Jai Ho!

So for whatever reason, I was inspired tonight to look up the "Jai Ho" song from Slumdog Millionaire on YouTube. I ended up watching the dance and was transported in my mind to different moments, scenes from the past year. The dancing and the song reminded me instantaneously of seeing Slumdog Millionaire in a theatre in Nancy with a class of 16 year old boys from my school (a perk of being an assistant...free movies, in English -to watch with the students because they're educational) and how all the students laughed at the dance at the end. I laughed too, but loved it at the same time. The other moment was not really one moment, but a kalidescope in my mind of this summer watching Bollywood movies with Mona and Tariq, absorbing the romantic and melodramatic world that is Bollywood. Both thoughts lead me to other thoughts, or rather feelings. I feel such a rich sense of living when I glance back at these things, the music and colors and food all swirls together. I miss Nancy. Terribly. I miss living with Mona at our crazy apartment on the train tracks this summer. I want to go back to those times, want to capture the magic I feel now about them. I didn't feel the magic in the moment then, it's only looking back at what was that makes my heart sing for the joy of living. Maybe the magic is there only because the sense of loss is there as well.

I admit, I've been dragging my steps through the present. It's not as exciting, not as fulfilling, not as ...whatever as those past times were. But I know I can't go back to Nancy now. It's not the same without my particular gang of assistants. Now there are other assistants in Nancy to take our place and I don't know them like I do Natalie, Pedro, Tina, Andres. Mona moved back to the dorms, Tariq went to some southern land far away and took the Bollywood movies with him. Guess this means I can only move forward. I can only try and extract that joy and thrill of living from the present moment. It means many things are happening right now that I will look back on from the future with a thrill of pleasure.

Which leads me to dancing in the kitchen at 11pm, making vegetable soup and singing to myself "Jai Ho!" My roommate probably things I'm five kinds of crazy, but let the record state that this moment wasn't passed up by looking at the past or future.