Be the Cause

Category: India

India – i carry your heart with me(i carry it in my heart)

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So what did I learn in India?

 

That love really matters. That in the circumstances of material poverty, one can be exceedingly generous. That compassion is not only about handing a person in need a coin or bill but rather lending a helping hand or an open ear. That one can be tremendously poor in spirit, while still rich in material things. That strangers do many kind things for each other, making them no longer strangers but friends. That the they and them are really us and we. That I have so much to learn and I am so grateful for the lessons of the past few weeks. That when tears of sadness spring forth from feelings of helplessness, it is also a release, a pouring forth, from the new found wellsprings of an open heart. That the heart is wide and vast and strong and can carry the whole world within it.

And despite my elusive attempts at finding words that exactly express what I learned, I think e.e. cummings words are a more apt and accurate expression of what my heart now knows.

For every smile that was exchanged, every hand that was taken and held, every shoulder that was touched and for everyone we met along our journey in India…

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart) – e.e. cummings

With love in service,
Stacey

my thots back home

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hi all,

this is albert checking in as mom said i have to (just kidding, bharti). actually, i was procrastinating a little bit because i wanted to try to get some other posts out on the blog before i wrote this message in order to make my posts seem sequential. i have some thoughts which i had written in my journal on the flight back, but i’ll add them to the blog later.

i think many of you guys echo the thoughts that are going through my head. i have gone to india and come back. i have been affected; my life has changed. but i keep asking myself: how? how have i changed? i don’t know yet. i’m still trying to figure out which version of albert came back to the states.

i wish i could verbalize it better, but i can’t. so instead i’ll write about things that have happened, as opposed to thoughts that i’ve had. on a side note, great stories and thoughts from everyone. i think it brings me back a little closer to india when i hear some of the stories. i think one of the worst things we could do is forget…

anyway, i write this at a normal hour for me, 10:30 PM. and normal has been the exception. after one normal day when we first got back from our flight, i apparently decided to revert into jet lag. i’ve been getting up at 5 and 6 am for the past few days when i normally get up at 8 am (after a struggle, no less), and i could’ve gotten up sooner if it wasn’t for the fact that nobody else would have been at work that early. then for the past two days, i’ve been so tired that as soon as i got back from work i’ve fallen asleep until the next morning. the good news is that i’ve been fairly healthy, which unfortunately only started a couple of days before we left india. but good health is definitely something for me to happy about.

a story you would appreciate, bharti. bharti’s talked to me about how people in india are separated at most by three degrees of separation (instead of the six in america). i come back to work on monday. i’m talking with some co-workers and there’s one person listening who i don’t recognize. i figure, oh, we’ve been hiring recently so she was probably hired while we were gone. later i am reminded that i did meet her once before, when she was interviewing with our team. she says, ‘oh, i heard you hung out with simran for new year’s eve.’ i was like, ‘what?! how did you…?’ turns out simran had im’ed with dinesh, who also works with lavanya, and all three are or have in the past worked at ameriquest and are from india. it seems that news of my vacation traveled back to the states faster than my plane could take me!

ok, thanks all for listening to my excessive keystrokes…

albert

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