(no subject)
I'm missing my friend Jyoti tonight. Jyoti is one of those people that I had a great friendship with, but we suffered perpetually from a lack of time and an abundance of distance. There were a few other factors that kept our friendship from truly blooming, but I really came to admire her and connect with her in the rare kind of way that happens only once in a while.
She joined the Peace Corps and was deployed at the end of the summer last year for Niger. She's had a lot of recent issues - two Americans were kidnapped in a region near hers and she was given some very limited options as to what she could do, since the safety of the Peace Corps members is obviously the top priority. She decided to relocate to a slightly bigger village in a safer region, near a friend she'd met and to start working there. I can only imagine what kind of a life she's having, so totally removed from where and what I know. Of any of the people I know, I've come the closest, *maybe* to knowing what things are like out there, but I've only taken brief jaunts into those kinds of places, while she's made a life out there. Whenever wanderlust sets in, I always wonder just what it would take to go visit her and to see what kind of existence she's fashioned for herself.
Her internet access has been limited, and so time communicating with her is rare, and the chances we get to talk are few and far between, but she's done a good job of making sure people know about major changes in her life. Before she left, she gave me a gift, a copy of the music she'd written and performed, and I'm listening to that music tonight. The very last song on the album is her performance of Sidewalks, by Story of the Year, which is one of my favorite songs of all time - Jyoti introduced me to the song on a mountainside, dedicated it and sang it for me at one of her performances at an Open Mic night on campus, and was one of the main reasons I took up guitar in the first place, to learn that song. It was an incredibly touching gift, on top of an album full of all-original music. It brings back reminders of times past with people who have since moved in their own directions, carrying with them fragments of the dreams we call memories. It takes me back to a time in my life when I knew a lot of happiness, and yet there's a lot of sadness in these songs she wrote, mainly written once the things we knew and cared about started falling apart. We build so much with the people we care about and sometimes we live long enough to see it all shatter, or to fade away without our notice or consent. There's an incredible sense of loss on those moments when you realize again that the people you share your life with are no longer around.
Jyoti, wherever you are, I miss you.
She joined the Peace Corps and was deployed at the end of the summer last year for Niger. She's had a lot of recent issues - two Americans were kidnapped in a region near hers and she was given some very limited options as to what she could do, since the safety of the Peace Corps members is obviously the top priority. She decided to relocate to a slightly bigger village in a safer region, near a friend she'd met and to start working there. I can only imagine what kind of a life she's having, so totally removed from where and what I know. Of any of the people I know, I've come the closest, *maybe* to knowing what things are like out there, but I've only taken brief jaunts into those kinds of places, while she's made a life out there. Whenever wanderlust sets in, I always wonder just what it would take to go visit her and to see what kind of existence she's fashioned for herself.
Her internet access has been limited, and so time communicating with her is rare, and the chances we get to talk are few and far between, but she's done a good job of making sure people know about major changes in her life. Before she left, she gave me a gift, a copy of the music she'd written and performed, and I'm listening to that music tonight. The very last song on the album is her performance of Sidewalks, by Story of the Year, which is one of my favorite songs of all time - Jyoti introduced me to the song on a mountainside, dedicated it and sang it for me at one of her performances at an Open Mic night on campus, and was one of the main reasons I took up guitar in the first place, to learn that song. It was an incredibly touching gift, on top of an album full of all-original music. It brings back reminders of times past with people who have since moved in their own directions, carrying with them fragments of the dreams we call memories. It takes me back to a time in my life when I knew a lot of happiness, and yet there's a lot of sadness in these songs she wrote, mainly written once the things we knew and cared about started falling apart. We build so much with the people we care about and sometimes we live long enough to see it all shatter, or to fade away without our notice or consent. There's an incredible sense of loss on those moments when you realize again that the people you share your life with are no longer around.
Jyoti, wherever you are, I miss you.