The Surrender Project: Day 2: Grateful for Pigeon Poop
It is wild the difference that a day can make in terms of comfortability and confidence, and just straight up getting used to a place. I want to reflect a bit on yesterday before I dive too much into today. Yesterday felt like a classic beginning to this story, in the beginning I felt anxious and uncomfortable, questioning what I was doing, and in the end felt grateful and content for a wonderful day making memories. That is exactly what I want to focus on, how we define the good and the bad of the story. From any perspective it is so easy to look at it and assume the beginning of the day sucked and the end was good. Because I am pretty sure I even used that language, that being uncomfortable can suck. When I was laying in bed after writing it I realized that I do not think it is fair to label the anxious feelings as bad and the euphoric feelings as good. Who is to say that the anxious feelings are not good? Yes, they are different, and they feel gross sometimes, and we do not want to be in that feeling of worry and anxiety all of the time. However, it was positive, it was a feeling and an emotion that is just as valuable and worthy of being felt as happiness is. That is what I am trying to get at, that I think we as a society tend to look down at feelings of anxiety or sadness or fear or any of these types of emotions as bad, when in reality they are needed just as much as happiness is. I think there has to be some form of equilibrium to it all. Let us use rain as a metaphor; when it rains it is common to respond negatively because for some reason we have viewed rain and the potential to get wet as bad. But have you ever really thought about why? Like do you think rain is bad? Is it really a bad thing to get splashed with some water or get a few drops on your clothes? It always ends up drying within a few minutes anyway. Or hell even if you get soaking wet, like 100% drenched to your core, is that bad? I get that there may be situations when its pouring rain and you happen to be out in your custom woolen suit and you are running barely on time for a really important meeting, that it can be an inconvenience. But in the grand scheme of things, even this, is it really bad? We just decided to have a negative perception of rain, just as we have with feelings of anxiety or sadness. When in reality they are just another emotion that needs to be given the space to feel it and be aware of it. I want to say that again, it is a positive thing to FEEL your emotions, whether it is anxiety or sadness or happiness or fear. I don’t know if this is what you should do, like from a therapists perspective, but I always like to ask myself why. Why am I feeling anxious right now? It typically helps me realize there might be a very real reason for it, such as feeling lost both literally and mentally in the middle of a country where 1.5 billion people live with no idea what I am doing with literally any aspect of my life. Feeling anxious in that situation makes a lot of sense to me. On the flip side, same thing with the happiness. Yes, it feels great to be in that state of gratitude and euphoria but we cannot exist there forever can we? I truly think there is a equilibrium to it, and just because I am on a bit of a rant now I want to continue this equilibrium idea, because it has been crucial to understanding my energy lately. Do you ever have a weekend that just seems to hit every happy bone in your body? Where Friday is a party and leads perfectly into a dream of a Saturday? And you wake up Sunday feeling a bit tired and out of it, maybe a bit hungover, but by Sunday night you feel off, maybe a bit anxious, maybe just really low energy and you feel a bit down? This is because I think our energy also has an equilibrium. There have been a few days traveling where I feel on top of the world, like a grin on my face and saying the word “wow” or “lets go!” multiple times, where everything feels like magic. And then a day or two later I will notice I am exhausted, I don’t feel like talking to people, I feel like I want a nap and to watch a movie or just lay down and chill. Well, that’s because my energy needs to reset. This reset time can manifest in a hundred different ways, sometimes I notice I’m more irritable and judgmental, and when I notice these things I check in with myself to see why my energy is low, and then take care of it by resting. By reading or watching a movie or taking a nap, maybe a little workout in and a good meal, but mostly chilling out somewhere. I honestly do not think we rest enough of a society, we are oftentimes go-go-go and feel like we need to max out everything otherwise we will miss out. But man, traveling has taught me the beauty of rest in such a deep way. That I am a better person, I am more likely to enjoy the small moments and beauty of life everyday if I also notice when my energy is asking to rest and I give it that space.
See? I told you sometimes this will be like reading my journal, this is not at all what I anticipated I would be writing about but here we are! By the way, if you ever are reading this and are like, “YES that is an excellent point” or “I never thought about that before” or “this is dumb I don’t agree at all” I would love it if you sent me a message and shared your own thoughts. In fact, somebody did that to me after my introduction blog and it made my entire day. I was so happy to share ideas and hear their story and how things resonated and how they are using different methods for similar things or completely different for a whole other outlook. So please, if you feel ever so inclined, do not hesitate to reach out.
That being said, I am actually going to tie this into another thought I had earlier in my day. The day started just like any other day, wake up, quick meditation in bed, get ready, grab stuff, head out the door for breakfast. Today I really struggled staying present for my meditation and thoughts kept popping me up and pulling me into all different directions, but that’s okay. When I was walking down the street this morning it hit me how much difference a day can make. Yesterday I was walking and seeing and noticing everybody watching me and felt weird and out of place, today I had my headphones in and felt confident to be strolling down the sidewalk, heading to my new favorite breakfast spot to start the day off with some comfortability. After coffee, which is insanely good at this spot, some food, and a chai tea I headed back to my spot to try and get some stuff figured out for Couchsurfing.com, one of the ways I want to travel around India. It is exactly what it sounds like, travelers can connect with locals who have an extra bedroom or a couch that you can sleep on for free. Typically then they will take you around the city and you hangout for the day. I was having some difficulties with my app so I had to find a different hostel for the evening. As I was about to wrap up on my computer I got a message responding to my intro blog from somebody I haven’t spoken with in years. I was going to wait until later to respond because it was almost 11:00 and I felt like I needed to get out and take some photos, and then I realized I can do whatever feels right. Part of me was feeling a bit rigid about having to wake up, get breakfast, get ready and go take street photography for seven hours, go back to edit and write for four hours, and then go to bed. But as I was sitting there I realized I can just respond right now, that my days can take any shape they need to based on the one thing that matters in this project; I follow my intuition and do my best to listen to whatever the world is telling me. It also made me realize a few things around the project, that just because I started without a plan at all doesn’t mean one cannot fall into place by happenstance. I kept trying to think about how I am going to decide where I go next, so I have been asking people I meet on the street or at the hostel or sitting down at the restaurant, but then they say something that does not align with this idea I have that I am supposed to go north right now. But then I asked somebody who seemed like a trusted source and he also told me to go South, so now I have had basically everybody tell me I need to go south first… Which I think, just maybe, just potentially, mayyybeee its the universe telling me to go south… even though it is not what I wanted to be told. Shit. I guess we are going south? That’s for future Henry to figure out, because it is 10:30 at night and I still have some fun stories to share. So in the end I decided to respond right then and there, which also took me about 45 minutes to write out because ya know, when I start writing it just flows and not even God knows where it is going.
I filled up my water bottle one last time, threw in my AirPods and headed out the door with both of my backpacks. As soon as you do something once it becomes second nature, something easy that is, like catching the bus to get to the metro station and taking the metro to a different metro and eventually to your new home for the night. The day before I felt like a lost puppy, today I had music bumping and was stoked to be apart of the crowds. I think this is the beauty of traveling to new places, that you are always doing something new and just ever so slightly uncomfortable, so over time you are building this confidence to just go for it, whatever it may be. Maybe it is so slight it is basically subconscious, but I’m convinced every little difficult thing you do is just going to make you grow more. Anyway, I dropped off my stuff at the new hostel, hopped back on the metro to head to another random area on the map I selected, and got ready to finally take some pictures. Within a block of walking I was floored again by the chaos that certain streets have. The black smoke that flys out of some tail pipes just sitting right below the top of the buildings, the never ending honking, the smells of exhaust and curry and garbage and wonderful spices all mixed into one, sometimes smelling delicious, other times… ummm… Not so delicious. I didn’t even know what to take pictures of because there is SO much going on. It is honestly a bit challenging to photograph. Also, I prefer to take pictures of people when they don’t see me, like when they are just doing their thing and I get to capture them in their natural habitat. However, this is really challenging when I stick out like a sore thumb and I swear every time I see a frame or a person I want to shoot they are already watching me, which sorta defeats the purpose. There were a few times today where I kicked myself because I didn’t take the shot. Just take more pictures Henry! Who cares if they see you photographing them. I walked for about four miles, and only took maybe 30 pictures. For context, when I post about Saigon street photography I took probably 300 pictures and narrow it down to my favorite few. I just couldn’t find what I was looking for, couldn’t find the story to tell. I was having so much fun walking around, in fact I almost got choked up at one point because the streets here are just SO RICH with life and chaos and people and different backgrounds and all the above that I felt immense gratitude to be able to just walk them and watch life happen. The pictures were just a bit challenging today. So, I bought a few bananas as one does and kept walking, at this point starting to circle back to the metro, that was until I feel a warm splatter down the side of my left T-shirt sleeve and arm. I pull my arm away, as if reacting to somebody spitting on me, and realize there is a green substance all down my arm. I realize quite quickly that a pigeon just shit on me. Yup, a fucking pigeon just decided that I was going to be his victim and did not hold back. I kinda freeze, not sure what to do about it when a man runs up to me with a water bottle, sorta laughing but offering to help. He grabs my arm and tells me to wipe it with my bare hand as he rinses water on it. Now, this doesn’t seem like the most sanitary of ways to dispose of the pigeon poop all over me. But he is pretty firm about it and has got my arm clamped down. I insist that there has to be a different way, so he goes “fine. Come” and grabs my arm and walks directly into the traffic. He is so beyond nonchalant and barely even looks at the traffic as cars and Tuk Tuk’s and motorcycles are honking and weaving around us. This dude does not give a fuck, he’s asking my name and where I am from, telling me we are going to his uncles shop to get napkins as I am quite concerned we are about to get run over. Again, he has his hand around my forearm and is guiding/pulling me across the street as he looks back at me as I’m staring at traffic avoiding us by inches on every side. This dude has some main character stuff going on. We pull up to this mans shop and grab some napkins, and he wets them down and instructs me how to clean. As he is doing so he is introducing me to new friends all around us and asks if I want some juice. No dude, I don’t want any juice right now. Then he asks if I want food, then turns around and introduces me to more people. He felt like the mayor of Hyderabad just knowing every person on the street, waving down mopeds to they stop and shake my hand before driving off. If this sounds chaotic, it is because it was. He asks again if I will get some juice with him before I leave, because I told him I had to go, sorta wanting to remove myself from the situation. But this time he seems like he genuinely wants to get juice with me and he’s also already pointing for me to get on the back of his buddies scooter, so, fuck it, lets ride. We start cruising through traffic as he has a massive smile on his face and is filming me, “my friend Henry what do you think of the scooters?! Ha haaaa!” As we are ripping through traffic. I must admit, he brought out this joyous fun side from me really fast, so I start hooting and hollering like, “what is good brother!” We drive for maybe two minutes before we stop and get juice, of course he knows the owners and orders me three different juices; a watermelon, a pineapple, and no clue the third. But I drink all three as we chat and share things about life briefly. The whole time he just has this cracked smile on his face like he is having the best day of his life. He is asking about my plans and what is next, so we hop back on the scooters and rip back to the area I got pooped on. We head down a side street and he stops at his house, introducing me to about 15 more people. This guy has such high energy and is so happy and he is forcing everybody to come shake my hand, like in a row, even some pretty little kids. He then leaves and says he’s going to change, as he was wearing some traditional Arab clothing that he had on for prayer. He leaves me with the little squad that we had formed and disappears for a while as we try to make small talk. He comes back and we end up strolling the streets for a while, just talking and him giving me a tour of his neighborhood, waving and shouting at all the stand owners he knows. He buys me a carrot, grabs a rose off a cart that ends up in slightly heated conversation because the guy doesn’t sell just one, so Abu (my friend) throws down some cash and we walk away with a a literal bag of flowers. This guy just laughs it off and we keep going, by the way it is a group of four of us at this point. Eventually it is 7 o’clock and I am feeling drained and need to catch up on some stuff, so I head the other way with the promise that I will be going to his dads restaurant tomorrow for food, to catch up and see what happens. I was in such a good mood walking to the metro after we said our goodbyes and I think the locals could tell because in the ten minute walk I got stopped six times for selfies, and three times by people asking me to take their picture, then add them on instagram so I can send it to them later. What an experience this was.
As I am reflecting over the day on the metro ride home I realize that the highlight of my day and a really solid memory is because a pigeon fucking pooped on me. You cannot make this stuff up man. I am spending my days trying to let go of everything and see what happens and the day gets kicked off by a PIGEON. How comical is this. I am just walking, not too much of a story to tell for the day and it turns out to be something I will never forget. Going back to my rant earlier in this blog about perceived “bad” things actually being good, well I never thought I would be grateful to be pooped on by a bird in India. What a crazy thing to be grateful for but none of this happens without that. I am really just shocked by it all. Only two days into this journey and I am already loving where this is going. Thanks for joining in for the ride.
