that my heart rate and blood pressure slowed down significantly. At times I felt so relaxed, I couldn’t even be bothered to get out of my hammock to pee.

My Harvard friends wouldn’t have recognized me if they could see me “just chilling.” Catherine and Marion couldn’t imagine me ever being driven. To the outside eye, I looked like your average beach bum. Internally, a profound shift was happening.

I was still in search of my purpose and of the purpose of life in general. But I realized now that I’d been hitting it too hard. If I were going to maintain stamina to pursue a larger meaning and mission, it was key for me to sometimes slow down and recharge.

My favorite place to unwind was the ocean. I would float for two to three hours at a time, oblivious to everything around me except the warm, nurturing water. For the first time in my life, I completely let go, relaxing every muscle, emptying my head and heart, listening only to the lapping waves. I couldn’t tell where my body ended and the ocean began. I was one with everything, and everything was one with me.

By far the most stunning beach was our last stop, Phra Nang Bay. Long before the tourist industry, filmmakers, and rock climbers discovered it, we knew we’d found the jewel of Thailand. Sheer limestone pillars rose from the turquoise water while pearly, soft sand faded underfoot into the sea. When we weren’t swimming or sunbathing, we explored the large cave on shore, climbing up steep walls on slippery ropes through its myriad passages. By now our group had expanded to a gang of seven, joined by Catherine and Marion’s friend Paula, Cath’s new Thai boyfriend Prin, a Danish guy named Henrik, and another Brit named Peter. At night, we ate fresh fish at one of the only three restaurants on the island, skinny-dipped after dark, and danced until the wee hours at a bar carved into the cave. Life was good.

Watching Prin and Catherine kiss, part of me hoped I too would fall in love during my travels. But I was also glad that I hadn’t met anyone special, as I might have missed out on other relationships and travel experiences. Although I wouldn’t have complained if Mr. Right came paddling in on the next wooden boat, I was content with my flirty encounters along the trail.

I wish I could’ve stayed in Thailand forever, but my travel clock was ticking. I had only a couple of months left to get through Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Bali, and Australia before showing up back in New Zealand to lead the summer exchange trip again. As I hugged Catherine and Marion good-bye, I already missed them. A special bond forms between backpacking buddies that’s different from the friendships you make back home. Especially if you travel together for a long time, you go through things and see things that no one else can understand, no matter how many photos you show or how well you try to explain. Twenty years later, Cath and I still write, email, and talk on the phone. We’re currently planning our next big trip.

At twenty-two, life was a wonderful adventure. I was drunk on the freedom of being able to go wherever I wanted, whenever I wanted. For fifteen months, I’d visited fascinating, off-the-beaten-track places, seeing things I never even knew existed. I’d experienced countries from the inside, as a member of the family. I’d interacted with dozens of diverse people and cultures, helping me understand new and different parts of myself.

I had embraced the world, and the world embraced me back.