Hoodyhead

III- Leh

Writing by candlelight, hotwaterbottle feet, hoodyhead, trying to be warm in the very dark starry night until Norbu brings the hot water in the morning and I stand naked in the frigid shivering bathroom and douse myself, scald myself into the day. Omelette and Ladakhi bread for breakfast; I’m too shy to tell him that I don’t like eggs. He’s too sweet.
Last evening I sat in Angmo and Norbu’s living room, cat-on-lap, while they chopped and diced tomatoes to pickle for the winter around the corner. Indian soaps battled and raged on TV while the power came and went, solar backup kicking in. Talked of family and weather and wegetables and the new dam at Alchi and Bactrian camels. And Little Cat purred all the while, or begged for a piece of my mutton. It warmed me up.
I had been cold. Another day of talking only to myself in the crisp silence above the town, surrounded by the valleyed beauty spread out below my wings from up at the gompa. Prayer flags high in the breeze. And then making my way down, ducking through tunnels and steep alleyways, between mud-and-wood huts at dusk. But a home’s a home, and the glowing feeling seeps out the orange windows, through the indoor-dog’s bark or the baby brother’s laugh. I’m one of the outdoor dogs tonight. Roaming. Very few tourists around. Ate dinner twice hoping to find someone to talk to, but the restaurants (if not closed for the season) were empty. And I was cold, lonesome and homesick wending my way up the dark narrows, moon and stars overhead, donkeys wrestling in the shadows. Thinking of the gift of family. You can’t invent family or pretend it or replace it. The orange glowing. Either you’re an indoor-dog or an outdoor-dog. I trudged and sulked and got lost twice in the black and waved down a jeep for directions and there was heat in his car and kindness in his eyes and I hoped he’d offer me a ride, but no such luck. So I trudged. Headful of thin blood and dull ache. Creaky bones. Found my gate, found my door.
But then in the vegetable-slicing kitty-purring chitchatting I somehow warmed up again. Home away from home, this is Ladakhi hospitality. A little orange glowing for an outdoor dog.