Shadow and Mountain

After 10 years in India (5 in Mumbai and 5 in Ooty), starting Freedom Firm with Greg and the Parks, and launching an Aftercare home for girls rescued from prostitution, I find myself grinding to a halt. Its as if the accumulated vision of helping others has instead impaled me.

Perhaps it was too much too fast. A residential recovery home, a horse therapy program, a small school, a micro-enterprise, in-house counselling, and HIV medical care, all launched at the same time. Combine that with traumatized girls and inexperienced staff (and an inexperienced director -me), impossibly low budget, and understaffed, all in the pressure cooker of three chaotic years, and well, you experience amazing miracles, agonizing losses and a massive learning curve.

The home is going well now. Six girls have graduated and and some have moved away. Two are in the home currently. Three girls, who graduated from the program, live nearby and come every day to work for Ruhamah, our jewelry business.

The effort of establishing a home like this has been enormous. And, frankly, I am tired. Too tired to push forward any longer. Too tired to argue about the "right" way to do things. Almost too tired to care. Its the kind of exhaustion that doesn't go away with a good night's sleep, a week's vacation or even a sabbatical. Its the kind of exhaustion that seems to have no limits and no parameters of when I can hope to feel like myself again.

And so I sit, now, with time on my hands (for the first time in 10 years). And because I am too tired for action, perhaps I can paint some pictures for you with words. Because deep inside I still do care. Care about the girls, and the big picture of justice. But for now, those who love me tell me I must rest.

I toy with the thought of leaving this vast and beautiful country, in favor of an easier life. I am teetering on the edge of a great abyss. Not that India is the "safe ground" and the Western world the abyss. But I am speaking of the abyss of cynicism, disillusionment and disbelief, where, if once I fall, I know I will keep on falling, because there is no bottom without hope.

But, lest you think this is a philosophic, misanthropic journal entry, let me move on. So I am writing you looking out of my second story window, where the staggered valleys lie beneath me shrouded in a white mist, so opaque that I can only see the red tiled cottages on the hillside nearest me, not the outline of the great ridge opposite my window. That ridge is where I rode my white horse. (Oh yes, you must lay aside your assumptions of a suffering missionary, or a sacrificial human rights activist). Some of us have gifts, but drive ourselves so hard we feel guilty enjoying them.

Yes, I have a white horse named Shadow. I am tempted here to try to justify his existence in my life. I could tell you that I have horse therapy for the girls and disabled children on our property, and Shadow, along with three other ponies are used to bring others healing. But I would be telling you that so you wouldn't judge me. For having something so decadent as a horse. But the truth is, I have always ridden horses, and when I was ten, and had lost, for a time, the ability to make friends, after my family moved from an ocean-going ship to America, I found comfort in horses.

Shadow was my step of faith that I would enjoy riding once again. I bought him in February. I have been too busy to ride for 7 months, but now, the doctor's orders are: REST. So, I ride. What I meant as a gentle two hour ride, turned into a four hour adventure. The story of my life.

Old logging trails lead from a major old trail head called Mynala. Ooty was established in the days of colonialism as a British "hill station," an escape from the blistering heat of the plains. Trails were cut all through these mountains and valleys, but now, most are clogged with new growth, fallen trees and are all but impassable. The land is kept protected by the Indian Government. Hiking and use by tourists are discouraged (or possibly prohibited). Still, the uncharted miles of potential, navigable trails, lure me.

Several promising logging roads ended in impasse. I tried to go under and around the logs, but soon Shadow balked at the difficulty. We were bushwhacking. So we backed up and soon found a faint thread of a trail, leading steeply upward along the the ridge. It was the one opposite my house. So I could see our white house, and unfinished garage, whose tin roof gleamed in the sunshine across the valley .

The woods were fairly open, with Eucalyptus, Wattle and Pine and Rhododendron, ("gifts" from the British) and we wound our way easily through them. Following a rocky outcrop that fell away to sharp cliffs below us, we climbed along the summit of the ridge, that ended at a white temple. It was deserted, and a trail led down away from it, down the mountain. We came upon a valley with water trickling out of the hillside that formed shallow rock pools. Shadow drank deeply and the dogs, Ranger and Oscar chased a wild boar, watering in the stream.

For me, that's part of the insatiable draw of this kind of wilderness riding. The wildlife is awesome. We startled deer, and everywhere the woods are thick with wild bison. I hear, on occasion the lone males can charge, but I have not experienced that yet. Usually they look at me, breathing heavily and crash heavily into the undergrowth. Most stand 6 ft at the shoulder.

I was tempted to go on down the winding mountain path. I could see the town of Thumanatty far below me nestled in the valley. But it would take the rest of the day, and I was hungry. Anyway, it left me with more to explore for another day. I returned home to find Greg had surprised me by coming up for lunch (a good 20 min drive from his office in Ooty) and bringing me a chocolate doughnut. At 2:30, I was too late for lunch, but he stayed a bit longer for a cup of tea. These days he stays late at the office anyway, waiting for our kids to get out of drama practice. Abbi didn't' get home till 9pm last night. But my three girls live for drama, so that's alright. It means Greg can have a long lunch, once in a while.

So, these are my forays into the world of REST, with which I am not well acquainted. The ride was staggeringly beautiful. Did you think India could be so wild, so untamed, so unpeopled, so unpolluted? You have to leave the town of Ooty to find it. You have to hike (or ride a white horse) to find it. But its worth finding. The wilderness reminds me that life is beautiful. It does not "turn on an axis of suffering.... but of pure joy."