Is there any greater feeling than learning a new skill? To realize again for the millionth time that we don't already know everything that we will know by the time we are buried (or burned)? I have taken up the tabla, finally taking my friend Muna's advice and realizing that if I start today then in five years I will be five years better than I am now. He told me that the first time five years ago. So... I can feel the strain of new synopsis firing as I try and coordinate left and right, feeling propelled back to math class in third grade or perhaps the first time I stepped on a skateboard, which is a wonderful feeling. Nothing like a new skill to make me feel young again (don't laugh, mom, sadly it's true). Maybe with all this mortality talk you can tell that I'm in Varanasi again, and as the hot season rings in at a mere 40 degrees C (104 degrees F, remember it's only April) the bodies start piling up. Not enough wood for the dead, so two or three empty human shells are stacked on each pyre and the fires blaze through the night. Depressing for some, maybe, but I'm just about to turn 26 this week and I'm learning a new skill, keeping death and boredom at bay. Feeling like a spring chicken in this ancient abode.
Ah, so you did turn 26 and it looks like a tabla is a drum? x, M
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