August 2025
Starting monthly updates
I just turned 37. For my birthday I gifted myself the project (or: promise) of writing monthly updates until I turn 38 in September 2026.
Monthly updates seem like an okay format for my life right now. That said, I just needed a container to write within, and chose this format arbitrarily and because I enjoy reading others' monthly updates.
August 2025 - endings and beginnings
I am in India. For the time being. As of today it's been almost a month, and that feels weird to say because it still doesn't quite feel real. When will it feel real?
I wrote this update over September in Leh, the capital of Ladakh. Then it sat for a few weeks before being edited and posted in the village of Keylong, Himachal Pradesh.)
Bell and I arrived at the end of the month. Most of August was spent at home on Vancouver Island. There were a lot of transitions to make in life and work before leaving. Going into this, I thought about the transitions I needed to make more from the logistical aspects. Like—the specific work deliverables I needed to complete, and getting the apartment ready for S to move in. But all the transitions to make involved people and relationships. Of course, right?! Obvious in hindsight but it caught me off-guard emotionally. Like, I didn't go into the month thinking "this will elicit big feelings," or, "leaving will act as a forcing function for lots of decisions and relationships big and small." I can be prone to avoidance. Hmm…perhaps not thinking about the big feelings ahead of time was itself a form of avoidance.
Having a natural check-in or closure point to commitments and relationships has felt special. I wonder how I could have these forcing functions arbitrarily even if I wasn’t making such a big life change.
What I am trying to say is that on the day-to-day what felt pressing was my anxieties about how heavy our bicycles would be in India. I was quite fixated on this and related concerns. But then as the month wrapped up, what really stood out to me wasn't the packing at all, it was the opportunities for closure, the gratitude, the effort made to get together before leaving, the clarity about commitments going forward. That's what stood out to me and felt the most salient. I had some very meaningful conversations and experiences in August, and many moments of feeling connected, delighted, appreciated, and very grateful.
Then it was a 6-day journey from Vancouver Island to Ladakh. It needn't take this long but related to the theme of relationships, it was extended to have visits along the way. (And then the journey to India was itself long, 40+ hours.) A few things that stood out about the trip over were Air India's in-flight safety video, and the fact that we were not permitted to bring our camp stove on the flight, which was a fuck up to sort out in September.
In full disclosure, we were pulled aside at the check-in counter for two reasons, the (to-be-prohibited) stove was only one of them. The other reason was that our tickets had just our first and last names, but our passports and visas had our middle names. The manager was called and waived the rule that these names always need to match in order for passengers to board the flight. It was a scary and sweaty wait until this permission was granted, and in the moment it felt like being forbidden by the same manager from bringing our camp stove was in some way the price of admission. For both issues, I'd suggest caution with Air India's website—we should have been more careful with taking wording at face value.
Our bikes, boxes, bags, and selves arrived intact in Leh. Another avenue into which I'd channeled my uncertainties was how the taxis would work from Leh Airport into the town. Should I have booked it in advance? Would we have to negotiate? Would cabs be there at 6:30 am? Was it too late to contact our guesthouse and have them send a taxi? Lol. The taxi union had the slickest operation I can recall ever seeing anywhere in the world. And our bike boxes elicited no concern whatsoever, they were just strapped on the roof and off we went into the sparkling Leh morning.
Links to content I've enjoyed recently
Not necessarily from August :) Some of these relate to what I've shared above.
I am a postcard person now (and why you should be one too): "Let's just say that every time I go to the post office now, the reward centers of my brain start lighting up before I make it out of the house. I typically read my postcards in the company of Cheikh, one of the poste employes who has a huge smile and is often even more excited than I am when a new card comes in. But believe me, I'm beaming too." From Phil in the Blank. (Of Postcards from Timbuktu, a project I adore and wholeheartedly recommend.)
Very inspired by Kening Zhu's approach to creativity and being online. I've really benefited from her writing and podcast. Cathartic and expansive. As a starting point, perhaps try build a world, not an audience: "instead of sharing something that will disappear on someone’s feed, focus, instead, on growing a digital garden on YOUR website, that belongs only to you…instead of chasing an particular audience, and pandering to your assumption of their needs, focus on building a rich, thriving world that YOUR people will be drawn to, like sweet birds and bees that come visit your garden." From Kening Zhu, via véronique.ink.
Arundhati Roy is a lifelong activist and I had no idea. Ahead of leaving for India I listened to several interviews with her. As a starting point, I'd recommend Arundhati Roy talks about her life and views on the world. Or just go to Democracy Now's YouTube page and dive in there. I'd say she's fearless but I think that's wrong. I think her life is a moving example of "do it scared."
Relatedly, a full PDF of B.R. Ambedkar's Annihilation of Caste, with Arundhati Roy's introductory essay The Doctor and the Saint, is available on the Internet Archive.
Learn to love the Moat of Low Status: '“Learn by doing” is the standard advice for learning something quickly, and it’s what I try to follow. But it’s hard to learn by doing unless you first learn to love the Moat.' From Cate Hall.
There is an irony to my anxiety about the taxi situation in Leh. The irony is that the Leh-Ladakh Taxi Union has a dedicated website and posts its scheduled fares in remarkable detail (by vehicle type, by pages and pages of various destination). I kept describing the existence of this website and its fares as endearing, and I don't have a better word for it.
In Leh there is a place called Dzomsa, which means meeting place. I loved Dzomsa. Here is an interview with its founder Sonam Dorje from not too long after he started it. '“Somehow I wanted this whole experience to be organic. There is a bit of romanticism in it. I don’t recommend it for others!’’'
Shortly before heading to Ladakh I was Googling around for any info that might help me calibrate, even just a little, to what we could expect in terms of how LGBTQIA folks navigate this part of India. This overview of a 2025 transgender awareness and inclusion event put me at ease a little bit.
Giwiizhaamin: "I did not want to be a fat cyclist." (By Alexandera Houchin, ultra cyclist, this piece stopped me in my tracks because it deeply resonated, at least to an aspirational version of me.)
Somehow both Bell and I had forgotten about Laura Stone's Himalayas By Bike and I was thrilled to find it available on the Internet Archive. Thank you to whoever did this!! Laura spent 3 years in the region across Pakistan, China, Nepal, Bhutan, India — and the book has beautiful maps.
I just can't get over how this guy was bitten by a snake while on a trip in Uttarakhand (a few states away from where I am now) and…went back to sleep in his tent for a while? A case of snake bite—possibly by the Himalayan White-lipped Pit Viper Cryptelytrops septentrionalis
Currently reading: Infinite Variety: A History of Desire in India by Madhavi Menon (thanks B!)
And here I will conclude today's exercise in trying to be a better infovore, of trying to balance consumption with a bit more creation.
Laura Stone's 2006 book (linked above) and The Gone Goat's 2023 blog post about cycling Manali to Leh both mention Hide & Seek cookies. Can confirm they're still ubiquitous, and that I am enjoying them. So now I will return to eating the "world's best moulded chocolate chip cookie" with tea. They're even plant-based!
Until next month.
— Megan