Standing on Your Own Two Feet

A well-designed life, by necessity and definition, includes a variety of people. People we bring into our lives for a variety of reasons. Everyone who is in our life is there because we created the situation that brought them. That can be difficult to accept - let’s face it, some people in our lives cause us annoyance and even pain. Sometimes they want to take from us and not give, sometimes they want us to pay for their mistakes.

This week I experienced the culmination of experience with such a person. I brought him into my life to help make my home more beautiful, last spring and summer. He did make it more beautiful, but was disrespectful with our home, our time, our money and ultimately wanted us to pay for all of his inefficiency and outright fabrications of the truth. Multiple resolution attempts were met with outrageous responses, until I got some excellent help, and the situation went away... not perfectly, but it's over. Leaving me to reflect.

It’s one of those lessons that leaves a bit of a dent in your soul… trust is met with disrespect and lies. People take advantage of patience and undenrstanding. People don’t do what they say they will and then make you responsible for it.

In today’s world, what is the definition of responsibility? Have we become a society of such entitlement that we move around acting however we feel is best for us… and then expecting others to support that regardless of impact on them? When did it become everyone else’s responsibility to correct our own mistakes? Why is it acceptable to blame others for things we cause rather than own our role in our own lives?

I do believe I create everything around me - so what I want to take with me from this is to try not to let that become a basis for self recrimination. Rather, I try to behave and communicate with the same intent and authenticity as I want people to do with me. Therefore, I can create a life I really want, internally and externally.

It’s easy to be disappointed with people, even more so, with ourselves. I encourage you, and me, to learn the lessons and move on – design and live the life YOU choose.

My Favorite Things: Mirrors & Within - the Salon

I arrived in India on Dec 10 fatigued from my year of career ups and downs, motherhood, wifehood, househood, and the many other things that kept me busy, fulfilled and stressed during the year. Got on the plane at Dulles airport with a ten day old manicure, ten days since my last eyebrow grooming, carrying around weight I didn’t want but stress and exhaustion placed around all the wrong places, and the will to let go, release, escape into the sky and a new warm land.

We left the snowy chill of the US and Europe behind, landing in Bangalore on a balmy (chilly for them) day, pre-dawn . A few days of sleep, good food and walks in the fresh air, and I was eager for one of the highlights of every of my visits to India: the Mirrors and Within beauty salon in Bangalore.

Located in the Galleria of the Leela Palace Kempinski Hotel, this salon is a gem for me for several reasons. Foremost, the people. In particular, two women who manage and run the place: Mary and Pushpa. I first came to know them more than ten years ago when I first began traveling to India to visit my parents with some regularity. They were, at the time, at the beauty salon in Bangalore’s Oberoi hotel. When the new Leela Palace was opened, I was lucky enough, through my mother and her friends, to find them again.

I always get hair color,highlights, style; eyebrow threading, manicure and pedicure. Mary and Pushpa personally attend to me and this year, to Adriana who for the first time at this salon, also wanted a manicure and pedicure. The head and neck massage during the shampoo alone restored me- I felt negativity and stress seep out of my body and out the door and probably for the first time in the year, I fully breathed, relaxed my shoulders, unburdened my brain and softened my jaw. No worries,no cares. It was one of those times of purely being in the moment because nothing was more interesting nor compelling. To feel completely cared for, completely beautiful, fully connected and at peace – that is what I want to carry with me in this new year. Thank you, my friends Pushpa and Mary. Thank you, India.

PHOTO OF ADRIANA AT SALON from phone

Anantha Ashram Update: The Children

Adriana and I returned from Hosur last week – our annual sojourn to reconnect with my parents, the work that CUP supports from the U.S., which are the projects of Anantha Ashram. As many of you know, the projects include a medical clinic, community health care and education – but the most compelling need and program seems to be theAnantha Ashram Home for Abandoned Children. Compelling because the whole world can’t resist helping a child in need. And because when you think about the stories of most of these children – the drama and sometimes the horror of how they came to us for help; how their families abandoned them, discarded them, put them last on the list of survival priorities – your heart opens wide and you feel a kinship and a protective instinct you barely knew you had.

That was certainly my experience last month during our visit. There are 35 children in the Children’s Home now, ages a few weeks to 20 years. Six of them are infants; two of them were about to be adopted by new Indian families within days of our visit – a very happy prospect. Adriana and I visited during a regular weekday. Arranged in a home setting, the school age children were away from the Home, at school. The pre-schoolers, having had their breakfast, were gathered in the front room, reciting their English alphabet and numbers.. only slightly distracted by me (“Aunty”), my camera (“Aunty… I see photos?”) and my six year old (“akka” or “older sister” literally, a term of respect). As children do, they milled around us, needing our attention, wanting to stand out from among their many “siblings.”


We left them to their lessons after about an hour, wandering into the more protected, sterile nursery to see the infants, who ranged in age from newborn to six months. The caregiver, a sweet lady, swaddled one and took her out of her bassinet for me to hold. The sweetest thing in life is this – holding a wiggly, soft, trusting baby who expects nothing from you except what you give, and instinctively snuggles into you because you’re warm, they feel your heart beating and they need the closeness. And then they look into your eyes to get a good read on you and you are awed by the truth of this; their wisdom which is so much more than yours despite all your years of living on this earth. Adriana hovered nearby, also liking the babies, but not finding them as fun as the older children of course.


Sanjay toddles in to the infant room – hes about 18 months old and was brought to us after being found discarded and covered in ants who were biting him. He needed treatments, which we gave him and he’s adorable and happy in his hew home. As a very young boy, his chances of being adopted soon are high. I sigh, leave the room, cry, return. Adriana sees my red puffy eyes and is worried. I say nothing’s wrong. In fact, everything is very right, in this place of healing, of hope, of salvation. This is a place where things are made right.

Ring Out, Ring In

Ring out wild bells, to the wild sky
The flying cloud, the frosty light.
The year is dying in the night.
Ring out wild bells, let him die.

Ring out the old, ring in the new;
Ring happy bells, across the snow.
The year is going, let him go.
Ring out the false, ring in the true.

Ring out false pride in place and blood,
The civic slander and the spite;
Ring in the love of truth and right;
Ring in the common love of good.

Ring in the valiant man and free,
The larger heart, the kindlier hand;
Ring out the darkness of the land;
Ring in the Christ that is to be.

-- Words by Alfred Lord Tennyson, sung to
a tune by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Happy 2011 Everyone!!