Last summer on a trip home, my dear friend Deb gave me some vinyl letters she thoughtfully made for me to put on my wall that say:
A LITTLE
ADVENTURE
is good for the soul
ADVENTURE
is good for the soul
I put it up in our room and I often ponder on what that exactly means and if it's true for me. Has this little adventure been good for my soul? Has it been too much adventure to be good?
Not sure.
But here's how I'm different, from my perspective:
1. I know how to have non-LDS friends. It sounds silly, but I didn't really have many non-member friends before I moved to Delhi. I grew up in Utah, went to BYU, and lived in Leander, TX where we had a ward chock-full of people just like us. So I never needed anybody else. When we first arrived in Delhi there were three other expat LDS families in Delhi, and they all lived on the other side of town and were in a different branch. Yes, I could have made friends with lots of people in our branch, and since then I have a bit more, but at first I needed someone more like me. Someone who understood the expat dilemmas. So, for better or for worse, I have lots of non-LDS friends. They get together often for coffee and go to expensive restaurants in the evenings and drink wine. They go shopping together and compare giant gems they are wearing. They talk about which places in Europe are the best to visit in the summer, how annoying their servants are, and how hard it is to find a house within your housing budget.
Thankfully, since our arrival many more LDS expat families have moved to Delhi and I've become good friends with more people more like me. But I'm grateful that I've learned how to be more in the world, and hopefully not too much of it.
2. I know how to yell and scream to get what I want. This can be very useful. Yelling and screaming was not my nature as an adult, but those who knew me as a child may recall that as the only girl in my family with two older brothers and one younger (until Janielle arrived), I fully understood and utilized the power of yelling and screaming. So I guess in India I got back in touch with my inner child. It was essential there, not so acceptable here.
3. I no longer know how to cook and clean. Or so I thought. It turns out that it's pretty much like riding a bike--you don't every really forget how. Motivation is a whole other story. I am loving the cooking part, but frankly I never loved to clean. Now that I'm out of the habit, I'm gonna have to work to get back into it. I'm hoping I can train my beautiful children and husband to do most of it!
4. I'm really good at booking flights and hotels for vacations. It's really an obsession. I'm going to miss all of those cool vacations to far-off places. But I don't think we're done traveling yet. Just gotta make it a priority.
5. I know the Pearl of Great Price, the Old Testament, and the living prophets better because of the seminary and institute courses I've taught. One of the best things about living in a place where the church is so new--they let little old me teach CES!
6. I know how to fly long distances on airplanes with small children. I know how to get through security without too much trouble. After a year or so I learned that taping a little paper with everyone's name to their passport was a good idea so I wasn't constantly having to open them up to find the right one when I filled out paperwork. I learned that when you travel with kids, it's better to take less, and make them carry their own little backpack to lighten my own load.
7. I speak a little Hindi. I have learned how to better communicate with people who only speak a little English.
8. I wear wild and crazy clothes and jewelry. Sometimes. Though I think I'm a bit of a chameleon, and have found that now in the USA I tend to dress more like everyone else.
9. I am a better manager. Sort of. Or maybe I just realize that I'm really not a good one and need to learn better how to manage people.
10. I know how to cook some Indian food. But not enough. I guess the real thing I've learned is what good Indian food tastes like. I'm hoping to make some Indian friends in the next place we live so I can learn from them how to cook some of my favorite dishes that I didn't get enough practice making. Oooo, what I wouldn't give right now for a pile of good home-cooked Indian leftovers--yellow daal, some spicy sabjee, and jeera rice with raitha sounds really yummy right now. Maybe with some eggplant and paneer. And piping hot chapatis with just the right amount of bubbles and brown spots. Yummy.
11. I'm a better music teacher. Teaching Musikgarten in Delhi really brought so much joy to my life, and I loved teaching my own kids along with others from all over the world. I'm hoping I can keep it up in some way in America.
12. I've seen a lot of Bollywood movies. I didn't like them at first, but now I just think they're the greatest. With Bollywood people are good and noble and the villains are horrible. Everything merits a song and dance, and I'm sure this changed my psyche in a fundamental way.
13. I drink Coke. Not anymore really. Remember the chameleon part? I'm not really drinking it now that I'm back to Mormon-dom and people who know me as Molly Mormon. But I must admit that I did take to drinking a bit of Coke in Delhi. Not every day. Mostly just when I had an upset stomach (which was often during some periods--Rich's mom always gave her children a Coke when they were sick), and other times when I just thought I needed it. Yummy water, Graham calls it!
So there you have it. The thirteen ways our "adventure" living in India changed my soul.
Was it good for my soul? I'm afraid if it was, I just can't quite articulate it right just yet. Maybe never. But living in India definitely changed my soul forever. And probably even more, it changed the souls of our children. I think that's a good thing. Time will tell.
