January 16, 2024

Keep Going

“Keep going”, I mutter under my breath as I trudge to the bus at 6:50 in the morning. Less than half of us are left I notice as we take our seats. While the extra legroom is nice I feel bad for the majority of class experiencing various stages of a stomach virus picked up sometime during our weekend excursion outside of Bangalore. We lose a couple and gain a couple more as the day continues and yet the only option is to keep going.

When the hundredth opportunistic salesman asks me where I’m from and if I would like to go to a luxury silk market, I kindly say no thank you and keep going.

Keep going I think as I weave the streets dashing in front of cars I’m not quite certain would stop if I took a wrong step.

Keep going as I feel my own stomach threaten to betray me.

As I find myself missing my room back home. Wondering if my plants are still alive. Imagining a quiet walk down the streets of Seattle, I just keep going.

I look towards my classmates. These people who I met just two weeks ago. We chat about our various experiences over the weekend somehow so uniquely similar. We talk about what’s troubling us and keeping us going and while sometimes it’s hard to put into words, you take solace in the shared bewilderment in your eyes.

I smile as I feel the morning sun hit my face lying on a large section of exposed granite slab in Lalbagh Botanical Gardens. We’ve spent the morning learning about the flora and staring in awe at the fantastical collection of massive trees. Our guide tells us that this rock is about 3 billion years old. I imagine a dinosaur stepping on me as if I was laying here 150 million years ago.

I think about how my footsteps on this stone are just a small splash in its almost eternal existence and draw similarities to my time in India as a whole. I look to see the local dogs laying with me and realize something they did long ago: Sometimes, you have to find a nice rock and take a little nap before you keep going.

By Quinn