Day 3: Bringing my life back to basics. 1

The smells and the colour of this land both are consuming me. We walked the beach, one fit with rats and sparkling lights. As I stepped out of the car, a beautiful woman, a pavement dweller brought out her wares and she caught my eye.

You see her business was to make flower strings out of jasmine. She looked into my eyes and without speaking lifted her creation up towards me and she smiled large.

The jasmine flowers were so pungent that they grabbed my attention. I nodded my head and she stood with a smile as large as the eclipsing moon behind my shoulder.

My new jasmine smelling friend clipped the flowers in my hair and I felt the humidity, the smell and the awkwardness of cultures clashing fade away.

I came away to India with the intention to bring my focus back to the basics. I was so intent on finding perspective from the winter blues that had overwhelmed my tired heart.

There is something about being immersed in a country you have never entered before. Every single time it cleanses off the apathy and the cynicism that slowly builds around our hearts in the west.

So today I am asking myself this question.

What do I need to focus on to clarify what is important?

Truthfully my daily life has been overwhelming me of late. The online communication in our world has been suffocating me and the adventure of simplicity is my desire over these days.

The basics I am seeking perspective on today;

I am loved
I am safe
I have great friends
I have enough

Whenever I forget the simplicity that no matter the challenges that enter my daily life, beyond it all, the circumstances that I was born into, is a life of such great privilege.

So as I re-enter back into my everyday, I will never forget the little girl I watched snore and sleep deeply laying in the middle of a street last night at the market. Her legs lain over her Mothers, her arms folded beneath her head.

The basics we have in our world. A roof that covers our head. Food on our table. Education that is assumed for our children and the reality that we really have so much available to us.

So goodbye apathy and cynicism you are no longer welcome in this travellers backpack.

Amanda