Sick and broken

We arrived back from Wellington in time to get some final things prepared for the December book distribution marathon, which was a yearly event. This year was a slightly different marathon, primarily because of the fact that our most enthusiastic, or at least our most productive, book distributors had been shipped off to Sydney to start up a new monastery there. That left us with a smaller team of less productive book distributors to work the streets of New Zealand.

Also, at this time our sustainability efforts were being more recognised for their success, and we were being encouraged more actively to try and find a site to set up a community garden in the city. Two of us spent a fair bit of December dealing with that, forming relationships with the city council, looking here and there for possible community garden sites.

During the marathon, for almost the whole month, everyone was out traveling the country selling books, aside from myself and one other monk. The other monk was putting the final touches on a masters thesis he had written for a masters degree in accounting. He spent most of December in front of his laptop, and reading books, getting everything all together. I spent most of December riding my bike around the city, attending meetings, and networking with different groups. I was slowly getting an increased taste for the freedom this schedule has provided me with. With everyone out of the monastery we both started sleeping in a bit later, getting up and chanting more around 6:30 than my usual program of 3 am or 4 am rises. I still felt like I was recovering from my crazy schedule I had kept up for the previous two years. I felt like I was slowing down a lot. I no longer had the motivation to just rush around like a mad man everyday of the week. Summer time was my holiday time, and since I had already felt the stings of an impending burn-out earlier in the year, I was trying to balance things out a bit.

That December, as I think we did the previous year, a number of us took a trip up to Whangarei to visit my parents. In particular myself and my thesis writing friend spent what I think was about a week there with my family. We stayed there pretty much right up to Christmas Eve, and then drove down to Wellington for our yearly end of year festival. While in Whangarei I think I pretty much just chanted, ate food, rode my bike and hung out with my brothers. It was the only time of the year that we were all at home with my family. Most days I borrowed my mothers car and took my bike down to the skate park so that I could get the kids down there to teach me how to ride it better, and get more skills in handling it. At first they made fun of me, for being this weird old guy on a small bike, but in the end they just helped me out, and taught me a whole lot. I do like the idea of working with youth some day, mainly because I think I still have a lot more in common with teenagers than I do with people who are actually grown up. Plus, I know that those years are incredibly formative in people's lives.

I can't remember exactly what day it was, I think it was something like the 24th of December, my little brothers drove me back to Auckland. The other monks had left my parents place a few days earlier. Some were in Auckland still, others were a bit further down the line. The next day we were to start driving down to Otaki for our yearly end of year festival. On the drive to Auckland with my brothers they had their ipod playing the whole time, mostly punk, hardcore and emo bands that I used to like. I really relished the chance to listen to some of these songs again, and they each of the old songs I used to listen to reminded me of another time in my life, some good times, some rather bad.

Back in Auckland I put some finishing touches on some book sales spreadsheets that I needed to bring down to the festival with us, which meant a had a bit of a late night before the trip down to Otaki. We rose as early as we could the next day, and the few of us who were there drove about two hours to meet the others. There had been a definite communication breakdown in our organisation of that trip, which left me a little grumpy. I was expecting that we would meet up, and make our way down straight away to our final destination. I hated dragging out trips like this. However, once we arrived and met up with our colleagues we discovered that they had just started making waffles as a Christmas gift for their family, who they were staying with, and that we had to wait a good long while before they were even ready to start packing. I was not happy at all, so I just sat in the van and chanted my rounds, to get them finished before we started the long haul down to Otaki. When I was grumpy I always aired what had frustrated me, not in an incredibly angry way, but I didn't keep it hidden.

The festival that year was primarily one of illness. I had to cook lunch on the first day after our arrival, and then breakfast the next day. While cooking breakfast I starting experiences symptoms of a cold or flu. By the time I had finished cooking I pretty much just had to go to sleep. I ended up sick with a series of illnesses over those 9 days, each worse than the previous. First was a debilitating fever which wiped all my energy for at least two days. Then, I woke up one evening with an incredible stomach pain, which seemed to draw all my energy to my stomach. I got out of bed, sweating, and lay down on the bench outside of the toilet. I tell now lie when I say I actually thought I was going to do, simple because it just felt like every ounce of energy had drained from my body as I lay there, then my stomach grumbled and I quickly ran as fast as I could to vomit. That night continued in a multitude of exciting bodily reactions to something in my stomach. The next day I hardly moved a muscle. After that I ended up with a head cold. It was all very exciting. I pretty much required a week after the festival just to recover from my illnesses!

In mid January my Guru asked me to catch a bus down to Otaki again to spend a few days with him at the centre they had recently purchased there, and then drive him back up to Auckland, with an overnight stop-over in Hamilton. I thoroughly enjoyed this trip, it was like another break from all the madness I dealt with in my personal schedule and the monastery. He made a few comments about how it seemed like I had taking a break from thinking while staying with him in Otaki, and to be honest I think I did. He was understanding, I think he gave me this opportunity just as another chance to take a breather away from my responsibilities and schedule. I also had, for the first time in years, the opportunity to work side by side with my old friend from the animal rights scene. It was a rare occasion for me, and I was very happy that we had the chance to do some services together for once. Mostly during that trip she would cook for our Guru, and I would serve him his meals. She would normally make extra so that we could also have something to eat.

Then we drove up to Hamilton. He had asked me to take a different route than usual, and I should have checked the maps the night before to make sure I understood the whole route. But I was confident I could find my way, I guess that is something that people would say is a stereotypical male approach, but I really am good with my directions! Unfortunately he wasn't so impressed with my lack of preparation and made fun of me again for turning off my brain while in Otaki, which was also true so we both laughed about it. In the end we found our way without problems. About an hour or two from our destination he started talking to me about my programs and how I was finding things. We talked about the sustainability projects we were running, the relationship in the monastery, my own stress levels. He acknowledged that I was struggling, and said that we're just trying to keep my nose above water, which I think was an accurate description of how I was doing at the time.

Arriving in Hamilton we were greeted by a nice devotee couple who run a restaurant there. Our Guru sat down with them for his lunch while I went into the 'spare' room to chant my rounds. I was trying to focus on my meditations and chanting, but my mind was so grasped by the conversation in the other room. Our Guru was asking this couple, who had been married well before becoming Hare Krishnas, about how they met, and how the husband managed to convince his future wife to consider dating him. The exchange was a caring one, full of laughter and jokes, and encouragement. I laughed as well hearing the story, because to be honest it was a rather comical one.

After that I got to have a bit to eat, having skipped breakfast that morning. My tummy is rather sensitive, and I normally don't like eating while I travel, just in case. Meals out of the way, we had to start cooking for the evening program that was taking place that night. Various guests had been invited to the house there to hear our Guru give a presentation of the philosophy, and they would be served a nice vegan meal afterwards. We cooked and joked and talked about different things. The program went well for the most part, though I spent almost all of it in the kitchen.

That evening I shared the spare room with the husband. The house emptied at around 11 pm I think, after we had washed he dishes and cleaned up as much as we could. It was a late night for us. But once we got into the room to crash out, and we got into our separate sleeping bags, we started chatting, and ended up talking almost the entire night. We talked about a lot of things, including our different struggles, and issues we were having or had with other people in the movement. And we also talked about things we were enjoying about our lives, and the people we were getting strengths from. I think it would have been around 3 am by the time we got to sleep. I slept till 7 or 8 that day, and my roommate slept only till 4 am! He was up bright and early, doing all the chores he had to do that day.

I was tired when we drove back up to Auckland. We had some more chats about life and my projects on the ride back up. Once in Auckland my Guru decided that he wanted to get his new watch properly fitted for his wrist, so we took a trip to Sylvia Park. I waited while we went to a shop in there to get it set properly. When he returned he took his old watch out of his pocket and gave it to me. He said that his old watch gained 5 minutes every few days, and since he was always traveling around the world, from time zone to time zone, he found it a rather confusing thing. He would always turn up early to his speeches, wondering why everyone else was late. I still wear that watch, it's a nice watch, runs on kinetic energy. And when people ask me what time it is, I can only give vague answers, because I always forget to re-set it every few days. Sometimes it ends up as much as 30 minutes out!

The rest of my January was much like my December. Most of the devotees were out of the monastery until March actually. It was mostly just a few of us there. One evening I took the car and my bike out on an errand. I ended up locking the keys in the car while I was riding my bike from place to place. In a bit of frustration I started riding my bike with a bit of anger. Unfortunately that meant that I also rode it in an unsafe manner and ended up falling. Since I had a lot of speed when the accident happened I ended up quite hurt. I bruised my ribs, broke my glasses, grazed my chin and hurt my wrist rather badly. I ended up getting a ride home by a nice guy I met, and we picked up the keys of the car so that I could go back and unlock it, and drive it home. That night I woke up in a whole lot of pain. I could hardly even breath because of the bruised ribs. I thought perhaps I had cracked or broken one. I had to get up and ask one of the monks to take me to the hospital.

(This is potentially my favourite photo of me ever. In a cast, broken glasses, grazed chin, looking tuff)

After spending a few hours in the waiting room and ER, I got the verdict that my ribs weren't broken, only really badly bruised, which apparently doesn't feel any different, and it still took me over a month to recover. They said that I MAY have fractured some bone in my thumb, so I had a cast on for a few weeks. And I ended up taping my glasses back together until I could get new ones. So, for the rest of February I was pretty much out of action.

When March came it was back into my busy schedule again, but this whole year just felt different for me. I felt like I had a total shift of values and desires and aspirations. And the whole year I started thinking about leaving the Krishnas all together.