Prep

Photo Credit to Erin Braford (thanks lady!)

We are going to India! It's been a long process filled with uncertainty and some obstacles.  The most critical have been a home for our loved little Walker (our little husky pup) and Caroline's (center of photo) visa.

The three of us Jake, Caroline, and I are planning on a short three month journey.  It has morphed from a year long adventure to 9 months, then 6 months, and now finally 3 full months. 

We applied for Caroline's visa back in August thinking that we were ahead of the curve, we would get all our ducks in a row months before we begin the journey.  Finally, two weeks before we take off, after 3 months of back and forth with the Indian visa departments, 4 rejections, and 1 trip to DC, we finally got the visa last night! Bureaucracy at its best.

Walker will join Lindsey and David's household, our lovely friends who have made Richmond feel home to me the last 6 years.  We are so grateful to them and know that our little guy will be loved and enjoyed.  

Walker Braford

Sharing your childhood, home, family and culture are just a joy and add such depth to a relationship.  Lindsey is one of those friends who has traveled to India with me; she feels like family here in RVA and in Hyderabad.

Now that we have found a loving space for Walker and Caroline finally has been given a visa, (on ThanksGiving Day!!!) my heart is finally free to dream.  I think of India as a space where I grew into myself.  It was the place of my birth literal and later in life metaphorical.  My idealized home was torn apart over the years of visits and I found instead a good companion, one with faults but who pushes me towards growth, betterment, and love.

India is brash.  It is untamable and unyielding.  It is beautiful and frightening and powerful and I want to be part of it's story.  I am.  For the longest time it was where I escaped being different but it was there that I could finally embrace difference, dissonance, damage, desire and allow those things to become my strengths.  Let's be honest, I am perceived as foreigner in both India and the U.S.  However, I am more whole because of my time there.  I can no longer count the places that I have lived (on my two hands ;)) and have grown to love but there is something, that I cannot quite articulate, which leaves me breathless about India. 

I hope my family, Jake and C. Si, can love and appreciate it's raw unfiltered beauty.  Most of all I hope they fall in love with the people full of resilience and expression.  I don't think India is perfect.  It is by no means easy.  I do think, however, there is no other place that has taught me to love unconditionally and without limit, accepting both the good and the difficult, like I have learned in this lovely land.  So I am glad to begin the journey with my family.

Now for the sweetest part of prep for India: during the limbo time between living in VA beach and India we have taken residence with Jake's parents in Natural Bridge.  It has been so lovely to get time with Bill and Lea who are, in the words of my father, salt of the earth.  They are loving and kind and full of warmth.  It has been especially beautiful to get to see our little C. Si get to know her amazing grandparents before the journey.  What a fun time it has been to be with Bill and Lea as we get be part of serving with them the greater Braford family during this Thanksgiving season also referred to as The Braford National Holiday.

I often feel like I am in lovely India when we are at Natural Bridge.  There are gorgeous differences between the two places but the serenity, sweetness, sounds, and smells of the farm remind me of the many similarities of our lands and people.  

Meghalaya, India

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