Living at Meher Magic

At Meherabad,* I live on a dirt lane off one of its two main roads in a two-story, light-gray brick apartment building with a patio inside the iron gate. Beyond my building are seven more, with an additional three across the lane, at which point the lane degrades to tire ruts through low field grass where only motorbikes pass, then ends beyond the three buildings grouped near the next intersection.

My ground-floor apartment entrance has two front doors. The first is an iron grid that is padlocked when I am away and the second is a double wooden door with distinctively carved vertical squares. This door opens to one large room. My office is to the immediate right, with a folding table for the computer and a coffee table for the printer. A low-cost hydraulic chair is functional but without the comfort of my Steelcase chair in America.

The windows are patterned glass, with the two largest having a combined width of 12 feet practically the width of the entire west-facing wall. During the summer months of March through May, two pink bedsheets purchased years ago are drawn from early afternoon to near-dusk. When the outside temperature is reaching toward 93° F, the inside temperature remains lower and the light is dimmer. With the ceiling fan turning and a small humidifier running, the room temperature is pleasant.

A foot from the back wall, my single bed faces the west windows. At the foot is a folded Jaipuri quilt,* loaned by a friend who knew I would be cold at night when the days' warm temperatures dropped. Between the bed and the office, two dark-brown plastic chairs are used only occasionally for visits. Most of the time, one holds my clothes for the next morning and the other the dried clothes as I take them off the laundry line strung overhead between curtain brackets. The apartment had only one small wall-mounted mirror—until a week before my departure last May, when I purchased a full-length one. It hangs in the front room to reflect the lowered light of the late afternoon. When I am seated with my back to the windows, relaxing, I am able to enjoy that soothing light through its mirrored reflection. And mornings, I can now fully view my appearance.

In the adjoining, smaller room, two counters extend at right angles from a small and deep corner sink. The small space between one counter and the small refrigerator is just large enough to allow the door to be opened. Plastic storage boxes of varying sizes reveal their contents from shelves of gray stone that rise to an open hand's width distance from the ceiling. To enter the last and smallest room, where sun streams through the five- foot. east-facing window, a brightly-colored towel the size of the door opening is pushed to the side. Centered in the counter of that room is a small sink used to wash both dishes and clothes. A power-outage inverter sits under the counter to the left and my single, medium-size suitcase is under the sink. At the end, a door opens to reveal the one step up to a shower, followed by a second step up to the toilet.

I'll be leaving in May when temperatures can rise to as high as 115° F. I'll be leaving behind a nightly greeting to the moon when dusk has resolved into the darkness that clearly defines the shape of the moon. I'll be leaving behind my daily observation of the chiku fruit ripening on my neighbor's tree that grows in the front corner of her compound separated from mine by a 4 ft. wall. More than a divider, the wall also serves as her two cats' walkway as they languidly walk to the backside dirt lane.

What is hardest for me is leaving Lakhan, and perhaps for Lakhan, loosing me too. I count on our success of having been apart for 5 1/2 months as this time I'll be returning sooner.

My realization is twofold, "When we spend time in a relationship with where we live a part of it, and there is a change, it may be more than the memory we depend on, it may be a deeper reliance that what was once so good will return."

* The site of Avatar Meher Baba's Tomb-Shrine (Samadhi) and of world pilgrimages as well as the Avatar’s early primary residence and ashram, and the headquarters of His activities until 1944; now overseen by the Meherabad Trust.

* A Jaipuri quilt, known as Jaipur "Razai" (for quilt), is a type of quilt that originates from Jaipur, a city in the Indian state of Rajasthan. It is unique with intricate designs, traditional Indian motifs, and vibrant colors, and often features traditional Indian textile techniques of hand-block printing, embroidery, and other traditions. They are often made of pure cotton, silk, or wool for durability, comfort, and warmth. And they are often handmade by skilled artisans who have been practicing traditional textile techniques for generations.