The Beauty I Forgot at Home
Part 3 of 3: A Pilgrimage into the Fire
There’s a moment when you return from a place like India
where everything feels… off.
Not wrong.
Just misaligned.
The noise is louder.
The pace is faster.
The priorities feel… strange.
And you can’t quite explain why.
The Return
I came home different.
I knew that immediately.
Not in a dramatic, declarative way.
But in my body.
In my nervous system.
In the way I moved through the day.
Something had been recalibrated.
The rhythm of waking at 3am.
The sound of chanting in the morning air.
The simplicity of food, of dress, of purpose.
All of it had reorganized something in me.
And now, back home, I could feel the contrast everywhere.
🌺 The Beauty I Remembered
On the flight home, I had my first business class pod experience.
I was comfortable. Taken care of. Enjoying myself.
And then a Carole King song came on. “I feel the earth move under my feet. I feel the sky tumbling down.” That’s what I had experienced in India.
I love her.
Her music brings me back to something innocent —
before life told me who I couldn’t be or what I shouldn’t want.
And the next thing I knew, I was crying.
Trying to hide it from the flight attendant who was being so kind to me.
Because something had opened. Something had clarified.
Before I Knew
I never thought of myself as beautiful.
Maybe cute.
That’s as far as I let it go.
I was always surprised when boys liked me.
And honestly… a little scared.
Somewhere along the way, I learned that beauty wasn’t something I could fully claim.
Not in a way that felt safe.
Not in a way that felt true.
What I Experienced in India
In India, something shifted.
I made a quiet decision —
to look women in the eyes.
Not glance. Not compare. Not assess.
But really see them. Not in a forced way
And then offer my warmest, most genuine smile.
More often than not, they met me right there.
With openness. With ease. With warmth.
There was an unspoken respect.
A recognition.
And what struck me most was what wasn’t there.
No subtle competition.
No sizing each other up.
No quiet hierarchy of who looked better, thinner, younger, more desirable.
Just… presence.
Being a Westerner, I was noticed — sometimes in ways I didn’t love.
But this part?
Meeting women in that space of
“I see you.”
That was one of the most beautiful parts of my entire trip.
Coming Home to Reality
And then I came home.
Not gently.
Not gradually.
I stepped right back into my hospice work —
to the death of a woman I had been with for two years.
I went to see her the day I landed.
The death had happened just hours before.
The graveside service was set for four days later.
I was exhausted — after nearly 36 hours of travel.
My body still attuned to the heat, the rhythm, the devotion of South India.
And now I was back in cold South Carolina,
my system wide open.
The Body Remembers
Even now, my body feels different.
It moves differently.
It responds differently.
It asks for different things.
Quieter mornings.
Simpler food.
More space.
Less noise.
Less performance.
Less interference.
It’s as if something in me refuses to go back.
And I’m not going to force it.
🔥 What I Left — and What I Brought Back
I found myself yearning for a life where everything revolves around devotion.
In India, the temple is not separate from life.
It is life.
We stopped at temples throughout the day — not as an event, but as a rhythm.
Even walking down the street, Shiva mantras played over loudspeakers, creating a sacred vibration that held everything.
You couldn’t escape it.
And you wouldn’t want to.
I grieved that when I left.
Not in a dramatic way.
Not in a way that took me out.
But in a quiet, steady knowing:
This is how I want to live.
When I returned home, I couldn’t eat much.
Soup was all I wanted.
My body was still somewhere else — attuned to something simpler, cleaner, more aligned.
I already chant.
I already make offerings.
That part of my life isn’t new.
But this was different.
This was a remembering of scale —
of what it feels like when devotion is not something you fit in,
but something that holds your entire life together.
And yes…
a piece of my heart and soul was left there.
Not in a sad or depleted way.
But because something in me belongs to that rhythm.
Something in me felt fully seen there.
Fully allowed.
Free to be exactly who I am —
without editing, without shrinking, without explanation.
What Stays
I don’t live there.
Not yet.
But I carry it.
In my breath.
In my choices.
In the way I’m no longer willing to live disconnected from what I now know is possible.
Closing
Some journeys change you.
Others show you who you’ve always been.
This one did both.