{"id":17967,"date":"2022-03-29T13:51:53","date_gmt":"2022-03-29T17:51:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/lifelong\/?p=17967"},"modified":"2024-08-29T14:02:27","modified_gmt":"2024-08-29T18:02:27","slug":"a-box-to-mayas-place","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/lifelong\/2022\/a-box-to-mayas-place\/","title":{"rendered":"A Box to Maya&#8217;s Place"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<section class=\"w-screen px-6 cu-section cu-section--white ml-offset-center md:px-8 lg:px-14\">\n    <div class=\"space-y-6 cu-max-w-child-5xl  md:space-y-10 cu-prose-first-last\">\n\n            <div class=\"cu-textmedia flex flex-col lg:flex-row mx-auto gap-6 md:gap-10 my-6 md:my-12 first:mt-0 max-w-5xl\">\n        <div class=\"justify-start cu-textmedia-content cu-prose-first-last\" style=\"flex: 0 0 100%;\">\n            <header class=\"font-light prose-xl cu-pageheader md:prose-2xl cu-component-updated cu-prose-first-last\">\n                                    <h1 class=\"cu-prose-first-last font-semibold !mt-2 mb-4 md:mb-6 relative after:absolute after:h-px after:bottom-0 after:bg-cu-red after:left-px text-3xl md:text-4xl lg:text-5xl lg:leading-[3.5rem] pb-5 after:w-10 text-cu-black-700 not-prose\">\n                        A Box to Maya&#8217;s Place\n                    <\/h1>\n                \n                                \n                            <\/header>\n\n                    <\/div>\n\n            <\/div>\n\n    <\/div>\n<\/section>\n\n\n\n<p>A Box to Maya\u2019s Place<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the Monsoon heat I carried the cardboard box down the hill from the flat to the small Post Office in Happy Valley. I was leaving Hong Kong. That afternoon Gorge had called me into his office to ask me to stay on for another year, but I had given fair notice, the school year was ending and I was moving on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I didn\u2019t exactly know where I was going.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I had an idea I would return to Thailand, spend some time in a woven palm frond hut on the beach in Koh Phangan, then go to an ashram somewhere in India.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>After a year working in Hong Kong, I had far too many clothes to fit into a carry-on bag. That was my travel rule then. No checked bags. My colleague Maya had invited me to her family home in Srinigar in the Himalayan foothills if I was going that way. \u201cCome see the mountains. Stay with us. Bring winter clothes because it is cold in the highlands in winter. Colder than here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So that afternoon in the heat of a Hong Kong June I was carrying a box labelled with my name in care of Maya\u2019s family address, filled with woollen sweaters, warm boots, and a fine woolen shawl from Pakistan that had been a gift from a student\u2019s grateful mother.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>After palm fringed beaches, turquoise water and a soft coconut wind, I left Koh Phangan and returned to crowded, polluted Bangkok to apply for a visa at the Embassy of India. It was on the other side of the city from the small family-run guest house where I always stayed when I came back to Bangkok. The first time I arrived at the embassy, it was closed for lunch. Not wanting to wait for three hours outside in the heat, I flagged a tuk-tuk, one of the small Thai transports with a motorcycle at the front and behind that a small cab like a rickshaw for passengers. Sweating and dusty, after a couple of hours in Bangkok traffic, I returned to the cool, quiet guesthouse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The next day, I returned to the Embassy of India, to find it was closed for three days for Indian holy days. Once again, I returned through clouds of diesel fumes, honking horns and chaotic traffic. The cool, quiet guesthouse folded around me, a shady oasis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For a brief moment, I thought of going back a third time to the Embassy of India. Instead, I bought a ticket to Kathmandu instead of Mumbai. I didn\u2019t need a visa for Nepal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As for the box to Maya\u2019s place, I never saw it again. I think of the fine gray woollen shawl with some regret, waiting for me like karma, an unfinished journey.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Janis<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A Box to Maya\u2019s Place In the Monsoon heat I carried the cardboard box down the hill from the flat to the small Post Office in Happy Valley. I was leaving Hong Kong. That afternoon Gorge had called me into his office to ask me to stay on for another year, but I had given [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17967","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-memoir"],"acf":{"cu_post_thumbnail":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/lifelong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17967","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/lifelong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/lifelong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/lifelong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/lifelong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17967"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/lifelong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17967\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24540,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/lifelong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17967\/revisions\/24540"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/lifelong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17967"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/lifelong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17967"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/lifelong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17967"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}