a short post after a short trip to what is and is not home

i returned from bombay yesterday. a very short - just a week - trip.

entry into bombay was hard for me this time. very hard. i couldn't get it out of my head that a young woman had been gang raped in a city i had felt safe in until then. on my way home from the airport my eyes constantly scanned the people along the roads. whenever i saw a group of men in the age group the rapists were i wondered what they were doing hanging around on the streets. it took me a few days to feel connected to the city again and want to call it home.

i returned with an increasing sense that i don't know where on earth home is for me.

it is bombay and it is not.

it is singapore and it is not.

increasingly i feel more at home in the novel i am writing. the second draft is less skeletal than the first but still it feels more like bare bones with parts of skin. no musculature or organs yet. some veins pulsing with blood but the heart that pumps it through still a bit ghostly.

i feel like i am searching for that spot on earth where my sacred tree is. it is tattooed on my left upper arm. it emerged in the body symptom work with the repeated back injury. but it is also lost to me. like laxmi seems to have lost her owl and parvati her tiger. an idea for a story emerges softly. a whisper of that which is missing in the novel circles my ears in a gentle breeze and moves on.

there is also a lightening bolt tattooed on that arm. the bringer of rain and life. may we all find what we seek. may we also be able to see what we find instead and love it.