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Tuesday, December 27, 2011

A Homecoming Long Overdue

This is the longest I’ve gone between entries and I’m sure I’ve lost some of you along the way. Sorry, a lot has happened. In the last entry, I was sitting in New Orleans (NOLA) awaiting the Day of the Dead celebration with Saumya and Drew.

I was moved sharing the experience of Vodou with my friend and fellow priest Drew at such a major holiday. The ceremony packed people within the peristyle (temple) and out into the adjoining alley. Once the initial celebration ended, we capped it off with our annual walk and offerings at the cemetery.

This trip to NOLA was directly preceding a major surgery we hoped to avoid. The surgery came two weeks later – and being a major one – we holed up and worked on her recovery. This was my first impediment to ignoring my blog. There were times, moments I could have written. Others where Zelda: Skyward Sword consumed Saum’s recovery while I supported her by remembering where things were in the game. I may have spent a few hours playing myself.

For several months leading up to this, we had planned on returning to India. In The Ascetic, the Therapist, the Priest and the Possessed, you’ll recall I said it had been 10 years of ongoing surgeries since they began. It had been 10 years since I had last been in India, where this whole period started. It has been roughly 9 years for Saum herself. Way too long for both of us to be away.

Right before the surgery, I started laying the foundation for our return trip to India.