NAMASTE - Is it NYE yet?

The earth was spinning, the fern before me bending like a flame playing with my head, everything was moving, my legs felt heavy, I was breathing but the air I sucked-in held little meaning. It was a tease. It was there but not. Suddenly I fell, flat on my face. My vanity and dignity disappeared into the slippery icy steps as quickly as my consciousness vanished into some unannounced time bending exercise. I found myself dusting off my right knee for I knew it was going to bruise badly later that night. and I strutted uphill smiling …I had fallen. no excuses to conjure up except that I had no endurance at 8600 ft.

It was my first getaway after a long unending divorce and custody battle of three years. My first vacation. And the chosen ground of my prowl in liberated single hood, had to be the desert town of Palm Springs CA. I am still trying to come up with a more fitting name for this city, hmm Palm Stinks perhaps? What was I thinking as I had packed my fine off-shouldered black sequin sexy dress to doll up in (aka SUFFER-IN WITHOUT BREATHING) on NYE hoping to be some hot stranger’s hotter date? What was I thinking as I had packed in my Jimmy Choos (aka JIMMY's FOOT CHEWS?) to strut around in what I deemed later as a bleeding town for gay men seeking men gay, age being a construct, holding hands, kissing in the rain, drunk as a moth by the flame and my presence sticking out as a sore vagina in that blizzard. An anomaly, what was I doing there? (Nothing against gay men of course, bff).

As if the futility of finding even a one-night-stand wasn’t cracking like a silent whip through the cold 31st night, the night kept getting interesting in it’s weird convoluted ways. We found ourselves pouting and drooling in a chocolate shop like deluded Gretals minus Hansels. I bought myself a champagne and rum truffle, don’t ask why. Milk Chocolate just wasn’t going to cut it.

As we waited outside the store resting in the shade of its candied canopy to protect against getting rained on with NYE's loneliness and as my eyes cried inside themselves in self-pity, a white man approached us. He was staggering. He was moving like the earth and the fern I had encountered earlier that morning. Surreal coincidence? Then he winked. An evil grin clung on to the corners of his mouth as if attempting to set itself free in some monstrous perversion of sorts. His gaze slowly shifted towards the children and my mother bear instincts took over. I rushed the children and myself back into Charlie’s chocolate factory (I much prefer Charlize's) periodically glancing at the window to see if the man had magically disappeared. But it seemed like he was waiting for us to return just as we were waiting for him to leave and in that tug of war, our free BUZZ bus arrived and we lost the war. We ran frantically towards the Buzz in the rain and as we passed him he screamed “go back to India, go back to India, go back”

Annica, my girl friend was infuriated. It was her first exposure to racial slurs, being of Canadian birth (friendly Canadians). She audaciously shouted back “Happy New Year” ..twice, ending with a defiant “Namaste”…sort of like a charged-up profanity. NAMASTE!

I started laughing because nothing made more sense than laughing for wasn't it George Orwell who said "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others." 

“Go back to India”, a more specific version of "Go back to where you came from" since Americans are weak in geography...but haven't we all heard that before? Er ..was this BUZZ BUS gonna take me there? Could I bribe the driver to take a detour, were the rest of the folks transporting to India with us tonight?? Visas? It was a free ride after all. But how would I confirm to this dude that I indeed went back? I would really like him to know 

“Sir, we listened to you, we bribed the driver and went right back, to India! Get this, no hard feelings, our fresh-off-the-bus pack was greeted by nubile apsaras/nymphs with jasmine garlands draping us in silk scarves, they then generously applied snake oil all over our exhausted bodies and we rested over a white elephant who gently rocked us to sleep as we listened to Ravi Shankar’s sitar and finally wrapped up the day with Deepak Chopra’s deep relaxation guided meditation on our way to our villages. Btw, the Parrot astrologer sends a message, please confirm this bus didn’t run you over, in some taciturn karmic fury, as you inadvertently jay-walked to your death? If so, sorry to hear that. NAMASTE”